When he was a child, Bassem Hazboun loved helping his mother prepare French delicacies in their Bethlehem, West Bank, kitchen. Today Chef Hazboun, 39, is the head of the culinary arts program at Dar al-Kalima University’s College of Arts and Culture in Bethlehem, which helps youth in the Holy Land hone skills in arts and culture.
Melva Arbelo, director of the Santa Teresita of the Child Jesus Children’s Home in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, has been named the winner of the 2016-17 Lumen Christi Award given annually since 1978 by Catholic Extension. She will accept her award during an Oct. 19 Mass in Arecibo.
Pope Francis and the Vatican are concerned about continuing tensions on the Korean peninsula “on account of the nuclear tests carried out by North Korea,” the Vatican spokesman confirmed.
Don’t respond to grief or anguish with pills, alcohol or avoidance – figure out what is going on inside your heart, then turn to God and beg him for help, Pope Francis said Sept. 27 during an early morning Mass in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae.
In a change to Church law, Latin-rite Catholic deacons may not preside at a wedding when one or both of the new spouses are members of an Eastern Catholic church.
The sacredness of human life is so absolute that performing or helping procure an abortion or attempting suicide is an obstacle to ordination as a Catholic priest, even if the man was not Catholic at the time the events occurred, said a new Vatican ruling.
Two priests were kidnapped and killed in the Mexican state of Veracruz, raising the death toll of prelates murdered in Mexico to 14 in less than four years.
Pope Francis and members of the international Council of Cardinals advising him on church governance once again discussed ways to improve the process of identifying the best priests to become bishops.
A six-month search for a new president and CEO for one of the largest humanitarian relief agencies in the world ended at its doorstep, with Catholic Relief Services announcing Sept. 16 that it is hiring a veteran employee – Sean Callahan, as its new president and CEO.
“We never tire of repeating that the name of God cannot be used to justify violence. Peace alone, and not war, is holy!” the pope said Sept. 20 at the closing ceremony of an interreligious peace gathering in Assisi to mark the 30th anniversary of St. John Paul II’s Assisi interfaith peace gathering in 1986.
