Maria, ster van de evangelisatie

(CNSNews.com) - The Archdiocese of New York, headed by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., headed by Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the University of Notre Dame, and 40 other Catholic dioceses and organizations around the country announced on Monday that they are suing the Obama administration for violating their freedom of religion, which is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

The dioceses and organizations, in different combinations, are filing 12 different lawsuits filed in federal courts around the country.

The Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. has established a special website-- preservereligiousfreedom.org -- to explain its lawsuit and present news and developments concerning it.

François Elluin, The inhabitants of Sodom provoke the divine wrath, engraving for the libertine work "Le pot pourri de Loth," 1781.

The congregation for the doctrine of the faith reprints as-is the 1986 letter on homosexuality, precisely as various governments are legalizing gay unions. The commentaries of Ratzinger and Cardinal Biffi ...

Assisi 2011 was the theme of a press conference held in the Vatican on Tuesday looking ahead to next week’s Day of Reflection, Dialogue and Prayer for Peace and Justice in the World. Organised by the Pontifical Councils for Christian Unity, for Interreligious Dialogue, for Justice and Peace and for Culture, next Thursday’s event was called for by Pope Benedict on January 1^st and will bring together in the Umbrian hill town some 300 representatives of all the world’s major religions, as Philippa Hitchen reports:

"I think it is my duty, given this special opportunity to inform my eminent brothers, that there is still no religious freedom in China. There is too much optimism around something that does not correspond to reality..."

Cardinal Joseph Zen Zekiun

Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Madrid, Spain, Thursday on his 20th Apostolic voyage outside Italy. It is his third trip to the country and it marks the culmination of World Youth Day events currently underway in the Spanish capital. He is due to touch down in Barajas International airport at midday, where he will be officially welcomed by the head of State King Juan Carlos. Later Thursday evening he will be welcomed again to the city, but this time by the estimated one million young people waiting eagerly for his arrival. Emer McCarthy is there and sends us this report:

MUNICH, Germany, JULY 19, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Ten years after the attack on New York's World Trade Center, a lay Catholic group is teaming with the cardinal of Munich for an event to promote religious and cultural dialogue.

On Sept. 11, the Community of Sant'Egidio and Cardinal Reinhard Marx will host "Bound to Live Together: Religions and Cultures in Dialogue," in Munich.

The three-day event will bring together leaders of world religions, and government and civil representatives, and will lead up to the Assisi day of prayer for peace, called by Benedict XVI for October.

The Archbishop of Liverpool Patrick Kelly was amongst a dozen leaders of major European dioceses who attended a summit meeting at the recently established Pontifical Council for New Evangelisation here in the Vatican on Monday. The cardinals and bishops from Barcelona, Budapest, Brussels, Cologne, Dublin, Lisbon, Liverpool, Paris, Turin, Warsaw and Vienna were called in to share ideas with the council’s president, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, for a pilot project aimed at revitalising the Church in their cities.

Only one Roman rite in two forms, ancient and modern. This is Benedict XVI's prescription to heal a liturgical disorder that has become "hard to bear." For those who don't believe it, a new document has been released with the instructions 

Says "Times Have Changed" Since 1970 Request for Theological Study

LISBON, Portugal, FEB. 9, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Cardinal Walter Kasper, the retired president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said that "times have changed" since 1970, when he requested a study to look into the need for obligatory priestly celibacy, and that he he never advocated its abolition.