WASHINGTON – Although authentic reform of the nation’s health system is “a public good, moral imperative and urgent national priority,” the Senate version of health reform legislation “should not move forward in its current form,” the heads of three committees of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said Dec. 19.Read More

WASHINGTON – The debate over health care reform topped the religious news stories of 2009, and Pope Benedict XVI and President Barack Obama were again the top newsmakers, according to the annual poll conducted by Catholic News Service.Read More

VATICAN CITY – Young people can send Pope Benedict XVI a Christmas greeting personalized with a photograph and they can send their friends electronic Christmas cards featuring a message from the pope.Read More

Tony Magliano (CR, Dec. 10) makes a plea for Catholics to get off the sidelines of the health care debate. He frames it as a “life-and death struggle”. Life, I presume, is the good that will come from its passage; death is the abortion and end of life provisions currently within it. He states that...Read More

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI advanced the sainthood causes of Pope John Paul II and Pope Pius XII, declaring that both had lived lives of “heroic virtues.”Read More

Archbishop Edwin O'Brien, Archbishop of Baltimore, is reminding Catholics in the Archdiocese that Church law excuses them from fulfilling the Sunday obligation to attend Mass due to a "grave cause," such as unsafe travel due to severe weather conditions.Read More

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – A special Christmas concert will be broadcast from St. Joseph Cathedral in Sioux Falls at 11:35 p.m. EST Christmas Eve on CBS.Read More

JERUSALEM – Pilgrimage to the Holy Land can become a bridge to peace, said an Israeli tourism official, noting the positive effect the spring pilgrimage of Pope Benedict XVI had on creating cooperation between Palestinian, Jordanian and Israeli officials.Read More