World News
It’s a go: World Meeting of Families officially coming to Philadelphia in 2015
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia next year will be open to families and people of different faiths, including no faith at all, to engage the wider society and strengthen all families, organizers said. The gathering Sept. 22-27, 2015, "is meant to be a gift not just for Catholics in Philadelphia, but for every person of good will," Archbishop Charles Chaput said.
Sex abuse survivor named member of Vatican commission
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Boston Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley, four women -- including a survivor of clerical sex abuse -- two Jesuit priests and an Italian lawyer are the first members of the new Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. It will help define the tasks of the commission and identify other potential members.
Jokes, quips, wisecracks: John XXIII lived with keen sense of humor
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Blessed John XXIII, who will be made a saint April 27, is remembered by many for his warmth, simplicity, social conscience and sense of humor.
Beauty, sacredness of human life are seen in its fragility, pope says
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The fragility of human life is part of its beauty and is something people only really learn by being close to, sharing with and caring for those who are suffering, Pope Francis said.
Pope appoints British canon law expert to economic oversight council
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis named Msgr. Brian Ferme, a former dean of the School of Canon Law at The Catholic University of America in Washington, to be the new prelate secretary of the Vatican Council for the Economy.
Pope to Mafiosi: Turn away now from the road to hell
ROME (CNS) -- Surrounded by survivors of innocent people killed by the Mafia, Pope Francis made an emotional appeal to Italian gangsters to give up their lives of crime and avoid eternal damnation.
Job creation is essential for promoting human dignity, pope says
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In making economic policies and decisions, solidarity is too often treated as "a dirty word," yet the only way out of the global financial crisis is to put people -- with their dignity and creativity -- first, Pope Francis said.
Thousands of rare Vatican manuscripts to go online
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Thousands of rare manuscripts until now accessible only to scholars at the Vatican will go online over the next four years, thanks to help from a Japanese information technology company.
For Peru’s Kukama people, water is more than a drink, missionary finds
DOS DE MAYO, Peru (CNS) -- It was a day Father Miguel Angel Cadenas did not expect to see. One after another, government officials stood before several hundred Kukama Indians packed into a sweltering wood-frame room in this tiny riverside village, describing the results of a study of pollution in their communities.
English bishop says uncharitable use of social media a ‘grave matter’
MANCHESTER, England (CNS) -- An English bishop asked Catholics to use Lent as a time to repent of sins committed on social media.