VATICAN CITY – Pope John XXIII used to duck out incognito and visit surrounding towns. Pope John Paul II played hide-and-seek with employees’ children. And Pope Benedict XVI fills the evening air with notes from his piano.Read More

The recent article, “Christian leaders call for change in Iraq war policies,” (CR, March 1) urging Maryland Christians to “travel to Washington March 16 and surround the White House” to protest Bush’s “immoral Iraq war policies” is amazingly ill-informed and politically charged.Read More

DENVER – It was a rocky start to the Democratic National Convention’s first “Faith in Action” interfaith gathering at the Colorado Convention Center’s Wells Fargo Theater Aug. 24.Read More

UNITED NATIONS – While lauding the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women for adopting resolutions on ending female genital mutilation and addressing forced and early marriage, its work is not complete until it also addresses “the important issues of prenatal sex selection, infanticide and son preference,” said Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Vatican’s permanent observer...Read More

SAN FRANCISCO – When Monsignor John Brenkle heard of the labor-management trouble brewing at Catholic-run Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, he knew he had a touchy problem on his hands.Read More

According to Katie McGuire, marketing and communications manager for the Greater Chesapeake and Potomac blood services region of the American Red Cross, giving blood is quick and simple. The 1995 graduate of The John Carroll School, Bel Air, said the actual process of giving blood lasts about 10 minutes, while the entire process takes just...Read More

The longest of the 150 Psalms in the Bible is Psalm 119. It is in praise of God’s law. Virtually every other verse mentions the law or its equivalent: covenant, precept, statute, decree, ordinance and commandment. The Jewish believer saw the law, known as Mosaic law since Christian and Hebrew tradition ascribe it to Moses,...Read More

BUCHAREST, Romania – Historians and communist-era diplomats have cast doubts on a former Romanian general’s claim that he helped with a KGB plot to portray Pope Pius XII as a Nazi sympathizer in order to weaken the Catholic Church. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, a Romanian intelligence chief under dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, said that between 1960...Read More