Holy Trouble: the New York Nuns taking on President Trump

 

Aug 16, 2026 

 #ABCNewsIndepth #ABCNewsAustralia

“Jesus was a troublemaker” is a favourite quote of the Sisters of Charity in New York - a feisty order of nuns who help immigrants, orphans and those shunned by society. From civil rights marches in 1965 Harlem, to arrests during the Vietnam War protests and being criticised for supporting men with AIDS, the sisters have a long a history of what they call ‘holy trouble.’ After 200 years, they’ve made the bold decision to close the order when the last sister dies. But before they do, they have one final mission: to campaign against the immigration policies of President Trump and ICE.

Maximilian Kolbe: The Man Who Would Not Keep Silent

 

Written by Rodrigo Guerra

There are political regimes that are not content to regulate people’s actions according to law. They want to govern their words, their convictions, and their consciences as well: to determine what may be said, what must be left unsaid, and who has the right to speak at all.

The story of Maximilian Kolbe can be read from this perspective. Kolbe was a Polish Franciscan friar, executed at Auschwitz on August 14, 1941. The immediate reasons for his death are well known: after a prisoner escaped from the concentration camp, the Nazis selected 10 men to be condemned to death by starvation in reprisal. One of them was Franciszek Gajowniczek, a husband and father. Kolbe asked to take his place in order to save him. The request was granted. After nearly two weeks in the starvation bunker, Kolbe was still alive. On August 14, 1941, his executioners ended his life with a lethal injection.

A Church Teaching, A Church Listening: Making Sense of Study Group 9

 

An inside view of the Orthodox convert surge

 ‘Weathering Change: Seeking Peace Amid Life’s Tough Transitions’

BY COURTNEY ELLIS Facts & Faith Fridays bridges science and faith to host conversations about health BY RACHEL PIERCE

Public health from the pulpit: First steps for clergy to help create healthier communities BY ALEJANDRA SALEMI

A church and health center collaborate to provide care for people with substance use disorder BY LINDSAY PEYTON

Lessons from my mother’s hospital bedside

By Shannon Hopkins

A writer considers what it means to walk beside a loved one near the end of life.

‘The Pink Robe Chronicles: Womanist Wisdom for Healing, Liberation, and Love’

By Melva L. Sampson

In an excerpt from her new book, a professor and preacher draws on childhood lessons about the importance of using her voice.

How do you love your enemies in a time of war?

By Doug Hostetter

After 60 years of working for peace in Vietnam and Iran, a Mennonite peace pastor says human relationships are the key to understanding that we all are created in the image of God.

What Bananagrams teaches us about getting unstuck in church property development

By Mark Elsdon

Learning to remain flexible, change plans and find new solutions is key to church property development.

An inside view of the Orthodox convert surge

By Jenny Haddad Mosher

An Orthodox educator takes issue with popular notions of why people are joining Orthodox parishes in America; converts are not exclusively “Orthobros,” she says, but people seeking connection with others and with God.

‘Threads of Community’: Quilting and the Black church

Video by Brianna Jackson

Members of a sewing ministry and an artist share the way in which quilting honors tradition while also serving as a form of self-expression.

Want to solve a murder? Ask an Anglican priest for help

MAGA Christianity and the return of religious coercion*
The New Republic: The right is increasingly embracing an anti-social version of the Christian faith that favors restrictive control with none of the underlying moral obligations.

 

As ICE closes in, Ohio churches line up families to care for Haitian kids left behind
Religion News Service: In Springfield, Ohio, ICE shifts tactics to stealth raids and ankle monitors. Churches are responding by helping Haitian parents line up temporary caregivers, preparing for the worst.

 

With priests scarce in rural Italy, an African pastor is filling the void*
The New York Times: Immigrants have long eased labor shortages on farms and factories in Italy. But churches also need foreign-born priests, like the Rev. Vincent Souly of the Ivory Coast.

 

An ancient religion is taking root and moving into new digs in southern Utah
The Salt Lake Tribune: “I’ve been surprised,” a 30-year-old Orthodox pastor says, “at the amount of former atheists who have become Christians.”

 

Want to solve a murder? Ask an Anglican priest for help.
Religion Unplugged: There’s something about priests solving murders in small towns that people love. From “Father Brown” to “Broadchurch” to “Wake Up Dead Man” to “Evil” to South Korea’s “The Firey Priest,” it’s fascinating to see how common the trope is when you start looking.

Priest and nun recover sacred hosts from earthquake rubble in Colombia

New film ‘American Martyr’ tells story of Oklahoma priest and martyr Blessed Stanley Rother

“American Martyr” can be seen in theaters Aug. 25-26 in English and in Spanish on Aug. 27.

Florida attorney general, Miami archbishop spar over vaccine exemptions in Catholic schools

A dispute between Florida’s Catholic bishops and the state attorney general over vaccine exemptions in Catholic schools is testing the boundaries between state law and Church authority.

Priest and nun recover sacred hosts from earthquake rubble in Colombia

Despite the danger of the earthquake’s aftershocks, a priest and nun in Colombia entered a chapel in search of the hosts that were kept in the tabernacle that they found destroyed.

Poland inaugurates Europe’s tallest statue of the Virgin Mary

Rising to a height of over 180 feet from ground level, the statue of Our Lady of Mercy exceeds in height the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil and the Christ the King statue in Poland.

Leo XIV Speaks Out in Support of Palestinians Attacked by Jewish Settlers

 

Leó XIV baseball team pays tribute to the Pope

Appointment of an Alleged Freemason to the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences Sparks Controversy

Valentina di Giorgio

The Holy See announced on August 13 that Leo XIV had appointed Longo, director of the Italian Historical Institute for the Middle Ages and a professor of medieval history at Sapienza University of Rome, alongside Francesco Cesareo, emeritus president of Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, and Anna Barańska, an associate professor at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin.

Peruvian government declares the Pope’s visit a “matter of national interest” and prepares for gatherings of up to 1 million people

Enrique Villegas

The decision, approved by the Council of Ministers on August 12, is more than a protocol measure. It enables the government to coordinate security, logistics, customs procedures, and public services for a trip that is expected to involve between 700,000 and 1 million people nationwide.

Bishop Who Disappeared Under the Nicaraguan Dictatorship Reappears on Camera, but Questions Mount

ZENIT Staff

The video surfaced shortly after the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights asked the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to expand protective measures for Mata and four people associated with him, describing the situation as one of extreme gravity and a potential risk of irreparable harm

Leó  XIV baseball team pays tribute to the Pope: a packed stadium, a nun pitching the ball, the biggest campaign in the team’s history

ZENIT Staff

The attraction was not simply the game between the White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds. The real draw was the man whose roots stretch from the Vatican back to Chicago’s working-class South Side. More than 38,000 spectators packed the stadium on August 11, many arriving early to secure one of the now-famous papal-style hats created in honor of the pontiff, born Robert Prevost and long associated with the White Sox

U.S.: Bishop of San Antonio Announces the Laying Off of a Former Priest Found Guilty of Crimes Against the Faith

ZENIT Staff

Notice of John Mary Foster’s Resignation from the Clergy and Prohibition on Attending “Mission of Divine Mercy” in Canyon Lake

Leo XIV presents the Mass as the primary school of liturgical formation and calls on priests to remain faithful to approved texts

ZENIT Staff

Letter of the Holy Father to H.E. Card. Arthur Roche on the occasion of the Liturgical Conference at Mount Angel Abbey, Oregon, USA

For the first time, a Jewish woman will serve as president of the Catholic Biblical Association of America

ZENIT Staff

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this story is that many of those celebrating Levine’s election insist that it is not primarily about her being Jewish. Colleagues point instead to decades of collaboration, friendship, committee service, editorial work, and intellectual leadership within the association

The Assumption of the Virgin (and What It Has to Do with Us), Explained by Pope Leo XIV

ZENIT Staff

Homily by Pope Leo XIV on the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

German Bishop Promotes Gender Ideology in Schools; Parents Speak Out to Rome; Vatican Remains Silent

Joachin Meisner Hertz

Hamburg’s Catholic Schools Face a Test of Parental Trust — and Rome’s Silence

Questions about liturgy: Is the water still blessed when unblessed water is added to it?

Fr. Edward McNamara

Answered by Legionary of Christ Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy and sacramental theology at the Pontifical Regina Apostolorum university.

With God on Our Side (Lyric Video)

  

Bob Dylan - With God on Our Side

Bob Dylan wrote "With God on Our Side" in late 1962 or early 1963. He adapted the song's melody from the traditional Irish folk tune "The Merry Month of May" (popularized via Dominic Behan's "The Patriot Game").  

Oh my name it ain't nothin' My age it means less The country I come from Is called the Midwest I’s taught and brought up there The laws to abide And that the land that I live in Has God on its side Oh the history books tell it They tell it so well The cavalries charged The Indians fell The cavalries charged The Indians died Ah the country was young With God on its side The Spanish-American War had its day And the Civil War too was Soon laid away And the names of the heroes I’s made to memorize With guns in their hands And God on their side The First World War boys It came and it went The reason for fightin' I never did get But I learned to accept it Accept it with pride For you don’t count the dead When God’s on your side The Second World War Came to an end We forgave the Germans And then we were friends Though they murdered six million In the ovens they fried The Germans now too Have God on their side I’ve learned to hate the Russians All through my whole life If another war comes It’s them we must fight To hate them and fear them To run and to hide And accept it all bravely With God on my side But now we got weapons Of chemical dust If fire them we’re forced to Then fire them we must One push of the button And a shot the world wide And ya' never ask questions When God’s on your side Through many dark hour I been thinking about this That Jesus Christ was Betrayed by a kiss But I can’t think for ya' You’ll have to decide Whether Judas Iscariot Had God on his side So now as I’m leavin' I’m weary as Hell The confusion I’m feelin' Ain't no tongue can tell The words fill my head And they fall to the floor That if God’s on our side He’ll stop the next war

How is Catholic Communion bread made?

Pope Leo XIV: Violence against Palestinians in West Bank must stop

During his Aug. 16 Angelus address at Castel Gandolfo, the pontiff urged a 2-state solution in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Nigerian court bars Islamic police from arresting Christian convert over faith, marriage refusal

The federal high court described the actions taken against the woman as a “flagrant violation” of her fundamental rights to human dignity and freedom of religion.

EWTN News explains: How is Catholic Communion bread made?

The rules governing the production of bread for Communion hosts date back to the Last Supper and the custom of unleavened bread.

Christians across the Middle East and North Africa celebrate the Assumption despite challenges

Across the region, communities gathered in churches, streets, and homes, blending their shared devotion to the Virgin Mary with local traditions passed down through generations.