Sunday, March 15, 2026

Why I’m wearing a black plastic box on my ankle for Lent

(RNS) — A small black box on our ankle invites us into solidarity with those who, like Jesus, have committed no crime but have been declared suspicious and dangerous.

FILE - An immigrant woman wears an ankle monitor after being processed and released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Sunday, June 24, 2018, in McAllen, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)

Renée Roden

March 13, 2026

(RNS) — At a recent check-in at our local U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, a friend and fellow parishioner at our Catholic church came out wearing an ankle monitor.

Several months before, in a June 2025 memo, Dawnisha Helland, ICE’s acting assistant director for management of non-detained migrants, had ordered ICE staff to place ankle monitors “whenever possible” on the more than 180,000 migrants enrolled in the alternative detention program, which allows them to stay in their communities while being processed. According to The Washington Post, fewer than 25,000 migrants were wearing ankle monitors at the time of Helland’s order.

THE POLITICS OF MERCY

In the intense, partisan, polarized climate of our society, many people of faith are persuaded that topics deemed “political” are best avoided. It’s an understandable impulse, yet such avoidance only plays into the hands of those who benefit from our withdrawal from public discourse.

WHEN THE BOMBS FALL ON OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN

If we cannot feel the death of a child in Iran with the same moral clarity as the death of a child in the United States, then something in us has been deformed. If our outrage is calibrated by passport, then our humanity has been nationalized.

Where the women deacons question stands at the Vatican

Plus: The first full English translation of the ‘Petrocchi Commission’ report on women deacons.

by Phyllis Zagano March 13, 2026

Pope Leo XIV, with regional representatives of synod teams, listens to and answers questions from participants in the Jubilee of Synodal Teams and Participatory Bodies in the Vatican audience hall on Oct. 24, 2025. Credit: CNS photo/Vatican Media.

On March 10, 2026, the General Secretariat of the Synod published a report on “the participation of women in the life and leadership of the church,” as part of its progressive release of study group and commission reports. The report comes from Study Group 5, which was established following the first general assembly of the Synod on Synodality. The group’s work during the synod’s second general assembly in October 2024 was the subject of significant contention, particularly because it addressed the question of women deacons.

Pope Francis greets a blind woman who is 99 years old along a parade route in Trujillo, Peru (CNS photo/Paul Haring).

I’ll begin with blindness—namely, my own.

Last year around this time, I had my spiritual life in order. My relationship with God was more or less figured out. Every day began with a run in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, usually alone, but sometimes with friends from my local track club. God was always there: in the silence, in the morning light sparkling across the lake, in the wooded trails snaking along rock formations in the ravine. I found God on the subway, too, taking advantage of my commute to pray the psalms or read Dante or Thomas Merton. I went to Mass often enough—not every week, but regularly, such that I never felt out of step with the liturgy.

Pope Leo wants Christians to examine their consciences this Lent — especially if they're waging war

Vatican News

Vatican

Pope Leo wants Christians to examine their consciences this Lent — especially if they're waging war

Michael J. O'Loughlin NCR

Saturday, March 14, 2026

Our relationships should reflect God’s inclusive love

Religion

Our relationships should reflect God’s inclusive love

Alice Camille US CATHOLIC