VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A family that chooses to watch TV or play with their smartphones rather than talk at the dinner table is "hardly a family," Pope Francis said. "When children at the dinner table are glued to the computer, or the telephone and do not listen to one another, they are not a famil...
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Backgrounder. WASHINGTON (CNS) -- When Pope Francis addressed a joint meeting of Congress Sept. 24 and said the death penalty should be abolished, the four Supreme Court justices in attendance did not applaud or even react. Not long after this speech -- where the pope emphasized that every life is...
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Backgrounder. VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Financial wrongdoing at the Vatican, leaked documents and arrests by the Vatican police may make it seem like 2012 all over again, but the situation -- while serious -- is not the breach of papal privacy that the earlier "VatiLeaks" scandal was. Gianluigi Nuzzi,...
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A few weeks back, I responded to a man who wrote that he was bothered when he saw a family deliberately avoid the Communion line of a lay extraordinary minister of holy Communion in order to receive the host instead from a priest. I noted that it's the same Eucharist no matter who distributes it, b...
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The secret to healing wounds among family members is to "not end the day in war" and to forgive one another, Pope Francis said. "One cannot live without forgiving, or at least one cannot live well, especially in the family," the pope said Nov. 4 at his weekly general audience...
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Backgrounder and analysis WASHINGTON (CNS) -- With his election as speaker of the House of Representatives, Rep. Paul Ryan may have taken the most difficult job in American politics. The Wisconsin Republican is faced with keeping his party's conference unified as he takes a position that places him...
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Backgrounder VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Catholic Church has long defended the family as the basic unit of society and as a "school of humanity." The family as a bastion of love and protection in times of war and disaster is a reality, not a pious platitude, said two members of the Synod of Bishops....
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Q. My husband and I live relatively modestly by American standards, are conscious of the amount of resources we use and tithe 10 percent. However, I realize that even doing so we are still living in extreme luxury compared to most people in the world. In the Gospel, Jesus talks of embracing poverty...
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Backgrounder. WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Lawmakers and witnesses in a congressional committee hearing room Oct. 20 were not shown pictures of the vast number of refugees crossing East European borders each day. But there is no shortage of images from daily news reports of the throngs of men, women and ch...
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The world expects all people of religious faith to work with everyone for a better future, Pope Francis told representatives of major religions. "We can walk together taking care of each other and of creation" in joint projects that fight poverty, war and corruption and help...
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