VATICAN CITY – The Vatican’s Latin letters office has been struggling lately with a big hole in its roster – U.S. Father Reginald Foster, considered by many the world’s finest Latinist, has been away for more than a year.Read More
Loyola College in Maryland senior Matt Greer was relieved when he learned the school scheduled a special 4 p.m. Mass on Super Bowl Sunday because he would probably have had to skip his weekly spiritual ritual to watch the big game with his buddies. “I usually attend the 9 p.m. Mass,” said the 21-year-old student...Read More
WILMINGTON, Del. – In a pastoral letter released Sept. 10, Bishop W. Francis Malooly lays out his hopes and vision for the spiritual renewal of priests in the Diocese of Wilmington during the church’s Year for Priests.Read More
VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI urged young people to express love in unselfish ways, looking past social goals of competition and productivity in order to become “witnesses of charity” in the world. He held out Blessed Teresa of Calcutta as an example of a Christian who translated love into concrete action to help the...Read More
VATICAN CITY – A top Vatican official lamented that producing urgently needed medicines is no longer driven by traditional medical ethics, but by money.Read More
VATICAN CITY – The Vatican turned down a laicization request from a Paraguayan bishop who wants to run for president and suspended the bishop from exercising his priestly ministry. Bishop Fernando Lugo Mendez of San Pedro, Paraguay, 57, had announced Dec. 25 that he would ask the Vatican to return him to the status of...Read More
LOS ANGELES – Both the city and the county of Los Angeles will suffer if a nationally acclaimed gang-intervention program has to shut down, even temporarily, said the Jesuit priest who founded the program more than two decades ago.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
VATICAN CITY – An unusually acrimonious fight has erupted this summer between the Vatican and the government of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, fueled by growing unease over Berlusconi’s personal life and some of his government’s policies.Read More
VATICAN CITY – The death of an Italian muscular dystrophy patient who had his respirator disconnected is fueling a complex and significant discussion among top church officials. Piergiorgio Welby, who was paralyzed and kept alive by a breathing machine for nine years, pleaded for months for the device to be turned off. He said medical...Read More
Most of us, as Catholics, believe that in the celebration of the Eucharist, bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. That’s a miracle we can’t understand or explain, but accept as a matter of faith. The far more challenging aspect is to believe that, in receiving this body and blood we become...Read More
ST. LOUIS – The new Campaign to Reduce Poverty in America launched by Catholic Charities USA is getting support from the public policy agency of the Missouri bishops and from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul’s national council. “Any way Catholic Charities and others can bring their direct experience of working with the poor...Read More