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We might think names like 'sweetie' or 'dear' are terms of endearment. But what seems like a kind gesture may actually be taken as patronizing, a new study finds. Scientists say elderly sufferers of dementia are often exposed to 'elderspeak' - a loud and slow form of baby talk for seniors. This makes them feel like they are incompetent and can lead to a downward spiral of social isolation and cognitive decline. Researchers studied nuns at a Midwestern convent and fount a very different approach - one that brightened the spirits of their suffering sisters.

After a draft of a religious freedom executive order from President Donald Trump was leaked to the media, a group of Catholic nuns have once again found themselves in the spotlight. “I am aware of the draft executive order that seems to be circulating as of the last couple of days,” Sister Constance Veit, director of communications for the Little Sisters of the Poor in the U.S., told The Daily Signal on Friday. “It’s just a very hopeful sign that things could be coming to an end.” The Little Sisters of the Poor are a group of nuns who care...

Pope Francis says he is concerned about what he calls a “hemorrhage” of priests and nuns from the Catholic church. […] First among the factors he cited as causing nuns and priests to quit their vocations is a society that discourages lifelong commitments. Francis lamented that many conduct their lives based on “à la carte” choices. …

Bill Donohue comments on last night’s episode of “This is Not Happening”: Comedy Central featured yet another anti-Catholic bigot, comedian Joey Diaz, who went on a foul rant describing his retaliation against a nun who he claims used to hit him when he attended Catholic school. “I grabbed her by the veil, ’cause that’s where all the magic powers are right? [laughter]. I grabbed her by the [bleep] veil, and I’m like don’t you ever [bleep] hit me again you [bleep] sucker! I hate you!” Diaz then jokes about how he physically assaulted the nun: “I just grabbed her. I...

My opposition is you, the enemy has no chance against Me in any arena! So do not fear or give in to them but continue to take back My land for this land is the hearts of those yet to be saved. I am not found where a talent is wasted for it shall be given to another . . . My Kingdom is expanding not lukewarm and so as My Mighty Ones push right through the enemy lines, you will find me with those that press into ME for as they gather together to hear ME speak it is...

A man has been arrested in the stabbing deaths of two nuns whose bodies were found in their home in rural Mississippi, authorities said. Margaret Held and Paula Merrill, both nurse practitioners, failed to show up for work Thursday at a clinic in Lexington, where they served one of the state’s poorest counties. Authorities believe the killer took the victims’ car, a blue Toyota Corolla, which was later found on an abandoned road less than a mile from their home. But nothing was taken from the house, according to a law enforcement official who has been briefed on the investigation.

© Rodney Earl Sanders A suspect has been arrested in the killings of two nuns whose bodies were found in their Mississippi home Thursday, authorities said late Friday. Rodney Earl Sanders, 46, was charged with two counts of capital murder "after an exhaustive interview

Death is a tragedy for mortal man, and yet with faith in eternity and anticipation of the embrace of our heavenly Father, death becomes radiant.We share today the news of the death of Sister Cecilia, a Carmelite of Santa Fe in Argentina, who suffered from lung cancer. She astonished those who surrounded her in her agony, as her face was transformed by a tender smile as she closed her eyes to this world. As you can see in the photograph, she looks like a lover who has arrived to the encounter she has long been yearning for.The Carmel of...

At the beginning of the 20th century, sick Americans typically died at home. By the middle of it, they mostly died in hospitals. And yet this great transformation in the geography of death was, at first, of little interest to medical providers: In the 1960s, some doctors routinely chose not to inform terminal patients of their fate. Studies found hospitals stashing dying people at the ends of halls and largely ignoring them. Medicine, it was said, was about healing people. It had nothing to offer the already dying. That began to change with the broad acceptance of hospice, which spread...

Madeleine Sherwood performed Tennessee Williams dramas on stage and screen, and worked with legendary film director Elia Kazan. Her Broadway roles included The Crucible, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Camelot — roles that any actor would envy. However, the Quebec native is perhaps best known for running a convent of nuns in Puerto Rico on television. For three seasons, Sherwood portrayed Reverend Mother Superior Placido on The Flying Nun, the charming, quirky 1960s sitcom that sent Sally Field soaring to a new level of stardom. As reported in The Hollywood Reporter, Sherwood has died at the age of...

The four nuns running a nursing home in Aden, Yemen, killed by the Islamic State earlier this month, belonged to the Missionaries of Charity, established by Blessed Mother Teresa.

The video earned her a rebuke from the bishops — but Mother never apologized for it The 1993 World Youth Day was a turning point for Mother Angelica. It had been 12 years since the launch of her Eternal Word Television Network — a venture dogged by opposition from the U.S. bishops from the start — but that year she had had enough. After a female mime played Our Lord in the living Stations of the Cross in front of an audience of thousands — including Pope John Paul II himself — Mother Angelica appeared on her daily show excoriating...

April 20, 1923 - March 27, 2016

Mother Angelica. Credit: EWTN. Irondale, Ala., Mar 27, 2016 / 06:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Catholic Church in the United States has lost the Poor Clare nun who changed the face of Catholicism in the United States and around the world. Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation, foundress of the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), passed away on March 27 after a lengthy struggle with the aftereffects of a stroke. She was 92 years old.“Mother has always and will always personify EWTN, the network that God asked her to found,” said EWTN Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Michael Warsaw. “Her...

In 1804 an Ursuline nun in New Orleans asked Thomas Jefferson to clarify in writing her religious community’s right to retain their property and to continue their ministries without government interference following the Louisiana Purchase. As French Catholic Louisiana was being incorporated into the Anglo-Protestant United States, the nuns were concerned about the status of their institutions under U.S. law. President Jefferson assured her that the government would not interfere with the sisters’ property, ministries, and way of life. In a letter dated May 15, 1804, he wrote: “I have received, holy sisters, the letter you have written me wherein...

Members of the United States Congress have voiced their support for the Little Sisters of the Poor before their case is argued before the Supreme Court on Wednesday. “We talk a lot about public service up here. Well, these are the people who live it,” House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) said of the sisters on the House Floor on Tuesday, noting that they serve the poor in 31 countries. “They are the definition of public service.” On Wednesday, oral arguments for Zubik v. Burwell will take place at the Supreme Court. The case is a bundle of seven cases against...

If you were totally avoiding the internet today, or if you live under a particularly pleasant and comfortable rock, maybe you don’t know that the federal government and a bunch of nuns are duking it out before the Supreme Court over birth control. More to the point, they’re fighting over the Little Sisters of the Poors’ refusal to subsidize contraception and abortion-causing drugs for their employees via their health insurance coverage, all of whom, by the way, are mandated by the President Obama’s signature eponymous government overreach law to purchase their own health insurance. Well, fair’s fair, right? I mean,...

Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz  4% said “d***” in front of the Supreme Court building while the Little Sisters of the Poor were there demonstrating. Wasserman Schultz was speaking to a group of Planned Parenthood supporters who were there while the court was hearing oral arguments in the case of Zubik v. Burwell. The Little Sisters of the Poor are one of many plaintiffs who are asking to be exempting from the federal government requirement to cover contraceptives in their health-care plans. “Those rights that we secured must remain in place and while we’re at it this...

Oral argument was heard today in the SCOTUS in the case of Zubik v Burwell. Obama Care regulations are forcing the Little Sisters of the Poor to be complicit in providing abortion inducing contraceptives to their employees. This is profoundly offensive to the Sisters religious beliefs. They are asking for reiief from these obligations. Justice Stephen Breyer said “a religious person living in society may have to accept all kinds of things that are just terrible for him.” The example Breyer uses is the forcing of Quakers to pay taxes which in part pay tor a war which is objectionable...

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in the case the Little Sisters of the Poor and 37 pro-life groups, universities and companies have filed against the HHS mandate, which forces them to pay for abortion-causing drugs in their employee health care plans. The case, Zubik v. Burwell, involves 37 religious nonprofits such as charities and universities that say the HHS mandate violates their religious beliefs. They say the religious accommodation the Obama administration put together still makes them complicit in covering the abortion-causing drugs. “Hijacking. It seems to me that’s an accurate description of what the government wants to...