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February 5, 2016
The following is the third place finisher by Vincent Pham, a student at Toronto's Chaminade College, in the annual essay contest for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity sponsored by The Catholic Register and the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement-Graymoor.
The World Youth Day pilgrimage begins at the local level. With less than six months before young Canadians leave for Krakow, Poland, this July, youth ministry groups are hard at it preparing their pilgrims for spiritual formation.
Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras, a top adviser to Pope Francis, has denounced the idea of “therapeutic abortions” — which are carried out because of fetal abnormalities — as a response to birth defects caused by the mosquito-borne Zika virus that is setting off alarms throughout Latin America.
God’s ‘style’ is not man’s ‘style,’ because God triumphs through humility. That was Pope Francis’ message in his homily during daily Mass at the Casa Santa Marta. God’s style can be seen in the death of the greatest of the prophets, St John the Baptist. This “just and holy man,” the “greatest man,” the man who had prepared the people for the coming of the Messiah, was beheaded in the darkness of his cell, alone, condemned by the vindictive hatred of a queen and the cowardice of a submissive king.
A Jesuit-inspired middle school in Winnipeg’s poorest, most violent neighbourhood has been met with accusations of cultural genocide and comparisons with the infamous residential schools that devastated native communities across Canada.
VATICAN CITY - After almost three decades of tense Catholic-Russian Orthodox relations, Pope Francis will meet Patriarch Kirill of Moscow Feb. 12 in Cuba on the Pope's way to Mexico.
VATICAN CITY - Russian Orthodox officials said the planned meeting between Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow is not a signal that decades of tension have been resolved, but emphasizes the need to work together on behalf of persecuted Christians in the Middle East.
MANCHESTER, England - A European bishops' commission has welcomed a move by the European Parliament to classify atrocities and religious cleansing by the Islamic State as genocide.
February 6, 2016
You might think Heaven and hell are a matched set — you can’t have one without the other. But the post-modern mind seems to have decoupled two of the most basic and universal religious ideas in human history, according to the writer and host of Hell: A Survivor’s Guide.
VATICAN CITY - Children may say the darnedest things, but when it comes to questions about faith they can make even the most learned parents and priests pause.
TORONTO - In a society that sees marriage as counter-cultural, Pope John Paul II gave his apostolic blessing in 1993 to World Marriage Day, or Marriage Sunday, to encourage married couples to continue the family’s mission to be a “fundamental cell of that larger society, for the Church and for the new evangelization.”
TORONTO - For Sr. Zilda Carvalho, the Year of Consecrated Life served not only as a call for celebration amongst her fellow religious but as a catalyst for conversations with youth about vocations and faith.
In an exclusive commentary for Religion News Service, President Barack Obama makes the case for religious freedom.
February 7, 2016
Pope Francis had barely begun this year’s Lenten message when the talk turned to women’s wombs.
SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, MEXICO - Long before Pope Francis spoke of a poor Church for the poor and taking the Church to the peripheries, Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia of San Cristobal de Las Casas built the Church in southern Chiapas state.
BRAMPTON, ONT. - Almost seven years ago the Shakar family fled to Canada as war refugees from Iraq with little beyond the clothes on their backs.
February 8, 2016
Six Canadian aid workers killed in a terrorist attack in Burkina Faso last month were remembered at their respective funerals on Feb. 6 as humanitarians who touched lives and left people on two continents in mourning.
VATICAN CITY - A negotiated political resolution is the only answer to the crisis unfolding in Syria, Pope Francis said, urging world leaders to do everything possible to kick-start talks.
VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis said his reasons for going to Mexico are "easy and simple."
VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis is scheduled to have more than two hours alone with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow in Cuba in addition to signing a declaration with the patriarch before flying on to Mexico for a Feb. 12-17 visit.