As 39 The Colbert Report 39 comes to an close its final episode airs tonight Thursday December 18 America talks with our own Fr James Martin S J dubbed nbsp quot The Colbert Report 39 s Chaplain quot about the good humor and effective evangelization of our nation 39 s favorite fake

What about the appeal of fresh faces and new ideas? Nah.

Answer may lie in the fact that she opted for a “sister-to-sister” dialogue.

As much as we might hope that show business is a show—that is art—it’s also a business.

The following note has just been issued by the Vatican rsquo s Secretariat of State communicating Pope Francis rsquo congratulations to US President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro for the historic decision by both Governments to establish diplomatic relations and with the aim of overc

American Alan Gross has been released in an apparent exchange with Cuba that has allowed the United States to proceed with a historic normalization of relations with Cuba after decades of hostility suspicion and economic embargo that has previously been lamented by Vatican officials as unproductive

Catholics have never held the kind of political capital in the U.S. that they hold now.

More than 85,000 people still live in dozens of tent camps in expansive earthquake zone.

A roundup of America's reporting and reactions

The agreement reached at the end of the most recent round of international negotiations for a new climate-change treaty fails to protect the poorest and most vulnerable countries, Catholic observers said.The accord fell far short of a call from Catholic bishops from around the world to take strong m

Taliban attack has left at least 126 children and others dead and 250 injured.

The Apostolic Visitation Final Report has been awaited variously with expectation fear or indifference by both American women religious and the larger church In our currently polarized ideological climate some looked forward to a document that would expose the sisters rsquo waywardness and de

Archbishop: Darkness of siege cannot overcome Christ's light

The apostolic visitation of U.S. communities of religious women, though initially met with some resistance, ended up promoting a greater sense of unity in the church and helped the women become more aware of how God is working in their lives, said the prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Co

Sister Mary Ann Zollmann former president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious nbsp awoke at four this morning to watch on cable the announcement of the Vatican 39 s long-awaited report stemming from the six-year apostolic visitation Zollmann says she was heartened first of all by the

The recently released Apostolic Visitation Final Report acknowledges the challenges of contemporary vocation promotion for women religious This was also confirmed in the now landmark 2009 ldquo Study on Recent Vocations to Religious Life rdquo commissioned by the National Religious Vocation Conf

Calls for dialogue and an increase in decision-making roles for women in the church welcome

A massive, detailed Vatican-ordered investigation of U.S. communities of women religious ended with a call to the women themselves to continue discerning how best to live the Gospel in fidelity to their orders' founding ideals while facing steeply declining numbers and a rapidly aging membership