Wroc?aw, Poland, Oct 16, 2019 CNA.- Readers who find this story through a search engine probably were looking for information about Hedwig, Harry Potter’s snowy owl. St. Hedwig of Silesia was not an owl. But read on anyway: she was a princess, a wife, a mother, and a builder of bridges between the German and Polish people. And her husband’s name was “Henry the Bearded.”
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Turkey's long-threatened incursion into northeast Syria after the sudden pullout of U.S. military forces from the country in early October raises serious moral questions on the responsibility to protect civilians caught in the middle of a new conflict.
Read moreOXFORD, England (CNS) -- France's Catholic bishops plan to open their plenary assembly for the first time to lay participation following the passage of a controversial bioethics law despite mass church-backed opposition.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Organizers of the March for Life have chosen "Life Empowered: Pro-Life Is Pro-Woman" for the 2020 rally and march in Washington. In embracing the theme, Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life Education Fund, cited the coming centennial of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, and the views of early suffragists, including the best-known figure of the movement, Susan B. Anthony.
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FRAMINGHAM -- In 2014, Joseph Kutzko filled out a survey from his parish, St. Anne in Southborough, part of the Diocese of Worcester. In "a silly mood," he crossed off the usual options for ways to serve, and half-jokingly wrote in, "Filipino apostolate."
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WAKEFIELD -- Raising money for charities is not a new activity at St. Joseph School, but its campaign to support Water for South Sudan was markedly different from any previous fundraising effort in that it was initiated and led by students.
Read moreWASHINGTON (CNS) -- The National Council on Disability said in a new study that "the dangers and harms" physician-assisted suicide laws present to people with disabilities "appear to be as significant today" as they were in 1997 and 2005, when the council earlier analyzed the harms of such laws.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Proposals for Amazonian development made by well-known observers at the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon could conflict with the expectations of indigenous people unless they are included in decision-making, some synod participants said.
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KIEL, Wis. (CNS) -- After David and Maria Schuette got married in 2015, they wanted a family right away but months later they found out that infertility issues would likely prevent them from having children of their own.
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Dallas, Texas, Oct 15, 2019 CNA.- A federal judge struck down the so-called “transgender mandate” on Tuesday, vacating an Obama-era requirement that doctors perform gender-transition surgeries upon request.
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Washington D.C., Oct 15, 2019 CNA.- Fertility rates around the world are stalling at below the replacement level, a new study has shown, as countries with higher fertility rates have shown sharp decreases.
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LOS ANGELES (CNS) -- The Archdiocese of Los Angeles is expanding a fund established last year for victims of wildfires in California to victims of the current wildfires burning in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The pastoral care of Hispanic families and immigrants, accompaniment of youth and young adults, and leadership development were the top priorities that Hispanic ministry leaders of seven dioceses, including the Archdiocese of Washington, addressed Oct. 5 at The Catholic University of America.
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CHICAGO (CNS) -- When the Second Vatican Council decreed that the liturgy be celebrated in people's native languages in its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops knew it would need some help training clergy and laypeople in the new texts that would be developed.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Synod of Bishops for the Amazon is not a "referendum" on priestly celibacy; it is looking for ways to provide for the sacramental life and formation of the people there, U.S. Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley of Boston said.
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Vatican City, Oct 13, 2019 CNA.- The canonization of St. John Henry Newman Sunday drew “Newman converts” to Rome from throughout the English-speaking world, all of whom followed Newman’s writings across the Tiber River and into the Catholic Church.
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ROME (CNS) -- The patriarch of the Syriac Catholic Church pleaded for "immediate and lasting peace in northeastern Syria and the preservation of innocent lives, especially for Christians, who are the original and founding component of Syria."
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UNITED NATIONS (CNS) -- The Vatican's nuncio to the United Nations called it welcome news that several nations around the world "have taken active steps to recognize the right to autonomy or self-government of indigenous peoples."
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The first week of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon saw support for the priestly ordination of married indigenous men, impassioned pleas for respect for indigenous culture and denunciations of violence against the earth.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Domenico Giani, head of the Vatican police, nearly two weeks after an internal security notice was leaked to the Italian press. The Vatican announced Oct. 14 that the pope accepted the resignation of the 57-year-old Vatican police chief who, although "bears no personal responsibility" for the leak, "tendered his resignation to the Holy Father out of love for the church and faithfulness to Peter's successor."
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ROME (CNS) -- St. John Henry Newman's insights into the function and meaning of conscience "could not be more timely" given widespread moral confusion in the Western world, said Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- On the eve of the canonization of St. John Henry Newman, Britain's Prince Charles penned an article about England's newest saint for the Vatican newspaper. St. Newman's example, he wrote, "is needed more than ever for the manner in which, at his best, he could advocate without accusation, could disagree without disrespect and, perhaps most of all, could see differences as places of encounter rather than exclusion."
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Saints are people who recognized their need for God's help, who took risks to discover God's will and to help others and who nurtured a habit of thanksgiving, Pope Francis said.
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