The Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in Assisi, Italy. Each year on Oct. 3, the followers of St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) mark the globally popular saint’s own journey from life to death, his “Transitus,” through special community commemorations. (OSV News photo/courtesy Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi) By MaryAnn WallenDiocese of Wilmington During […]
A nurse gives a patient medication at the palliative care unit of the Clinic Saint-Elisabeth in Marseille, France, May 31, 2024. Pope Leo XIV’s forceful defense of human life during his Sept. 25-27, 2026, visit to France has reignited debate over the country’s newly approved assisted-dying law, which lawmakers had largely considered settled after its […]
Demonstrators hold signs during a protest outside the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington Jan. 22, 2026, calling on President Donald Trump’s administration to ban the abortion pill. In a Sept. 29, statement, Bishop Daniel E. Thomas of Toledo, Ohio, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ pro-life committee, urged the faithful to mark […]
A Carmelite Sister comforts a resident Aug. 21, 2026, at St. Patrick’s Residence in Naperville, Ill. Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago, the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm and the Chicago Province of the Little Sisters of the Poor, and an Illinois pharmacist sued Illinois Sept. 3 over the state’s physician-assisted suicide law, […]
A protester is seen in a file photo holding a placard during a demonstration against physician-assisted suicide. Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago, two orders of Catholic nuns and a pharmacist sued Illinois Sept. 3, 2026, over the state’s physician-assisted suicide law, which permits physicians to aid terminally ill adults in dying by suicide. The […]