WASHINGTON - Newly released details show how the Administration plans to double federal immigration detention capacity, spending an estimated $38.3 billion from last year’s reconciliation bill to implement a new detention model by the end of Fiscal Year 2026. This amounts to nearly fifty times the annual budget for the entire immigration court system and almost five times the funding provided this year to operate the federal prison system. The plan partly entails opening eight “mega‑centers,” each of which would be capable of detaining 7,000 to 10,000 people. Aside from the internment camps used to incarcerate Japanese Americans in the 1940s, such facilities have no precedent in American history.

In response, Bishop Brendan J. Cahill, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Migration, urged the Administration and Congress to pursue a more just approach:

“These plans are deeply troubling. The federal government does not have a positive track record when it comes to detaining large numbers of people, especially families, and the proposed scale of these facilities is difficult to comprehend. The private prison industry is who stands to gain the most from this supercharging of immigration detention. 

“Last November, my brother bishops and I unequivocally opposed the indiscriminate mass deportation of people and raised concerns about existing conditions in detention centers. We specifically highlighted a lack of access to pastoral care for detainees. On many occasions, we have also opposed the expansion of family detention, recognizing its harmful impacts on children in particular. 

“The thought of holding thousands of families in massive warehouses should challenge the conscience of every American. Whatever their immigration status, these are human beings created in the image and likeness of God, and this is a moral inflection point for our country. We implore the Administration and Congress to lead with right reason, abandon this misuse of taxpayer funds, and to instead pursue a more just approach to immigration enforcement that truly respects human dignity, the sanctity of families, and religious liberty.”

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Wulfric (d. 1154) + hermit and miracle worker. Born at Compton Martin, near Bristol, England, he became a priest and was excessively materialistic and worldly. After meeting with a beggar, he underwent a personal conversion and became a hermit at Haselbury; Somerset, England. For his remaining years, he devoted himself to rigorous austerities and was known for his miracles and prophecies. While he was never formally canonized, Wulfric was a very popular saint during the Middle Ages, and his ...

TAMPA, Fla. - Concluding a biennial gathering, the officers and members of the Episcopal Conferences of the Americas met from February 15-17 at a retreat center to pray and discuss their shared ministry as pastors. The eleven bishops attending included bishops from the Latin American and Caribbean Episcopal Council (CELAM), the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). The bishops issued the following joint statement:

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Gathered in a spirit of profound communion, aware that we do not represent isolated Churches or fragmented realities, but rather one Church on pilgrimage throughout the Americas, we wish to address you with a message of closeness, hope, and shared responsibility.

We have experienced days of fraternal joy, united in prayer, sincere dialogue, and pastoral discernment. We give thanks to the Lord for the grace of this encounter, which has allowed us to renew our commitment to walk together as the Church in the Americas, strengthening the bonds that unite us beyond our borders and cultural differences.

Our prayer and our conversations have focused on how to better guide the People of God with wisdom and courage in a time marked by profound changes and challenges. Although our national contexts are diverse, we recognize that our peoples experience similar anxieties and that our episcopal ministries face common challenges that invite coordinated, compassionate, and profoundly evangelical responses.

Aware of the historical moment we are living through and the complexity of the challenges affecting our societies, we have renewed our commitment to walk together in a synodal way as a Church that embraces the north and south of the continent, bearing clear and consistent witness to Jesus Christ, Crucified and Risen, the living hope for all peoples.

Among the issues we have considered are our concern for the poor and vulnerable, the dignity and rights of indigenous peoples, the painful scourge of human trafficking and narco-culture, the growing polarization that wounds public discourse and weakens social cohesion, and, in particular, the extreme vulnerability of migrants who live, travel through, and seek a future in our countries. 

Regarding the phenomenon of migration, we affirm clearly: no migrant is a stranger to the Church. In every person who leaves their homeland seeking safety, opportunities, or dignity, we recognize a brother, a sister; we recognize the very face of Christ on the move. Human mobility cannot be reduced to a merely political or economic issue; it is a profoundly human reality that challenges our Christian conscience and the ethical responsibility of nations.

The migrant's journey crosses countries, systems, and borders. Therefore, our pastoral action cannot be fragmented. We want to strengthen our continental coordination so that, from the place of origin to transit and final destination, the Church may be a concrete sign of hope, a place welcome, and protection.

We invite civil authorities to promote policies that safeguard the lives, rights, and dignity of migrants. We recognize the responsibility of States to regulate migration and ensure the common good; however, we reiterate that all legislation must place at its center the inalienable dignity of the human person and the respect that person deserves.

We urge all the People of God in the Americas to live our unity in a concrete and daily way: in the generous welcome of migrants, in the defense of the most vulnerable, in respectful dialogue even amidst differences, in the patient building of bridges. May our parishes, communities, and families be visible signs that fraternity is possible and that the Gospel continues to be a transformative force in our societies.

We are one Church in the Americas. From this unity, we wish to serve with greater dedication, to accompany with greater closeness, and to proclaim with renewed courage the hope that springs from the Heart of the Savior.

We entrust this commitment to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Mother, who accompanies all the peoples of our continent under many titles. May she sustain us in communion and inspire us to respond together, with charity and evangelical courage, to the challenges of our time.

With fraternal affection and renewed hope,

The Leadership of the Episcopal Conferences of Canada, the United States, and Latin America and the Caribbean (CELAM).

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Alvarez was born in either Lisbon, Portugal, or Cordova, Spain. He entered the Dominican convent at Cordova in 1368. He became known for his preaching prowess in Spain and Italy, was confessor and adviser of Queen Catherine, John of Gaunt's daughter, and tutor of King John II in his youth. He reformed the court, and then left the court to found a monastery near Cordova. There the Escalaceli (ladder of heaven) that he built became a center of religious devotion. He successfully led the ...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- During Lent, people of faith come together to recognize their sins, which are not external evils to be solved by pointing fingers, but are evils residing inside one's heart requiring conversion, Pope Leo XIV said.

"We need to respond by courageously accepting responsibility" for one's own sins, he said in his homily during Mass on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 18.

This approach is countercultural, he said, and yet "it constitutes an authentic, honest and attractive option, especially in our times, when it is so easy to feel powerless in the face of a world that is in flames."

He said sacred Scripture teaches that opposing idolatry with "worship of the living God means daring to be free, and rediscovering freedom through an exodus, a journey, where we are no longer paralyzed, rigid or complacent in our positions, but gathered together to move and change."

The pope marked the beginning of Lent with the traditional Lenten procession on Rome's Aventine Hill.

The liturgy began with a brief prayer at the Church of St. Anselm, which is part of a Benedictine monastery. Chanting the litany of saints, cardinals, joined by Benedictine and Dominican religious, then processed to the Basilica of Santa Sabina -- considered the mother church of the Dominican order -- for Mass.

In his homily, Pope Leo said many young people are open to what Ash Wednesday offers: the possibility of repentance.

The pope asked Catholics to "embrace the missionary significance of Lent" by introducing this season "to the many restless people of goodwill who are seeking authentic ways to renew their lives, within the context of the Kingdom of God and his justice."

Lent is about conversion -- a change of direction -- that makes "our proclamation more credible," he said.

It marked the first time since 2020 that a pope has walked the procession, which had been interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, but then Pope Francis' bad knee and ill health prevented him from walking the short journey in subsequent years. Pope Francis marked his last Ash Wednesday March 5, 2025, from Rome's Gemelli hospital.

Pope Leo's complete homily can be found in English and in Spanish.

In St. Matthew's Gospel, we read of St. Simon or Simeon who is described as one of our Lord's brethren or kinsmen. His father was Cleophas, St. Joseph's brother, and his mother, according to some writers, was our Lady's sister. He would therefore be our Lord's first cousin and is supposed to have been about eight years older than He. No doubt he is one of those brethren of Christ who are mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles as having received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. St. Epiphanius ...

Founder and mystic, one of the first Servants of Mary or Servites. The son of a wealthy merchant in Florence, Italy, Alexis and six companions joined the Confraternity of the Blessed Virgin in Florence in 1225. Gathered together on the Feast of the Assumption in 1233, the group experienced a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary which inspired them to found a new religious community dedicated to prayer. They founded such a group at La Camarzia, near Florence, moving eventually to Monte Senario, on ...

Died in 309, He and four companions, Elias, Isaias, Jeremy and Samuel were Egyptians who visited Christians condemned to work in the mines of Cilicia during Maximus persecution, to comfort them. Apprehended at the gates of Caesarea, Palestine, they were brought before the governor, Firmilian and accused of being Christians. They were all tortured and then beheaded. When Porphyry, a servant of St. Pamphilus demanded that the bodies be buried, he was tortured and then burned to death when it was ...

Walfrid or Galfrido della Gherardesca was born in Pisa, of which he became a prosperous and honored citizen. He married a wife to whom he was deeply attached, and they had five sons and at least one daughter. After a time, Walfrid and his wife Thesia felt that God was calling them to enter the religious life. Walfrid had two friends - A kinsman named Gunduald and a certain Fortis, a native of Corsica: like him they were living in the world, but were drawn to a closer service of God under ...

Click Here for St. Valentine Prayer's Discover More About St. Valentine Saint Valentine, officially known as Saint Valentine of Rome, is a third-century Roman saint widely celebrated on February 14 and commonly associated with "courtly love." Although not much of St. Valentine's life is reliably known, and whether or not the stories involve two different saints by the same name is also not officially decided, it is highly agreed that St. Valentine was martyred and then buried on the Via ...