As the nation’s attention turns to the Palmetto State for this Saturday’s primary, I’d like to call your attention to a series that Register correspondent Charlotte Hays has done.

The Register wanted to give Catholic voters as best a picture as possible of all the candidates vying for president in 2012 so that they could make informed choices when they go into the voting booth.

We’ve tried to focus on the candidates’ stands and, where applicable, voting records on life issues (abortion, embryonic stem-cell research), marriage issues (same-sex “marriage”) and economic issues — the latter because we believe it’s important to be good stewards of the gifts God has given us and support...READ MORE

Here we are at another Thanksgiving, that most American of feast days. For so many of us, it has come to mean food, family and football.

Oh, and phenomenal savings — the next day, anyway.

We are reminded to thank God for our many blessings. And then we indulge.

I’ve never really thought about it much, but Archbishop Timothy Dolan made a lot of sense the other day when he pointed to the basic thing for which we must be grateful: the religious liberty we enjoy in this country, settled in large part by those whose religious freedom had been curtailed in the Old World.

In speaking of that “first freedom,” the archbishop of New York found himself in an interesting setting. He had just...READ MORE

It’s not exactly the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, the Spanish pilgrimage trail featured in the new Emilio Estevez film The Way. But the road from Peekskill, N.Y., to St. Patrick’s Cathedral can be just as colorful.

Father John Higgins, the 43-year-old pastor of Assumption parish in the Westchester town, will be walking the 58 miles to Manhattan today and tomorrow.

His purpose? To raise money for his struggling parish school.

In a letter to friends, he writes that Assumption School is having difficult times, and many of the parents, hit hard by the economic downturn of the past several years, are struggling to keep their kids in the school.

Father Higgins told me that he plans to...READ MORE

Irene packed a punch, to be sure. Some 42 people up and down the eastern seaboard died as a result of the hurricane, and millions of folks were affected by property damage, sustained loss of power, severe flooding and interrupted daily living.

I don’t mean to minimize anyone’s hardships, least of all their personal tragedies. Thanks be to God, we had no catastrophes in southern Connecticut.

Inconvenienced? Sure. We’re still without power, stumbling around to find things in the dark, finding ways to keep our food from going bad, having to go out from the home office to find a place with power and an internet connection…

But that’s the extent of our “suffering.” We have had merely a taste...READ MORE

As members of an earlier generation could tell you exactly where they were when they heard the news of JFK’s assassination or the attack on Pearl Harbor, hardly anyone alive today can forget Sept. 11, 2001.

It’s been 10 years, and the Register is preparing special coverage of the anniversary.

But we’d also like to hear from you, our readers. We’d like to hear your recollections of that day or your thoughts about it and the ensuing reaction to the largest attack on American soil. This is your chance to offer your unique perspective, based on your experiences, to the rest of us. We invite you to write considered and respectful short essays, in the comment box below, to help all of us put...READ MORE

As kids across the country head back to school, four recent college grads are preparing to take off for new lives in the missions.

They are being sent by Fidesco, a 30-year-old Paris-based Catholic agency that has a new branch in the United States and is sending Americans abroad for the first time.

Founded in 1981 by the Emmanuel Community, following a meeting at the Vatican with African bishops, Fidesco now operates in 31 countries and sends 250 volunteers every year. Its name is based on the Latin word for faith, fides. The co is for cooperation.
Each volunteer makes a two-year commitment.

Wyoming native Natalie Kean, 28, is headed for a slum outside Manila in the Philippines. An...READ MORE

There are almost 30,000 viewers watching the live stream of the New York State Senate right now. This may be the last day of a long legislative session before lawmakers break for the summer.

It’s also the feast of St. John the Baptist, a few days after the longest day of the year. But it’s already dark, and it looks like the Senate is finally going to vote on the same-sex “marriage” bill ... in the dark of night.

Yes, it appears the Senate is opting to vote “under cover of darkness.” But no, that’s not really the case, is it, not in this Internet age, when the session is being streamed live on the Senate’s own website and folks like the National Organization for Marriage are tweeting...READ MORE

Thank you, Lorenz Burger. You came to this country in 1848, when things in Germany weren’t going well. You settled in Brooklyn, set out to learn English, and kept your fellow Bavarians happy by brewing their beloved weizenbier. Thank you for leaving your brewery on Broome Street in lower Manhattan’s Kleine Deutschland when the union was threatened. Your own Germany was hardly united, but you answered Abraham Lincoln’s call to help save this Union.

Thank you, too, Russell Edward Joseph Burger. Your service in France in 1918 in the medical corps helped save lives and comforted the dying.

Thank you, Clarence Burger. You did your part, watching German prisoners of war, even though you were...READ MORE