As he approached death in the fall of 2008, Joseph Barranco was in terrible pain. Living at Baltimore’s St. Elizabeth Rehabilitation & Nursing Center, the Halethorpe resident had become edgy as he suffered from bladder cancer and the early effects of dementia.Read More

Question: My 71-year-old mother has been diagnosed with osteoarthritis. She has been suffering from pain in her knees and wrists during the past year. I would like to learn more about arthritis and what my mother may be able to do to cope with the pain. What information do you have?Read More

After receiving a terminal diagnosis, the last thing someone needs is counseling from groups that promote suicide, Nancy Paltell said.Read More

SCRANTON, Pa. – Citing population shifts, dwindling finances, overworked priests and the fact that many Catholics “are not actively practicing their faith,” Scranton’s bishop announced a major parish restructuring plan that will close some parishes and merge others.Read More

WASHINGTON – Although a majority of Americans support many of President Barack Obama’s early actions in office, only about a third back his decision to allow funding for overseas family planning groups that provide abortions, according to a new poll by USA Today/Gallup.Read More

For the sixth time in seven years, a bill has been brought before the Maryland legislature that, if passed, would have a devastating impact on the Catholic Church, including our parishes, schools and other institutions. The Maryland legislation, as with similar bills up for consideration throughout the country, is part of a coordinated national lobbying...Read More

Given the unique status of the Holocaust as an icon of evil in a morally confused world, Holocaust-denial triggers revulsions similar to those triggered by blasphemy in the Middle Ages: the Holocaust-denier must be shunned, for everyone else’s moral health. Thus it was completely understandable that, when Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications of four...Read More

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican said a traditionalist bishop who has minimized the full extent of the Holocaust must disavow his positions before he will be accepted into full communion with the church.Read More