WASHINGTON (CNS) -- President Donald Trump credited attendees at the 47th annual March for Life for their commitment to protect the life of unborn and born children. "Together we are the voice for the voiceless," Trump told tens of thousands of people gathered at a noontime rally Jan. 24 on the National Mall.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Catalina Galinanes, this year's student speaker at the March for Life rally on the National Mall, has been to almost as many marches as Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Taking part in the March for Life is "an authentic act of patriotism," Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, head of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, told 5,000 worshippers Jan. 24 in his homily for the closing Mass of the National Vigil for Life.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Pope Francis "has our backs" in the pro-life cause, Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, said to applause in his Jan. 23 homily at the opening Mass of the National Vigil for Life.
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PHILADELPHIA (CNS) -- Proclaiming his successor as "exactly the man our church needs," Archbishop Charles J. Chaput introduced Bishop Nelson J. Perez, whom Pope Francis named as the next archbishop of Philadelphia, at a Jan. 23 news conference in Philadelphia.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Pro-life supporters are "deeply honored to welcome" President Donald Trump to the 47th annual March for Life Jan. 24 rally in person, said Jeanne Mancini, March for Life president, in a statement late Jan. 22.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia and has appointed Bishop Nelson J. Perez of Cleveland as his successor. Archbishop Chaput, who has headed the Philadelphia Archdiocese since 2011, turned 75 last September, the age at which canon law requires bishops to turn in their resignation to the pope. Archbishop Perez, 58, was installed as the 11th bishop of Cleveland Sept. 5, 2017.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- During oral arguments Jan. 22 about the constitutionality of excluding religious schools from a scholarship aid program, a divided Supreme Court seemed like it might lean toward finding a way to allow religious schools to participate.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Seven in 10 American adults support "significant" restrictions on abortion, according to a new poll released in advance of the annual March for Life. Conducted by the Marist Poll at Marist College under the sponsorship of the Knights of Columbus, the survey of 1,237 adults Jan. 7-12 showed that the respondents would welcome limits on abortions so that it can be performed only during the first three months of pregnancy.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- In marking the "sorrowful anniversary" Jan. 22 of the Supreme Court's ruling legalizing abortion nationwide, the chairman of the U.S. bishops' pro-life committee said the Catholic Church's pastoral response to all mothers in need "will soon intensify."
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The Archdiocese of New York has confirmed it has begun an investigation of an abuse claim against Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn, New York, who was threatened with a lawsuit by an attorney in November, alleging the prelate had abused a child decades ago while serving as a priest in New Jersey.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The chairmen of the U.S. bishops' religious liberty and Catholic education committees Jan. 20 praised the Trump administration for issuing guidance on prayer in public schools. The chairmen also welcome the administration's nine proposed rules to ensure the nation's faith-based service providers and organizations are not discriminated against by federal agencies' regulations or in their grant-making processes because of religion.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The Little Sisters of the Poor are once again going to the Supreme Court. The order of women religious who care for the elderly poor have been down this road before, twice defending their right to not comply with the government's health law requiring employers to provide contraceptive coverage in their health plans.
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MINNEAPOLIS (CNS) -- Catholics may be surprised to learn that many U.S. bishops describe their lives as both all-consuming and satisfying, a priest-researcher said. "These are guys who generally get up very, very early in the morning, pray about two hours every day and work about 10 hours a day," Father Stephen Fichter, a research associate at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate in Washington, which conducted the survey. "(They) just really do some interesting things and there are a lot of difficulties that they're dealing with all the time."
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MENDOTA HEIGHTS, Minn. (CNS) -- Alonna Mertz prayed in front of abortion clinics as a teenager in Michigan, driven by her well-formed, pro-life conviction. Then, in 2017 as a young adult, she went to such a clinic in Minneapolis for a different and unexpected reason: She was pregnant.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Catholics across the country are invited to take part in the 9 Days for Life is a novena for the protection of human life. Each day's intention is accompanied by a short reflection and suggested actions to help build a culture of life.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Strong opinions on both sides of the abortion debate are front and center in the paperwork currently filed with the Supreme Court for its upcoming abortion case. The case challenges a Louisiana law that requires abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. The court also will examine a separate petition by the state that questions if the abortion providers have the legal standing to challenge the state law on behalf of their patients.
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WORCESTER, Mass. (CNS) -- Officials at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester are "stunned and saddened" over the death of sophomore Grace Rett, 20, a star rowing athlete who died from injuries she sustained in a motor vehicle crash early Jan. 15 in Florida during a winter training trip.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- President Donald Trump announced his administration's new guidance on prayer in public schools during a Jan. 16 event in the Oval Office on National Religious Freedom Day. Primarily, it will require states to report cases where public school students have been denied their right to pray.
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LOS ANGELES (CNS) -- "Jeopardy" host Alex Trebek and his wife, Jean, received Fordham University's Founders' Award at a Jan. 7 reception in Los Angeles. According to Tom Stoelker writing in Fordham News, this was the first time the award -- which he described as "weighty statuette" of Fordham founder Archbishop John Hughes -- has been presented outside of New York City.
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PONCE, Puerto Rico (CNS) -- Jose Lebron-Sanabria, a Knight of Columbus and a general insurance agent for the fraternal organization, is coordinating assistance to Puerto Ricans in the aftermath of devastating earthquakes.
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NEW YORK (CNS) -- Gang graffiti ascribed to the notorious MS-13 gang was spotted on both Sacred Heart of Jesus Church and the parish school in the New York city borough of Queens, which is in the Diocese of Brooklyn.
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PORTLAND, Ore. (CNS) -- On a weekday morning in Southeast Portland, high school sophomore Gabriela Flores sits at a desk, picks up a pencil and concentrates on the work before her. Her task is not to find the value of "x" in a trigonometry equation, nail a history quiz or craft an elegant sentence for an English essay. It's to measure, mark and cut fabric for her job at Looptworks, a company that repurposes and "upcycles" materials into handbags, pillows, luggage and other products.
Read moreWASHINGTON (CNS) -- Free religious expression in American higher education is under constant threat from the tyranny of secular progressivism, a leading scholar of religious liberty said Jan. 12. Robert P. George, Princeton University's McCormick professor of jurisprudence and a former chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, spoke at a forum on the religious formation of "America's rising generation" with Orthodox Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, one of his former students. The event was sponsored by the Tikvah Foundation in partnership with the Museum of the Bible.
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PIKESVILLE, Md. (CNS) -- U.S. Sens. Benjamin Cardin and Christopher Van Hollen, both Maryland Democrats, joined Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore and other local faith leaders to call for increased federal funding to strengthen security at religious sites amid a recent rise in anti-Semitic attacks.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The oven timer dings, alerting Capuchin Franciscan Brother Andrew Corriente the chocolate layer cake he is baking needs to be checked. A quick test with a toothpick tells him the cake needs about five more minutes in the oven, more than enough time for him to soften the butter that will eventually become the buttercream icing that will top the confection.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Theodore McCarrick, the former cardinal who was laicized by the Vatican in 2019 after numerous claims of abuse by him were substantiated, moved Jan. 3 from the Capuchin Franciscan friary in Kansas where he had been living since late 2018.
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INDIANAPOLIS (CNS) -- When the Indianapolis chapter of Legatus marked its 30th anniversary, Tom Monaghan, founder of Domino's Pizza and Ave Maria University in Florida, was on hand to help members celebrate.
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Washington D.C. (CNA) -- Christian communities in the Middle East are likely to suffer renewed persecution amid the instability following recent U.S. airstrikes, experts have warned. Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, was killed in a Jan. 3 airstrike at Baghdad International Airport, ordered by President Donald Trump. Also killed in the strike was Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the leader of the Popular Mobilization Forces, an Iraqi militia which has fought against ISIS.
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Washington D.C. (CNA) -- A U.S. drone strike that killed a top Iranian official on Friday has ignited discussion of the Catholic Church's teaching on just war theory. One theologian talked to CNA about the morality of targeting military leaders.
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BANKSTON, Iowa (CNS) -- It wasn't a miracle, but the scene that unfolded on Dan and Judy Gotto's farm in Bankston shortly before Christmas became a beautiful testament to faith. On Dec. 23, 2019, members of the family had carefully laid out many small piles of cattle feed in the shape of a giant cross on one of their fields, attracting 171 hungry cows into planned position. In the distance, the steeple of St. Clement Church in Bankston reached upward toward a clear sky.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The president of the U.S. bishops urged the United States and Iran to "embrace peace rather than violence" in the wake of escalating tensions between the two countries. "May the Lord help all parties in this time of growing belligerence to peer through one another's transgressions and appreciate the legitimate fears that lie behind them," said the Jan. 8 statement from Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles. He was joined in the statement by Bishop David J. Malloy of Rockford, Illinois, chairman of the bishops' Committee on International Justice and Peace.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- CNN reached an undisclosed settlement Jan. 7 with Nick Sandmann, a Kentucky Catholic high school student who sued the cable news outlet for defamation over its coverage of an incident that occurred after last year's March for Life.
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Washington D.C., Jan 6, 2020 CNA.- Planned Parenthood released its latest annual report on Monday, showing a continued increase in the number of abortions performed. The nation’s largest abortion provider released its 2018-19 annual report on Jan. 6, showing significant increases both in the number of abortions performed and in the amount of government funding it receives.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Hours after Iran launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two Iraqi bases, Archbishop Jose H. Gomez, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement calling for urgent prayers "that our world's leaders will pursue dialogue and seek peace."
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- At least one person has died and one Catholic church was destroyed by the latest of a series of earthquakes to rock Puerto Rico. A magnitude 6.4 quake shook people awake at 4:24 a.m. local time Jan. 7, less than 24 hours after a magnitude 5.8 temblor shook the island in the predawn hours of Jan. 6.
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BROOKLYN, N.Y. (CNS) -- Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York and Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn joined about 25,000 New Yorkers who took to the streets for a Jan. 5 "Solidarity March" in protest of anti-Semitism.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The tweet early Jan. 3 from Bishop Richard F. Stika of Knoxville, Tennessee, asked for prayers. It wasn't an unusual request from a church leader. Still, its significance stems from its context and its timing: a few hours after the overnight killing of Iran's top military leader, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad.
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PHOENIX (CNS) -- Alfonso Fraire, a student at Arizona State University, volunteers his time with youth ministry -- and hopes to take back what he's learned at the Student Leadership Summit sponsored by Fellowship of Catholic University Students to the young adult group at his home parish, St. Mary in Chandler.
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MIAMI (CNS) -- After a routine exam 16 years ago, Dr. Shawn Fibkins discovered that he had inherited polycystic kidney disease from his father. "It was devastating for me because now I was in the medical field and I knew what that disease meant for people: trips to the hospital with ruptured brain aneurysms and kidney failure," he said.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Mercy Sister Rosemary Welsh is a nurse and for the past 44 years she has immersed her ministry in the Latino culture. Through the lives of thousands of migrants from Mexico and Central America as well as Texans of Hispanic descent, Sister Welsh has seen in her work in Laredo, Texas, and for a decade in Guatemala, that the needs of poor people remain much the same today as they did in 1976 when she arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border.
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PHOENIX (CNS) -- Young adult Catholics can lead others to God through their actions and daily experiences, a priest of the Diocese of Phoenix told the annual Student Leadership Summit of the Fellowship of Catholic University Students.
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Providence, R.I., Dec 31, 2019 CNA.- The Diocese of Providence has challenged a new Rhode Island law that greatly expands the time window for filing childhood sexual abuse lawsuits. In July, a bill was signed into law by Gov. Gina Raimondo (D) extending the statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse cases from seven to 35 years in Rhode Island. The 35-year window would commence from the victim’s 18th birthday. The law also includes a “seven year discovery” provision allowing victims to file lawsuits up to seven years after they have re-discovered childhood abuse as an adult, such as through therapy sessions.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The March for Life, the annual march in Washington to protest legalized abortion in the United States, is tying itself in 2020 to the women's suffrage movement for the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A host of voices from throughout the religious spectrum condemned the Dec. 28 knife attack at the suburban New York City home of a Hasidic rabbi that wounded five, one of them critically.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Two Texas Catholic bishops offered words of condolence and prayers to the members and families of the victims of a church shooting in which two worshippers were killed. Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller of San Antonio and Bishop Edward J. Burns of Dallas said they prayed that sin and evil would not overtake society.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The chairman of the U.S. bishops' Catholic Education Committee applauded the recent decision by Congress to reauthorize scholarship legislation that includes a federal education voucher for nearly 2,000 students in Washington.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Two popes and multiple priests, cardinals and archbishops received part of $600,000 in financial gifts from former Washington Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, who controlled a discretionary fund, according to a report published Dec. 27 by The Washington Post.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A national newspaper published a document that, it says, is a copy of a report now in the hands of the Vatican, detailing what witnesses say transpired during the tenure of the retired bishop of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, as well as other allegations of sexual misconduct while he was the rector of Washington's Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Members of St. Anne Parish in Cow Island, Louisiana, gave their neighbors a Christmas blessing from the heavens, so to speak. Working with a local crop-dusting service, a young parishioner, 70 other parishioners and their pastor, Father Matthew Barzare, coordinated to have holy water sprayed Dec. 21 over the unincorporated community and nearby farms about 30 miles southeast of Lafayette.
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JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (CNS) -- Mozart proclaims the organ to be the "king of instruments," but it actually works more like a parliament. It reigns when its panoply of voices speaks in harmony and balance, with whispers and crescendos drawing upon the full spectrum of sound and human emotion.
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