By Rose Ybarra Catholic News Service  BROWNSVILLE, Texas — Every October, many look forward to Halloween — the trick-or-treating, the parties and especially the costumes. Every Halloween, however, many also mock religious figures with their costume choices. Costumes for badly behaved nuns, rabbis, Muslims, priests, Catholic schoolgirls, Sikhs and Buddhist …

By Bronwen Dachs Catholic News Service  CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Burials that are dignified and safe are urgently needed for Ebola victims in West Africa, where corpses are frequently left unattended for days and then thrown into graves without ceremony, a U.S. church aid official said. “So many people …

By Angela Cave Catholic News Service  ALBANY, N.Y. — Entire families navigate their smartphones while sharing meals at restaurants. Students text in class. Parents take phone calls at their children’s sporting events and plays.

By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service  VATICAN CITY — Retired Pope Benedict XVI is a perfect example of how intellectual knowledge and scientific curiosity do not lead a person further from God, but can strengthen their love for God and for his human creatures, Pope Francis said. “Benedict XVI was …

By Donis Tracy Catholic News Service  ROCHESTER, N.H. — Close to 1,000 of slain journalist James Foley‘s closest friends and family gathered at Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Church in Rochester for a memorial Mass to celebrate the life of a man whose life was taken by Syrian extremists …

CNA/EWTN News Although religious freedom conditions around the globe are worsening, Americans should see this fact as a cause for motivation rather than despair, said a leading scholar on the issue. “I wish that I could say there has been some improvement in the conditions of religious freedom in the …

By Francis X. Rocca Catholic News Service  VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis called for abolition of the death penalty as well as life imprisonment, and denounced what he called a “penal populism” that promises to solve society’s problems by punishing crime instead of pursuing social justice.

By Mark Pattison Catholic News Service  WASHINGTON — Liturgical matters will take center stage on the agenda of action items at the fall general meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, to be held Nov. 10-13 in Baltimore. There will be five liturgical items up for consideration. All are …

By Francis X. Rocca Catholic News Service  VATICAN CITY — After several days of animated debate over its official midterm report, the Synod of Bishops on the family agreed on a final document more clearly grounded in traditional Catholic teaching. Yet the assembly failed to reach consensus on especially controversial …