Did you have a chance to listen to Fr Jim Martin s appearance on NPR s The Dianne Rehm Show where he joined Episcopal priest Fr Alberto Cutie to discuss celibacy and the priestly life Cutie is promoting his new book Dilemma parts of which read as a polemic against celibacy and speak of the na

Every year on the feast of St Agnes Jan 21 the pope blesses two lambs The wool from these lambs is then used to create a pallium for each new archbishop But what do those lambs do while waiting for their papal audience CNS has the story Raised by Trappist monks on the outskirts of Rome th

The news has broken today that the sole US manufacturer of a key drug used in lethal injections will cease production because authorities in Italy where the drug was to be made wanted a guarantee that it wouldn t be used to put inmates to death Hospira Inc of Lake Forest Ill had decided to swi

Today is the Memorial of St Agnes Virgin and Martyr whose life ended when she was just a girl 12-13 though in her own day she would have been considered a girl on the cusp of adulthood It was this precise fact that lead to her martyrdom and though many of the details of her life are shrouded

There are as many paths to God as there are individuals This series on Huffington Post looks at six of the most well-traveled paths for contemporary believers Part 1 The Path of Belief can be nbsp found here nbsp The Path of Independence is one of the most commonly traveled paths today for s

One of the more underreported nbsp aspect of the introduction of the new Mass translations aka the new Roman Missal to be rolled out in Advent this year is the requirement for new musical settings for the various Mass parts nbsp I e new translations mean that some of those old familiar tu

Civility is not a sign of weakness fifty years ago today

Several years ago I discovered a treasure in a used book store Spiritual Exercises by Karl Rahner S J NY Herder and Herder 1965 This was not written like an ordinary book as Father Rahner never intended it to be one Each year Rahner gave eight-day retreats based on the Spiritual Exercises

When Christina Green the youngest casualty of the Tucson shootings was burried last week her body was laid to rest in a casket donated by Trappist monks of the New Mellaray Abbey in Iowa David Gibson summarized the story over at Politics Daily Many religious communities of monks and nuns have a

Reading Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams indictment of abortion provider Kermit Gosnell is hard traveling and the 260-page grand jury report is worse The grisly details of this doctor s practice is something out of a Grade B horror film Gosnell is accused of causing the death of one

A Catholic diocese in the United States is offering a twelve-step program for men struggling with same-sex attraction From The Colorado Springs Gazette The Catholic Diocese of Colorado Springs is borrowing a page from Alcoholics Anonymous by launching a 12-step program that offers pastoral

The Eternal Word Television Network announced today that it has signed a letter of intent to acquire the National Catholic Register from the paper s current owners the Legionaries of Christ The deal is expected to be finalized by the end of this month An article on EWTN s Web site states that

This week many of us go back to school as teachers or students we teach or take courses where the subject matter is more or less specialized within a discipline In the field of psychology one will find a wide range of topics in Introduction to Psychology but after that the courses will become sp

America s editorial this week calls Pope Benedict s 2011 statement on religious liberty the most extensive official treatment of the subject since Vatican II You can read our editorial here and a followup report on the pope s response to anti-Christian violence in Egypt and Iraq in this week s

America s editorial this week calls Pope Benedict s 2011 statement on religious liberty the most extensive official treatment of the subject since Vatican II You can read our editorial here and a followup report on the pope s response to anti-Christian violence in Egypt and Iraq in this week s S

An elderly Jesuit long experienced in interfaith dialogue once told me ruefully These days it s easier to talk nbsp with people of nbsp other faiths than it is to talk with other Christians nbsp Strangely some interpret the call to charity and civility in the nbsp Christian and Catholic nb

The AP reports DUBLIN ndash A 1997 letter from the Vatican warned Ireland s Catholic bishops not to report all suspected child-abuse cases to police mdash a disclosure that victims groups described as the smoking gun needed to show that the church enforced a worldwide culture of covering u

In his speech after the tragic shooting of 19 people in Tucson President Obama brought great consolation to the American people He explained his presence in humble terms ldquo as an American rdquo come to mourn with all those present But he played another very significant role however The p

The cover of this week s Economist above says it well This is America s image today a culture wherein the solution to any problem from an imagined insult to a paranoid fear of big government is resolved at gun point nbsp Blame movies and TV crime shows where the heroes and bad guys all tote

Why should a biblical scholar take note of canon law We might equally ask why should the blogging son of a canon lawyer suddenly push onto the front stage an article written by his father almost six years ago Why now Thomas Peters who calls himself ldquo American Papist rdquo published a few