A potentially significant announcement yesterday by the Vatican an initiative known as the Courtyard of the Gentiles will launch in Paris on 24-25 March The idea came from Pope Benedict s address to the Curia over a year ago in December 2009 when he spoke of the first step of evangelization as

Ah youth nbsp A report from The Catholic Herald in the UK As a young priest Pope Benedict put his name to a document calling for the Church to seriously investigate the obligation to priestly celibacy Joseph Ratzinger was one of the signatories of a 1970 document calling for an examination o

Exactly fifty years ago John F Kennedy was inaugurated President of the United States and during the past week we have been reminded both of his inaugural address and also of the death of one of his last living close associates Sargent Shriver Let us also look back on Kennedy s commitment with p

A lovely video on the March for Life with beautiful faces and a beautiful message nbsp The Sister of Life is especially eloquent nbsp

By far the biggest applause during Tuesday s State of the Union speech was in response to a message from the president offering support to American troops serving around the world especially in Iraq and Afghanistan Every person present in the chamber rose to his or her feet and stood clapping

Over the last two years America s expanded Books amp Culture section has reviewed many of the season s critically lauded films including several of the nominees for Best Picture Here we provide links to these reviews by our team of critics nbsp See what our reviewers thought nbsp of this year