News - January 2015 RSS Feed

WARSAW, Poland – Catholic leaders joined in commemorations of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, where 1.2 million mostly Jewish prisoners were killed by the Nazis during World War II.

WASHINGTON – All of the usually expected groups were in attendance at this year’s March for Life in Washington Jan. 22, the 42nd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision.

WASHINGTON – A Jan. 21 report from the National Right to Life Committee and new poll results show that abortion is increasingly unpopular in the United States, but also that the number of abortions performed in the United States is at its lowest point since 1975.

VATICAN CITY – Writing to the 20 new cardinals he will create in February, Pope Francis said they should graciously accept that their friends, family and faithful will want to celebrate, but they also should ensure that the celebrations are not exaggerated.

“You buried the lead” is about my favorite expression learned from the great news and newspaper people I’ve worked with these many years. It refers to putting the most important facts too far down in the story. The phrase seems never more applicable than here.

Here’s a story to assist your preparation for the September 2015 World Meeting of Families, which will welcome Pope Francis to Philadelphia and stimulate worldwide discussion of Catholic family values.

Individual institutions, whether public or private, exist within the larger framework of public or secular culture.

Irena Sendler was 29-years-old when Nazi tanks slithered into Warsaw, casting a shadow of fear over the town and slicing it apart with a walled-off ghetto for the Jewish residents.

“60 Minutes,” the CBS News “magazine” that helped redefine television journalism, prides itself on challenging conventional wisdom, discomfiting the comfortable, kicking shibboleths in the shins, and opening new arguments.

Normally none of us like feeling sad, heavy, or depressed. Generally we prefer sunshine to darkness, lightheartedness to melancholy.

It’s been decades since an archbishop last made a pastoral visit to St. Charles parish and school in San Carlos.

Star of the Sea Parish in San Francisco still has girl altar servers but it is gradually returning to the Catholic Church’s 19-century tradition of only male altar servers – and the decision is provoking some controversy.

Religious of the Sacred Heart Sister Sally Furay died Jan. 10 following a stroke. She entered the Society of the Sacred Heart in 1944 making first vows in 1947 and final profession in 1952. She was 88 years old.

Religious of the Sacred Heart Sister Ellen Hoffman died Jan. 19, at Oakwood, her congregation’s retirement facility in Atherton. She was 98 years old and a religious for 79 years.

Tens of thousands of people walked down Market Street in San Francisco, chanting, “We are the pro-life generation” in the 11th annual Walk for Life West Coast, the largest pro-life demonstration in the Western United States.

The Archdiocese of San Francisco is planning to survey parishioners to gauge the sense of the faithful on matters that a global bishops’ gathering under Pope Francis will discuss this October on the theme “The Vocation of and Mission of the Family and Church in the Contemporary World.”

Jeffrey Burns was a young history scholar researching his doctoral dissertation among the historical records of the Los Angeles archdiocese when the local archivist, Msgr. Francis Weber, then dean of the field in California, asked him a question.

Star of the Sea Parish in San Francisco still has girl altar servers but it is gradually returning to the Catholic Church’s 19-century tradition of only male altar servers – and the decision is provoking some controversy.