Single people who plan to marry in the Catholic church are required to attend a marriage preparation program in some form, whether participating in an organized program through a parish or in another arrangement that their priest deems appropriate to cover “the five Cs” of marriage preparation: community, conflict resolution, commitment, children and church.Read More
Will de Rosset hasn’t had a weekend off in a very long time. The full-time disc jockey is busy on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays making sure guests are enjoying the music at the weddings he services weekly.Read More
VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI said he finds consolation in the New Testament stories of the apostles and first disciples arguing with each other. Continuing his series of audience talks about the leaders of the early church, Pope Benedict spoke Jan. 31 about St. Paul and St. Barnabas arguing over whether they should take...Read More
CAPE TOWN, South Africa – A strike by doctors and nurses in Zimbabwe is causing “untold human suffering and loss of life,” said the country’s Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace. Sick and injured people are turned away from the main state hospitals “and their only other option is to go to private hospitals, which...Read More
Mayor Sheila Dixon and the leaders of 11 Baltimore City hospitals announced an agreement for cooperation in the event of a bioterrorist attack or other public health catastrophe, on Jan 23. “Just as our first responders talk to each other through interoperable communications equipment, this step means that our hospitals can collaborate efficiently in the...Read More
LIMA, Peru – When Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told Archbishop Roberto Luckert Leon recently that he would “see him in hell,” he was fanning the coals of an ongoing war of words with Catholic leaders. And when Bolivian President Evo Morales’ government picked a fight with that country’s bishops shortly after his inauguration, he seemed...Read More
WASHINGTON – Jesuit Father Robert F. Drinan, the first Catholic priest to vote in the U.S. Congress, received praise and censure during his lifetime for his active involvement in politics. Father Drinan, 86, died Jan. 28 at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, where he had been treated for pneumonia and congestive heart failure for the...Read More
WARSAW, Poland – Many Eastern European church officials said they lack procedures for handling claims of clergy collaborating with communist secret police nearly 20 year after the collapse of communism. Father Laszlo Nemeth, secretary-general of the Hungarian bishops’ conference, told Catholic News Service that although Hungarian bishops had debated the issue in the early 1990s...Read More
St. Brigid, Canton, will host a special Mass Feb. 4 for the Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians to celebrate the Irish saint for which the 153-year-old parish was named. About 100 members of the LAOH from 12 different Maryland divisions are expected to flock to the special 1:30 p.m. Mass in honor of St. Brigid’s...Read More
Erica and Sean Kerchner find it hard to spend quality time together at the moment. Mr. Kerchner has been training with the U.S. Navy in Norfolk, Va., for four months while his wife of three years stays with her parents in Silver Spring. Mrs. Kerchner said when her husband visits on the weekends, it is...Read More
Surrounded by paintings, letters and memorabilia of Oblate Sisters of Providence founder Mother Mary Lange, Sister Virginie Fish, O.S.P. prepares for the day-long celebration marking the 125th anniversary of the candidate for sainthood’s death on Feb. 3. The event is a tradition the 79-year-old director of the Mother Mary Lange Guild has organized annually since...Read More
The church has made many arguments against capital punishment (CR, Web poll). Those who do not accept the church’s moral authority in the matter should consider the following: to support capital punishment, one must either accept that the court system is infallible (which is demonstrably false), or that it is acceptable to occasionally execute innocent...Read More