When Fortunata Evolo, a 20th century Italian mystic, was alive, thousands would come to her Italian village to seek her guidance. After her death in 2009, the pilgrims kept coming, declaring that she continued to perform miracles from her heavenly abode. They prayed at her tomb and finished building the “Villa of Joy,” a complex that Evolo said appeared to her in a vision.
Read MoreFour months before the midterm elections, Catholic voters are giving President Joe Biden a thumbs down, are evenly split when it comes for their support of Democrats and Republicans and have mixed opinions when it comes to abortion rights, according to a new poll.
Read More(ANALYSIS) There’s nothing wrong with opinions and publishing a wide array of commentary. It’s something else altogether to take press releases and tweets, then dress them up as news stories. As we enter a post-Dobbs America, there’s the potential for these bad journalistic practices to get worse in the coming months and years.
Read MoreJoseph Kennedy, a high school football coach in Bremerton, Washington, is waiting for a ruling to emerge from the Supreme Court any day in his case about prayer. And he insists he is a centrist that most Americans would agree with on religious freedom issues and the Constitution.
Read MoreDavid Bauer coached Canada’s men’s ice hockey team at the 1964 Winter Games. Largely credited with creating the first truly national Canadian hockey team, Bauer left a truly great legacy. An educator and Catholic priest, Bauer was a pioneer and remains a Canadian icon admired to this day.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Tom Catena, an American Catholic, has worked as a doctor for 14 years in the the Nuba Mountains in Sudan — a desolate, rebel-held area that was bombed repeatedly from 2011 until 2018 by the Khartoum government when Omar al-Bashir was president.
Read MorePope Francis’ trip to Canada next month will have a rather dour feel. The pope will make the transatlantic trip so he can apologize in person for past abuses suffered by Indigenous people at the hands of the Catholic Church. The pope will be in Canada from July 24 to 29 with stops in Edmonton, Quebec City and the small town of Iqaluit, where nearly half the population of 8,000 is Inuit.
Read More(OPINION) National news coverage regarding House Speaker Nancy Pelosi being banned by San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone from taking Holy Communion because of her continued support — in words and deeds — for abortion rights spanned from very good to baffling and very poor.
Read MoreIn an appearance Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi questioned whether San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone was applying a double standard by banning her from receiving Holy Communion because she supports abortion rights but not supporters of the death penalty.
Read MoreThe Catholic press — print, online and television — is one of the most active and vibrant in the United States, but the changing journalism landscape — spurred on by the internet — has made it tough for even religious media to thrive. This trend manifested itself recently with the pending closures of two highly venerated and popular Catholic news organizations: Catholic News Service and Catholic New York.
Read MoreArchbishop Salvatore Cordileone notified House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week that she is not eligible to receive Holy Communion when attending Mass in the Archdiocese of San Francisco given her support for abortion rights. Cordileone notified Pelosi of his decision on May 19 and announced it to the public in two separate letters.
Read More(ANALYSIS) If there was ever a doubt that Americans are living in two, separate news universes, then the past two weeks certainly crystallized that reality even more than the polarizing presidential elections of 2016 and 2020. As a result, a major news story on pro-abortion rights protesters at churches was totally ignored by many mainstream news sites.
Read MoreThe humanitarian activist and religious freedom fighter Cardinal Zen, who had previously served as bishop of Hong Kong from 2002 to 2009, was detained, along with four others, in connection with his role as administrator of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which supported pro-democracy demonstrations by paying for the legal and medical fees of protesters.
Read MoreIn an interview with ReligionUnplugged.com, theoretical physicist and Templeton Prize winner Dr. Frank Wilczek said he was raised in New York City by parents with Italian and Polish backgrounds who wanted him educated in the Catholic tradition: “As a child, I took it very, very seriously and I think it had a residual influence in my later life in helping me to think big and look for the hidden meaning of things.”
Read MoreWeekend Plug-in features a reporter roundtable on this week’s bombshell news: the leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion that would reverse Roe v. Wade. Plus, as always, catch up on all the week’s best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.
Read More(ANALYSIS) On Tuesday, a preliminary draft Supreme Court opinion was leaked to Politico, revealing that the court — as of February — intended to overturn Roe v. Wade. What does the leak mean for the court and America, and how have faith voices responded?
Read More(ANALYSIS) Something akin to a Catholic “Trial of the Century” has gotten underway in Rome and there’s plenty of palace intrigue to go around. The trial involving corruption, bad real estate deals and financial wrongdoing has placed Pope Francis in the center of a controversy that for the first time doesn’t involve doctrine or theology.
Read More(ANALYSIS) It’s understandable that reviewers are entitled to their opinions. After all, that’s the job of a critic. But the coverage around “Father Stu,” however, has been framed in a certain way, offering up lopsided and negative takes among many mainstream news sites.
Read More(ANALYSIS) While Pope Francis was presiding over a ceremony at the Vatican to consecrate Ukraine and Russia, a group of high-ranking American bishops met in Chicago. The gathering, entitled “Pope Francis, Vatican II and the Way Forward,” aimed to create a dialogue between theologians and bishops.
Read MoreDuring Lent, many Catholic churches participate in fish fries, a meal containing battered or breaded fried fish. Served every Friday following Ash Wednesday, the meals served during the Christian season of repentance have become a mainstay for many Catholic churches who use them to raise money and build community.
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