Catholic school teachers will be able to take advantage of a college loan forgiveness program after the U.S. Congress passed HR 2669 Sept. 7 – including nonpublic schoolteachers in the program. An earlier Senate version of the bill alarmed many Catholic educators by limiting the benefit to public school teachers.Read More

VATICAN CITY – In the same square where Pope John Paul II was shot by a would-be assassin almost 30 years ago, thousands of people returned to thank God for the gift of his life and for his beatification.Read More

Deacon Earl A. Smith, one of the first African-American deacons ordained to the permanent diaconate in the United States, died Sept. 10. He was 91. A funeral Mass will be offered Sept. 18 at St. Edward in Baltimore – Deacon Smith’s home parish and the faith community where he ministered as a deacon.Read More

WASHINGTON – The current and former attorneys general of neighboring southwestern states used the images on their state quarters as an apt way of describing Utah’s and Arizona’s divergent paths on immigration legislation.Read More

VATICAN CITY – Industrialized nations “must share clean technologies” with developing nations, as well as curb the demand for goods that damage the environment, Pope Benedict XVI said. Countries with emerging economies and undergoing rapid industrialization “are not morally free to repeat the past errors of others by recklessly continuing to damage the environment,” the...Read More

ST. LOUIS – Singing “Alleluia” took on a new meaning on Easter for many parishioners after a tornado on Good Friday leveled homes, tore roofs and walls off others and caused a wide assortment of other property damage.Read More

CAPE TOWN, South Africa – A new spam scam targeting Catholics and church institutions promises recipients that they are among 100 people worldwide chosen at random to receive $650,000 from the Catholic Church in Italy “for your own personal, educational and business development.”Read More

VATICAN CITY – As the countdown continued for the beatification of Pope John Paul II, church and civil authorities put the finishing touches on logistical plans to handle potentially massive crowds at the main events in Rome.Read More