Washington DC
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State Department official sees positive mix of religion and politics
By CAROL ZIMMERMANN, Catholic News Service
Published October 7, 2016WASHINGTON (CNS)—Although religion and politics can be a volatile mix, they also can be a force for good, said a U.S. State Department official. For the past three years, Shaun Casey has been the U.S. special representative for religion and global affairs, a new office when he was appointed. It now has a staff of […] Full Story
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Hurricane Matthew tears through Haiti as aid workers prepare to respond
By DENNIS SADOWSKI, Catholic News Service
Published October 6, 2016WASHINGTON (CNS)—Wind-whipped rains from Hurricane Matthew shattered Haiti’s southwest peninsula, downing trees, ripping open makeshift wooden homes and causing widespread flooding Oct. 4 as aid workers waited for the storm to subside before mobilizing. The city of Les Cayes and coastal towns and villages in South Department were experiencing the most destruction as the storm […] Full Story
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World record-holder swimmer still says ‘a prayer—or two—before any race’
By KELLY SEEGERS, Catholic News Service
Published August 18, 2016WASHINGTON (CNS)—Four years ago, at age 15, swimmer Katie Ledecky won Olympic gold in the women’s 800-meter freestyle. Since then Ledecky, who attended Catholic schools in Bethesda, Maryland, has become the world record holder in the 400-, 800- and 1500-meter freestyles, and the American record holder in the 500-, 1000- and 1650-yard freestyles. In the […] Full Story
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Slain French priest was attack on ‘all of us,’ imam said
By CAROL ZIMMERMANN, Catholic News Service
Published August 4, 2016WASHINGTON (CNS)—Father Jacques Hamel’s gruesome murder in northern France July 26—by men claiming allegiance to the Islamic State—prompted sorrow and outrage from Muslim leaders around the world. “This attack in a place of worship and on innocent worshippers in particular demonstrates that there are no boundaries to the depravity of these murderers,” wrote Imam Qari […] Full Story
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Archbishop Gregory to chair USCCB task force on race
By MARK PATTISON, Catholic News Service
Published July 22, 2016WASHINGTON (CNS)— Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of Atlanta has been appointed as chair of a new task force of the U.S. bishops to deal with racial issues brought into public consciousness following a series of summertime shootings that left both citizens and police officers among those dead. The task force’s charge includes helping bishops to […] Full Story
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U.S. church urged to turn attention to racism before fractures widen
By DENNIS SADOWSKI, Catholic News Service
Published July 20, 2016WASHINGTON (CNS)—Father Bryan Massingale, a priest of the Milwaukee Archdiocese and well-known theologian, knows what it’s like to be watched by police. He said that as a black man there have been times he has been followed by police officers on the campus of Marquette University, where he taught for 12 years, as he walked […] Full Story
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USCCB president says violence calls for ‘moment of national reflection’
Published July 8, 2016
WASHINGTON (CNS)—The shooting of police officers July 7 near the end of a demonstration in Dallas against fatal shootings by police officers in Baton Rouge and Minneapolis earlier in the week “calls us to a moment of national reflection,” said the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “To all people of good will, […] Full Story
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Supreme Court’s Texas decision impacts states, galvanizes both sides
By CAROL ZIMMERMANN, Catholic News Service
Published July 7, 2016WASHINGTON (CNS)—The Supreme Court’s June 27 decision to strike down restrictions on Texas abortion clinics is having ripple effects on legislation across the country and it also has galvanized those on both sides of the abortion issue. The impact of the ruling—which said Texas abortion clinics do not have to comply with standards of ambulatory […] Full Story
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‘Laudato Si’’ at one year: Catholics inspired to act on climate change
By DENNIS SADOWSKI, Catholic News Service
Published June 23, 2016WASHINGTON (CNS)—Thinking green is not easy. Nor is it always cheap. But for St. Michael Parish in Poway, California, north of San Diego, parishioners are already seeing the benefits—spiritual, financial and environmental—of a $1.3 million investment in a solar panel system. In the year since the panels were installed on several buildings across the 26-acre […] Full Story
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Court remands two HHS challenges to lower courts ‘in light of Zubik’
Published May 26, 2016
WASHINGTON (CNS)—The U.S. Supreme Court in orders issued May 23 remanded two Catholic entities’ legal challenges to the federal contraceptive mandate back to the lower courts. The high court granted a petition for a writ of certiorari for two plaintiffs—the Catholic Health Care System, an umbrella for four Catholic institutions affiliated with the Archdiocese of […] Full Story
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Supreme Court: Race played role in Georgia death penalty case jury selection
By CAROL ZIMMERMANN, Catholic News Service
Published May 26, 2016WASHINGTON (CNS)—In a May 23 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court said Georgia prosecutors violated the Constitution in a death penalty case nearly two decades ago by excluding prospective black jurors from the trial. The 7-1 decision sent the case of Timothy Foster, an African-American facing the death penalty for killing an elderly white woman in […] Full Story
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Study of women deacons won’t be first, but might answer questions
By CAROL ZIMMERMANN, Catholic News Service
Published May 26, 2016WASHINGTON (CNS)—When Pope Francis accepted a proposal at the Vatican May 12 to form a commission to study the possibility of women serving as deacons today, it generated plenty of buzz. The pope’s agreement on the idea—raised by members of the International Union of Superiors General, the leadership group for superiors of women’s orders—was interpreted […] Full Story
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Theologians’ brief in HHS mandate case might lead to compromise ruling
By CAROL ZIMMERMANN, Catholic News Service
Published May 12, 2016WASHINGTON (CNS)—Supreme Court cases, with their multiple friend-of-the-court briefs, leave extensive paper trails behind them and although these briefs might get lost in the shuffle, occasionally some stand out. In Zubik v. Burwell, the challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s contraception requirement, more than 30 briefs were filed by religious, political and health groups weighing […] Full Story
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Governments, agencies scramble to curb explosion in U.S. opiate use
By MARK PATTISON, Catholic News Service
Published April 15, 2016WASHINGTON (CNS)—“Religion is the opiate of the masses,” German philosopher Karl Marx is famously credited with writing in the 19th century. If it ever was true, it’s not anymore. In the United States today, opiates themselves are the opiates of the masses. It used to be that heroin was the opiate for society to reckon […] Full Story
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Pope names papal nuncio to Mexico to be new nuncio to the United States
Published April 14, 2016
WASHINGTON (CNS)—Pope Francis has appointed Archbishop Christophe Pierre, papal nuncio to Mexico since 2007, to be the new apostolic nuncio to the United States. He succeeds Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who has held the post since 2011. Archbishop Vigano turned 75 in January, the age at which canon law requires bishops to turn their resignation […] Full Story
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Supreme Court seeks details on alternative contraceptive coverage
By CAROL ZIMMERMANN, Catholic News Service
Published March 31, 2016WASHINGTON (CNS)—Less than a week after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments about the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive requirement, the court released an order requesting that additional briefs be submitted showing if and how contraceptive insurance coverage could be obtained by employees through their insurance companies without directly involving the religious employers objecting to this […] Full Story
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USCCB, other faith groups file Supreme Court brief in immigration case
By CAROL ZIMMERMANN, Catholic News Service
Published March 18, 2016WASHINGTON (CNS)—The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and several other Catholic organizations joined in filing friend of the court briefs March 8 urging the Supreme Court to support the Obama administration’s actions that would temporarily protect from deportation more than 4 million immigrants in the country illegally and enable some immigrants to legally work in […] Full Story
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Fifty years after Time cover story, rumors of God’s death still greatly exaggerated
By MARK PATTISON, Catholic News Service
Published March 17, 2016WASHINGTON (CNS)—It hit like the proverbial ton of bricks: the Time magazine cover story of April 8, 1966—Good Friday that year—asking, “Is God Dead?” The tenor of the times made it a plausible question. Less than three years earlier, the Supreme Court had ruled the mandatory recitation of the Lord’s Prayer in public schools unconstitutional. […] Full Story
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OLM alumna has White House experience
Published March 17, 2016
WASHINGTON—Our Lady of Mercy High School, Fayetteville, alumna Simone Cowan, class of 2015, spent March 8, International Women’s Day, at the White House with First Lady Michelle Obama, while celebrating the one-year anniversary of “Let Girls Learn.” In a Facebook post, Cowan reported traveling to the White House and receiving celebrity treatment. Afterward, there was […] Full Story
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Antonin Scalia, longest-serving justice on current Supreme Court, dies
Published February 19, 2016
WASHINGTON (CNS)—Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died of apparent natural causes Feb. 13 while in Texas on a hunting trip, once said in an interview that while he took his Catholic faith seriously, he never allowed it to influence his work on the high court. “I don’t think there’s any such thing as a […] Full Story