Crystal was 13 years old when she met her pimp. Of course, she didn’t think of him as a pimp; he was her boyfriend, her savior, the man who doted on her and gave her the things her parents couldn’t or wouldn’t provide. “You know how you’re a little girl and you dream of Prince Read more
Three bishops from China have travelled to the United States seeking reconciliation with the universal Church. The visits of Bishops Joseph Ma Yinglin, John Baptist Yang Xiaoting and Vincent Zhan Silu coincided with visits by Pope Francis and Chinese President Xi Jinping to the US. The three prelates belong to the Chinese-government sanctioned bishops’ conference Read more
Pope Francis is likely to touch on several topics that could well cause discomfort to US politicians when he speaks there later this year. In September, the Pope will address a joint session of the US Congress and Senate, being the first Roman pontiff to do so. What Francis might say on that occasion was Read more
The number of potential ordinands in the United States this year is up by 25 per cent from 2014. According to US Conference of Catholic Bishops figures, there are 595 men in the “class of 2015”, up from 477 in 2014 and 497 in 2013. The 2015 class of men to be ordained to the Read more
An easy-to-complete survey on family life has been produced in the United States as an alternative to an unwieldy official Vatican survey. The surveys come ahead of October’s synod on the family. The concise survey has been produced by Strong Catholic Families, a group made up of four organisations which minister to families and youth. Read more
We appear to have reached one of those extraordinary moments in history when people everywhere, communities and even entire nations, feel increasingly stressed and vulnerable. The same may be said of the planet as a whole. Whether intellectually or intuitively, many are asking the same question: Where are we heading? How do we explain the Read more
he top four most important economic issues cited by Americans today are the lack of jobs (26%), the budget deficit (17%), the rising cost of health care (18%), and the increasing gap between the rich and poor (15%). About 1-in-10 say that social security (9%) or the rising costs of education (9%) is the country’s Read more
Seminary enrolments in Australia and the United States are rising, in spite of the sex abuse and other scandals that have plagued the Catholic Church in recent years. In Australia, the seminary intake has risen from about 235 a year in 2007 to 350 in 2012. The rector of Holy Spirit Seminary in Queensland, Monsignor Read more
Today, the top one per cent of incomes in the United States accounts for one fifth of US earnings. The top one per cent of fortunes holds two-fifths of the total wealth. Just one rich family, the six heirs of the brothers Sam and James Walton, founders of Walmart, are worth more than the bottom 40 per Read more
The prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has launched a sharply-worded attack on campaigns against the Catholic Church in Europe and the United States, comparing them to pogroms against Jews. In an interview with the daily Die Welt, Archbishop Gerhard Müller said attacks intended to discredit the Church are launched on Read more