WASHINGTON (CNS) – Among the U.S. leaders speaking out for action to track down and return 276 kidnapped schoolgirls in Nigeria are the chairman of a Catholic bishops’ committee, the director of the Africa Faith and Justice Network and first lady Michelle Obama. Bishop Richard E. Pates of Des Moines, Iowa, and Dominican Father Aniedi […]
Pope Francis recently reappointed Brooklyn priest Father James Massa to another five-year term as one of 50 advisors to the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.
WASHINGTON (CNS) – Kathy DiFiore has spent more than half of her life as the “shelter lady,” taking vacant convents and other buildings in New Jersey and turning them into shelters for unwed pregnant women. The work of DiFiore, now 67, was made into a feature film, “Gimme Shelter.”
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Appearing before a U.N. committee monitoring adherence to an international treaty designed to fight torture, Vatican officials repeatedly were asked about efforts to investigate allegations of clerical sexual abuse, punish offenders and cooperate in prosecuting perpetrators.
ROME (CNS) – Catholic politicians and judges who support laws in conflict with Church teaching on abortion, euthanasia, marriage and related issues commit “sacrilege” and cause “grave scandal” if they receive Communion, said the U.S. cardinal who heads the Vatican’s highest court.
Syrian Catholics have a part to play in re-establishing peace in their homeland, despite the fact that they are a minority. But before any serious attempt is made, foreign troublemakers, who include terrorists and bandits, must leave the country.
That’s the opinion of Patriarch Gregorios III, the Melkite Patriarch of Syria and Lebanon.
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Using what he acknowledged was unusually “blunt” language, the head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office rebuked officers of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious for honoring a Catholic theologian whose work was judged “seriously inadequate” and for promoting futuristic ideas he described as “opposed to Christian revelation.”
WASHINGTON (CNS) – The Supreme Court ruled this week that prayers said before town council meetings in Greece, N.Y., do not violate the Constitution. In their 5-4 decision, the judges noted a historical precedent to opening local legislative meetings with a prayer were not coercive to those in attendance.
Among the millions of people around the world who watched the canonization of two popes last Sunday was Father Thomas Forrest, C.Ss.R., a missionary priest from Brooklyn who knew Pope St. John Paul II personally.
PHILADELPHIA (CNS) – Hanging on the wall in her office is a painting of horses standing in a field with overcast skies and a vast, fallen tree, struck down by lightning in a ferocious storm.
