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I haven't seen the [AP Stylebook's] new religion chapter, but I have seen how the press generally reports on Catholicism -- and it seems like there are already some agreed-upon guidelines. For instance: Catholics in the news. If an actor, a football player, a CEO, or any other reasonably decent, successful or attractive person is a practicing Catholic, that is never relevant, and any reference to receiving the sacraments or belief in God must be edited out for clarity and brevity. However, if the story is about a transvestite stripper, a comedian who draws heavily on the comedic value of...

Francis took off his shoes to step into the gold-topped dome, which enshrines the rock where Muslims believe the Prophet Mohammad ascended to heaven. Speaking to the grand mufti of Jerusalem and other Muslim authorities, Francis deviated from his prepared remarks to refer not just to his "dear friends" but "dear brothers." "May we respect and love one another as brothers and sisters," he said, and added, "May we learn to understand the suffering of others! May no one abuse the name of God through violence!"

Praying to Mary, celebrating the Mass, venerating the Pope—you won’t find those doctrines in the Bible. And yet more than one billion Roman Catholics throughout the world follow such practices in line with the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. With that many Catholics around the globe, it’s likely you know some of them as relatives, friends, neighbors, or co-workers. Find out what they don’t know—the origin and error of Catholic doctrine—so you can help the Catholics you know out of the darkness and into the light.

Pope Francis would absolutely baptize an alien from Mars, if one showed up at the Vatican and asked for it. During his weekly homily on Monday, Franics said that aliens — which he imagines could be "Green, with that long nose and big ears, just like children paint them" — should be baptized just like anyone else who asks for it, because it's not up to any human to decide who should receive the Holy Spirit. In other words: if God prompts some Martians to come to Earth, find the Pope, and say "we want in on this Catholicism thing."...

Before I started reading Something Other Than God: How I Passionately Sought Happiness and Accidentally Found It, I wasn't sure what to expect. I am a regular reader of Jennifer Fulwiler’s blog, Conversion Diary, so I knew the author was an excellent writer with six children and an intense fear of scorpions. I also knew she had made the journey from atheism to Catholicism. As Jennifer raised questions about Christianity and then Catholicism, sometimes I found myself arguing with her. Other times I realized she was asking a question I couldn’t easily answer myself. Why does God answer some people’s...

October is the month of the most Holy Rosary; November, the month to pray for the faithful departed; June we immerse ourselves in the ocean of mercy of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; July we praise and worship the Precious Blood of Jesus, the price of our salvation. May is the month of Mary. Mary is the Daughter of God the Father, the Mother of God the Son and the Mystical Spouse of the Holy Spirit, the Queen of the angels, saints, of heaven and earth. And St. Louis de Montfort acclaims her as the Queen of all hearts and...

The other day I took a funeral for Arthur– one of our WWII vets. He was a sweet, faithful and good Catholic gentleman and a decorated WWII pilot. At the graveside a couple of Marines were present in their dress uniforms for the flag ceremony. They stood tall with shoes shined and hat brims low. After the Catholic ceremony one soldier stood at attention while the other bugled “Taps”. Then he stepped forward, smart and correct. They took the flag and folded it into the famous triangle and handed it to the widow with the set formula of words. It...

Karen Hudes – RT’s “Whistleblower” Who Believes World Bank Controlled By Second Species Adam Holland April 22, 2014 Print Friendly Reporters love nothing more than a source with important inside information about the secret operations of a powerful institution. For the public, the word “whistleblower” evokes the individual citizen putting themselves at risk to stop wrongdoing by an employer. It’s a powerful idea – one justifiably lauded both in fiction and fact, and protected and encouraged by a set of federal laws set up precisely to encourage such heroic behavior. But not all whistleblowers are created equal. In fact, there...

TRES RIOS, Costa Rica (AP) — On a warm spring day, Floribeth Mora was in her bed waiting to die from a seemingly inoperable brain aneurysm when her gaze fell upon a photograph of Pope John Paul II in a newspaper. "Stand up," Mora recalls the image of the pope saying to her. "Don't be afraid." Mora, her doctors and the Catholic Church say her aneurysm disappeared that day in a miracle that cleared the way for the late pope to be declared a saint on April 27 in a ceremony at the Vatican where Mora will be a guest...

The use of wood from Baltimore’s basilica to construct a “seed chest” given to Pope Francis by President Barack Obama March 27 points to the history of American Catholicism and Baltimore’s role in it, said Monsignor Arthur Valenzano, rector of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. “I’m very pleased,” Monsignor Valenzano said of the gift. “It gives us another chance to get the word out nationally, and now internationally, about the role that the basilica played and continues to play in the United States.” Robert S. Reier, the basilica’s operations manager, collected...

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...

Details: During his Sunday morning service, Ulf Ekman announced the he and his wife, Birgitta, are converting to Roman Catholicism.Ekman is the founder of Word of Life, a megachurch in Uppsala, Sweden. News reports and blogs coming out of the nation reveal congregation was “partially stunned” after hearing what was packaged as a “special announcement.” The theme was “follow the Lamb wherever He goes.”“For Birgitta and me, this has been a slow process where we have gone from discovering new things, to appreciating what we have discovered, to approach and even learn from our fellow Christians,” Ekman says on his...

The cultural chasm between religious individuals and American society is swelling. On a personal level, I feel distant from the current trends in politics, television, movies, and music. It’s becoming harder for individuals with Catholic sensibilities, for instance, to tune into the Grammys or scan across Yahoo’s headlines without feeling lost. Amidst the vast difference between my own beliefs and the accepted principles of secular culture, I have been contemplating how we can dialogue with people on the other side. How do we avoid hiding in our own little clique of likeminded individuals? How do we cut through all the...

Of all the myriad myths spread at light speed by the enemies of Christianity and astonishingly believed without much critical thought by vast numbers of people, one of the most surreal must be the idea that Nazism was Christian. This is part of an email I received fromTony, a supporter of my party Liberty GB, who sent me a long list of sharp attacks against Christianity after watching my video: What Is Uniquely Good about Western Civilisation Derives from Christianity. For example Adolf Hitler was a Catholic and included proclamations of his beliefs in his writings, e.g. "We demand liberty...

Not the least of which is on the part of the poll itself. Yesterday, the Washington Post’s religion reporters Michelle Boorstein and Peyton Craighill reported on a global survey conducted by Univision that showed a wide split among Catholics of different regions on adherence to church doctrine. Boorstein and Craighill argue that this demonstrates the uphill battle facing Pope Francis as he tries to unite the global Christian church, and his own: Most Catholics worldwide disagree with church teachings on divorce, abortion and contraception and are split on whether women and married men should become priests, according to a large...

For most casual observers, whether Catholic or not, the main battle lines within American Catholicism today seem self-evident. The cleavage overlaps perfectly the divide between the political parties, leading to the frequently-used labels “liberal” and “conservative” Catholics. We have Nancy Pelosi and Andrew Cuomo representing the Left, and Rick Santorum and Sam Brownback aligned with the Right. Mainstream opinion has classified Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI as honorary Republicans, and Pope Francis as a Democrat (hence, why he is appearing on the covers of Time and Rolling Stone Magazines). This division does indeed capture real battle lines, but...

Minarets instead of church towers, muezzins instead of churchbells. A different France.The secular and libertarian magazine Causeur asks: “Is this the end of the bell towers of France?”. Until last week, the church bells of Boissettes, a town of five hundred inhabitants in the district of the Seine, were ringing every half hour. Then, the Administrative Court of Paris has stopped the bells, as an alleged violation of the 1905 law on the separation of church and state. The story seems a perfect epitaph to an essay that appeared ten years ago by Danièle Hervieu -Léger, “Catholicisme, la fin d’un...

For Protestantism to make much sense, the Church must have, at some point, abandoned the truth and become apostate. Otherwise, Protestantism has no license to exist. But when was this "Great Apostasy"? Protestants offer varying opinions, but none of them hold up to scrutiny. Was it right after the deaths of the Apostles?A view most supported by Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses is that, after the Apostles, the Church quickly fell into apostasy. This would be a massive blow at both God's promise to guard His Church (Joshua 1:5; Matthew 16:18) and all of the doctrine mentioned hereafter. But if this...

Pope Benedict XVI defrocked nearly 400 priests for raping and molesting children in his final two years before stepping down as the head of the Catholic Church in 2013, documents obtained by The Associated Press reveal. According to the data, 260 priests were deprived of their ecclesiastical status in 2012 and 124 in 2012 – more than a twofold increase over the 171 priests defrocked in the preceding two years. The figures represent the first time the Vatican has provided statistics on the number of priests to be removed for sex abuse as a result of the Church’s in-house procedures....

The president of Eastside Catholic School has resigned amid the fallout from her decision to dismiss the school’s vice principal for marrying his gay partner. In December, Sister Mary Tracy terminated Vice Principal Mark Zmuda, who also served as the swim coach, saying his marriage to a man violated teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, which he’d agreed to uphold when he began working at the school.