FREE access to the digital edition and archives until September 2. Click here. →
Browse › 2016 › March
March 15, 2016
Nine-year-old Annabel Beam suffered from an incurable digestive disorder that put her in constant pain. But when she fell 30 feet, headfirst, into a hollowed tree, she came out of her ordeal unharmed and healed of her disorder. Oh yes, and she also had an encounter with Jesus in Heaven.
VATICAN CITY - The secretary of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See testified in a Vatican court that he felt he was being threatened and had little choice but to give confidential documents to two Italian reporters.
March 16, 2016
CANTERBURY, England - The Church of England has promised to make far-reaching changes in dealing with future sex abuse cases after the publication of the first independent review commissioned by the country’s established church into its handling of such cases in the past.
With seven million Syrian children forced into poverty, almost three million out of school and two million living in cities under siege, the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF estimates 80 per cent of Syria’s children have suffered harm in the five-year-old war.
PARIS - French Prime Minister Manuel Valls called on a prominent cardinal to “assume his responsibilities” amid widening allegations of a pedophilia cover-up targeting Lyon’s Roman Catholic diocese.
VATICAN CITY - Firming up his presence on social media, Pope Francis will make his debut on the photo-sharing app Instagram, a Vatican official announced.
VATICAN CITY - Although he lives a relatively hidden life in a villa in the Vatican Gardens, retired Pope Benedict XVI continues to study modern theological questions and, occasionally, to comment on them publicly.
March 17, 2016
The real tragedy surrounding a suicide crisis that has devastated a remote Manitoba community is that it represents just the latest instalment in a Canadian saga that shows no sign of a final chapter.
Christian hope is a humble and strong virtue that supports us, so that we do not drown under the many difficulties we face in life. That was Pope Francis’ message at the morning Mass at the Casa Santa Marta. The Pope said that hope in the Lord never disappoints us; it’s a font of joy and peace in our hearts.
Writing and speaking out against euthanasia is a blessing. There is something bracing about standing up for the truth.
Resurrection of the Lord (Year C) March 27 (Acts 10:34a, 37-43; Psalm 118; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-18) The most profound and gripping theologies take the form of a story. Few people are moved by dry metaphysical speculations or hairsplitting, but many are moved by a powerful story. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus is as one movie title had it, The Greatest Story Ever Told. Perhaps that is part of the problem in our own time — we have opted for an overly rationalized and skeptical approach to our faith, allowing the power and excitement of the great story to slip away.
Several years ago, while teaching a summer course at Seattle University, I had a female student who, while happily married, was unable to conceive a child. She had no illusions about what this meant for her. It bothered her a great deal. She found Mother’s Day very difficult. Among other things, she wrote a well-researched thesis on the concept of barrenness in Scripture and developed a retreat on that same theme which she offered at various renewal centres.
The Jewish argument for freedom of religion is embedded in the Old Testament, the former chief rabbi of Britain told an enthralled audience at Toronto’s Glenn Gould Studio March 15.
DUBLIN, Ireland - This Easter marks the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland against British rule, one of the most important events in Irish history.
VATICAN CITY - Five years after the war in Syria began, there is a "feeling of helplessness in front of an endless human tragedy," a Vatican official told the UN Human Rights Council.
WASHINGTON - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that atrocities carried out by the Islamic State group against Yezidis, Christians and other minorities were genocide, the first U.S. declaration of genocide since Sudanese actions in Darfur in 2004.
March 18, 2016
I recently read an article written by a Catholic teen girl and what she believes every Catholic teen guy should be. She listed off things that (I agree) should be the foundation of any relationship, such as being faithful and respecting each others’ values.
TORONTO - The Queen’s Park Dining Room was filled with the sounds of engaging and enriching discussion March 9 as Catholic representatives from across Ontario advocated for their education system.
OXFORD, England - A Catholic aid official warned that Church life faces "grave disruption" from Boko Haram in Cameroon after a local bishop confirmed the Nigeria-based group had caused a "psychosis of fear."
ROME - A chilling, eyewitness account of a deadly attack on a Catholic nursing home in Yemen has detailed how four nuns were sought out by gunmen who then executed them before destroying the Christian symbols in the residence’s chapel.