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Are you ready for a crazy statistic? Pope Francis, who just completed his first year as pope, had a favorability rating of 79 percent midway through his reign. Surprisingly, Pope Benedict XVl about halfway through his reign in April 2008 had a favorability rating of 83 percent. It’s shocking that the pope demonized and held to be unpopular by almost everyone in the media had a higher approval rating at one point than the pope celebrated daily in the news. Least, I seem dishonest. Benedict’s average for his entire reign was around 74 percent and Francis’s average over the entire...

Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, revealed in a recent interview that his family goes to a Catholic church and that religious morality inspires a lot of his charity work. He also shared his personal thoughts on God and the biggest issues facing the world today. "The moral systems of religion, I think, are super important. We've raised our kids in a religious way; they've gone to the Catholic church that Melinda goes to and I participate in. I've been very lucky, and therefore I owe it to try and reduce the inequity in the world. And that's...

Guinness pulls out of St. Patty’s parade over LGBT ban Guinness beer has pulled its sponsorship from New York’s famed St. Patrick’s day parade over a controversial policy that prohibits gays and lesbians from marching openly, according to reports. “Guinness has a strong history of supporting diversity and being an advocate for equality for all,” the company said in a statement on the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation website. “We were hopeful that the policy of exclusion would be reversed for this year’s parade. As this has not come to pass, Guinness has withdrawn its participation. We will continue...

In an article which may be found here, Dr. William Oddie notes that, "Pope Francis has now once again (though to judge by the so far sparse coverage, you’d think he’d never said or done anything before) expressed his abhorrence of clerical sex abuse. Previous popes—indeed most senior clergy—are normally too reticent, however, to do what he has now done as well, that is to say, he has defended the Catholic Church’s record on tackling the sexual abuse of children by priests, by declaring what is now the simple truth: that “no one else has done more” than the Church...

Leaders from the Evangelical Immigration Table and U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops joined in a letter to Congress asking for passage of a bill this year that fixes the immigration system. "Common sense fixes to our immigration policies are long overdue. As a nation founded upon the principles of the rule of law and the centrality of family, we can no longer delay fixing this system," the letter states. The leaders note that they encounter the difficulties caused by the nation's immigration system through interactions they have with people in their faith communities. "As leaders in our respective faith communities,...

Los Angeles, Calif., Feb 21, 2014 / 12:58 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- L.A. Archbishop José H. Gomez has called for “interim measures” such as a moratorium on immigration raids and help for undocumented minors in order to bypass immigration reform’s apparent “political dead end.” “These two proposals are no substitute for true immigration reform — but they would make a big difference in the lives of millions of our neighbors,” Archbishop Gomez said in his Nov. 21 column for the Los Angeles archdiocese’s newspaper The Tidings. He voiced disappointment in the House of Representatives’ recent decision not to move forward with...

In the Arab countries they are fewer and fewer, driven to exodus by growing hostility. An up-to-date map of how many and who they are, three months before the pope's voyage to the Holy Land by Sandro Magister ROME, February 11, 2014 – Behind the scenes preparations are in full swing for the voyage of Pope Francis to the Holy Land, scheduled for May 24-26. When half a century ago Pope VI went to Jerusalem - the first pope in history to do do so - almost all of the holy places of the city were within the boundaries of...

Anti-Religion: Ignoring abhorrences such as China's one-child policy and atrocities condoned by Shariah law, a U.N. committee tells the Vatican to deal with abusive priests and change its teachings on abortion, contraception and homosexuality. That the report issued by the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child would mention the instances of abuse of children by priests in the United States is not surprising. What is surprising and unfortunate is that the U.N. would act as if the Catholic Church had done nothing about it and use the report as a springboard to attack the core doctrines of a...

A Rio Grande Valley Catholic deacon who is also a school principal was arrested after allegedly sexually abusing an altar boy, according to police. Ronaldo Mitchell Chavez was arrested Friday by the Mission Police Department on a charge of continuous sexual abuse of a child. The alleged sexual abuse of a child started when the boy was 15-years-old, police said. The now 17-year-old first spoke to an investigator in December where he allegedly provided a statement about the sexual abuse, according to the Mission Police Department. Police told Action 4 News the deacon would drop the other children off at...

Los Angeles, Calif., Jan 14, 2014 / 02:04 am (CNA).- Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles has said Americans have to see “the human faces of immigration”: the children and families suffering under America's “broken” immigration policy. “In the name of enforcing our laws, we’re breaking up families. Punishing kids for the mistakes of their parents,” he said, referring to the nearly two million people deported over the last four years. “That’s the sad truth – one out of every four people we deport is being taken away from an intact family.” The archbishop’s remarks came Jan. 10 in a...

The readings from the Feast of the Assumption still echo in my mind. I am particularly mindful of their announcement of victory: I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have salvation and power come, and the Kingdom of our God and the authority of his Anointed One. Rev (12:10) Then comes the end, when [Christ] hands over the Kingdom to his God and Father, when he has destroyed every sovereignty and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death, for...

There is a line from the Book of Hebrews that says this: And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Heb 10:24-25). The teaching is clear, we must come together each week for Mass and learn to live in deep communion with one another. We are not meant to make this journey alone. We need encouragement and exhortation, food for the journey, company and protection. In...

San Bernardino Diocese to celebrate cultures, push for immigration reform at Mass in Rancho Cucamonga San Bernardino Diocese to celebrate cultures, push for immigration reform at Mass in Rancho Cucamonga..RANCHO CUCAMONGA >> The region’s Catholics will gather Sunday at Sacred Heart Church, 12704 Foothill Blvd., to celebrate the contribution migrants have played as parishioners in the Diocese of San Bernardino. The diocese, which covers San Bernardino and Riverside counties, will celebrate its eighth annual migration Mass at 12:30 p.m. at the church. The diocesan Mass concludes the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ observance of National Migration Week. The diocese has...

Denver, Jan 7 (EFE).- The Catholic Church of the United States launched Tuesday a campaign of contacts with federal lawmakers urging them to pass immigration reform, as part of its annual observance of National Migration Week. The U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference considers that migrants, especially children, the undocumented, political refugees and victims of human trafficking, "often find themselves existing in a kind of figurative darkness where their options remain limited." For that reason, besides the social services and spiritual support the Catholic Church regularly offers, the bishops asked U.S. Catholics to contact legislators this week to ask them to pass...

ObamaCare: In bad news for a White House intent on shredding the First Amendment, a Supreme Court justice has exempted a group of nuns from the mandate to provide contraceptive coverage in health plans. Just hours before ObamaCare's birth-control mandate was to take effect, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Tuesday issued a last-minute stay in response to a case brought by the Denver-based Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged against the Department of Health and Human Services. The U.S. government is "temporarily enjoined from enforcing against applicants the contraceptive coverage requirements imposed by the Patient Protection...

BY SR. MARYANN WALSH, USCCBThe Amish are exempt from the entire health care reform law. So are members of Medi-Share, a program of Christian Care Ministry. Yet, when the Catholic Church asks for a religious exemption from just one regulation issued under the law – the mandate that all employers, including religious institutions, must pay for sterilization and contraceptives, including abortion-inducing drugs – the Administration balks.The government respects the First Amendment that guarantees the right to freely exercise one’s religious beliefs, but only to a point. In the health care law it picks and chooses which beliefs it respects. The...

Dec15 Is the Bottom Really Falling Out of Catholic Mass Attendance? A Recent CARA Survey Ponders the QuestionBy: Msgr. Charles Pope Is the number of Catholics really dropping? Is the bottom really falling out of Catholic Mass attendance? If you are a regular reader of this blog you know that I have written several articles and cited several studies that detail an increasingly grave situation for the Church (e.g. HERE). Most of us are familiar with a significant number of Church closings, school closings and the like thought Catholic America. These surely strengthen the view that we are in an increasingly...

In the early hours of the resurrection appearances on the first Easter Sunday news began to be circulated that Jesus was alive and had been seen. These reports were, at first disbelieved or at least doubted by the apostles. Various reports from both women and men were dismissed by the apostles. But suddenly in the evening of that first Easter Sunday there is a change, and a declaration by the apostles that the Lord “has truly risen!” What effected this change? We will see in a moment. But first note the early reports of the resurrection and how they were...

May20 The Church is A MiracleBy: Msgr. Charles Pope If the Church were depending on human beings to exist and stay unified how long do think she would have lasted? Probably about twenty minutes, max! There are no governments or nations that have lasted 2000 years. Very little else in this world can claim such antiquity and even if it does can it claim to have remained essentially unchanged in its dogma or teaching? The Catholic Church is one, even after 2000 years. An unbroken line of Popes back to Peter and an unbroken line of succession for all...

In discussing the Health and Human Services (HHS) Mandate that will attempt to force the Catholic Church to pay for contraceptives, abortifacients, and sterilization, I have discovered that many Catholics, while generally understanding why we object to paying for sterilization and abortifacients, are less than enthusiastic about our refusal to pay for contraceptives. This “lack of enthusiasm” for the Church’s position on Contraception, along with political irritation, makes many Catholics ambivalent or even hostile to the Bishop’s call that we oppose the HHS mandate.Why we won’t pay for contraceptives – While the fundamental issue is this matter is Religious Freedom...