Catholic advocates are pressing Congress to make the needs of poor and vulnerable people a priority as legislators hammer out a federal spending plan for 2016. They want to prevent trillions of dollars in social services spending from disappearing over the next decade as Congress seeks to balance th

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel snatched victory out of what pollsters had predicted would be a shock defeat by ending his campaign with a rejection of a two-state solution for the 67-year-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, by raising an alarm over Arab-Israeli voters that many condemned

At a parish on Chicago’s North Side, Charles Dahm, O.P., finishes reading the Sunday Gospel, the familiar story of a woman accused of adultery who is threatened with public stoning until Jesus intervenes. Father Dahm then launches into a homily that surprises many.“Today I would like to

U.S. and Canadian bishops joined their Latin American counterparts who came to Washington to testify about the environmental and social ills wrought by extractive industries like mining and logging. The bishops testified on March 19 before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in a bid to he

In a joint statement, representatives of more than 60 countries have recognized that Christians are particularly endangered in the Middle East, and they called on the international community to reaffirm the human right to freedom of religion. The violence carried out by terrorist groups “creat

Bishop John C. Wester of Salt Lake City, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Communications, surprised America’s church correspondent Mary Ann Walsh, R.S.M., with the prestigious St. Francis de Sales Award from the Catholic Press Association in Albany on March 12. • On March