VATICAN CITY – Many people today seem to have a difficult time recognizing sin, but at the same time the number of people suffering from “guilt complexes” seems to be growing, Pope Benedict XVI said. “We see a humanity that wants to be self-sufficient, where not a few maintain they can do without God and...Read More

As Loyola Blakefield, Towson, senior Garrett Winand puts the final touches on a bowl he is making in his ceramics class, the 17-year-old is reminded his craftsmanship is bound for a March 24 fundraising event to feed the hungry of Baltimore. The Church of the Nativity, Timonium, parishioner said he is pleased representatives from Beans...Read More

VATICAN CITY – As Pope John Paul II’s sainthood cause rolled forward, two people close to him have offered quite different insider accounts of his life and times. Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow, the late pope’s personal secretary for 39 years, has produced a conversational memoir called “A Life with Karol.” In anecdotal fashion, it...Read More

LORETTO, Pa. – The sainthood cause for the second priest ordained in the United States, a Russian prince who became known as the “apostle of the Alleghenies,” has been initiated by the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown. Bishop Joseph V. Adamec of Altoona-Johnstown held the opening session of the diocesan inquiry for the canonization cause of Servant...Read More

Susan Smith has spent the better part of the past seven years sleeping in abandoned homes, homeless shelters and sometimes in jail. Keith Norris has been homeless for the past 15 years. But thanks to Home Connections, a program of St. Vincent de Paul of Baltimore, both longtime Baltimoreans were able to move into their...Read More

SAN ANTONIO – The biggest city in the world to be named for St. Anthony of Padua welcomed a relic of the saint to its San Fernando Cathedral for the first time March 3-4. The event marked the close of the jubilee year proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI to mark the 275th anniversary of the...Read More

SAN FRANCISCO – “It is a mistake to judge Islam on the basis of terrorists, just as it is (unfair) to judge Christianity from the Crusades,” an Islamic scholar told a San Francisco audience. Mona Siddiqui, founder and director of the Center for the Study of Islam at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, made...Read More

WASHINGTON – Pope Benedict XVI’s post-synodal exhortation on the Eucharist reminds Catholics that “the Eucharist is a mystery to be believed and to be celebrated and to be lived,” said Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl, one of four representatives of the U.S. bishops at the 2005 world Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist. “He (the...Read More