The Catholic Sun

(OSV News) — Nicole Kristensen still remembers facing difficult births and struggling postpartum as a mom. Today, she draws from her experience to help other women before, during and after giving birth. “Even though I struggled, having a community was the biggest thing, and that is a huge part of what I’m trying to achieve these days as a doula,” said the Catholic doula and coach, who serves communities in New York and Connecticut.

ROCHESTER, N.Y.  (OSV News) — Catholics in the Diocese of Rochester will soon have a physical link to Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. A first-class relic of the famed cleric, who led the Rochester Diocese as its sixth bishop (1966-69), is being given to the diocese by Archbishop Sheen’s native Diocese of Peoria. The relic will be transferred during a Sept. 29 Mass at Rochester’s Sacred Heart Cathedral five days after Archbishop Sheen’s beatification in St. Louis. The Sept.

(OSV News) — Caritas Nepal’s leader is urging global action on climate justice after catastrophic flooding in Nepal claimed more than 1,100 lives and left thousands missing.

The Diocese of Phoenix’s expanding faith-based higher-education options are alive and well as Avila University Arizona welcomed its second-ever class of students earlier this week. The Missouri-based Catholic university opened its Goodyear, Ariz., campus in August 2025, offering the opportunity for students to earn graduate-level degrees in business and technology management as well as complete undergraduate learning. Its second fall semester began Aug. 31.

(OSV News) — Women must be able to “exercise their leadership” and become “artisans of peace and guardians of life,” as the global community fractures and conflicts increase, the Vatican told the United Nations. The Holy See’s Permanent Observer Mission to the U.N. shared its thoughts in a Sept. 2 statement during the global body’s High-Level Forum on implementing the Program of Action on a Culture of Peace.

(OSV News) — If you read that one person in 1950 began an organization in a small part of the world and that 50 years later it had more than 4,000 workers at 610 locations in 123 countries, you might think you were reading about a successful multinational corporation. These statistics, however, reflect the incredible work of St. Teresa of Kolkata and the religious institute she founded, the Missionaries of Charity, at the time of her death in 1997.

FALCON HEIGHTS, Minn. (OSV News) — Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore had never gone to the Minnesota State Fair, the largest state fair in the country. That changed Aug. 28, when he made his first visit and, as it happened, was part of the fair’s single-day, all-time record crowd of 200,000. Archbishop Lori liked the fair so much he came again two days later to concelebrate Mass with a seasoned fairgoer, Father Robert Fitzpatrick, who has been celebrating state fair Masses since 2014.

(OSV News) — A court in Hong Kong rejected appeals brought by Cardinal Joseph Zen and four other defendants who were convicted in 2022 for failing to register a now-defunct fund to help anti-government protesters.

ROME (OSV News) — Pope Leo XIV urged academics from Oxford University to “seek the truth courageously” in the footsteps of St. John Henry Newman in a Sept. 4 audience at the Vatican. The pope received a delegation from Oxford’s Oriel College, where St. John Henry Newman served as a fellow from 1822 to 1845. The college is in Rome as part of commemoration of the 700th anniversary of receiving its royal charter in 1326 from King Edward II under the name House of the Blessed Mary at Oxford.

(OSV News) — A Massachusetts priest is urging prayers for a man who attacked him during a parish Holy Hour. Father Christopher Peschel, pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in New Bedford, Massachusetts, sustained minor injuries Aug. 31 as he tried to prevent 59-year-old Jose Nascimento from stealing the parish’s monstrance. According to a Sept.