Catholic Church

By Peter Jesserer Smith, National Catholic Register - When bishops administer confirmation in the United States, they are conferring a sacrament on far fewer Catholic youth today, and many who show up for the rite have already “checked out” of believing. According to new research, the middle-school years comprise the median age when many young people abandon the Catholic faith... These realities have driven Bishop James Wall to restore the sacraments of initiation to their traditional order of baptism, confirmation and Holy Eucharist in the Diocese of Gallup, New Mexico.

Catholic News Agency - The rule is expected to strip Planned Parenthood of about $60 million in federal funds… “I applaud the Trump Administration for reaffirming that abortion is not family planning. Abortion ends the lives of families’ most vulnerable members, as well as damaging the spiritual, mental and physical health of mothers,” said Archbishop Joseph Naumann in a Feb. 27 statement.

By Stephen P. White, The Catholic Thing - Last week’s summit in Rome did not address the problem of clergy harassing and abusing adults. It did not address the issue, which Pope Francis has acknowledged, of gay subcultures among the clergy. It did not say much about the virtue of chastity. What the summit in Rome did focus on was protecting minors from sexual abuse by members of the clergy: the most glaring and widely acknowledged facet of the current crisis and the primary source of the Church’s loss of credibility with the faithful.

By Msgr. Charles Pope - See to it, brothers, that none of you has an unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.  But exhort one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness (Heb 3:12-13)... When most of us read a text like this, we think only of obvious and dark cases. For example, someone’s tendency to lash out at others leads him to increasing violence and cruelty, or someone’s desire for possessions leads him to increasing stinginess and unkindness, or someone’s lust leads him to sexually promiscuity that is more and more debased and perverse.