VATICAN CITY – On the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq, three U.S. Catholic peace activists paid a discreet but significant visit to the Vatican. The officers of the Indiana-based Catholic Peace Fellowship were in Rome in mid-March to promote the issue of conscientious objection to war. They didn’t know what kind of reception...Read More

When Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien referred to the rector of the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen as “the indomitable, irrepressible Monsignor Robert Armstrong,” hundreds of parishioners interrupted the archbishop's Nov. 15 cathedral homily with applause.Read More

PATERSON, N.J. – A worldwide celebration of Masses Dec. 9 will commemorate the 30th anniversary of the death of famed author, lecturer and television evangelizer Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, as well as promote his cause for canonization.Read More

WASHINGTON – Scripture readings were interspersed with testimonies from a U.S. soldier, Iraqis and the mother of a slain National Guard sergeant at a crowded prayer vigil March 16 that kicked off weekend anti-war protests in Washington and around the country. With nearly 3,000 people packed into the Episcopal Church’s National Cathedral and hundreds more...Read More

SAN ANTONIO – The biggest city in the world to be named for St. Anthony of Padua welcomed a relic of the saint to its San Fernando Cathedral for the first time March 3-4. The event marked the close of the jubilee year proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI to mark the 275th anniversary of the...Read More

BEAUMONT, Texas – “We hope and pray that our soldiers do not die on the battlefields. Then something like this happens on one of our bases by a fellow soldier,” said Bishop Curtis J. Guillory of Beaumont about the Nov. 5 shootings at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas that left 13 dead and...Read More

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican said it experienced “surprise and sorrow” when a European court ruled that the crucifixes hanging in Italian public schools violate religious freedom.Read More

ROME – Muslims and Catholics in the United States need to develop educational programs that will give all of their faithful an accurate picture of the beliefs of the other, said two clerics experienced in Muslim-Catholic dialogue. Father Francis V. Tiso, associate director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious...Read More