Over at The Huffington Post I ve written an essay about an experience in an anatomy lab a few weeks ago and how seeing so much death gave me pause to think about life This was by far my most vivid experience with death and the fragile human body Never before had I been so close to a dead body un

Today is the feast day of St. Mary Magdalene, one of the most misunderstood of all saints. 

As the drought in East Africa deepens men women and children die from lack of water and food nbsp In Dadaab on the Somali border hundreds of thousands are massing severely testing the resources of international aid agencies nbsp If you want to help CRS is a good place to start nbsp Their

When the new John Jay report came out in May--lauded in some quarters and lambasted in others--I remember thinking I wonder what Mary Gail Frawley-O Dea thinks about it nbsp Frawley-O Dea a psychologist and author nbsp is nbsp one of the country s leading experts on child abuse and was the o

Rumors of a budget deal scattered about Washington today only to be denied by officials from the Obama administration and Speaker of the House John Boehner rsquo s office mdash just the latest development in the high-stakes ldquo don rsquo t call my bluff rdquo poker game that has transfixed the n

After reading a nauseating nbsp article about lavish tree play houses for kids in the New York Times I needed something to bring the world back to sanity although Fr James Martin s picture helped Robert Ellsberg publisher for Orbis Books wrote a fantastic piece on his personal experience with

Stephen Colbert host of the always funny Colbert Report on Comedy Central and one who never shies away from expressing his deep Catholic faith see some clips here contributed to the It Gets Better campaign Colbert who rarely speaks out of character gets serious for a few minutes in this video

The Irish prime minister Enda Kenny yesterday launched a bizarre rambling attack on the Vatican accusing it of attempting to frustrate an enquiry into failures of church leadership over clerical abuse and claiming that the Cloyne Report showed the dysfunction disconnection elitism and narciss

The USCCB is not happy with a new report from the Institute of Medicine Among other new health care services the report Clinical Preventive Services for Women Closing the Gap recommends that the Department of Health and Human Services HHS mandate coverage of surgical sterilization and all F

Over at the National Catholic Reporter John Allen has published a lengthy and comprehensive interview with the newly appointed Archbishop of Philadelphia Charles Chaput O F M Cap The two men had a very candid conversation and according to Allen the archbishop put no limits on the topics to be

Over the past few decades dioceses throughout the United States have been faced with tough decisions surrounding church closures The factors behind such closures are often quite complex In some instances changing demographics have seen Catholics move from the inner-city to the suburbs Even wher

Besides being our talented online editor Maurice Timothy Reidy is also an experienced professional journalist a graduate nbsp of Columbia University s School of Journalism affectionately called the J School who worked for a time at the Hartford Courant in Connecticut as well as for that other

A two-day conference organized by the Archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster ended yesterday with the two leaders pledging to step up support for the beleagured Christians of the Holy Land through pilgrimages and lobbying to lift draconian Israeli restrictions As one who has long yearned for the

While in New York City last weekend it was hard not to notice the strategic marketing campaign by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the Mormons across the city The ads coincide with the intense publicity the church is receiving because of The Book of Mormon currently the number on

nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp Any document after all is only just a document Words are less powerful than actual deeds or conduct Still some documents represent important catalysts for possible action On June 28 in Bangkok The World Council of Churches The Pontifical Council for Interreligious D

The next Archbishop of Philadelphia according to John Allen is the current Archbishop of Denver CO Charles Chaput The following is from Archbishop Chaput s official website nbsp There s more elsewhere obviously nbsp Archbishop Charles J Chaput was born September 26 1944 in Concordia

A new CARA study reveals that the total weekly offerings at parishes have risen 14 percent over the past 5 years This seems at first like a good thing But additional statistics from the report titled The Changing Face of U S Catholic Parishes reveal a more complicated picture of the state of th

USA Today s Mark Pinsky has a column today dedicated to Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino the current Archbishop of Havana nbsp Though there s no shortage of cardinalatial news today Pinsky s piece caught my eye because it suggests that the 74-year-old prelate might himself have a new post

In an article on thanksgiving the Australian Jesuit poet Peter Steele reminisces about how he discovered the American writer SJ Perelman While on holiday as a boy he picked up a copy of Perelman rsquo s Acres and Pains at a kerbside shop in Western Australia He describes the reading of it as thoug

From Envio magazine via Mirada Global In the morning of the 15th of May 1984 young Carlos Cuevas Molina was riding his motorbike to the historical center of Guatemala City when he was intercepted by two cars driving against the traffic Witnesses who recorded the license plates numbers saw how his