APARECIDA, Brazil – The changes which have occurred in Latin America in recent years are so profound that they require fundamental changes in the way the church approaches pastoral work, said a cardinal from Honduras. “We need a pastoral conversion,” Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa said. “If these are difficult times, new disciples are...Read More

WASHINGTON – Only one-third of Catholics in a national survey said they had heard of the U.S. bishops’ policies to prevent child sex abuse and respond to abuse allegations, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate said May 16. Only one-sixth said they have heard of the abuse prevention programs in their own diocese,...Read More

CUMBERLAND – Surrounded by colorful dangling rosaries, intricate crucifixes, scapulars, prayer books and all manner of saintly figurines, Betty Dyer rested a hand on a glass countertop and surveyed her diverse inventory. “It’s a lovely space,” said Ms. Dyer, one of the volunteer coordinators of the Catholic gift shop at Ss. Peter and Paul in...Read More

The Save Middle East Action Committee and East Baltimore Development Initiative may have clashed over plans to revitalize a troubled East Baltimore neighborhood, but both organizations agree that Baltimore’s St. Wenceslaus has been instrumental in helping them compromise. St. Wenceslaus, which is focusing on commemorating signs of hope in the community, honored the two groups...Read More

WASHINGTON – The return of a prominent evangelical philosopher and theologian to the Catholic Church, his childhood home, has provoked a storm of controversy in the evangelical community. Francis J. Beckwith is a tenured associate professor of church-state studies at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, the largest Baptist university in the world. He resigned as...Read More

ATLANTA – Catholic author Flannery O’Connor and Elizabeth “Betty” Hester first began corresponding in 1955 when Ms. Hester wrote a letter to Ms. O’Connor commenting on her work. Ms. Hester’s initial letter was a comment that she thought the author’s collection of short stories, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” were about God. Ms....Read More

After learning of 10-year-old St. Joseph, Fullerton, student Xavia Pirozzi’s heart transplant earlier this year, St. Thomas Aquinas, Hampden, fourth grader Kaylea Collavini decided to help. So she developed a fundraising idea for her fellow students to pay money to dress out of uniform for a day. Kaylea’s “Jeans Day” raised $637 for the Pirozzi...Read More

Dr. Timothy Law Snyder, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Fairfield University in Connecticut has been named vice president for academic affairs at Loyola College in Maryland, Baltimore. Beginning this summer, Dr. Snyder will oversee all academic functions at Loyola, including the operation of undergraduate and graduate programs in its two divisions....Read More