VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A cookbook featuring favorite dishes of the three most-recent popes and their elite military corps will be available this summer in English. "Buon Appetito, Swiss Guard" was written by 24-year-old David Geisser, who had worked as a chef and published two popular cookbooks in h...
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Amid frequent reports of brutal killings and attacks by Islamic State militants, the director of an Islamic group in the United States strongly believes that people of faith must "collectively denounce" these actions of "stark evil" and "cruel barbarism." "We have to be clear in...
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  WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Is cleanliness next to Godliness? Not if you look at legislation in Congress. There, cleanliness is next to impossible. If a bill were to be voted on by both chambers without riders and amendments tacked onto it, then that would be the miracle. The latest congressional ti...
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  Q. I am currently incarcerated in federal prison. My question may seem strange, but I am wondering whether it would ever be possible for an ex-convict, a felon, to be accepted into holy orders. When I was a child, I was never baptized or brought up in any particular religion, but I had a str...
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Liberty and equality are not enough for the well-being of a nation, there must also be a strong sense of brotherhood that is first developed and nurtured in the family, Pope Francis said. Without seeing each other as brothers and sisters, a nation's citizens may distort these...
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Q. Recent polls indicate that some 70 percent of Catholics in the United States (and 66 percent in Ireland) do not believe in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, but rather a symbolic presence. I happen to be one of them. I am Jesuit-educated, and I have written to my pastor with my questi...
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The economy is a human creation, not a god, so humans have the responsibility to manage the economy in a way that benefits the most people, said Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, president of Caritas Internationalis. "The economy is not a god. We have to have the co...
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- You've seen the ads that boast of zero percent interest on new-car loans? Well, how would you like to pay back a loan that has 400 percent interest? That's what's happening today in the payday lending industry. The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is expected to issu...
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Q. I must confess first to a bias, because John the Evangelist is my baptismal patron saint, but I have always wondered why -- in the A, B and C cycles of scriptural readings for Sunday Mass -- the rotation includes only the Gospels written by Matthew, Mark and Luke. (Milwaukee) A. Prior to the Sec...
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Assisted suicide is legal in only four states currently, but several other jurisdictions are considering passing legislation to legalize the practice. If there is a saving grace, it is that no federal legislation to enshrine physician-assisted suicide in law is planned. Actually...
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