WASHINGTON – Warning that a failure to protect conscience rights would move the country “from democracy to despotism,” Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago urged U.S. Catholics to tell the Obama administration that they “want conscience protections to remain strongly in place.”Read More

ABOARD THE PAPAL FLIGHT TO CAMEROON – Making his first trip to Africa, Pope Benedict XVI said the Catholic Church can help bring answers to the continent’s chronic problems, including poverty, AIDS and tribalism.Read More

WASHINGTON – The president of the Irish political party Sinn Fein said the recent attacks in Northern Ireland are a human tragedy but the facts of the events should not be exaggerated.Read More

In recognition of Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien’s support for fire chaplains, Baltimore City Fire Chief James S. Clack has named Archbishop O’Brien “honorary fire chief.”Read More

WASHINGTON – Come June 30, 2010, there will be 52 fewer parishes in the Cleveland Diocese.Read More

Just before he took the Millennium Falcon into an asteroid field in the “The Empire Strikes Back,” movie character Han Solo was told his slim probability of survival.Read More

As College of Notre Dame of Maryland sophomore Jessica Rohaly recently prepared for a trip with students and faculty to the United Nations in New York, she knew she couldn’t squander her chance to lobby the world’s leaders.Read More

VATICAN CITY – As spring started showing its colors in Rome, many of the pilgrims coming out of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls were glowing – and not only because the sun was shining brightly.Read More