By Matt Hadro CNA/EWTN News  Many challenges to families need addressing today, including perhaps too much attention given to college basketball’s “March Madness,” and not enough to studying Church teaching. So said Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, the head of the U.S. bishops conference, at a Mar. 16 discussion at …

By Nate Madden Catholic News Service  WASHINGTON — Wyoming Catholic College, a Catholic university founded in 2005 in Lander, announced in late February that it “shall not participate in federal student loan programs.” The decision came after months of analysis and deliberations by the college and its board of directors. …

By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY — Young people are honest and bold in identifying fakes, which is something church leaders should not be afraid of, Pope Francis told the bishops of South Korea and Mongolia. “When we speak with young people, they challenge us to share the …

By Carol Glatz Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY — A holy year as a time of spiritual renewal has its biblical roots in the jubilees observed by the Jewish people at 50-year intervals, when debts were pardoned and slaves were freed. The term “jubilee” itself comes from the Hebrew word …

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 …

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 …

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 …