PHILADELPHIA – Pennsylvania has become the latest state to approve the use of a “Choose Life” specialty license plate. The plates were approved last November and became available for purchase in January. The cost per plate is $40. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation receives $20, and the other $20 is an annual membership fee in...Read More

Anyone looking for a quick way to send a card for the Lenten season online should check out the Web site of the Redemptorists of the Denver Province. The site, www.redemptorists-denver.org, now offers electronic cards, called e-cards, for the Lenten season, Easter and Good Friday. There are also cards for respect for life, birthdays, Mother’s...Read More

RIVERVIEW, Mich. – There’s an alternative to fish for some Michigan Catholics abstaining from meat on Fridays in Lent – muskrat. The custom of eating muskrat on Ash Wednesday and Fridays in Lent apparently goes back to the early 1800s, the time of Father Gabriel Richard, an early missionary in Michigan whose flock included French-Canadian...Read More

FRANKFORT, Ill. – Support from people in the U.S. is important to the nation’s troops who are serving in Iraq and must continue, especially for soldiers “in harm’s way,” a military chaplain told a congregation in the Diocese of Joliet. Father John Hannigan, a priest of the Chicago Archdiocese, has been has been on leave...Read More

UNITED NATIONS – While lauding the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women for adopting resolutions on ending female genital mutilation and addressing forced and early marriage, its work is not complete until it also addresses “the important issues of prenatal sex selection, infanticide and son preference,” said Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Vatican’s permanent observer...Read More

WASHINGTON – Lack of federal funding could jeopardize therapeutic advances made in using umbilical cord blood for curing diseases, said Richard Doerflinger, deputy director of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities. Doerflinger told Catholic News Service that the bishops supported the 2005 law which authorized funds for collecting and storing cord blood and for...Read More

ANAHEIM, Calif. – Youth Day kicked off the 2007 Los Angeles Religious Education Congress with three eucharistic liturgies, 13 workshops and a closing, high-decibel rally at the Anaheim Convention Center. The March 1 all-day gathering, which preceded the March 2-4 congress, drew nearly 15,500 teenagers and young adults from 510 different youth groups. The theme...Read More

The 100 ‘Red Hot Mamas’ who gather at Good Samaritan Hospital, Baltimore, one Wednesday each month know exactly what it’s like to feel the heat. That’s why the women find it helpful to come together for the monthly seminar which focuses on issues before, during and after menopause. The menopause seminars have become such a...Read More