VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Lent is a time to shed lazy, un-Christian habits and snap out of one's apathy toward people harmed by violence, poverty and not having God in their lives, Pope Francis said. Lent is time to "change course, to recover the ability to respond to the reality of evil that always ch...
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ROME (CNS) -- When accusations of sexual abuse against Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder and then-general director of the Legionaries of Christ, were first published in 1997, Father Eduardo Robles Gil was running one of the congregation's schools in Mexico City. Father Robles Gil did not bel...
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Q. My son's girlfriend of two years has been attending Mass with us on a regular basis. She is now enrolled in weekly instructional classes and is scheduled to be baptized in a few weeks as a Catholic. She had asked a couple who are longtime family friends to be her godparents, but neither one of t...
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- President Barack Obama late last year pledged for the rest of his time in office he would make it a priority to address income inequality. Raising the minimum wage is one step to fixing wage disparities, but only one step. Still, it's the remedy that has been grabbing headlines....
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In late February, for the first time since his election nearly a year earlier, Pope Francis gathered the world's cardinals at Vatican. The principal reason was to add 19 to their number at a ceremony called a consistory, scheduled for Feb. 22 in St. Peter's Basilica. The most...
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"Sisters in Crisis Revisited: From Unraveling to Reform and Renewal" by Ann Carey. Ignatius Press (San Francisco, 2013). 422 pp., $24.95. "Religious Life at the Crossroads: A School for Mystics and Prophets" by Amy Hereford, CSJ. Orbis Books (Maryknoll, N.Y., 2013) 206 pp., $20. "Veiled Desires: In...
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A man kneels in prayer in front of a statue of Mary and a crucifix by a barricade near Independence Square in Kiev, Ukraine, Feb. 21. Scores of protesters were killed and hundreds were wounded by snipers on Kiev's Independence Square and its nearby stree ts, according to medical workers treating th...
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis said the worst thing about growing old is not becoming weaker or infirm, but the "abandonment, the exclusion, the deprivation of love" in today's "throwaway culture." The pope's remarks came in a written message sent to bioethicists, scientists, healthcare profess...
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- After ruling in 2012 that certain aspects of the Affordable Care Act stand up to constitutional scrutiny, the Supreme Court's next dip into legal challenges to the law focuses on whether for-profit secular employers can claim religious rights protections from some provisions. In...
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Going to Mass and receiving the Eucharist should make a difference in the way Catholics live, Pope Francis said; they should be more accepting of others and more aware of their sinfulness. "If we don't feel in need of God's mercy and don't think we are sinners, it's better not...
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