Features

Reflections on the changes to the annulment process

Friday, September 11th, 2015

“The concern of Pope Francis is in first place for the good of all the faithful, especially those whose situations have been a cause of difficulty in living the Christian life as fully as possible”. Catholic annulments look to many to be a simple Catholic divorce. Divorce says that the reality of marriage was there Read more

Who are cultural Catholics?

Friday, September 11th, 2015

The share of Americans whose primary religious affiliation is Catholic has fallen somewhat in recent years, and now stands at about one-in-five. But according to a new Pew Research Center survey of U.S. Catholics and others, an additional one-in-ten American adults (9%) consider themselves Catholic or partially Catholic in other ways, even though they do Read more

Refugees trapped on Manus Island

Tuesday, September 8th, 2015

Mohsen is late, but effusively apologetic as he sits down. “I can’t sleep at night for the nightmares,” he says. “In the dark I am back in that prison in my country,” – a middle-eastern country Guardian Australia has chosen not to name for fear of consequences for his family – “so instead I sleep Read more

A Synod is not a Council

Tuesday, September 8th, 2015

Since the 2014 Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops a growing theological divide has become apparent. This divide, evident among a small minority of cardinals and bishops present (and not present) at the Extraordinary Assembly, has been recognized through their views on how to “pastorally” apply Catholic teaching regarding marriage, family and sexual Read more

Year of Mercy letter from Pope Francis

Friday, September 4th, 2015

With the approach of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy I would like to focus on several points which I believe require attention to enable the celebration of the Holy Year to be for all believers a true moment of encounter with the mercy of God. It is indeed my wish that the Jubilee be a Read more

New generation nuns

Friday, September 4th, 2015

Mechanical bulls, rock-climbing walls, bounce houses, go-karts: Before becoming a nun, Sister Virginia Joy helped insure them all. “I was a go-between between the underwriters and the customers,” said Sister Virginia Joy, a former high school soccer star from South Carolina now wearing a habit of white and navy blue. She was fighting Midtown Manhattan Read more

Passau: laboratory for refugee politics

Tuesday, September 1st, 2015

As dawn breaks, ghost-like figures with sunken heads laden with babies, bundles of food and clothing can be seen trudging slowly along the autobahn. Alongside the usual tips on tailbacks and delays, traffic bulletins on the local radio alert drivers to “pedestrians who have been spotted on the A3 between the Austrian border and south Read more

The science of forgiveness

Tuesday, September 1st, 2015

In 1978, Dr. Dabney Ewin, a surgeon specializing in burns, was on duty in a New Orleans emergency room when a man was brought in on a gurney. A worker at the Kaiser Aluminum plant, the patient had slipped and fallen into a vat of 950-degree molten aluminum up to his knees. Ewin did something Read more

The radical assault on marriage and family – Marx to today

Friday, August 28th, 2015

Dr. Paul Kengor is a professor of political science at Grove City College (Pennsylvania) and the author of several best-selling books, including Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century; God and Ronald Reagan; God and George W. Bush; God and Hillary Clinton; and The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism. Read more

Population control not needed

Friday, August 28th, 2015

Contrary to the fear mongering of the population alarmists, the world isn’t heading for a demographic catastrophe. The latest data on world population from the U.N. Population Division reveals a number of trends that seem to indicate otherwise. The following is PRI’s brief overview of some of the findings from the recently released 2015 Revision Read more