News
No more waiting: Black Catholics mark Dr. King holiday with praise, rallying cry for justice
At the 33rd annual prayer service honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Catholics raised the roof of St. Katharine Drexel Church in Chester. Calls for year-round acts of mercy, charity and public protest marked the rousing service.
Area pro-lifers meet to study adoption as loving option
Participants at a pro-life summit gathered for Mass followed by talks on adopting children at birth. One speaker said only 2 percent of children from unplanned pregnancies are adopted; many of the rest are aborted.
Push for legalizing assisted suicide stalls out in New Jersey Senate
At least for the foreseeable future, assisted suicide will remain illegal in New Jersey. The state Senate's legislative session expired at noon Jan. 12, ensuring that a bill that would have legalized the practice would not come to a vote.
PREP religion teachers receive honors at cathedral
Mostly lay volunteers received awards last Sunday marking their anniversaries of teaching in parishes. A pastor and religious sisters were noted for serving the booming PREP classes for 1,500 Hispanic kids in Avondale.
Archbishop Francis Schulte, 89, dies in Darby hospital
The retired head of the Archdiocese of New Orleans and a former auxiliary bishop and priest of the Philadelphia Archdiocese, died Jan. 17 in Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital. He was 89.
Puerto Rico archbishop’s political opinion finds its way to Supreme Court
The gist of a Catholic archbishop's opinion, rendered in a guest commentary in a national magazine back in July, is today the basis of a U.S. Supreme Court case that has drawn local and international attention.
Teach the faith, expose extremism, Vatican official asks Arab leaders
"Extremism, with its violent tendencies, is incompatible with true religious ethics," said Comboni Father Miguel Angel Ayuso Guixot, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.
Church leaders condemn new vandalism at two Christian sites in Jerusalem
Several anti-Christian slogans in Hebrew were discovered scrawled along the walls of the Benedictine Dormition Abbey monastery and the neighboring Greek Orthodox seminary, both located on Mount Zion next to the walls of the Old City.
Abortion number, rate both down, says ‘State of Abortion’ report
The number of abortions, which had peaked at about 1.6 million in 1989, is now down to 1 million, according to federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics quoted in the report, which was issued Jan. 14.
Teaching on theology of the body unifies Christians, American says in U.K.
Christopher West said the lessons of St. John Paul II were providing answers to a growing number of Catholics, Anglicans and other Christians concerned about "gender confusion" in the West.