Catholic church is shelter during Hurricane Ida (CNS) After the winds from Hurricane Ida peeled off the roof of the seven-story apartment building in Metairie, Louisiana, Aug. 29, St. Francis Xavier Church — across the street from the apartment building — was transformed into an emergency shelter for 34 residents, even though the parish had also lost electrical power…

Boston’s Catholic, Jewish communities work to help Afghan refugees (The Boston Herald) The work that we’re going to do now is the work that we’ve always done,” says Marjean Perhot, Catholic Charities Boston’s Director of Refugees and Immigration Services, about preparations to welcome Greater Boston’s share of Afghan refugees en route to their new home in America. “Pretty much whenever there’s been a refugee crisis, Catholic Charities has been there…”

Syro-Malabar church to adopt “uniform” liturgy (CNA) India’s Syro-Malabar Church has decided to implement a “uniform” celebration of the liturgy, in which the celebrant will stand both facing toward and away from the congregation at different times, following lengthy discussions during the synod of its bishops last week. In a pastoral letter issued on Aug. 27, Cardinal George Alencherry, head of the Church, called on the clergy and the faithful to set aside “individual preferences” and to work toward unity…

Seminarian immersion program yields harvest of experience (NCR) The Diocese of Yakima’s unique experiential priestly formation started in the summer of 2012, a year before Pope Francis was elected and called for pastors and bishops to have “the smell of the sheep,” and for the church to be a “field hospital” that accompanies people on the margins. But this is the first summer that seminarians were also expected to spend time living in the same residence with the workers, a former hotel that serves as a temporary home for migrants…

Buenos Aires cathedral hit with anti-Catholic graffiti (CNA) Vandals attacked the Buenos Aires cathedral in Argentina last Friday, spray painting the walls with various slogans against the Church, Catholic priests and the Bible.  The vandalism took place Aug. 27 during a march organized by leftist organizations against the so-called “easy trigger,” or against “trigger happy” law enforcement officials. The graffiti on the cathedral walls included epithets such as, “The only church that illuminates is the one that burns,” “burn the churches,” “rapist priests,” “when you read little you shoot a lot” and “I don’t read the Bible, I use it to roll joints…”