By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY — Drawing on the experience of the public exposition of the Shroud of Turin, Vatican officials are adopting a reservation system for pilgrims who want to cross the threshold of the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica during the Year of Mercy. …

By Matt Hadro & Adelaide Mena CNA/EWTN News Warning: this article contains graphic content. Reader discretion is advised. A new video in an investigative series on Planned Parenthood shows a former technician saying that she had once been traumatized by the experience of gathering tissue from an aborted baby whose heart …

By Elise Harris CNA/EWTN News VATICAN CITY — On Sunday Pope Francis said that the Eucharist is no mere symbol, but is in fact the true body and blood of Jesus Christ, which has the ability to transform our hearts and minds to be more like him. “The Eucharist is …

Catholic News Service SANTA FE, N.M. — The Catholic bishops of New Mexico in a joint statement welcomed a ruling by the state’s Court of Appeals that reversed a lower court’s approval of physician-assisted suicide. “The Catholic Church strongly believes that life is a gift from a loving God, which extends …

CNA/EWTN News Two Colombian bishops indicated on Thursday that while the divorced and remarried are not excommunicated, that still doesn’t mean they are able to receive Communion – in an attempt to clarify recent confusion. At an Aug. 6 press conference, Cardinal Rubén Salazar Gómez of Bogota explained that while …

By Angela Cave Catholic News Service JAMAICA, N.Y. — Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York and other speakers at a Steubenville Youth Conference inspired 1,800 Catholic teenagers to live their faith openly. The conference was held Aug. 7-9 at St. John’s University in the Jamaica section of the New …

By Angela Cave Catholic News Service JAMAICA, N.Y.  — The first Steubenville Youth Conference to be held in New York drew 1,800 teenagers from around the country Aug. 7-9 to St. John’s University in Jamaica in the New York borough of Queens. They came seeking to bolster their faith and …

By Lou Baldwin Catholic News Service PHILADELPHIA (CNS) — As lecterns go, it is strictly utilitarian, a simple walnut stand with none of the ornamentation commonly found in mid-19th-century furnishings. Yet it has a distinguished past and is about to have a distinguished future. At a news conference Aug. 7 …

By Mary Knight Catholic News Service JERUSALEM — Jerusalem is hot, especially in the gym of the Max Rayne Hand in Hand Bilingual School for Jewish Arab Education. Jerusalem is tense, too, with jolting violence this summer over dismantled settlement homes, gay rights and a brutal attack on a Palestinian …

By Tom Tracy Catholic News Service WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Last spring, a Cincinnati man who was convicted of imprisoning and transporting multiple women for the purpose of commercial sex in the Ohio-Kentucky region was sentenced to 180 months for operating a sex trafficking scheme. In addition, the U.S. Justice …