EDINBURGH, Scotland – Arriving in Scotland on the first leg of a four-day visit to Great Britain, Pope Benedict XVI appealed for preservation of the country’s long Christian tradition and warned against “aggressive” forms of secularism and atheism.Read More

WASHINGTON – Scripture readings were interspersed with testimonies from a U.S. soldier, Iraqis and the mother of a slain National Guard sergeant at a crowded prayer vigil March 16 that kicked off weekend anti-war protests in Washington and around the country. With nearly 3,000 people packed into the Episcopal Church’s National Cathedral and hundreds more...Read More

SAN ANTONIO – The biggest city in the world to be named for St. Anthony of Padua welcomed a relic of the saint to its San Fernando Cathedral for the first time March 3-4. The event marked the close of the jubilee year proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI to mark the 275th anniversary of the...Read More

LONDON – Leaders of a coalition of groups planning to protest publicly against Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Britain have given assurances that they do not intend to disrupt any papal ceremonies during the four-day tour.Read More

WASHINGTON – Five people, including two priests and a sister, have been indicted on federal charges 10 months after an All Souls’ Day demonstration at a U.S. Navy nuclear weapons storage depot in Bangor, Wash.Read More

ROME – Muslims and Catholics in the United States need to develop educational programs that will give all of their faithful an accurate picture of the beliefs of the other, said two clerics experienced in Muslim-Catholic dialogue. Father Francis V. Tiso, associate director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious...Read More

One out of every three people will need blood in his or her lifetime. The United States alone uses 38,000 units of blood each day. Each unit of blood given can help up to three people, and yet less than 5 percent of healthy Americans actually donate blood, reported Dr. Moira Larsen, a pathologist at...Read More

WASHINGTON – The general counsel of the U.S. bishops was one of more than 100 leaders from varying religious organizations asking Congress to turn back legislation that would deny religious charities the right to hire only people of the same faith if those charities receive federal grants.Read More