American Catholics of a certain age can remember The Baltimore Catechism—a concise, systematic presentation of the faith in questions and answers, which was published in carefully grade-specific editions for parochial schoolchildren. In the postconciliar years, […]
Pope Benedict began this year by presciently devoting his first two major addresses of 2011 to appealing for greater religious freedom around the world. Popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa soon followed, […]
On March 2, Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s federal minister for minorities and the nation’s most prominent Catholic layman, walked out of his mother’s home in Islamabad and entered the rear seat of his black Toyota Corolla. […]
Kisumu, Kenya – “The Catholic Church is the apostolic church, the first religion of Christianity. And Catholics, they are very good men—I like them, you see.” I sense there is a “but” coming, as John […]
In 1981, the Holy See launched an apostolic visitation of American seminaries and named the late Bishop John Marshall of Burlington (Vermont) as apostolic visitator. Two decades later, the Holy See found need to intervene […]
In 1987, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, under the leadership of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, published Donum Vitae, an instruction on respect for human life in its origin and on the dignity of […]
In March, Tony Blair gave an interview to Attitude, the United Kingdom’s leading magazine for gay men. The interviewer, Johann Hari, challenged the former prime minister, a recent convert to Catholicism, over the Church’s teaching […]
Taking on the job of leading the Catholic community of England and Wales at this period of history is something to be accepted with a degree of trepidation. Archbishop Vincent Nichols hit the right note […]
Since the founding of the Communist People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, Catholics there have suffered horrifying persecution. Article 88 of the first constitution of the PRC, enacted on September 20, 1952, acknowledged the […]
Connecticut’s Catholics and their clerical leaders are still reeling from a whirlwind week that began on March 5 when State Senator Andrew J. McDonald and State Rep. Michael Lawlor, both Democrats, introduced Bill 1098, called […]
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