WASHINGTON – Two years ago riots erupted in at least 15 developing countries over the rising cost of basic foods. Frustrated that rapidly rising prices were outstripping their ability to buy much-needed food, angry demonstrators torched vehicles and clashed with police in a series of violent confrontations across Africa, Asia, South America and the Caribbean.Read More

Four days after my son-in-law, Rob Susil, re-entered Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he would die of an aggressive sarcoma on Feb. 5, the church marked the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord and read the Gospel of Simeon’s prophecy to Mary – that a “sword will pierce through your own soul” (Lk 2:35).Read More

NEW ORLEANS – New Orleans Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond said the New Orleans Saints’ win in Super Bowl XLIV win was “not just a football victory.”Read More

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – A pregnant Germaine Sylace struggled to get control of the two tarps, a plastic bin of nails and 100 feet of nylon rope. Nothing was going to stop her from making sure her family would be sleeping under something better than a couple of thin bed sheets tied together with string.Read More

WASHINGTON - The United States needs “a long-term coherent strategy for recovery, development and poverty reduction in Haiti,” said the chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace in a Jan. 26 letter to officials in the Obama administration.Read More

Students around the Archdiocese of Baltimore are not only celebrating Catholic Schools’ Week theme of “Dividends for Life,” they are living it when it relates to helping victims of the recent Haiti earthquake.Read More

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI has named a laywoman undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, marking the first time in more than 20 years that a woman has served as undersecretary of a pontifical council.Read More

This past Dec. 28, I was jolted out of my morning fog at 8 a.m. Mass when the deacon offered this petition:Read More