United States Archives

New York court delivers big win to foes of physician-assisted suicide

On Thursday, New York’s appellate court ruled that the state legislature’s ban on physician-assisted suicide was constitutional. The decision is a major victory for opponents of the practice, although assisted suicide activists have vowed to press ahead in their efforts to legalize the practice in the state.

En route to Colombia, Pope addresses U.S., Venezuelan leaders

Both the United States and Venezuela were among the countries to which Pope Francis sent telegrams while passing over their airspace en route to Colombia on Wednesday. As is customary, Francis avoided commenting on political developments in either country, but it’s likely people in both may have been hoping he’d offer up a special prayer.

As eclipse nears, recalling that even popes can get spooked

As the United States prepare to watch the solar eclipse on August 21, a look at a time when such events were viewed with fear and disbelief and how one seventeenth-century pope with the help of a heretic used torches, gemstones and magic to change the course of the stars and save his life.

Scottish lessons for the Church in the United States
- Church in the US, Commentary
- August 8, 2017
At a recent meeting of priests in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, the Archbishop of Glasgow, Philip Tartaglia, spoke about what lessons could be learned in the United States from the Church in Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. He also said the Church in America has reason to hope, because the people in the pews haven’t wavered in their faith.
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A Latino/a take: Vatican’s ‘ecumenism of hate’ essay is onto something
- Commentary
- August 7, 2017
Theologian and former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, Miguel H. Diaz, contends that the central theological insights and socio-political implications for American society voiced by Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro and Reverend Marcelo Figueroa in a controversial article on U.S. politics in a Vatican-affiliated publication find a home within the hearts of Latinos/as and other “underrepresented” communities in the United States.
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Puerto Rico’s archbishop asks Congress for relief over debt crisis
- Church in the US
- August 3, 2017
Archbishop Roberto González Nieves of San Juan and Reverend Heriberto Martínez-Rivera, the Secretary General of Puerto Rico’s Bible Society, have written the U.S. Congress stating the territory’s economic crisis “continues to affect all of Puerto Rico’s people, in particular the poor and our children.”
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