Young Catholics have traveled from far and wide to participate in the 37th annual World Youth Day held Aug. 1-6, 2023 in Lisbon, Portugal. This transformative experience has shaped the hearts and minds of young people for decades, calling them to an encounter with Christ and to go forth with haste to share the Good News of the Gospel.
OSV News International Editor Paulina Guzik and Photo Editor Bob Roller have been on the ground providing daily news coverage — from the opening Mass and the welcome ceremony with Pope Francis to capturing personal testimonies of youth attending from Africa, Australia and the United States. They’ll continue to cover World Youth Day over the weekend, so keep an eye out for more WYD stories in the coming days!
Below is a sampling of non-WYD stories produced by the OSV News team this week. We published more than 20 pieces of content per day, so it’s been hard to select just a few. I highly encourage you to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to see the broader scope of the content we provide.
Megan Marley
Digital Editor
Rediscover Jesus, Scriptures to renew church and culture, say evangelists at Napa conference
“We need Jesus, we need the church, and we need to undergo transformation ourselves,” said Curtis Martin, founder of the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, or FOCUS. Martin was one of several keynote speakers at the Napa Institute’s 13th annual summer conference, which took place July 26-30 in Napa, California.
Ukraine officially moves Christmas observance to Dec. 25 in ‘huge cultural shift’
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed into law a bill moving the official observance of Christmas Day to Dec. 25 from Jan. 7, when Moscow and the Russian Orthodox Church mark the holiday.
Lay parish missionaries indispensable co-workers in evangelization from the city to the prairie
Lay men and women carrying out missionary work in parishes, either on a full time or volunteer basis, are helping Catholic clergy expand the evangelizing reach of their ministry wherever they are, from urban centers to prairie towns.
Catholic home-school experts say home learning feels more mainstream post-pandemic
In recent years, the variety of online resources and communities for home-schoolers have exploded, museums and learning centers offer more weekday programming geared for home-schoolers, and, in many places, home-schooling family meet-ups abound.
Box office hit ‘Sound of Freedom’ draws kudos, concerns from human trafficking experts
A summer box office hit is garnering both kudos and concerns for its approach to the issue of child trafficking.
New metal fence is sign of worsening conditions for Holy Land Christians
The Stella Maris Carmelite monastery has seen destruction and banishment over its centuries’-old history, dating back to mid-13th century. The recent attempts by a group of Jewish religious extremists to declare the monastery a Jewish holy site has however, for the first time, led to the monks installing metal fencing around its entrance.
As number of Irish priests goes down, pilgrims climb up to promote vocations
A number of bishops joined thousands of pilgrims from across Ireland in the annual Reek Sunday pilgrimage climb of Croagh Patrick as part of the Irish church’s drive for vocations to the priesthood.
‘Veritatis Splendor’ at 30: Four essential truths taught by St. John Paul II
FAITH FORMATION: Aug. 6 marks the 30th anniversary of St. John Paul II’s encyclical “Veritatis Splendor” (“The Splendor of Truth”), the first and only papal encyclical focused on moral theology. Its continued importance cannot be underestimated, even while its teachings are often overlooked or even ignored.
Mountain climbing Benedictine monks ‘seek things above’
Mountain climbing — physical and spiritual — is both a passion and life’s work for two Benedictine monks of Mount Angel Abbey in St. Benedict, Oregon.
Honored by Knights, Sisters of Life founding superior shares ‘secret of loving’ behind a culture of life
It was one of the most important advertisements ever published in a Catholic newspaper: “Help Wanted: Sisters of Life.” The five simple words led a 1989 column penned by New York Cardinal John J. O’Connor – and within two years, eight women took up the call to be emissaries of Jesus Christ’s life-giving love as the first ever “Sisters of Life.”
The Story of One Crime: A forceful look at a martyred family
MOVIE REVIEW: Polish farmers Józef and Wiktoria Ulma had seven children and one on the way to care for, yet still secretly sheltered eight Jews for almost two years in occupied Poland before being found out by the Nazis and killed. The Ulmas’ story is forcefully recounted in filmmaker Mariusz Pilis’ Polish-language documentary “The Story of One Crime.”
