Q. I am grateful for your informative comments in a previous column regarding annulments. But they have generated an additional question for which I seem to be getting different answers. If one of the spouses alone, without any additional witnesses, attests that he/she was not committed to the marr...
Read full story »

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Asking for forgiveness, Pope Francis told abuse survivors that "despicable actions" caused by clergy have been hidden for too long and had been "camouflaged with a complicity that cannot be explained." "There is no place in the church's ministry for those who commit these abus...
Read full story »

Q. My fiance and I are planning to get married just three months from now. We were thrilled when our venue recommended a priest as our officiant, as it was very important to my fiance's mother that our marriage be recognized by the church. But a few days ago, his mother Googled that priest's name a...
Read full story »

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Sympathizing with all the unknowns facing young people today, Pope Francis -- half joking -- said it is easier for a pope because he knows where his earthly life will end. "I think the pope's definitive path is more certain. Where will the pope end up? There, in that tomb," in...
Read full story »

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- White House officials, business owners and parents are working together to redesign the workplace to address the needs of 21st-century families. Corporate, political and grass-roots leaders gathered at the first White House Summit on Working Families June 23 in Washington to dis...
Read full story »

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The working document for the October 2014 extraordinary Synod of Bishops offers a picture of the Catholic Church today struggling to preach the Gospel and transmit moral teachings amid a "widespread cultural, social and spiritual crisis" of the family. The 75-page "instrumentu...
Read full story »

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Fifty years ago, when the Civil Rights Act was signed into law July 2 by President Lyndon Johnson, two Louisiana-born men did not feel the earth move, but they knew it was the beginning of a time of change. Norman Francis, president for student affairs at Xavier University in Ne...
Read full story »

Q. The music at our parish's Sunday Masses has become very heavy -- and problematic for many people. We have a very friendly and inspiring priest and a talented music minister. Now, however, we are hiring singers, and there is a lot of chanting. The songs that are accompanied by the organ are also...
Read full story »

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Christians are not made in a laboratory, but in a community called the church, Pope Francis said. At his weekly general audience June 25, Pope Francis continued his series of audience talks about the church, telling an estimated 33,000 people that there is no such thing as "do...
Read full story »

Q. Every summer, my husband and I go on a cruise. Only one cruise line (Holland America) continues to have a priest on board to say Mass. When we travel on other cruise lines, frequently we have missed Sunday Mass because there was no priest on board and we could not get to a Catholic church if we...
Read full story »