These days it’s easy to be discouraged reading the news about never-ending scandals popping up here and there, or about the shortcomings of various role models, or the interviews of well-known people criticizing one another, and so on. I’m sure that we all can think of examples and that we all recognize an overwhelming flow ...read more

It’s been a horrible week at the Vatican, and it’s only Tuesday. Last week, German bishops addressed claims that youth had been sexually abused by clergy in various Catholic schools. News surfaced that boys had been abused at an institution in Regensburg where Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, the Pope’s brother, had later been choirmaster. Press reports ...read more

It’s a grey, cold, windy, rainy day in Rome… and I think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen! This is officially day five that I’ve been here as S+L’s Vatican Correspondent. I am now officially accredited to the Holy See Press Office. It only took four days, three paper clips, two photos, and ...read more

Posted below is a transcript of Cardinal William Joseph Levada’s address on Anglicanorum coetibus, delivered March 6th in Kingston, Ontario. The American Cardinal, who serves in the Vatican as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was introduced by the chaplain of the Queen’s University Newman Centre, Fr. Raymond de Souza. Note ...read more

Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta delivered the first of three lectures for the Year of the Priest at the Baltimore Basilica this past Sunday.  The title of the first lecture was “Father-Brother-Friend; Bishop-Priest Relationships.”   See below for the full text: Archdiocese of Baltimore John Carroll Lecture Father, Brother, Friend: Bishop-Priest Relationships +Wilton D. Gregory, ...read more

Tony Gagliano, Chairman and CEO of St. Joseph Communications and Chair of the Board of the Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation delivered this keynote address during the annual Toronto Police Services Communion Breakfast on Sunday March 7, 2010 at the Colony Hotel Conference Centre in downtown Toronto. Toronto Police Services 46th Annual Communion Breakfast ...read more

The following is an excerpt of Saturday’s address by Cardinal William Joseph Levada in Kingston, Ontario, entitled, “Five Hundred Years After St. John Fisher: Benedict’s Ecumenical Initiatives to Anglicans”. Visible union with the Catholic Church does not mean absorption into a monolith, with the absorbed body being lost to the greater whole, the way a ...read more

It’s been just about a week since the Olympics have wrapped up, leaving many of us wondering: have the Olympics changed Canada for the better? This past Monday morning—the morning after Sidney Crosby’s historic goal and the resulting goal medal win in men’s hockey—S+L took to the streets to hear what Canadians had to say. ...read more

For many, the Venerable John Paul II is already a saint.  Officially though, there are a few more stages before we can proclaim him “Saint John Paul II.”  On this week’s Catholic News Service Vatican Report, Carol Glatz and John Thavis examine John Paul II’s road to sainthood. To download Flash Player please click here ...read more

The Pope’s prayer intention for March coincides with yesterday’s throne speech and today’s unveiling of the federal budget. The economy of this past year proved to be a source of confusion and distress around the globe, specifically amongst us Canadians as we saw this year’s federal deficit fall to $56-billion and job losses soar to ...read more