LUBECK, Germany – As the Nazi executioner beheaded three Catholic priests and a Lutheran pastor, one after another in a matter of minutes, their blood flowed together, creating a powerful symbol for ecumenism in northern Germany.Read More

LUSAKA, Zambia – Zambia must hand over Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to the International Criminal Court when he visits Lusaka Dec. 15, Caritas Zambia executive director Samuel Mulafulafu said.Read More

BEIJING – The Chinese-government-controlled National Congress of Catholic Representatives elected new leaders for the Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China and the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, the two groups responsible for the public life of the church in the communist country.Read More

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican and the Palestine Liberation Organization have resumed diplomatic talks and agreed to establish a working group dedicated to drafting a comprehensive agreement between the two parties.Read More

Last week, I read a newspaper article about a Connecticut man whose wife and two daughters were raped and murdered three years ago. At the killer’s recent sentencing hearing, the man, a physician, spoke of the impact such a crime has had on his life: “I seriously considered suicide many times. I have no wife,...Read More

They had been married for many years. The husband was now dying, and the wife was wondering what to do with the rest of her life. Working with a spiritual director, she discerned that God might be calling her to life as a religious. Her spiritual director suggested that she might want to tell her...Read More

Asked to name the most populous American dioceses, alert Catholics would likely name Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. I rather doubt that most of us would rank Brooklyn (the country’s only completely urban diocese) as high on the league table as it in fact is, and I’m willing to wager that not 1 in...Read More

CHAMPION, Wis. – Bishop David L. Ricken of Green Bay has approved the Marian apparitions seen by Adele Brise in 1859, making the apparitions of Mary that occurred some 18 miles northeast of Green Bay the first in the United States to receive approval of a diocesan bishop.Read More