Gentlemen, start thy engines!

No matter your age, race, sex, station in life or occupation, it sure is nice to be able to have a priest nearby to pull you through to the good times and console you in the bad times.
It’s no different for race car drivers. The Michigan Catholic, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Detroit, profiled a [...]

Sarah Palin’s pro-life credentials

Now that it looks like we’re going to be hearing a lot about Sarah Palin, here are two items from the CNS news archive: a story on how she was praised by Catholic leaders and others when she gave birth to a Down syndrome child earlier this year, and a guest editorial we ran from [...]

U.S. presidents grappled with Catholic issues long before JFK

John F. Kennedy might have been the first Catholic president, but he wasn’t the first president to deal with specific Catholic issues. You have to go all the way back to George Washington for that. Ever since Americans began electing presidents, the men who have held that office have dealt with issues specific to Catholics. [...]

Record 100,000 baptisms in Los Angeles for 2007

The final figures are just in from the Official Catholic Directory, known as the Kenedy directory in church circles. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles recorded 100,604 baptisms in 2007, making it the first time any diocese or archdiocese has exceeded 100,000 in a year, reports Cardinal Roger M. Mahony in The Tidings, weekly newspaper of the [...]

At the upcoming synod: Women experts and a Jewish guest

VATICAN CITY — The buzz at the Vatican is that Pope Benedict XVI’s choice of experts to serve at the Oct. 5-26 world Synod of Bishops on the Word of God definitely will include women scholars; probably four of about 40 experts. The official list of papal appointees should be published in early September.
And, the rumor mill [...]

‘Half of my medal is Mexican,’ Olympic winner says

U.S. gold-medal winning freestyle wrestler Henry Cejudo says “half of my medal is Mexican,” in an article in Spanish in El Pregonero, the Spanish-language newspaper of the Archdiocese of Washington. Cejudo was born in the United States to parents who immigrated without documents to find work and scrambled to keep food on the table. Cejudo [...]

Studying Scripture on death row

When looking for examples to illustrate the point of a story, sometimes the example can overshadow the story.
Such was the case of a story I recently wrote on Little Rock Scripture Study, in which participants study different books of the Bible in thousands of parishes in the United States and elsewhere, including several other countries.
But [...]

War of words evolves over health care workers’ conscience rights

New U.S. Department of Health and Human Services regulations that would guarantee the conscience rights of health care workers when it comes to their role in certain medical procedures, namely abortion and sterilization, have gained broad support from religious groups, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
However, a brewing war of words over the rules [...]

Bishops say Pelosi misrepresents church teaching on abortion

The following was released tonight by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops:
WASHINGTON–Cardinal Justin F. Rigali, chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, and Bishop William E. Lori, chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine, have issued the following statement:
In the course of a “Meet the Press” interview on abortion and other public [...]

From 1908 to 2008: Denver gets its second convention in 100 years

(Editor’s Note: Julie Asher, CNS national editor, is perhaps the only journalist in Denver NOT covering this week’s convention. She’s a Denver native whose vacation at home this year coincides with convention week.)
DENVER — No one could argue that technology is not almost as much front and center at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver as [...]