Catholic Church

By David Carlin, The Catholic Thing - In the first few centuries of the Christian era, there was a widespread belief – perhaps I should say, feeling – in the Roman Empire that there was something fundamentally wrong with the world (by “world” I mean “universe”).  For many, the practical implication of this belief was that we should adopt an attitude of rejection of the world.  Accordingly, a number of popular religions of the time were world-rejecting religions – for example, Mithraism, Manicheism, and other varieties of Gnosticism.

By Dietrich Knauth, Reuters - The Archdiocese of Baltimore filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection on Friday, saying it intends to seek a settlement of sex abuse claims by people who allege they were abused as children by Catholic priests... The bankruptcy filing was spurred by a Maryland state law set to take effect on Oct. 1, which would allow survivors of sexual abuse to file new lawsuits regardless of how long ago the abuse occurred, according to the Archdiocese’s court filings.

By Catholic Culture, by Staff - The Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, has given prominent coverage to a speech by Cardinal Blase Cupich at Fordham University, praising the “consistent ethic of life” championed by the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, in his famous “seamless garment” speech forty years ago... Cardinal Cupich praised his predecessor for suggesting that “the spectrum of life cuts across the issues of genetics, abortion, capital punishment, modern warfare and the care of the terminally ill.”