Today on a hillside overlooking Port-au-Prince I met the boy who has no name Scratch that I rsquo m sure he has a name I just was unable to find it out He began following me soon after I arrived at a camp in the city rsquo s village of Carradeux a place where hundreds of families have lived si

In Port-au-Prince at St Pierre parish one of the few Catholic churches that didn rsquo t collapse in the January 2010 earthquake which devastated this city of 3 7 million people everyone is dressed as smartly as they can at Sunday Mass in the evening the way people in New York did when I was a k

Bad news about poverty disease and disaster abounds Today in the spirit of Thanksgiving Catholic Relief Services offers another perspective Good News mdash For a Change highlights major strides in the fight against global poverty that are making a real difference in people rsquo s lives This f

Life will break your heart So will Jonathan Kozol rsquo s Fire in the Ashes It is full of life mdash messy disorganized broken and tragic and yes sometimes still full of joy and mercy and grace at unexpected moments This latest account of the lives of the other Americans who peopled K

Given the state of the economy and the mood of the nation a letter of hope during economic dark times seemed like a good idea when the U S bishops voted by a wide margin to nbsp draft a message on work and the economy during their June meeting in Atlanta nbsp But after the draft of that resulting

The Syrian ceasefire is off to a shaky start On Friday morning a four-day ceasefire to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha went into effect The violence had not let up Thursday evening when a Syrian government artillery barrage was reported in the Hajar al-Aswad neighborhood in Damascus The

A pair of recent surveys dissected once again the presumably influential Catholic vote as the nation closes in on the Nov 6 presidential showdown The surveys suggest U S Catholics follow their political bliss much as the rest of the nation does and despite such seeming non-negotiables as abortion

Setting humanity free from hunger is possible Pope Benedict XVI said in a statement released today in commemoration of World Food Day 2012 All that it requires is abandoning policies ldquo that seem to have as their sole objective profit the defence of markets the non-alimentary use of agricult