TORONTO – The second person ever to serve as poet laureate for Toronto is also the first Catholic priest to hold the title. It’s an opportune pulpit for Father Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, 57, a priest-poet-philosopher who is now spreading ideas about how individuals, government officials and even business leaders can make cities and communities...Read More

Maryland Catholics are urged to rally at Lobby Night in Annapolis Feb., 19, Presidents’ Day, to learn about important public-policy initiatives and meet their elected state officials. The 23rd annual Lobby Night, sponsored by the Maryland Catholic Conference, will begin at 3 p.m. at St. Mary’s School, Marian Hall, with issue briefings. The briefings will...Read More

Single people who plan to marry in the Catholic church are required to attend a marriage preparation program in some form, whether participating in an organized program through a parish or in another arrangement that their priest deems appropriate to cover “the five Cs” of marriage preparation: community, conflict resolution, commitment, children and church.Read More

Will de Rosset hasn’t had a weekend off in a very long time. The full-time disc jockey is busy on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays making sure guests are enjoying the music at the weddings he services weekly.Read More

CAPE TOWN, South Africa – A strike by doctors and nurses in Zimbabwe is causing “untold human suffering and loss of life,” said the country’s Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace. Sick and injured people are turned away from the main state hospitals “and their only other option is to go to private hospitals, which...Read More

Mayor Sheila Dixon and the leaders of 11 Baltimore City hospitals announced an agreement for cooperation in the event of a bioterrorist attack or other public health catastrophe, on Jan 23. “Just as our first responders talk to each other through interoperable communications equipment, this step means that our hospitals can collaborate efficiently in the...Read More

WASHINGTON – Jesuit Father Robert F. Drinan, the first Catholic priest to vote in the U.S. Congress, received praise and censure during his lifetime for his active involvement in politics. Father Drinan, 86, died Jan. 28 at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, where he had been treated for pneumonia and congestive heart failure for the...Read More

WARSAW, Poland – Many Eastern European church officials said they lack procedures for handling claims of clergy collaborating with communist secret police nearly 20 year after the collapse of communism. Father Laszlo Nemeth, secretary-general of the Hungarian bishops’ conference, told Catholic News Service that although Hungarian bishops had debated the issue in the early 1990s...Read More