The Catholic Sun

While English colonists who arrived in the New World were looking for greater opportunities, many of the Catholic colonists who arrived in Maryland also were looking to escape religious persecution.

Having "the smell of sheep" for one military chaplain serving in Ukraine has now meant being surrounded by the smell of burned homes and lives.

Catholic leaders were thankful that death-row inmate Melissa Lucio was granted a last-minute stay of execution April 25, but they also said her sentence shows a failure in the use of capital punishment in this country and stressed that they would continue to pray for Lucio and her family and advocate on her behalf.

Bishop Christian Carlassare of Rumbek, South Sudan, expressed hope for conversion and healing, as a court sentenced a Catholic priest and three others for his shooting.

There is no such thing as a "good" or "bad" nation because wickedness can be found everywhere, Pope Francis said.

The majority of Supreme Court justices seemed to side with a former high school football coach April 25 who said his postgame prayers on the field -- that cost him his job -- amounted to private speech and not the public school's endorsement of religion.

Good Friday, the day Christians commemorate the Crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ as payment for the sin of humankind, has for two decades in the Diocese of Phoenix also been a time for Catholics to gather publicly to pray for the lives of the unborn, as well as their mothers contemplating ending their pregnancy and the workers performing those procedures.

Ukrainian Catholics in New York celebrated Easter with prayers that Christ's triumph over death will also signify victory over everything evil happening in their home country.

The capsizing of a small boat overloaded with passengers trying to illegally leave Lebanon is "the biggest proof of the terrible crisis" that the country is enduring as it continues to sink economically, said Carmelite Father Michel Abboud, president of Caritas Lebanon.

"It is happening." Three words in a text message from a friend in London alerted Paul Gavrilyuk that Russia's invasion on Ukraine had begun.