WASHINGTON – Legislation pending in both houses of Congress would repeal the 15-year-old Defense of Marriage Act, allowing legally married same-sex couples to take advantage of the same benefits married heterosexual couples receive under federal law.Read More
Calling the death penalty “an expensive and utterly ineffective tool in deterring violent crime,” Gov. Martin J. O’Malley implored members of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee to allow his proposed capital punishment ban to reach the floor for a vote by the full legislative body.Read More
Conventual Franciscan Father Gregory Hartmayer, principal of Archbishop Curley High School during the mid-1980s, has been named Bishop of the Diocese of Savannah in Georgia.Read More
PORTLAND, Ore. – The Oregon province of the Society of Jesus filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Feb. 17 citing a number of pending lawsuits over clergy sexual abuse claims.Read More
VATICAN CITY – The Vatican reported a budget surplus for the first time in four years in 2010, but said contributions from Catholics and dioceses around the world had gone down.Read More
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Nuclear weapons have “threatened humanity” for far too long and the world’s leaders lack the political will to remove “this scourge,” said the Vatican’s ambassador to the United Nations.Read More
LINZ, Austria – Bishop-designate Gerhard Wagner said he would ask Pope Benedict XVI to withdraw his nomination as auxiliary bishop of Linz “given the fierce criticism” of his appointment.Read More
ROME – When Sudanese Bishop Paride Taban of Torit wanted to help stop traditional cattle raiding by rival groups of young men, he turned to the Catholic peace-building organization IKV Pax Christi from the Netherlands.Read More
VATICAN CITY – Meeting American Jewish leaders who were on their way to Israel, Pope Benedict XVI announced Feb. 12 that he, too, was preparing to visit the Holy Land.Read More
VATICAN CITY – The most amusing headline to greet Cardinal Angelo Scola’s appointment as archbishop of Milan appeared in a British newspaper: “Pro-Vatican cardinal to head Milan church.”Read More
Three Mother Seton School, Emmitsburg, middle school students, Matthew Benjamin, Robin Wivell and Mitchell Swope are among dozens of students selected to participate in the Celebration of the Arts 2009 March 23 at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore. Middle and high school students from the Archdiocese of Baltimore gifted in art, dance, drama and...Read More