An apostolic visitation of the Church in Ireland will begin in the autumn the Vatican announced yesterday Two cardinals and three archbishops from the UK the US and Canada will offer assistance to the Bishops clergy religious and lay faithful as they seek to respond adequately to the situatio

Sad to say the abuse of youths by priests and bishops is not entirely new in the Catholic Church As we will see it was also found in the 11th century nbsp Some are asking how the can church show repentance for these terrible actions What kind of penance might an individual who has been guilty o

Today rsquo s front-page story in The New York Times Prospective Catholic Priests Face Sexuality Hurdles by Paul Vitello about the exclusion and weeding out of gay men from seminaries and religious formation houses made for depressing reading nbsp Why depressing nbsp Several reasons First

nbsp The Rev John Meier professor of New Testament at Notre Dame nbsp is one of my heroes nbsp Over the past few years I ve read each of the volumes of his indispensable A Marginal Jew nbsp a multivolume work still rolling out nbsp on the historical Jesus nbsp If you want to kn

It isn rsquo t every day that I come upon a word that I don rsquo t know nbsp Not that I rsquo m some sort of super-genius or a wordsmith like the late William Safire or even a crossword puzzle maven who finishes the Sunday Times rsquo puzzle in ink nbsp I can barely finish it in pencil nb

The town council of L eacute rida in northern Spain has become the first in that country to ban the veil In a motion passed Friday the council voted to prohibit the use of the veil and other clothes and accessories which cover the face and prevent identification in buildings and installations of