WASHINGTON – Five years after the U.S. bishops passed their landmark policies to prevent child sex abuse, they can look back at successes in institutionalizing safeguards and look ahead to challenges in restoring church credibility. But the basic question is: Are children safer now? “Absolutely yes,” answers Patricia O’Donnell Ewers, chairwoman of the National Review...Read More

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – Sister Patrice Floyd remembers actress Farrah Fawcett as “a little first-grader with pigtails” at Christ the King School in Corpus Christ, Fawcett’s hometown.Read More

WASHINGTON – Washington’s sweltering heat did its best to discourage people of faith from gathering at Freedom Plaza to participate in the Interfaith Service of Witness and Prayer for Health Care for All June 24.Read More

SAN FRANCISCO – Describing what he sees as an “electronic tsunami of pornography,” Archbishop George H. Niederauer of San Francisco told a Utah-based anti-pornography organization that pornography “debases the priceless worth and dignity of each human being and (God’s) gift of human sexuality.” While pornography “is not a new challenge,” the archbishop told members of...Read More

VATICAN CITY – Despite claims there are still secrets connected to the apparition of Our Lady of Fatima, Pope Benedict XVI and his secretary of state said the entire message has been published and has been interpreted accurately. The Marian apparitions to three children in Fatima, Portugal, began 90 years ago May 13, and Pope...Read More

There’s a period right before and after July 4 when common sense seems to evade even the most grounded person.Read More

MEXICO CITY – A Mexican priest and two seminarians were shot dead while traveling to a religious retreat, said Archbishop Felipe Aguirre Franco of Acapulco.Read More

VATICAN CITY – Renewing their own spirituality and carefully studying the needs of others, women religious will be able to live the Gospel message and bring hope to the world, Pope Benedict XVI said. The pope, meeting May 7 with almost 800 superiors of women’s congregations, asked the religious to follow the biblical example of...Read More