Your Take

So, should priests wear cassocks?

by Our readers October 8, 2026

Credit: iStock/Tomasz Śmigla

“In a world so denuded of signs and symbols of the sacred, the cassock is back,” Joe Hoover, S.J., wrote in our October 2026 issue. The garment’s return in churches (and grocery stores and hardware stores and on the street) has caused quite a stir. “You see a Catholic priest in 2026 walking around in a cassock,” Brother Hoover wrote, “and it would appear to some he is publicly telegraphing to the world: ‘I am boldly Catholic’ [and] ‘I am taking the church back’ from its diminishers and water-downerers.” But this speculation, the author argues, might be too simplistic. Our readers shared their own views on the cassock’s resurgence.

At the USCCB’s upcoming meeting, Trump’s assault on migrants will likely be a major topic.

Prophetic Words

At the USCCB’s upcoming meeting, Trump’s assault on migrants will likely be a major topic.

Heidi Schlumpf

October 8, 2026

Please email comments to letters@commonwealmagazine.org.

San Diego Bishop Michael M. Pham, center, leads more than four thousand people through Balboa Park for World Day of Migrants and Refugees, September 27, 2026 (OSV News photo/David Maung, Diocese of San Diego).

At least five U.S. Catholic bishops made public appearances last week to denounce the Trump administration’s immigration-enforcement operation, which has resulted in record numbers of people detained over the summer. A few others, and the U.S. bishops’ conference, released statements for the Vatican’s 112th World Day of Migrants and Refugees on Sunday, September 27. Those prophetic words from Church leaders come as the Trump administration has shifted its immigration-enforcement strategy from militarized invasions of cities to more insidious but equally aggressive tactics that include partnerships with local law-enforcement agencies. Immigrants with legal status or pending cases who have lived crime-free for decades in the United States are being rounded up like criminals, often without due process. Stephen Miller’s new target is migrant children. 

Pope names Irish sister to lead Vatican's missionary efforts

 

Vatican

Pope names Irish sister to lead Vatican's missionary efforts

Justin McLellan  ncr

'Synodality' was a Vatican buzzword. 5 years on, it's still changing the church.

 

'Synodality' was a Vatican buzzword. 5 years on, it's still changing the church.

Vatican

• ncr

  Justin McLellan

 

Whose Nostra Aetate? The Church, Judaism, Israel and Leo’s pontificate

Three Vatican-related events in eleven days reveal a new, doctrinal gap between the Catholic Church and Judaism, centered on Zionism and the State of Israel, that diplomacy alone cannot bridge.

Massimo Faggioli

October 7, 2026

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At times, separate events, in unexpected ways, communicate the situation in which a global religious community and the institution governing its faithful find themselves. This happened in just eleven days in Sept. 2026, between Rome and New York.

The first moment: On Sept. 16, three Vatican dicasteries—the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, and the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue—published the 8,600-word document titled Note. A Journey of Hope. Sixty Years of Interreligious Dialogue and Fraternity in the Light of the Conciliar Declaration “Nostra Aetate”. 

Posted inNews

Australian bishop sentenced to 6.5 years in prison for abuse of Aboriginal men

by OSV News October 7, 2026

Australian Bishop Christopher A. Saunders is pictured in Rome June 27, 2019, during "ad limina" visits. Credit: OSV News photo/CNS file, Robert Duncan

(OSV News) — Australian Bishop Christopher Saunders was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison Oct. 7 for abusing two victims who were part of the Indigenous Aboriginal community.

An Australian district court found Bishop Saunders guilty of committing over a dozen counts of sexual abuse against three young Aboriginal men in August. He was acquitted by the jury of alleged offenses against a third young man. Bishop Saunders resigned as bishop of Broome when first accused of wrongdoing in 2020.

Posted inVatican Dispatch

‘We have much to learn from families’: Pope Leo welcomes bishops to ‘Amoris Laetitia’ meeting

by Gerard O’Connell October 7, 2026

Pope Leo XIV speaks Oct. 7, 2026, as he opens the weeklong Vatican meeting of presidents of bishops' conferences marking the 10th anniversary of "Amoris Laetitia" ("The Joy of Love.") Credit: OSV News photo/Simone Risoluti, Vatican Media

Ten years after Pope Francis published “Amoris Laetitia,” his exhortation on “Love in the Family,” Pope Leo XIV opened the weeklong meeting of the presidents of the world’s 115 Catholic bishops’ conferences and the heads of the Eastern rite Catholic churches by telling them, “I ask the Lord to help us gather together the fruits that ‘Amoris Laetitia’ has borne in our local churches, so that they may nourish the whole church.” He emphasized the need to pay special attention to fragility and “recognize the work of grace even in situations marked by limits, wounds and apparent failure.”

10 years of 'Amoris Laetitia': What Chapter 8 changed

 

Guest Voices

Opinion

10 years of 'Amoris Laetitia': What Chapter 8 changed

Rafael Luciani   ncr