IMAGE: CNS photo/Bob Roller By Carol Zimmermann DERWOOD, Md. (CNS) –- Dorothy Day’s granddaughter Martha Hennessy looks a little like her grandmother with her pulled-back white hair, and although she is soft spoken, she likely sounds just like her activist grandmother, too, when talking about helping the poor and promoting …

IMAGE: CNS/Reuters By Junno Arocho Esteves VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The educational alliance among families, schools and states is broken, causing a serious situation that leads to selecting to educate only “supermen” chosen solely based on intelligence or wealth, Pope Francis said. “Behind this, there is always the ghost of …

IMAGE: CNS/courtesy Vatican Philatelic and Numismatic Office By Carol Glatz VATICAN CITY (CNS) — This year’s Vatican Christmas stamps feature a 15th-century manuscript illumination of the Holy Family. Flanked by a lowing ox and a donkey, Mary and Joseph pray over baby Jesus as angels sing above and poor shepherds …

IMAGE: CNS photo/EPA By Carol Glatz VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Show kindness, understanding and mercy in today’s broken and wounded world, Pope Francis said. “Before so many lacerations in the world and too many wounds on the flesh of humanity, let us ask the Virgin Mary to support us in …

By BEIRUT (CNS) — The head of the Syriac Catholic Church has accused Western governments of betraying Christians in the Middle East and said it was “a big lie” to suggest Islamic State could be defeated with airstrikes. In a Nov. 18 interview with Le Messager, an online Catholic magazine …

By Junno Arocho Esteves VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Priests are not “mushrooms” that magically sprout at ordination, but they have a history, a community and a family that both they and their superiors must keep in mind, Pope Francis said. “On the day of their ordination, I always say to …

IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring By Junno Arocho Esteves VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Fifty years ago, the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (“Dei Verbum”) urged the faithful to nourish their faith by reading the Bible, putting an end to centuries of seeing direct access to the Scriptures as something reserved to the …

By Carol Glatz VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis condemned a church that worships power, money and “St. Payola,” a fictional patron of lucrative kickbacks. The temptation is always there to yearn for worldly security and forget that only God can bring peace, true happiness and redemption, he said in …

IMAGE: CNS photo/handout via EPA By Cindy Wooden VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Despite the ongoing violence in the Central Africa Republic, Pope Francis wants to visit the country Nov. 29-30, plans for the visit are in place, and the security situation is being monitored, the Vatican spokesman said. Jesuit Father …

IMAGE: CNS photo/Thomas Cheng, EPA By Cindy Wooden VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Vatican calendar for the Year of Mercy deliberately set aside Sept. 4, 2016, as a possible date for the canonization of Blessed Teresa of Kolkata, if her sainthood cause is concluded by then. The canonization would be …