St. Michael's Choir School

VATICAN CITY -- Hope is the virtue needed to approach the coming year, especially when the looming threat of war surrounds a humanity scarred by violence, Pope Francis said.

A pastoral plan three years in the making which resulted in a two-thirds reduction of parishes in the Archdiocese of Halifax-Yarmouth has put the archdiocese in a position to succeed amid the realities of the modern Church, said John Stevens.

WASHINGTON -- CNN reached an undisclosed settlement Jan. 7 with Nick Sandmann, a Kentucky Catholic high school student who sued the cable news outlet for defamation over its coverage of an incident that occurred after last year's March for Life.

I am writing this column late in December, thinking of the annual ritual of making resolutions. I do not think in my life I ever followed through on a New Year’s resolution — but I have made resolutions at other times of the year that I have stuck to like glue. 

Rise Up showed no signs of slowing down in its 20th year.

Once upon a Sunday in Ordinary Time, I happened upon a church in Toronto. It was a pleasant — and all too rare — inconvenience to find the pews so packed that people had to stand outside the front doors just to hear the words of the Mass. At the time, it was a scene so unfamiliar to me that it made me reflect more deeply on how precious the Mass truly is.

Ontario’s Catholic teachers will be holding a province-wide one-day strike Jan. 21.

WASHINGTON -- Hours after Iran launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two Iraqi bases, Archbishop Jose H. Gomez, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement calling for urgent prayers "that our world's leaders will pursue dialogue and seek peace."

VATICAN CITY -- Christians survive trials and tribulations with the help of their faith in Christ and pay it forward by being compassionate toward others who suffer, Pope Francis said.

A spike in attacks on Jews in North America and Europe has prompted the Sisters of Sion in Canada to speak out.