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THE ASSUMPTION OF MARY A Roman Catholic Dogma Originating with Heretics and Condemned as Heretical by 2 Popes in the 5th and 6th Centuries. The Roman Catholic doctrine of the assumption of Mary teaches that she was assumed body and soul into heaven either without dying or shortly after death. This extraordinary claim was only officially declared to be a dogma of Roman Catholic faith in 1950, though it had been believed by many for hundreds of years. To dispute this doctrine, according to Rome’s teaching, would result in the loss of salvation. The official teaching of the Assumption comes...

One thousand one hundred and four years ago a criminal trial took place in Italy, a trial so macabre, so gruesome, so frightful that it easily qualifies as the strangest and most terrible trial in human history. At this trial, called the Cadaver Synod, a dead pope wrenched from the grave was brought into a Rome courtroom, tried in the presence of a successor pope, found guilty, and then, in the words of Horace K. Mann's The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages (1925), "subjected to the most barbarous violence." For the past several centuries the papacy...

SAN ANTONIO, Texas. (National Catholic Reporter) – Lyn Woods, a middle-aged Catholic woman who teaches ceramics at the Southwest School of Art & Craft in San Antonio, said that, although she goes to church, she hasn’t been to confession in many years. She says her childhood experience of the sacrament of reconciliation explains much of her adult attitude toward it today. “When I was 7, 8 or 9 years old,” she said, “I found myself repeating the same sins over and over to the priest. It seemed to me they weren’t really sins but simply human nature. On the other...

BRASILIA, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Brazil's health ministry vowed on Tuesday to proceed with plans to put condom vending machines in schools and sought to defuse criticism with a new study showing that parents in the world's largest Roman Catholic nation approve of the idea. The study, conducted by the United Nations body UNESCO, concluded that two-thirds of the parents surveyed like having the government offer teenagers free condoms and sex education. The findings could come as a surprise to some Brazilian parents. Most of the population of 185 million is Catholic and the church, which remains influential despite losing...

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Present trends suggest a declining future for many communities of men and women religious, but religious are called to imagine a different future, Sister Doris Gottemoeller said Feb. 3. Sister Gottemoeller, former president of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas and of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, and Father Canice Connors, a former provincial minister of the Conventual Franciscans and former president of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, were the main speakers at Washington Theological Union's annual Religious Life Symposium. The theme of this year's symposium was "Re-Imagining Religious Life in the 21st...

WASHINGTON (CNS) — On any given day this January, a full 21 months before the 2008 election, it seemed that someone was announcing a presidential exploratory committee or launching his or her campaign for president. And there was a good chance that the candidate was a Catholic. When Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts bowed out of the race for the Democratic nomination Jan. 24, he left nearly a dozen other Catholics — Republicans and Democrats — vying for their party's nomination, either officially or unofficially. On the Republican side, there are Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas; former New York...

IOWA CITY, Iowa — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Davenport is in bankruptcy. Its headquarters will go on the auction block this spring. The bishop's home also is going to be sold, and the diocese has paid $9 million to resolve cases in which 37 men say they were abused as boys by priests. But for all the hardship the diocese is undergoing as a result of molestation claims, bankruptcy may be better than what the church in Iowa could have faced — the civil trial of a former bishop from a neighboring diocese. The case of retired Sioux City...

“Can a man serve God faithfully and posess slaves?” Brother Joseph Mobberly, S.J. asked in his diary in 1818. “Yes,” he answered. “Is it then lawful to keep men in servitude? Yes.” The Jesuits of the Maryland province had always relied on plantations to support their ministries. The estates were extensive, totaling 12,000 acres on four large properties in Southern Prince Georges, Charles and St. Mary’s counties, and two smaller estates on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. In 1634, when the Jesuits arrived in Maryland, Lord Baltimore awarded them quasi-estates in which they were permitted to live off the rent of tenant...

On the day 30 of April in the Palazzo della Provincia of Pescara took place the Conference "UFO? the Truth is Top Secret, from Area 51 to Planet X", organized by the "Ufobserver" Cultural Association. During the conference I spoke about underground bases in the USA and dedicated the last fifteen minutes of my speech to a very short summary of my work during last five years that had gone in a new direction and is the leading topic of my future lectures. In the year 2000 I was working in Rome as an editor in the "Stargate" magazine and...

The Council of Florence, the 17th Ecumenical (and hence “infallible”) Council of the Roman Catholic Church, said the following: It firmly believes, professes, and proclaims that those not living within the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics cannot become participants in eternal life, but will depart "into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels" [Matt. 25:41], unless before the end of life the same have been added to the flock; and that the unity of the ecclesiastical body is so strong that only to those remaining in it are the...

JABALPUR, India (UCAN) – Church people in a central Indian diocese say they saw God's intervention in a life-size Jesus statue that apparently wept blood. On Feb. 12, a bloodlike substance reportedly oozed from the eyes of a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus kept in the open yard of St. Joseph the Worker Church of Ghoreghat, a parish in Jabalpur Diocese. Jabalpur, a major town in Madhya Pradesh state, is 815 kilometers southeast of New Delhi. Ghoreghatt, 180 kilometers (110 miles) further southeast, is in Mandla district. Statues and images of the Sacred Heart usually portray the heart...

Until two years ago, the Roman Catholic diocese of Palm Beach, Fla., ran audits of its parishes only when they changed pastors. It was a risky, even foolhardy policy when you consider that a parish like St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church, in Delray Beach, hadn't changed pastors in 40 years. In September 2003, upon the retirement of St. Vincent's pastor, the Rev. John Skehan, diocesan accountant Denis Hamel dutifully showed up to inspect the books and the procedures for counting Sunday collections. The new pastor, the Rev. Francis Guinan--a close buddy of Skehan's--told him to beat it. But the new...

Evangelical Christians are increasingly attacked by “traditional Catholics” in a southern Mexican state, according to a persecution watchdog group. In the indigenous region of Chiapas state, traditional Catholics – a blend of Catholicism and native religious practices – are more frequently being accused of various acts of religious intolerance against protestants, such as “threats, intimidation, and robbery or expulsion from their communities, or death,” reported Alfonso Farrera, director of the National Bar of Christian Lawyers, to Compass Direct News. In total, the bar says it has records of 200 cases of unresolved religious intolerance against evangelical Christians in Chiapas state,...

Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has led the field for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination in most polls of GOP voters. His popularity among the party’s mainly conservative base is founded on his image of standing tall and reassuring New Yorkers following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on their city, though some voters also know him for his tough-on-crime persona and efforts to rein in government spending. But there are aspects of Giuliani’s record; his views, especially on volatile social issues; and his personal past that do not thrill conservative activists. In fact, some are inalterably opposed to...

Rudy Giuliani's legacy is that he was the luckiest mayor we have had in a long time. He was blessed by being mayor when we had a great national upsurge in the economy. He was blessed by being mayor when we had a national downturn in crime. He was blessed because he had very little to do with either phenomenon in New York, but most New Yorkers and most tourists will think he did. Most celebrants of Rudy Giuliani seem mesmerized by the disappearance of the squeegee men. As I wrote in my book "Rudy," the issue of the squeegees...

THERE is one woman who could cause Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, more problems than Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House: she is Donna Hanover, his second wife, writes Sarah Baxter. Hanover, an actress and broadcaster, was enraged by Giuliani’s flagrant infidelity towards the end of their 18-year marriage and the divorce case was vicious. Giuliani’s advisers fear that she could be a loose cannon in the 2008 campaign. Giuliani was acclaimed as the “mayor of America” for his heroic role during the attacks on September 11, 2001 and is revered for his leadership. At...

Barack Hussein Obama: Once a Muslim, Always A Muslim By Debbie Schlussel Many months ago, readers began asking me whether Barack Obama is Muslim. Since he identifies as a Christian, I said, "no," and responded that he was not raised by his Kenyan father. But, then, I decided to look further into Obama's background. His full name--as by now you have probably heard--is Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. Hussein is a Muslim name, which comes from the name of Ali's son--Hussein Ibn Ali. And Obama is named after his late Kenyan father, the late Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., apparently a Muslim....

WASHINGTON (Reuters)- When radio host Jerry Klein suggested that all Muslims in the United States should be identified with a crescent-shape tattoo or a distinctive arm band, the phone lines jammed instantly. The first caller to the station in Washington said that Klein must be "off his rocker." The second congratulated him and added: "Not only do you tattoo them in the middle of their forehead but you ship them out of this country ... they are here to kill us." Another said that tattoos, armbands and other identifying markers such as crescent marks on driver's licenses, passports and birth...

<p>Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh today attacked actor Michael J. Fox for inserting his halting voice into the U.S. Senate campaign in Missouri, suggesting Fox was "acting" in a commercial where he's shown shaking while endorsing the importance of stem cell research.</p>

Labor Day has always been considered the traditional start of the campaign season in an election year......contribute to the polarization that has been gripping this country for too long. People don't debate, they toss partisan-party and special-interest talking points back and forth. ...[b]ut we will print letters that arise from a writer's impassioned thoughts about the issues that surface during the elections... More insidious in the campaign process are the 527 groups... The groups are exempt from taxes under the [IRS] code if they collect funds to influence or attempt to influence "the selection, nomination, election or appointment of an...