The U.S. bishops have called the Trump administration’s decision to revoke temporary legal protections for Venezuelan immigrants “counterproductive to the administration’s stated goal of reducing strain on American communities.”

“We urge them to consider the adverse impact this step will have on citizens and non-citizens alike,” Chieko Noguchi, spokesperson for the U.S. bishops, told Crux in a statement on 3 February. “Terminating this temporary legal protection that allows people to work, pay taxes and contribute to our society will only lead to more disruption and would appear to risk diverting the focus of enforcement efforts away from legitimate threats to public safety.”

Pope Francis made a real-world effort toward working for peace in Ukraine over the weekend. The gesture came as the 2025 Jubilee of Hope entered its second month, while at the same time the new administration of President Donald Trump is getting into gear. The new president has promised to bring an end to the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

O gates, lift high your heads; grow higher, ancient doors. (Ps 24[23]: 7)

The Jews presented their first-born in the Temple forty days after birth to “redeem” them, to “buy them back” from God, in memory of the slaughter of the first-born in Egypt.

God had instructed them to smear lamb’s blood on their doorframe to ward off the destroying angel. Just as the lamb was sacrificed in place of those first-born children, so too every following generation would “pay” for their own first-born, giving five silver shekels (Numbers 18:16).

Say what you will about the first two weeks of US president Donald Trump’s second term in office, which has seen a blizzard of presidential executive orders and is now handling the fallout of the tragic midair collision in the US capital, it has also certainly put the spotlight on Catholic social teaching.

That’s largely due to the words of Vice President JD Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has spoken out in favour of the recent presidential executive order that promotes parental choice in education.

Speaking for the conference, Bishop David O’Connell highlighted that the order “rightly recognises that parents are the primary educators of their children”.

President Donald Trump signed the executive order, titled “Expanding Educational Freedom and Opportunity for Families”, on 29 January. It tasks his administration to prioritise increasing educational parental choice nationwide through funding, and other initiatives.

Nearly a hundred years ago, the English writer IA Richards coined a phrase that has become a mainstay of literary studies. “All respectable poetry,” he wrote in Practical Criticism, “invites close reading.” Richards would never again use the phrase, but it has become synonymous with a type of reading that his critical method influenced.

In On Close Reading, John Guillory mines the origin and evolution of this rather imprecise phrase – and why its ambiguity might be a problem.

Donald Trump, now once again ensconced in the White House, was the host of The Apprentice for 14 seasons, but this film of the same name – directed by the Iranian-Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi – reveals the young Trump undertaking his very own real-life apprenticeship under the guidance of cutthroat lawyer Roy Cohn, mesmerisingly portrayed here by Jeremy Strong.

The brilliant Sebastian Stan, who plays Trump, cleverly dodges the temptation of making him into a caricature; instead we see a callow, alarmingly impressionable young man from a wealthy but difficult background falling under the influence of the almost demonic Cohn, who moulds him in his own image, against the glittering but deeply sleazy background of New York in the 1970s and 80s, just before the advent of the Aids epidemic.

Bishop Robert Barron has praised a presidential executive order that prohibits the US federal government from promoting or funding transgender surgeries and related procedures for children.

The popular and well-known US bishop – who has emerged as a latter-day Bishop Fulton Sheen for the digital age – highlighted that “helping young people accept their bodies and their vocation as women and men is the true path to freedom and happiness”.

Pope Francis in a telegram sent to the US president has expressed his “spiritual closeness to all those affected” by the midair collision of a passenger jet and a military helicopter that occurred above the Potomac River in the US capital.

It appears that there were no survivors and all 67 people involved were killed in what is the US’s first major commercial air crash in nearly 16 years, reports the BBC.

Former US President Joe Biden has joined the Freemasons even though the Catholic Church can punish membership of the secret society with excommunication.

Mr Biden, a Catholic, was admitted to the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the State of South Carolina on January 19, the day before he handed over the US presidency to Donald Trump.

Most people – and most Catholics – think the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is just about when all the Catholic bishops in the United States get together and make various announcements.

But US Vice President JD Vance’s biting words on the USCCB’s immigration work showed this was not the case, with his pronouncements serving as a so-called “dog whistle” to what you could call the “professional” Catholic class in the country., while also making a nod toward the divisions that exist in the US Church.

The first major event of the Jubilee of Hope that occurred last week highlighted both the significant challenges for Pope Francis during the forthcoming Holy Year but also the support, inspiration and empowerment he can draw on as the occupier of the Chair of Saint Peter in Rome, the bastion of the Roman Catholic Faith.

Dedicated to communicators, from 24-26 January the Jubilee for the World of Communications took place in Rome and at the Vatican, marking the first major Jubilee event of the 2025 Holy Year and a celebration for journalists and communicators around the world.

A Catholic charitable organisation in Wisconsin has argued to the US Supreme Court that the denial of its religious exemption status by the State of Wisconsin is based on an “absurd view” that the charity’s work isn’t religious in nature.

The Catholic charity also claims that the defendant in the case – Wisconsin – has committed multiple violations of the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment by denying its religious-based exemption and thereby insisting that it must pay state-related fees.

Catholic America is reeling from the surprise of the new presidency’s political appointments at every level, which are decisively reshaping the political landscape.

One of the most unexpected developments has not come from the White House but from the Vatican: the retirement of Cardinal Wilton Gregory as Archbishop of Washington left a vacancy for Rome to fill following his resignation in 2022. This appointment has suddenly acquired political significance that eclipses accompanying pastoral and spiritual considerations.

On the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz extermination camp run by the Nazis, Pope Francis said the horror of the annihilation of millions of Jews must never be forgotten or denied.

On Jan. 27, 1945, the Red Army of the Soviet Union liberated around 7000 prisoners at the camp, where the German Nazis had killed an estimated 1.1 million people, the vast majority being Jews.

Vice President JD Vance says the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops can “do better” in being a “good partner” in common sense immigration enforcement.

The Catholic politician made his oath of office with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., on January 20.

Speaking to Margaret Brennan on CBS’s Sunday news program Face the Nation, the vice president answered her question about the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops condemning some of the executive orders signed by Trump, specifically those allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to enter churches and schools.

Many ordinary, humble priests and religious worked hard to save the lives of endangered Jewish people in Nazi-occupied Europe, but this Capuchin friar’s courage, compassion and derring-do shines particularly brightly amid the terrible darkness of the Holocaust.

Despite later allegations that the Catholic Church did not do enough against the Nazi regime, there were many Catholic faithful who risked torture and even gave their lives to save others in Nazi controlled areas. Some would become well-known, such as ‘Vatican pimpernel’ Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, subject of a film made about his daring exploits in Rome, and champion cyclist Gino Bartali, who cycled around the Italian countryside secretly working for the resistance. 

In Sunday’s Gospel, as Jesus reads from the scroll of Isaiah (61:1-2) in his hometown synagogue, he strikingly adds a verse (58:6) from an earlier chapter of this prophet: “To send out the oppressed in freedom” (our freer lectionary translation is “to set at liberty those who are oppressed”).

Vice President JD Vance has told members of the March for Life “the sacred truth that every single child is a miracle and a gift from God”.

The administration of President Donald Trump has hit the ground running in support of the pro-life movement, with the president quickly pardoning pro-life activists who had been convicted of violating the federal Free Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or the Face Act.

Pope Francis has urged journalists to not push “disinformation and polarisation” in the media in his annual message for the World Day of Social Communications.

The Pontiff’s message comes as the communications landscape is experiencing a paradigm shift, with the “traditional” media of printed newspapers and television news organisations is being overcome with different forms of online versions, from social media to podcasts.

An investigation by the Wall Street Journal in 2021 showed the popular social media platform Facebook was aware of mental health risks linked to the use of its Instagram app but kept it secret.