Under heavy rain Francis spoke from the heart to survivors of Typhoon Haiyan.

Minneapolis on Jan. 16 became the 12th U.S. Catholic diocese to file for bankruptcy protection because of the unmanageable costs of settlements and future claims resulting from sexual abuse by clergy. • The number of people falling victim to the Ebola virus in West Africa—where at least 8

The church is full of sinners. On this much pretty much everyone can agree. If one took the secular media’s typical presentation of the church as truth, one might even think that the church is full of nothing but sinners. Actually, that too is true. What is less apparent is that those in the c

A group of Catholic leaders urged fellow Catholics in Congress to set aside “partisan bickering” and support the U.S. bishops’ efforts on behalf of a comprehensive immigration reform, calling it a sanctity of life issue and an important step in building a culture of life. “Ou

Greg Abbott, the new governor of Texas, is not happy with municipal government. Shortly before taking office, he complained about city restrictions on plastic bags, tree-cutting and fracking. “We’re forming a patchwork quilt of bans and rules and regulations that is eroding the Texas mod

Much as Americans might like to, we cannot kill our way to tranquillity and peace.

Using a phrase long associated with the civil rights movement, Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley. O.F.M.Cap., of Boston told an overflow crowd in Washington, D.C. “We shall overcome” in the fight against abortion. In his homily on Jan. 21 during the opening Mass of the National Prayer Vigi

Families who have many children do not cause poverty, Pope Francis said. The main culprit is “an economic system that has removed the human person from its focus and has placed the god of money” as its priority instead, he said on Jan. 21. On the flight back from Manila to Rome, the pope

I’d been thinking of the veinsOn the back of the hand: A photo I’d seen of a womanClutching her baby in Darfur;An old man, eyes closed,Palming his forehead on the metro;Ignatius in the painting claspingA crucifix to his chest—the veins blue,Raised like mole-runs In soft e

An increasingly influential German cardinal spoke to a packed auditorium at Stanford University on Jan. 15 about the challenge of organizing a free and open society that is linked with the common good. “It is important for the church to be in the great questions of social justice,” said

What we can learn from the complicated legacy and canonization of Junípero Serra

When it comes to women and men in U.S. society, there is no equality yet. But in the United States, the church is ahead of most Fortune 500 companies and even the White House. When you look at the numbers and take ordination—a doctrinal question—off the table, women do better in the chur

On the weekend after President Obama’s historic announcement on Dec. 17 that he wanted to re-establish diplomatic ties with communist Cuba, I visited a park in Miami’s Little Havana section.Cuban exiles were holding a protest against normalizing relations with Havana, which were severed

Underlining the failure of the Nigerian government to stop the violent rampage of Boko Haram, a Catholic bishop has called for Western military intervention. The Muslim militant group’s increasingly deadly assaults and expanded recruitment from countries across North Africa mean “a conce

“Anything can happen in the woods,” sings Prince Charming in the lavish adaptation of the multi-award winning Broadway hit, Into the Woods. Many years ago, the venerable literary scholar Northrop Frye expressed the same opinion about the forest to which the Athenian lovers flee to escape

G K Chesterton once wrote a biography of St Thomas Aquinas Originally published in 1933 it was simply called St Thomas Aquinas ldquo The Dumb Ox rdquo How rsquo s that for a catchy book title Years ago when school was my primary occupation I came across this appellation of the saint and

One of the most delightful forms of satire occurs when theater makes fun of itself. Some of the classics of the type include such hits as “The Royal Family,” Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman’s parody of the Barrymore family, the reigning stars of Broadway at the time; Kaufman and

Pope Francis has decided that the public ceremony of investiture of the Pallium on Metropolitan Archbishops will henceforth take place in the prelates rsquo home dioceses and not in the Vatican as has been the case under recent pontiffs He believes that in this way the ceremony quot will greatly f

Notre Dame professor recalls colleague's progressive principles and generous spirit

Reflecting on online dating and the modern world at The New York Times David Brooks identifies the quot enchantment leap quot When online daters actually meet an entirely different mind-set has to kick in If they rsquo re going to be open to a real relationship they have to stop asking where t