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Pope Leo XIV will hold a 45-minute live digital encounter with U.S. high school students during the National Catholic Youth Conference (NCYC) in Indianapolis. The session, scheduled for 10:15 a.m. ET on Nov. 21, will feature five teens asking the pope questions as part of a dialogue planned by more than 40 youth participants. Mia Smothers, one of the teens chosen to ask Pope Leo a question at NCYC, talks about her preparation for this event and what she hopes the thousands of other teens take away from it.

By Richard Szczepanowski | Catholic Standard

During a Nov. 15 commemoration of Black Catholic History Month at Sacred Heart Church in Bowie, Maryland, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington unveiled a new project that seeks to “honor those enslaved by the Catholic Church in Maryland.”

“This is a prayerful and powerful initiative,” said Wendi Williams, the executive director of the archdiocese’s Office of Cultural Diversity and Outreach. “This is an honorable and proud act because this is not just a Black Catholic history issue, this is a social justice issue.”

by Michael J. O’Loughlin | America Magazine

The U.S. bishops voted on Friday to begin a process that could lead to rules formally banning Catholic hospitals from offering medical procedures and therapies sometimes collectively described as gender-affirming care.

Meeting in Orlando for their spring meeting, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops overwhelmingly decided via a voice vote to begin a process of revising the Ethical and Religious Directives, guidelines that draw from theology and church teaching and regulate the roughly 2,200 Catholic hospitals and health care facilities in the United States.

By William Murray | Catholic Standard

On the feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome, Cardinal Robert W. McElroy, the archbishop of Washington, urged a fraternal group of lay Catholics to remember that they are temples of the Holy Spirit.

“You are God’s building,” Cardinal McElroy told the Knights and Ladies Auxiliary of Peter Claver, gathered for Mass on Nov. 8 at St. Thomas More Church in Southeast Washington, D.C. “When you hear the word of God and take it into your heart,” each human person becomes “the most important building,” he said, drawing on the words of St. Paul.

By Gina Christian | Catholic Standard

As the U.S. marks its 250th anniversary next year, the U.S. bishops will consecrate the nation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The decision was taken during a Nov. 11 session of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ fall plenary assembly in Baltimore.