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About eight years ago, when my five children were between the ages of 9 and 18, I had my first opportunity to go with my husband to the Dominican Republic on a medical mission. It was a little scary to leave the children, because we would be incommunicado for a while. We also knew there was some per

Sexual abuse of minors by priests is once again making national headlines. No news story about the church is more shocking and scandalous than a report of children being sexually abused by priests. No victim is more defenseless than a child being preyed upon by an adult, especially an adult in a pos

I’m writing this column smack in the middle of Catholic Schools Week, a bittersweet occasion this year. In parishes like my own, Catholic Schools Week is a cause for celebration and even a little self-congratulation. In other places, however, the week must seem terribly sad indeed. Another rou

The four-decades-old controversy over Pius XII and the Holocaust has always been more political than historical, but never more so than now. The International Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission appointed to review the Vatican-published documents on the wartime pontiff has foundered on politics. B

Every year thousands of cases of anti-Catholicism come to the attention of the Catholic League. Our first job is to determine whether the alleged offense merits our attention. If it does, then we must verify the authenticity of the offense to the best of our ability. If everything checks out, a stra

Many of the Italian political extremists who spread death and terror in the 1970’s and 80’s have been reintegrated into society. Indeed, some relatives of their victims claim that society has shown more concern for the ex-terrorists than for them. Occasional pamphlets and one killing in

Worcester, Mass., my hometown, has once again become the center of bioethical debate. The Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology gave us the oral contraceptive that helped spawn the sexual revolution; now Advanced Cell Technology (ACT), under the leadership of its chief executive, Michael Wes