Seventeen years ago, Shanika Dawson was pregnant and homeless. The father of her baby was not capable of helping her, she said. Dawson tried sleeping in a shelter in New York but was sexually assaulted. The trains, she figured, were safer. That
The Mission of Our Lady of the Angels occupies a well-kept city block in the West Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago. Bright flowers line clean sidewalks, and the street that runs between the church, rectory, convent and former school buildings is often
Weeks after President Trump signed an executive order rescinding the “zero-tolerance policy” for separating families at the border, many still remain to be reunited. As Americans have watched to see how the U.S. government responds to this crisis, Church leaders have been
For years, advocates of immigration reform decried the lack of action on immigration in the United States. In recent months, that stagnation has given way to a deluge of changes, nearly all of them aimed at cutting the number of immigrants, whether
When all 34 bishops of Chile offered their resignations to Pope Francis on May 18, following a three-day meeting to discuss the clerical sexual abuse crisis in their country, observers in the United States were cautiously optimistic that the event marked a
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that Jesus, during his public ministry, took time alone to reflect and pray. The Gospels say he climbed up mountainsides and rowed away from the shore in boats to escape the crowds, going off alone or with
In March 2015, the outlook for St. Mary of the Lake Parish was grim. The parish, a mainstay of the Miller section of Gary, Indiana, since its founding in 1929, was down to about 40 worshippers on any given Sunday, and it
John O’Neill is the unlikely author of an unlikely story. O’Neill, a 1967 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and an oil and gas litigator from Houston, swore off writing after publishing “Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John
OK, men: Want a modern desert experience? Give up alcohol and sweets, social media, pastimes like video games and televised sports for 90 days. Don’t spend any money except for necessities. Take only cold showers and commit to a program of strenuous
When the Archdiocese of Denver and the Diocese of Honolulu this spring announced young people would begin to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation before that of first Communion, they brought the total number of U.S. archdioceses and dioceses returning to what the