Standing next to toppled plastic figures of St. Joseph, the Blessed Virgin Mary and assorted sheep, Loretta Hoffman shook her head sadly and pointed to an empty manger flipped on its side by vandals. “That’s where the baby Jesus was,” she said, noting that her husband, Gil, had secured the figure with wires to prevent...Read More

WILMINGTON, Del. – Bishop Michael A. Saltarelli, the New Jersey-born priest who guided the people of the Diocese of Wilmington through 12 years of significant growth and unprecedented challenges, died early Oct. 8 in Christiana Hospital, where he had been staying since undergoing colon surgery Sept. 29.Read More

Harold A. “Hal” Smith, the former executive director of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, was given the Bishop Joseph M. Sullivan Award by Catholic Charities USA Sept. 26.Read More

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A new Vatican calendar features photos of Pope Benedict XVI relaxing, but the pope's own agenda for 2007 leaves little time for repose. The Vatican will be a busy place throughout the year, with hundreds of papal meetings, liturgies and other events already scheduled and several documents in the pipeline. The...Read More

A Polish archbishop told a group of nuns to leave their convent after the Vatican expelled them from their order for refusing to accept a new mother superior. "There are no private religious orders in the Catholic Church where everyone can set their own rules," Archbishop Jozef Zycinski of Lublin told Poland's Catholic information agency,...Read More

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican’s chief representative to the United Nations said giving foreign development aid only if a country adopts family planning programs that promote artificial birth control is “an abuse of power.”Read More

David Cramer (CR, Sept. 10) took issue with the suggestion that health care Reform might be compromised just because of the abortion issue. He felt it was a “justice” issue. I can’t agree more. Right now there is no justice for pre-born children, and until the Catholic hierarchy, pastors and voters insist on giving this...Read More

ARLINGTON, Va. (CNS) -- The "evil of pornography" has spread like a plague throughout the culture thanks to mainstream entertainment and threatens the fabric of society far beyond the boundaries of church and school, said Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde in a new pastoral letter.Read More