WASHINGTON – “Hope and Respect for Life” is the theme for the 2008-09 Respect Life program, centered around Pope Benedict XVI’s message during his celebrated visit to the United States in April.Read More

VATICAN CITY – A group of diplomats from predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe will meet with top Vatican officials during an intensive three-week course on the Catholic Church. The aim of the May 7-27 course is to help Muslim governments understand how the Vatican works, especially in diplomacy, and...Read More

MILWAUKEE – Don’t let their veils and name – Sisters of Charity of St. Joan Antida – deceive you. Members of the Milwaukee order aren’t just brides of Christ. They’re biker girls.Read More

DALLAS – Bishop Kevin J. Farrell was installed May 1 as the seventh bishop of the Diocese of Dallas during a Mass at the Cathedral Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe attended by an overflow crowd of more than 2,000 people. The two-hour Mass was concelebrated by archbishops, bishops and priests from Texas and from...Read More

Last week’s column waded into the controversial territory of contraception, the Church’s firm, steady and – I would claim – infallible teaching on the openness to every marital act to both the unitive and procreative meaning that God wills for marital love. The occasion was the recent 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s landmark encyclical,...Read More

NANJING, China (CNS) -- About two dozen students clad in red sweat suits danced around the small room, twirling brightly colored fans in rhythm with the music. The students ranged in age from 13 to 43, but their mental capacity did not surpass age 12. Thirty-two students attend the Ark-Nanjing Special Education Center, run by...Read More

NEW ORLEANS – Though it appeared Sept. 2 that the Archdiocese of New Orleans sustained minimal damage to its buildings and operations from Hurricane Gustav, New Orleans Archbishop Alfred C. Hughes feared the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux was battered the hardest of Louisiana’s seven dioceses during the Labor Day-weekend storm.Read More

As the 125 high school girls from the Institute of Notre Dame, Baltimore, recently toured the newly restored Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, they entered a room that features exhibits reflecting the history of Catholicism in the United States. The room in the co-cathedral’s undercroft is designated...Read More