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 …

By Francis X. Rocca Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY —Beatifying Blessed Paul VI at the concluding Mass of the Synod of Bishops on the family, Pope Francis praised the late pope as the “great helmsman” of the Second Vatican Council and founder of the synod, as well as a “humble …

By Carol Glatz Catholic News Service  VATICAN CITY — The extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family must put greater focus on the beauty of the Christian vision of marriage and not let an approach of “welcoming” and mercy override the church’s duty to call people to turn away from …