NAZARETH, Israel – Celebrating Mass in Nazareth, the hometown of the Holy Family, Pope Benedict XVI urged the region’s people to keep their family bonds strong and to extend that love and acceptance to others, whether Christian or Muslim.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

JERUSALEM – In a visit to one of Islam’s holiest places, Pope Benedict XVI said Christians, Muslims and Jews have a “grave responsibility” to expand dialogue and mend divisions. “Those who honor the one God believe that he will hold human beings accountable for their actions,” the pope told Muslim leaders May 12 in Jerusalem.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

Surrounded by some young men who were less than half his age, Father Samuel V. Young admitted to nerves as he stood on the putting green of Winters Run Golf Club in Bel Air.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

Move it or lose it. That theme applies to a basketball team from Towson that does get around. Gil Hoffman, Frank Lastner and Paul McGillicuddy have ties to local parishes, but the Archdiocese of Baltimore will be in the figurative rear-view mirror come August, when the men head to California for a national tournament.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