Catholic school teachers will be able to take advantage of a college loan forgiveness program after the U.S. Congress passed HR 2669 Sept. 7 – including nonpublic schoolteachers in the program. An earlier Senate version of the bill alarmed many Catholic educators by limiting the benefit to public school teachers.Read More
VATICAN CITY – In a brief document approved by Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican said it was generally a moral obligation to provide food and water to patients in a vegetative state. Nutrition and hydration, even by artificial means, cannot simply be terminated because doctors have determined that a person will never recover consciousness, the...Read More
VATICAN CITY – After a three-day trip to Austria in early September, Pope Benedict XVI is putting away his traveling shoes and settling in for a long fall and winter at the Vatican. The next foreign trip fixed firmly on the pope’s calendar is mid-July of 2008, when he plans to fly to Australia for...Read More
WASHINGTON – The U.S. government should provide resettlement aid for 25,000 Iraqi refugees in the next fiscal year, 10 times the number expected to arrive by the end of the year, said one recommendation of a new report by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on the Iraqi refugee crisis in the Middle East.Read More
VATICAN CITY – The Vatican has announced the excommunication of certain members of the Army of Mary, a sect in Canada whose teachings have been deemed dangerous and erroneous by church authorities. The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, acting with the approval of Pope Benedict XVI, declared the excommunication after the Army...Read More
The Lady Owls of Towson Catholic High School, Towson, launched their first fall soccer tournament Sept. 7-8 on their home field, and captured the consolation round in this four-team tourney. Towson Catholic’s head coach Chuck Teal, an 18-year veteran, was pleased with his team’s 1-0 sudden victory win over Owings Mills High School saying, “Our...Read More
Earlier this summer, Keith “Watty” Watson, head wrestling coach for The John Carroll School, Bel Air, was named “Coach of the Year” by the Maryland State Wrestling Association. “In all of my years in sports and as an alumnus of John Carroll,” said John Von Paris, “I have never seen any coach with more dedication...Read More
ROME – A strong spiritual life supported by reading and reflecting on sacred Scripture can help protect priests from the emotional exhaustion of burnout, said an influential Jesuit journal. In a Sept. 15 article released to journalists Sept. 13, La Civilta Cattolica summarized the results of a recent survey on the presence and causes of...Read More
“The life of every individual, from its very beginning, is part of God’s plan.” This is what Pope John Paul II reminded us in The Gospel of Life.Read More
As Cardinal William H. Keeler blessed the new world headquarters for the Baltimore-based Catholic Relief Services Sept. 12, he marveled at the craftsmanship of the renovated building and said it’s a testament to what can be accomplished when Catholics and Jews join forces. Comparing the $33 million project to his work with the Jewish-Catholic affairs...Read More
WASHINGTON – Because of growing deficits and declining enrollments faced by its center-city Catholic schools, the Archdiocese of Washington announced a proposal Sept. 7 to reconfigure a consortium made up of the 12 schools. According to the proposal, four of the 12 Catholic schools currently in the Center City Consortium would make up a new...Read More
HUNTINGTON, Utah –The wrenching search for six lost miners was over, leaving only funerals, a public memorial service and a private committal service for the three Catholic miners attended by family members. A funeral Mass for Luis Hernandez and Juan Carlos Payan was celebrated Sept. 6 at Mission San Rafael in Huntington. Concelebrated by Father...Read More