Professional football must take an uncompromising stand against violence toward women.

As the fathers of the Second Vatican Council debated the chapter on marriage and the family for the constitution on “The Church in the Modern World,” one married couple listened in. José and Luz María Icaza, leaders of the Latin American branch of the Christian Family Movement, were am

"If you are distracted by a little kid being a little kid you are not focused on what’s holy. Little kids are holy. Let it be."

It is no small challenge to speak about “the family in America” given family diversity in this country. It is possible, however, to speak generally about the forces acting on families, and some of their effects within households, in light of the coming deliberations at the Synod of Bisho

“They claim to know on their own what truth is, but Catholic doctrine is not a closed system, but a living tradition that develops,” Cardinal Walter Kasper of Germany told the Italian daily Il Mattino on Sept. 18. Cardinal Kasper was responding to a new book featuring contributions by fi

It may take a dramatic divine gesture to get the world to act on climate change.

Describing himself as “beyond surprised” by his appointment to the Archdiocese of Chicago, Spokane Bishop Blase Cupich pledged to work with people of faith to “serve the common good” and continue efforts to promote healing in a church community wounded by the sex abuse crisis

Supporters of Scottish independence did not see the result they were hoping for, but it is fair to say that democracy won in a national referendum that included 85 percent of Scotland’s eligible voters. At 8:06 am on Friday morning, Sept. 19, “No” crossed the line. The result, 55 t

Lawsuit in Baton Rouge, La., challenges the confidentiality of confessional seal.

Contraception and the possibility of readmitting divorced and remarried Catholics to the sacraments have captivated the imagination of many Catholics. Many of them hope that when the bishops of the world meet this October fot the Synod on the Family, they will focus on these issues.These are undoubt

For the first time since the Great Recession threw the United States and then the world into an economic tailspin, the U.S. Census Bureau reports that the U.S. poverty rate experienced a year-over-year decline, falling from 15 percent in 2012 to 14.5 percent in 2013. The last time the rate declined

Seeing Rome, our faith and a disembodied arm through eyes of two young nephews.

In the late 1950s, Broadway and Off Broadway theater had become a bit grim. The major hits of the era presented a rather pessimistic view of life, especially of the family: the home as prison (“A Raisin in the Sun,” “The Miracle Worker”), monster parents (“Gypsy”)

The deaths of up to 500 mostly Palestinian and Syrian migrants and refugees could be an act of mass murder, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, said on Sept. 19. Hundreds of migrant workers and refugees from Gaza and Syrian conflicts were aboard a boat that left

‘Be careful, Mom, I don’t want you to fall,” my son Joseph said to me as he reached out to take my hand on an uneven Cape Cod shoreline. This might not be an unusual thing to say if Joseph were an adult and I were retired, but Joseph has just started kindergarten, and my retirement

According to a Vatican statement released on Sept. 20, Pope Francis has created a “special commission for the study of reform of the canonical matrimonial process” that will seek to simplify the procedure, “making it more streamlined, and safeguarding the principle of the indi

Augustine’s vision of life before the Fall looks a lot like world in which 'The Giver' opens.

False Mercy“The Message of Mercy” (9/15) brought out the nature of mercy very beautifully, but Cardinal Walter Kasper lost me at the conclusion. The church already tolerates “brother and sister” arrangements for the sake of re-admittance to the sacraments and allows the conti

Editor’s Note. “Families,” Pope Francis noted in a homily on Sept. 14, “are the first place in which we are formed as persons and, at the same time, the ‘bricks’ for the building up of society.” In preparation for the launch of the Synod of Bishops on the Fa

Recent appointments make clear that the safeguarding of children and minors is a top priority of Francis' pontificate.