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The University of Notre Dame's economics department, long distinctive because of its commitment to social justice and other concerns considered out of the mainstream for university level programs, has been […]

While many families struggle to pay the rising cost of sending their children to Catholic schools, parishioners in one U.S. diocese don't worry about tuition--including the high cost of tuition [...]

A group of U.S. and British church leaders told President Bush Oct. 11 that they do not believe war with Iraq 'can be justified under the principle of a `just [...]

ITALY: Sophisticated DNA testing on relics believed to belong to St. Luke indicate the remains may have actually belonged to the second-century apostle, although scientists will probably never know for [...]

The new Cabinet-level Office for Homeland Security has protection of the nation's food supply as one of its priorities. Since Sept. 11, that has become a concern as well of [...]

SOUTH AFRICA: Notre Dame Sisters in an impoverished area of South Africa will renovate an abandoned whites-only boarding school to teach skills and create jobs. When local government officials realized [...]

VATICAN CITY: The Vatican gave broad ethical clearance to research in transplanting animal tissues into humans but asked scientists to use 'maximum caution' because of unknown risks of passing animal [...]

UNITED NATIONS: A global effort to reduce global poverty by 50 percent within the next 15 years may not succeed, according to a report from the United Nations. Though some [...]

VATICAN CITY: The Vatican's new 'Roman Martyrology,' was released Oct. 2. The martyrology is a 773-page book listing saints and blesseds by their feast days and indicating that their public [...]

PAKISTAN: Church leaders have formed a forum to push peace and social harmony as some Muslim extremists mount threats over the government's support for the U.S. war against terrorism. Pakistani [...]

A bill recently introduced in Congress would allow churches to spend 20 percent of their money on lobbying and up to 5 percent on campaigning for or against individual candidates [...]

PHILIPPINES: When reports spread of flu-like symptoms affecting hundreds of students in Catholic schools in Manila, some parents, fearing biological warfare, rushed to pick up their children. Nearly a thousand [...]

The Bush administration should appoint a special emissary to 'help restart and complete' Middle East peace negotiations, an interfaith coalition of religious leaders has told President Bush and Secretary of [...]

ITALY: The prime minister of Italy has found himself fending off condemnation and protest after his declaration that Western culture is superior to Islamic civilization. Amr Moussa, secretary general of [...]

A Louisiana public school board has violated the Constitution by allowing a school principal to endorse religion, a federal judge has ruled. In his ruling handed down Sept. 27, Judge [...]

The trial of five School of Americas Watch human rights activists who were arrested July 31, 2000, in Philadelphia during the Republican National Convention, began Oct. 2. The five face [...]

A new effort called the Presidential Prayer Team is registering tens of thousands of Americans to pray for President Bush and the nation in the wake of the Sept. 11 [...]

SWITZERLAND: Homosexual survivors of Nazi discrimination and slavery are being urged to seek compensation by an organization that seeks compensation for the Holocaust's non-Jewish victims. 'Homosexual persons who performed slave [...]

Several Catholic leaders in Asia have expressed shock over the terrorist attacks in the United States and offered prayers for those who lost their lives and for their families. Cardinal [...]

American Muslims across the United States were subject to acts of vandalism and threats of retaliation for the acts of terrorism in Washington and New York Sept. 11. On Sept. [...]

Following the devastating acts of terrorism committed Sept. 11 against the United States, Islamic organizations in Los Angeles and elsewhere denounced the attacks and called for all Americans to 'stand [...]

After two days of sympathy and shared grief, a handful of Europeans, mostly from the left, began to voice unease Sept. 13 about rumblings of a massive military response from [...]

INDIA: A church delegation met the Indian home minister Aug. 29 following four attacks on Christians just one week after the Catholic bishops held discussions with leaders of a Hindu [...]

INDIA: Archbishop Henry D'Souza of Calcutta says he asked for special prayers for Mother Teresa's troubled spirit five years ago, but denied she underwent a 'real exorcism,' as some news [...]

PHILIPPINES: More than 1,000 Muslims and Catholics packed the funeral Mass of an Irish missionary shot dead in the Philippines, an outpouring that one church official said showed the 'fruit [...]

ENGLAND: Christianity has nearly been vanquished in Britain, Westminster Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor said in an unscripted speech to about 100 clergy at the National Conference of Priests in Leeds Sept. [...]

FRANCE: A Catholic bishop is facing a three-month suspended sentence after being convicted Sept. 4 of not revealing that a priest in his charge was sexually abusing children. The court [...]

RONALD FRYE, 42, was executed in North Carolina Aug. 31. Frye was the 731st person executed in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. [...]

VATICAN CITY: The Vatican said it has no connection to alleged wrongdoing by an Italian priest arrested in the United States on charges related to a $200 million insurance fraud [...]

As this paper went to press at the end of the first week of September, the city of Philadelphia was refusing to allow a scheduled display of bus shelter advertisements [...]

AFGHANISTAN: The trial of eight non-Afghan aid workers accused of promoting Christianity in Afghanistan began Sept. 4, according to the chief justice of the Taliban, the country's rulers. 'The trial [...]

THEIR LOS ANGELES NEIGHBORS THEIR LOS ANGELES NEIGHBORS never liked Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity Brothers welcoming the homeless to their Westlake residential district mansion for a shower, sandwich and [...]

Some Oregon Catholic parishes are preparing for life without priests who live on site. A handful of parishes already have lay or deacon pastoral administrators handling day-to-day decisions. The leaders [...]

The Vatican has accepted the U.S. bishops' decision to set the normal age range for conferring confirmation 'between the age of discretion and about 16 years of age.' Within that [...]

Two-thirds of recent high school graduates support the right of gays and lesbians to marry, including 80 percent of Catholics and 46 percent of Protestants who do not describe themselves [...]

A federal judge in Florida Aug. 30 upheld the state law banning gays from adopting children, reaffirming one of only three state laws in the country that ban gay adoption. [...]

VATICAN CITY: Ending a bitter war of words that threatened to shut off its worldwide broadcasts, on Aug. 31 Vatican Radio will lower the electromagnetic emissions from its transmitters to [...]

OCCUPIED WEST BANK: In a still-unfolding drama, 45 children at a Lutheran church boarding school were trapped inside their compound by Israeli army troops who invaded the Palestinian-controlled village of [...]

KENYA: Marking the first anniversary of the death of a Roman Catholic priest from Minnesota, a human rights organization in the east African nation of Kenya where he died demanded [...]

NEPAL: The government of Nepal has banned discrimination against members of Hinduism's lowest caste and said it plans to abolish the centuries-old caste system entirely. 'Effective from this day the [...]

SOUTH AFRICA: A group of nuns here has expressed concern that a recent bishops' statement condemning the use of condoms seems aimed at happily married people and not those in [...]

SOUTH AFRICA: An upcoming U.N. conference on racism and xenophobia could be 'hijacked by bigots and anti-democratic extremists' if delegates shift their focus from racism to a rancorous debate about [...]

Fr. Frank Cordaro is an active priest with the Des Moines, Iowa, diocese. An Aug. 24 brief reported on Cordaro's recent arrest in a nuclear weapons protest and carried incorrect [...]

One of the largest child abuse cases in Massachusetts history ended Aug. 17 when a judge sentenced a church youth worker to serve at least 40 years behind bars for [...]

Recent Vatican guidelines on liturgical translation are in some parts 'sufficiently ill-advised as to be the likely occasion of embarrassment to the church,' said board members of the Catholic Biblical [...]

A resolution on Middle East violence passed earlier this month by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was 'deplorable' and 'counterproductive,' the Anti-Defamation League said in a letter to the [...]

From Aug. 15 to Sept. 15, 20 Boston taxis will carry a new message on their advertising displays: 'Ordain Roman Catholic Women.' By advertising in that time frame, sponsors expect [...]

MEXICO: Opponents of the country's indigenous culture and rights law must avoid social turmoil and work through the system to improve it, said bishops from southern Mexico. The bishops said [...]

VENEZUELA: A series of bomb blasts at Catholic churches in Venezuela prompted the country's bishops to close certain churches for three days as a sign of protest. Caracas Cardinal Ignacio [...]

PHILLIPINES: A Muslim separatist group in the Philippines has beheaded four Filipino Christian hostages abducted Aug. 2 during a village raid. Police said they believe the Abu Sayyaf -- a [...]