By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis announced an extraordinary jubilee, a Holy Year of Mercy, to highlight the Catholic Church’s “mission to be a witness of mercy.” “No one can be excluded from God’s mercy,” the pope said March 13, marking the second anniversary of …

By Chaz Muth Catholic News Service WASHINGTON — When the University of Notre Dame invited President Barack Obama to be its 2009 commencement speaker, it unleashed a firestorm of criticism on one of the country’s most recognized U.S. Catholic institutions of higher education. Holy Cross Father Theodore M. Hesburgh, who …

By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY — When Pope Francis went out onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica for the first time, he said he did not prepare what he was going to say, but “I felt deeply that a minister needs the blessing of God, but …

Press Release St. James of the Valley School, operated by St. James of the Valley Church in Wyoming, will close at the end of the current school year (effective July 1, 2015). Archbishop Dennis M. Schnurr accepted a joint recommendation from the parish pastor, the parish council, the parish finance …

By Catholic News Service WASHINGTON  — Pope Francis has named Auxiliary Bishop Thomas A. Daly of San Jose, California, to head the Diocese of Spokane, Washington, and Conventual Franciscan Father John Stowe to be bishop of Lexington, Kentucky. Bishop Daly, 54, has been an auxiliary of the San Jose Diocese …

Staff Report Known for his humility, deep faith and international charity work, Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodríguez Maradiaga of Honduras recently visited the archdiocese of Cincinnati. During his visit, the University of Dayton honored the cardinal with the Archbishop Oscar Romero Human Rights Award. Cardinal Rodríguez is the Archbishop of Tegucigalpa …

By Carol Glatz Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY — Christians either love God and their neighbor or they are hypocrites; there is no middle ground, Pope Francis said. “Jesus says, ‘Whoever is not with me is against me.’ Well, can’t there be a compromise — a bit here and a …

By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY  — Hearing a Catholic’s confession should be awe-inspiring for a priest, an experience that makes him look at his own life and willingness to convert, Pope Francis told a group of seminarians, new priests and priests who hear confessions in the major …

By Mark Pattison Catholic News Service WASHINGTON — Within two years of becoming pope, Pope Francis now has an effect named after him. This “Francis effect” provides both comfort and challenges to Catholics, according to a panel of U.S. Catholic leaders speaking during a March 10 teleconference organized by Faith …

  By Edgardo Ayala Catholic News Service SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero will be beatified in San Salvador May 23, said Italian Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the postulator or chief promoter of the archbishop’s sainthood cause. The ceremony, which moves the murdered archbishop a step closer to …