ELLICOTT CITY – In a Veterans Day homily at St. Paul in Ellicott City, Auxiliary Bishop F. Richard Spencer of the Archdiocese for U.S. Military Services challenged Catholics to never forget the needs of the nation’s veterans.Read More

WASHINGTON – Bishop William E. Lori of Bridgeport, Conn., has named 10 bishop-members and 10 consultants to join him on the recently established Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty.Read More

Ken Hackett’s daughter, Jenny, was born in the Philippines, and his son, Michael, in Kenya. Hackett and his wife, Joan, however, raised their family in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and sent their children to St. Louis School in Clarksville and then Mount de Sales Academy and Loyola Blakefield, respectively.Read More

ARLINGTON, Va. – Soldiers “are making life and death decisions” every day in Iraq and Afghanistan, and military chaplains “are out there in the field with them day in and day out,” said the Catholic priest who is the new Army chief of chaplains.Read More

VATICAN CITY – Dialogue is essential for religious leaders in the Holy Land, “a place full of memories sacred to our traditions,” but a place that each day faces challenges to living together in harmony, Pope Benedict XVI told religious leaders from Israel.Read More

WASHINGTON – Bil Keane, the Catholic cartoonist who originated the comic strip “The Family Circus” more than 50 years ago, died Nov. 8 at age 89 in Paradise Valley, Ariz., near Phoenix. The cause of death was given as congestive heart failure.Read More

SAGAWIKA, Malawi – With a little mulch from last season’s corn stalks, a deeper hole with more seeds and a few other tweaks of traditional corn-planting techniques, the villages of Nduwa and Sagawika might make it through the next drought in better shape.Read More

HARLINGEN, Texas – When Deacon Catarino Villanueva arrived on Forward Operating Base Ghazni, Afghanistan, in 2005 for a yearlong deployment with the National Guard, he immediately looked for opportunities to practice his Catholic faith.Read More