LOS ANGELES (RNS) After he stopped attending Catholic Mass as a freshman in high school, Matt Maher never expected to have a career as a Catholic musician with crossover appeal for evangelicals.
(RNS) Roman Catholics, who are the third-largest sponsor of Boy Scout troops in the U.S., have remained quiet on a proposed policy change to allow gay Scouts. That may be because Catholics are as split as the general population on the question of homosexuality in the Boy Scouts of America.
(RNS) The Catholic diocese in Missouri led by Bishop Robert Finn, who was convicted last year of failing to report a priest who was taking pornographic pictures of children, will pay a $600,000 settlement to the family of one of the priest’s victims.
(RNS) News that scientists in Oregon had for the first time recovered stem cells from cloned human embryos prompted dire warnings from religious leaders who say the research crosses a bioethical red line and could lead to designer babies.
WASHINGTON (RNS) “Faith leaders have a remarkable opportunity to shift the conversation, but it’s very challenging, particularly in a larger society that wants to understand everything as a battle,” said Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.
(RNS) The Vatican on Wednesday said that Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who resigned in February amid reports that he had made sexual advances to a number of priests, will do penance in an undisclosed location outside of his country.
(RNS) When rogue abortionist Kermit Gosnell was found guilty of delivering and then killing late-term infants, abortion opponents were convinced they had a case that could finally reshape a static abortion debate. Yet for a variety of reasons, those prayers for a game-changing impact may go unanswered.
VATICAN CITY (RNS) For centuries, popes sponsored the work of artists such as Michelangelo, Raffaello or Bernini, but the marriage between art and faith became estranged in modern times. With a new exhibit at the prestigious Venice Biennial art festival, the Vatican hopes to revive church patronage of the arts.
(RNS) Growing up Catholic in England, Candida Moss felt secure in life, yet learned in church that Christians have been persecuted since the dawn of Christianity. As an adult and a theologian, she wants to set the record straight.
VATICAN CITY (RNS) While the number of Catholic priests in the Americas and in Europe is declining compared to the overall Catholic population, those losses were offset by increasing ranks of permanent deacons.
