News
Pope ends Marian month meeting children with cancer, praying rosary
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- "Children are the ones Jesus loves most," Pope Francis told a group of young cancer patients and their parents at the Vatican May 31. The pope had invited the 22 children, who are being treated at the pediatric oncology ward of Rome's Gemelli Hospital, after they went on a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France and sent Pope Francis drawings of the shrine's famous grotto because he had never been there.
Hamas order would lead to the closing of two Catholic schools in Gaza
JERUSALEM (CNS) -- Five schools in Gaza -- two Catholic and three Christian -- face closure if the Hamas government follows through on an order forbidding coeducational institutions, said the director general of Latin Patriarchate Schools in Palestine and Israel.
Assignments for clergy in Archdiocese announced
Archbishop Charles J. Chaput announces 99 changes in assignment for priests and deacons in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
Parishes in four regions of Philadelphia Archdiocese to merge July 1
Twenty-four parishes will merge into 10 as a result of the latest wave of parish consolidations in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s parish planning initiative. Archbishop Charles J. Chaput accepted the recommendations for the mergers from the Archdiocesan Strategic Planning Committee, and pastors at the affected parishes informed parishioners during all Saturday evening and Sunday morning Masses June 1-2. The mergers, in which the parishes will form new, consolidated parishes with some of the churches becoming worship sites, are occurring in four geographic areas: Lower Northeast Philadelphia, Northwest Philadelphia, West Philadelphia and Delaware County.
State legislators organizing to respond to religious freedom challenges
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- State legislatures, rather than the federal courts, are becoming the new battlegrounds over religious freedom, two state legislators acknowledged at the 2013 National Religious Freedom Conference. Citing examples of legislative proposals and the introduction of rules governing state-funded programs and schools, Oklahoma State Rep. Rebecca Hamilton, a Democrat, and Idaho State Sen. Curt McKenzie, a Republican, said they believe such efforts are intended to remove any religious influence from public life.
Keeping up with Francis: The nuances of Vatican communications
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Of the various innovations that Pope Francis has already introduced into the way a pontiff lives and works, one of the most significant is his celebration of weekday morning Masses with invited guests. The practice is revealing of the new pope’s character and of how he understands his role as leader […]
Equating HHS mandate, union health benefits is wrong, says spokesman
NEW YORK (CNS) -- A New York Times article May 27 said the New York Archdiocese "has quietly been paying" for birth control coverage for its unionized employees while New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan has been spearheading efforts to fight the federal health care law requiring employers to cover birth control in employee health plans. The same day, Joseph Zwilling, archdiocesan director of communications, released a statement saying the article "incorrectly equates" the health care benefits of its unionized employees at Catholic facilities with the U.S. Health and Human Services contraceptive mandate.
CLINIC marks 25 years of helping immigrants through church agencies
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Like it was yesterday, Vanna Slaughter pulls from memory the details of what was happening when Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc., known as CLINIC, was created -- 25 years ago. When the U.S. Catholic bishops' conference established CLINIC as a legal services adjunct to the more policy-focused Migration and Refugee Services, the immediate goal was to provide legal support to Catholic agencies that were assisting with a new immigration law that was helping millions of people legalize their status.
For Jesuit, Syrian war is professional challenge, personal heartache
Jesuit Father Nawras Sammour works in Damascus, Syria, for Jesuit Refugee Service and he was born in Aleppo, where his mother, brother and sister still live. Tens of thousands of Syrians have died and millions have been displaced in more than two years of fighting between President Bashar Assad's government and rebels seeking his resignation. "Sometimes I can't believe we Syrians have reached that level of violence," Father Sammour said. "I'm shocked. Shocked. We need to step back and realize that we went too far."
Vatican’s U.N. observer stresses need to eradicate world hunger
UNITED NATIONS (CNS) -- Finding a solution to the "ongoing scandal" of worldwide hunger should be a top priority, said the Vatican's representative to the United Nations. Addressing a U.N. General Assembly meeting on sustainable development goals May 23, Archbishop Francis A. Chullikatt urged the U.N. to find "sustainable models of food security and nutrition" to end hunger for nearly 1 billion people worldwide particularly when the international community can "produce sufficient food for every human being."