During Lent, individuals 14 and older are required to abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday and all Fridays of Lent including Good Friday, according to Bishop W. Francis Malooly, western vicar and vicar general for the Archdiocese of Baltimore. The regulations for fasting apply to Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. The rule applies to individuals...Read More

VATICAN CITY – Sometimes the need for delicacy in handling politically sensitive situations conflicts with the need of the faithful to have clear guidance. That’s what seems to be going on with the Vatican’s China policy, particularly surrounding the ordination in June of a bishop without papal approval.Read More

BELLEVILLE, Ill. – The bishop of Belleville, under pressure from his diocesan finance council over some expenditures, issued an apology Jan. 22 and said the costs being questioned would be covered by an anonymous donor.Read More

WASHINGTON – The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has informed four Catholic dioceses that it will not renew their contracts to provide foster care and adoption services because there has been “no meeting of the minds” about providing services to same-sex couples.Read More

Braving bone-chilling temperatures, hundreds of Catholics from the Archdiocese of Baltimore were among the tens of thousands of people who converged on the nation’s capital for the 35th-annual March for Life Jan. 22.Read More

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI named an official delegation to represent him at the July 9 independence celebrations in Southern Sudan and charged members with conveying his hopes for “peace and prosperity” to citizens of the world’s newest nation.Read More

KABUL, Afghanistan – Poverty contributes to Afghanistan’s security dilemma and violence, said aid workers.Read More

GLYNDON – Future priests were very much on the minds of worshippers at Sacred Heart, Glyndon, July 1.Read More