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Churches in a Maryland county are being offered tax breaks for incorporating environmentalism into their sermons. In Prince George’s County, 30 pastors have started preaching ‘green’ ministries to avoid extra taxes, the Washington Post reports. The taxes depend on the acreage for all property owners, including churches, as part of Maryland’s “storm water remediation fee.” Reverend Nathaniel B. Thomas of Forestville New Redeemer Baptist Church said he attempted to challenge the fee and said: "Once Uncle Sam finds a way to take your money, he doesn’t stop.”Thomas acknowledged the people of his congregation have higher priorities than the environment, such...

In Latin America, they're pulling millions of faithful away from the Catholic Church. But the pope has only words of friendship for them. This is his way of doing ecumenism, unveiled here in two of his video messages by Sandro Magister ROME, November 19, 2014 - With the mastery for which it is known all over the world, the Washington-based Pew Research Center has conducted a survey on a massive scale that gives substance to a fact that was already known in general terms, the startling decline of Catholic membership in the Latin American subcontinent:> Religion in Latin America. Widespread...

He is probably known among Catholics almost entirely as the man who last July gave the Holy Father a high five. I happened to meet the Evangelical evangelist James Robison recently at a gathering to discuss a common project, and was surprised when he said, to a group mixing conservative Evangelicals and Catholics (two of us converts), “I’ve met the pope. I love that man.” The high five, which left some Catholics I know muttering, he explained in the Huffington Post a few days afterward. At a three-hour meeting at the Vatican, Francis listened to several Evangelical leaders talk...

CHICAGO — Back in 1997, journalist Jonathan Kwitny published a biography of Pope John Paul II called “Man of the Century.” The idea was that the biography of John Paul cut across all the great dramas of the 20th century, from Nazism and Communism to the upheaval in the Catholic Church caused by the Second Vatican Council. By the same logic, one could argue that Cardinal Francis George of Chicago was the American churchman of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, because there’s almost no story in which he wasn’t a lead actor. George played a key role in...

In addition to the three main languages, Italian, English and Spanish, plus a recently launched section in Arabic, the website will now also offer some of its content in Chinese, widening its international readership even further. Half of Vatican Insider’s readers reside outside ItalySpeaking to journalists on the return flight from South Korea to Rome last August, Pope Francis answered a question about the Vatican’s dialogue with China. He said he prayed when his plane entered Chinese airspace (this was the first time a Pope had flown over China) on the way to South Korea. “I went back to my...

Cardinal Raymond Burke has urged Pope Francis to take the issues of Communion for the divorced and remarried, cohabitation and same-sex marriage “off the table” for next year’s Synod of Bishops. Addressing more than 300 delegates at a family and marriage conference, organised by Catholic Voice, in Limerick on November 15, the American cardinal said these issues had distracted the work of the synod in its first session in October. Warning that Satan was sowing confusion and error about matrimony, the cardinal patron of the Knights of Malta said, “Even within the church there are those who would obscure the...

Archbishop of Canterbury hails a “completely new phase” of its existence after enabing women to become bishops The Church of England has entered what the Archbishop of Canterbury hailed as a “completely new phase” of its existence as legislation enabling women to become bishops came into force. Forty years of debate and campaigning over the role of women in leadership in the Established Church was brought to an end in just 10 minutes as the Church’s General Synod symbolically showed its approval for the change through a simple show of hands and a few signatures on a piece of paper....

The Pope is confusing many bishopsSandro Magister, interviewed by Goffredo Pistelli Italia Oggi November 13, 2014 This year Sandro Magister celebrates 40 years as a Vatican journalist. His first articles in L’Espresso in fact, date back to 1974. And today, from those columns and also from the site of the weekly magazine, he still continues to report Vatican and Church news, everything very well-documented without bowing down to anyone. Born in 1943, a native of Busto Arsizio, with degrees in Philosophy and Theology from the “Cattolica”, Magister has followed many Roman pontiffs. His articles regarding the present Pontiff, Pope Francis,...

Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston has said that were he to start a church he would “love to have women priests”. The outspoken remarks came during an interview with 60 Minutes on American television network CBS. Asked by reporter Norah O’Donnell whether excluding women from the Church hierarchy was immoral, Cardinal O’Malley said, “Christ would never ask us to do something immoral. It’s a matter of vocation and what God has given to us.” He said: “Not everyone needs to be ordained to have an important role in the life of the Church. Women run Catholic charities, Catholic schools …...

Mike Cousineau, a former Assembly of God, sits down with Marcus to talk about what convinced him that the Catholic Church is the True Church. Monday, 11/17 08:00 PMTuesday, 11/18 01:00 AM Friday,    11/21 01:00 PM

One of Pope Francis' most vocal critics, who was demoted last week from his leadership of the Vatican's Supreme Court, has said he would refuse Holy Communion to any Catholic legislator who voted for same-sex marriage. Speaking before a Limerick conference on the Catholic family, Cardinal Raymond Burke declined to comment on the Government's planned referendum over gay and lesbian marriage.However, he said he would refuse Communion to pro-gay marriage Catholic legislators in the same way he did in the case of pro-choice legislators in his native United States. He also reiterated his call to the Pontiff, made during last...

God wants you, but He wants you "strong" in His supernatural power. From the very first days of our membership in the Mystical Body of Christ, we are, in essence, commissioned officers in the Church Militant. This Church Militant Field Manual will test you in your resolve to become strong in the Lord and His mighty power. You will also learn the special operations (special ops) techniques and procedures for search and rescue missions of fallen comrades (family and friends whose faith has grown weak). Discover what it means to be "God strong."

IGUALA Mexico (Reuters) - The body of a Roman Catholic priest from Uganda who went missing in southwestern Mexico has been found in a mass grave as authorities search for the remains of 43 missing trainee teachers feared massacred, the local diocese said on Friday.The remains of the priest, identified as John Ssenyondo, were dug up about a week ago and identified by the recovered skull as well as dental records. He had been missing since May, the state attorney general's office said."It was found in a mass grave with six other bodies," said a spokesperson for the diocese of...

Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley has told the CBS television program “60 Minutes” that the status of Kansas City’s Bishop Robert Finn-- who has been convicted of endangering children because of his failure to report abuse charges—is “a question that the Holy See needs to address urgently.” Cardinal O’Malley, who heads a new Vatican commission on abuse, nodded silently when “60 Minutes” correspondent Norah O’Donnell remarked that Bishop Finn would not be allowed to teach religious-education classes under the rules of the Boston archdiocese. The cardinal said that Pope Francis is keenly aware of the problem. Speaking about the work of...

The two sets of inscribed plates that Strang claimed to have found in Wisconsin and Michigan beginning in 1845 almost certainly existed. Milo Quaife's early, standard biography of Strang reflects that, while Strang's angelic visitations "may have had only a subjective existence in the brain of the man who reported them, the metallic plates possessed a very material objective reality." And they were almost certainly forgeries. The first set, the three "Voree" or "Rajah Manchou" plates, were dug up by four "witnesses" whom Strang had taken to the plates' burial place. Illustrated and inscribed on both sides, the Rajah Manchou...

Father Claude Barthe [French Catholic periodical] L'Homme Nouveau November 12, 2014 The question of the situation of Catholics who are divorced and civilly remarried was especially discussed at the extraordinary assembly of the Synod on the theme, "The pastoral challenges of the family in the context of the evangelization," that ended in Rome on October 18. A text of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in response to a question sent by a priest, has just added, on a specific point concerning the pastoral work related to these persons, an important element, that is particularly clarifying in the...

 Father Jeremy Leatherby  Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish, Sacramento CA Podcast kofc15693.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ChaplainsReport11-11-2014.mp3 A relatively brief thought: For some reason, this has been coming up quite a in the last couple of months, on forgiveness. A priest friend in Slovakia shared a story with my brother-in-law, Father Farrell, that he had given a homily on the need to forgive. A lady come up to him after Mass and said, "Father, based on what you said, I realized that there is something I've never let go of. "Twenty-five years ago, a man broke into my home and raped me. I've never been able to forgive...

CHICAGO — Back in November 2008, when many Catholics called for the U.S. bishops to find “common ground” with a new administration that embraced abortion rights, Cardinal Francis George, the then-president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, welcomed the historic election of the nation’s first black president. But in an official address that was reflective of the cardinal’s approach of seeking constructive dialogue without compromising on foundational truths, he expressed strong support for racial equality and social programs aiding the poor while also affirming that the bishops would continue to uphold Catholic teaching rejecting abortion. “Common ground cannot be...

And so, it’s official. Saturday morning, the Vatican announced that Cardinal Raymond Burke has been removed as head of the Apostolic Signatura – the Church’s highest ecclesial court – and appointed cardinal patron of the Knights and Dames of Malta. The move was long rumored to be coming and when it came it was no great surprise. But as often happens, now that the dreaded day has actually arrived, I find myself both saddened and (a little more than mildly) seething. There’s a double sadness here. Pope Francis clearly approved these moves – whether they were instigated by him personally...

USCCB votes on new "manual," but without Latin on the side.The bishops of the United States have approved publication of the first ever official English translation of the ritual book, “Exorcisms and Related Supplications.”The proposal passed by 179 votes to 5 Tuesday. The translation now needs a "recognitio" of the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments. Revised after the Second Vatican Council, the exorcism ritual was promulgated in Latin in 1999 with an amended version in 2004. According to the Committee for Divine Worship, the main part of this book is the rite of major exorcism...