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WASHINGTON -- When health care chaplains talk about the need for self-care, they really mean it, especially after this past year.

WASHINGTON -- During a Feb. 22 evening program on CNN, Washington Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory offered a prayer for those who have died from COVID-19 asking God to "grant enteral peace to all our sisters and brothers lost to this disease."

WASHINGTON -- Even with many recent hopeful signs on vaccinations and the reduction in the number of COVID-19 cases, there is no date certain at which the coronavirus pandemic will be declared over.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Having the ability to educate and advocate for her family inspired Joyce Christian of Somerville, Tennessee, to become a nurse. It has been a long, tragic pandemic and the COVID-19 vaccines are finally becoming available. Christian is on a mission to try to encourage people of color to take the vaccine.

WASHINGTON -- This past year as the coronavirus cut through the United States, elderly women religious -- former teachers, nurses, social workers and pastoral care leaders -- were among those whose lives were cut short by COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.

ROME -- Of the more than 76,000 people known to have died of COVID-19 in Italy the past 11 months, more than 200 were priests, according to the Catholic newspaper, Avvenire.

Four women religious died on the same day, adding to the sum of eight nuns who succumbed in a little more than a week in mid-December in Wisconsin after complications from COVID-19 as the virus spread in the facility that cared for them.

In a time of uncertainty, one thing U.S. women religious and others who have been providing food during the COVID-19 pandemic know for sure is that the number of those who need food assistance has risen dramatically and continues to rise.

Given the consistent direction of these court decisions in Diocese of Brooklyn and since, we are interpreting the Governor’s order together with the court decisions to mean that under the Constitution, houses of worship have to be treated at least as well as retail, which for us in California means 20% indoor capacity at this time.

WASHINGTON -- District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser, in response to a lawsuit filed by the Archdiocese of Washington, has modified the current pandemic limits on gatherings at houses of worship in the District to 25% of capacity and no more than 250 people.

Although the Guadalupana pilgrimage that usually draws thousands was virtual this year, Francisco Hernández, 55, who suffers from prostate and bone cancer, walked the 12-mile route to pray for Our Lady of Guadalupe's intercession in the pandemic.

WASHINGTON -- The "gravity" of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and "the lack of availability of alternative vaccines," are "sufficiently serious" reasons to accept the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, the chairmen of the U.S. bishops' doctrine and pro-life committees said Dec. 14.

VATICAN CITY -- No pandemic and no kind of crisis can extinguish the light of Christ, Pope Francis said.

The California Catholic Conference affirms that the imminent Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines are morally acceptable and commits to working closely with Catholic health care ministries and Catholic Charities ensure safe and adequate delivery.

After caring for Bay Area seniors including dozens of priests of the Archdiocese of San Francisco for almost 60 years, the Sisters of Nazareth are closing the doors of Nazareth House in San Rafael.

For Our Lady of Loretto Parish, the closure of its church to public Masses from March to October had a silver lining.

The Spanish Conference of Religious has announced that September 29 will be observed as a day of prayer for the 357 religious who have died from the novel coronavirus during the pandemic in Spain.

In an essay published this month, Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield in Illinois argued that months-long lockdowns in response to the coronavirus are an extraordinary means of saving life, and are therefore not morally obligatory and should not be coerced by the state.

No matter how rich or poor, no matter whether newly arrived or from families that have been here for many generations, it is our Catholic faith that unites us, and it is because of our Catholic faith that we are being put at the end of the line.

MONTREAL -- The Quebec government took religious leaders by surprise by announcing Sept. 20 that the maximum number of people allowed to participate in an event in a place of worship would be lowered from 250 to 50 in all regions of the province, starting Sept. 21.