CNS columnists urge attention to abortion issue

Few people — except editors at our client publications — know that Catholic News Service has a fairly robust columns package. You may even have read some of our columnists in your local Catholic newspaper and not known where they came from.
With the change in administrations here in Washington, several of the columnists have been [...]

More headlines … (1/30/09)

From some of our clients this week:
Earthquakes in Arkansas? Diocese prepares after string of tremors
Al Qaeda Targeting Calvary?
Michigan stigmatist dies after a quiet life
Students have fun, perform service during Catholic Schools Week

Six schools in Miami Archdiocese sacked by rising costs, falling enrollment

Compass to unveil new design next week
Pallotti High School stresses virtues of its namesake [...]

New movie “respects Christianity”

There’s a new movie out called “New in Town” featuring Renee Zellweger that by all reports might be worth seeing. The National Catholic Register posted a blog item about it earlier this week headlined “New Film Respects Christianity.” You can read the review of the movie here from the U.S. bishops’ Office for Film and [...]

Pro-life ad nixed from Super Bowl …

… But the Eternal Word Television Network is going to air it. The pro-life ad that aired in Chicago on Inauguration Day set its sights on a bigger audience — the coveted ad time during the Super Bowl — but it was rejected by NBC. However, on Jan. 30 EWTN announced it would air the commercial during ”Faith [...]

Two lively commentaries

Within minutes of each other this morning, two lively commentaries came across my computer screen written by Catholic press veterans.
– Greg Erlandson, president and publisher of Our Sunday Visitor, reviews “Being Catholic Now,” the Kerry Kennedy book interviewing prominent American Catholics about their lives of faith. To say Erlandson didn’t like the book would be [...]

The papal general audience gone wild

VATICAN CITY — Yesterday I attended my first ever papal general audience, which takes place every Wednesday morning at 10:30 in the Vatican audience hall (during the winter, but in the spring and summer it’s in St. Peter’s Square). It was not what I expected of my first time seeing the pope!
Groups of people from all around the [...]

Pope: “I still have three things to communicate”

VATICAN CITY — It is not unusual for Pope Benedict XVI to end his weekly general audience by telling his thousands of visitors that he has a special appeal to make — normally for peace in some troubled part of the world.
But today’s audience was totally out of the ordinary, and not just because the [...]

Under construction

When the Catholic Mobilizing Network to End the Death Penalty announced its launch Sunday in Harrisburg, Pa., the Web site that is to be one of its primary contributions to the debate over capital punishment was not quite ready. But the section of the Web site of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that deals with the death penalty [...]

SOA Watch defendants sent to prison

A federal judge this morning found six people guilty of trespassing for entering the Fort Benning Army Base in Columbus, Ga., during the annual School of the Americas Watch vigil and demonstration Nov. 23.
The six are:
– The Rev. Luis Barrious, 56, chairman of the Department of Latin American and Latina/o Studies at John Jay College of [...]

Parishes help unemployed members

What are parishes doing to help their newly unemployed members in a recession? Our Sunday Visitor has a roundup of several examples of parish activity, from a “Job Transition Network” that operates at one Minnesota parish to a New York parish that has been running a “Employment Assistance and Resource Network” since 1989.