MAALOULA, Syria – Aramaic, the language of Jesus that flourished in villages thousands of years ago, is being kept alive in the Syrian desert, about an hour’s drive from Damascus.Read More

Loyola College in Maryland senior Matt Greer was relieved when he learned the school scheduled a special 4 p.m. Mass on Super Bowl Sunday because he would probably have had to skip his weekly spiritual ritual to watch the big game with his buddies. “I usually attend the 9 p.m. Mass,” said the 21-year-old student...Read More

ASUNCION, Paraguay – The Vatican has laicized a bishop elected Paraguayan president, allowing him to take office in August without violating church law, said the papal nuncio to Paraguay.Read More

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI urged young people to express love in unselfish ways, looking past social goals of competition and productivity in order to become “witnesses of charity” in the world. He held out Blessed Teresa of Calcutta as an example of a Christian who translated love into concrete action to help the...Read More

CHERRY HILL, N.J. – Bishop Joseph A. Galante challenged leaders of Catholic pro-life, family life and social justice offices around the country to “tear down our cubicles” and “give up our turf” in order to model collaboration for the rest of the church.Read More

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican turned down a laicization request from a Paraguayan bishop who wants to run for president and suspended the bishop from exercising his priestly ministry. Bishop Fernando Lugo Mendez of San Pedro, Paraguay, 57, had announced Dec. 25 that he would ask the Vatican to return him to the status of...Read More

WARSAW, Poland – Many Eastern European church officials said they lack procedures for handling claims of clergy collaborating with communist secret police nearly 20 year after the collapse of communism. Father Laszlo Nemeth, secretary-general of the Hungarian bishops’ conference, told Catholic News Service that although Hungarian bishops had debated the issue in the early 1990s...Read More

An international delegation of more than 20 young people “infected or affected” by HIV met at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore Sept. 16 to exchange ideas on preventing and managing HIV in young people throughout the world.Read More