Same-sex marriage in Illinois: Not here, says cardinal
Illinois has become the next key political arena in the battle over same-sex marriage, and Chicago’s Catholic Cardinal Francis George is warning his flock that legislators will be “acting against the...
View ArticleThe 113th Congress: A religious polyglot
Catholics have gained, Protestants and Jews have lost members, and the U.S. Senate has its first Buddhist, according to a survey of the new 113th Congress by the Pew Center for Religion and Public...
View ArticlePope blesses gay marriage in New Zealand spoof ad
An electricity company in New Zealand is lighting up the media worldwide with a four-story billboard painting that shows a smiling Pope Benedict XVI blessing a mixed race gay couple, at a time when New...
View ArticleVatican article likens gay marriage to communism
The Vatican has taken multiple blasts at same-sex marriage in the last month, just as it is on the way to becoming legal in Britain and France, and as a poll by an evangelical-backed organization finds...
View ArticlePro-gun protest ‘shockingly insensitive’— area clergy
Seattle religious leaders have drawn up a letter, with 201 signatures as of early Friday, decrying as “shockingly insensitive” a pro-gun rally scheduled at “high noon” Saturday in Olympia, during the...
View ArticleGun violence is ‘pro-life’ issue: Catholic leaders
The need to control gun violence must be seen as a “pro-life” issue by Catholics in public office, notably House Speaker John Boehner and former vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, according to a...
View ArticleAnti-abortion group: “Pack the hearing”
An anti-abortion group has sent an Armageddon-style warning to its members, telling them to show up in strength at a Thursday House hearing in Olympia on the proposed Reproductive Parity Act, a law...
View ArticleDon’t legalize gay marriage, bishops tell Supreme Court
The National Council of Catholic Bishops has filed legal briefs with the Supreme Court defending two anti-gay laws on which the court will hear oral arguments next month. The friend-of-the-court brief...
View ArticleCardinal barred from public ministry over abuse scandal
Catholic Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles has barred his longtime predecessor, Cardinal Roget Mahoney, from any public ministry, after disclosure of files from the nation’s largest diocese...
View ArticleGod influences sports outcomes? 27 percent say yes
More than a quarter of all Americans, and 36 percent of people in the South, believe that God plays a role in the outcome of sporting events, according to a nationwide poll by the Public Religion...
View ArticleNew England, Northwest ‘least religious’ states
Plummeting church attendance in New England has deprived the Northwest of its long-talked-about title as the “least churched” and “least religious” corner of America. Still, Oregon, Washington and...
View ArticleIllinois Senate: Yes to gay marriage
The Illinois Senate, acting on Valentine’s Day, has voted to make the “Land of Lincoln” the 10th state to legalize same-sex marriage. The legislation must still muster a majority in the 118-member...
View ArticleTebow cancels sermon at controversial church
Tim Tebow has canceled an Easter season sermon at a Dallas “megachurch” whose controversial pastor has delivered multiple homilies denouncing gays, Mormons, Islam, Catholicism, liberal Christians,...
View ArticleHouse votes to mandate abortion coverage
The Washington State House of Representatives voted Friday, largely along party lines, to create a first-in-the-nation requirement that employers who offer health insurance plans covering maternity...
View ArticleCardinals deposed before papal election
Two of America’s best known Catholic cardinals, soon to help choose a successor to Pope Benedict XVI, are being deposed in clerical sex abuse cases before they fly to Rome to sit in the Sistine Chapel...
View ArticleCatholics in poll: Church ‘out of touch’
A nationwide poll of America’s Roman Catholics, by CBS News and The New York Times, shows a majority feel the Church is “out of touch” with their needs, with two-thirds saying priests should be...
View ArticleMajority of U.S. Catholics back gay marriage, pollsays
A majority of American Catholics support the right of same-sex couples to marry, according to a new national Quinnipiac Poll released just four days before the College of Cardinals meets in Rome to...
View ArticleCatholic pastor: Give us a pope who ‘can lead us to new places’
The Very Rev. Michael Ryan, pastor of St. James Cathedral, is living refutation to those who argue that mediocre sermons come from the pulpits of Catholic parishes. Fr. Ryan has a feeling for...
View ArticleFirst impressions of Francis I: Hope on social justice, despair on orthodoxy
The first impressions of Seattle-area clergy, laity and church critics to election of Pope Francis I blended hope for a man who will walk humbly before the Lord and be a force in the world for social...
View ArticleL.A. archdiocese will pay $10 million to sex abuse victims
The Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed this week to pay $10 million to four victims of a serial abuser priest who confessed his transgressions to Cardinal Roger Mahony, was sent for treatment...
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