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By Nicole Olea | Catholic Standard

With a voice that carried throughout the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Cardinal Robert W. McElroy announced, “Today I have tidings of great joy” as he greeted the large congregation of faithful on the warm, sunlit morning of June 21 for the annual Mass of Priesthood Ordination in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington.

Concelebrants included Cardinal Wilton Gregory and Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishops emeritus of Washington; Auxiliary Bishops Roy Campbell Jr. and Evelio Menjivar, and more than 125 priests from the archdiocese and invited clergy.

The Church in Africa is “alive and vibrant”, this is how Catholic youths from the Diocese of Phoenix in the U.S. visiting Kenya for their first-ever African trip have described their impressions after spending two weeks in the East African nation.

In an interview with ACI Africa on the sidelines of their visit to St. Mary’s Mukuru Parish of the Catholic Archdiocese of Nairobi (ADN) on Sunday, June 22, the 12-member delegation, including eight young adults and four mentors, shared their “life-changing” encounters with their peers in Kenya.

By Gina Christian | OSV News

(OSV News) — Close to half of the nation’s adults have a personal or family connection to Catholicism, but Mass attendance makes for significant differences in what Catholics say is essential to their identity.

In addition, the share of U.S. Catholics who are Hispanic is growing, a significant number of conversions to the faith are prompted by marriage, and clerical abuse — though still widely perceived as an ongoing issue — is more broadly viewed as also problematic among other religious leaders, not only Catholic.

Our annual listing of Catholic (and Catholic-adjacent) Juneteenth events around the country.

By Nate Tinner-Williams | Black Catholic Messenger

The 160th anniversary of Juneteenth will be celebrated throughout the United States on June 19 as a federal holiday, giving Americans ample opportunity to honor the legacy—and eventual freedom—of enslaved African Americans.

The original Juneteenth celebrations were born from the 1865 decree, “General Order No. 3,” issued in Galveston, Texas, where the last enslaved African Americans remained for some time after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. In that same city in 1528, an enslaved Black Catholic named Esteban had been one of the first Africans to set foot in what is now the United States.

By Paris Apodaca for CNA

Since last year, there has been a 32% decline in U.S. child abuse allegations against Catholic clergy, according to the 2024 annual report of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection.

Overall, “902 allegations were reported by 855 victims-survivors of child sexual abuse by clergy,” the report said, compared with 1,308 allegations by 1,254 survivors last year.