Two very different days converge this year when Ash Wednesday falls on Valentine’s Day. The day of romance meeting up with the day of fasting starting the season of Lent is a rare thing. Researchers point out this has happened a few times in the 1900s: 1923, 1934, and 1945, and in this century, researchers at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate said this overlap also happened in 2018 and will occur again in 2029 but that’s it for this century.
In the ongoing cold and flu season, Catholics have an option beyond typical over-the-counter medicines for throat ailments with a special blessing of throats given at many parishes on or near Feb. 3, the feast of St. Blaise.
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ruled Jan. 29 that a lower court needs to review its decision two years ago over a challenge to a decades-old state law that prevents Medicaid from covering the cost of most abortions.
The Supreme Court said it will hear arguments on March 26 about how patients can access the commonly used abortion pill, mifepristone.
Decades ago, high schools offered a range of practical classes — home economics, wood shop, and auto repair — amid their academic lineup for interested students. Most schools eventually dropped these classes because of lack of funding, but a version of them has returned with renewed vigor in public schools and some Catholic schools across the country.
A small religious community dedicated to the Traditional Latin Mass in the Diocese of Covington, Kentucky, that once had aspirations of becoming a religious institute, now finds itself in limbo after its two priests were barred from public ministry.
Catholic leaders spoke out against Alabama’s Jan. 25 execution of death row inmate Kenneth Smith by nitrogen gas, which was the first time this method was used in the United States.
The Supreme Court Jan. 24 rejected an appeal by death-row inmate Kenneth Smith, whose planned execution by the state of Alabama — the first known execution by nitrogen gas — was openly decried by more than 100 Alabama faith leaders just days earlier.
A new survey has found that about 70% of American adults who describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated, the so-called “nones,” nevertheless believe in God or a higher power, and almost half of them (48%) describe themselves as spiritual.
The Supreme Court Jan. 22 agreed to hear an appeal from Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip, who has long maintained his innocence. Glossip is backed by the state’s attorney general who has said he should not be executed because of errors made that prevented him from getting a fair trial.
