TOULOUSE, France – With sore feet and stiff shoulders, Dominic Jacques entered Toulouse’s St. Sernin Basilica like so many before him: wearing a heavy pack on his back, a white scallop shell on his side, and a look of wonder on his face.Read More

VATICAN CITY – Although the Global Positioning System has made meridians obsolete in mapmaking, a group of geographers used the GPS to mark the exact spot where the old prime meridian of Italy passed through the Vatican. Standing at the end of a technologically guaranteed straight line of flower pots, the geographers and Vatican officials...Read More

ROME – Pope Benedict XVI urged Catholics to rediscover the traditional “penitential weapons” of prayer, fasting and works of charity in order to make Lent a time of inner renewal. He made the comments during an Ash Wednesday Mass Feb. 21 at the Basilica of Santa Sabina in central Rome. The liturgy began with a...Read More

LONDON – The British government has announced proposals to “hard-wire” abortion and contraceptive services into its overseas development programs.Read More

ROME – Pope Benedict XVI has given his new papal delegate broad powers of authority over the Legionaries of Christ as part of a major Vatican-led reform of the order.Read More

When Speaker Nancy Pelosi proclaimed last month that this would be a Congress that remembers the children, I couldn’t help but think that this smart, savvy grandmother of 6, who now wields the most powerful gavel in the world, was forgetting someone – millions of unborn children.Read More

With a consistent congregation of more than 100 each week, a two-month pilot program offering a weekly Spanish Mass at St. Michael the Archangel, Overlea has become a permanent fixture on the parish’s schedule.Read More

With a shortage of priests and a declining population base, five Cumberland-area parishes have reduced their Mass schedules and are making plans to work more collaboratively.Read More