Thomas Peters of the American Papist blog has posted a letter written by Notre Dame’s president, Father John Jenkins, explaining how the university plans to engage in the pro-life issue.

Among the initiatives he proposes to undertake: 1) President Jenkins plans to participate in the Jan. 22 March for Life and has invited other members of Notre Dame to join him; 2) President Jenkins has formed the Task Force on Supporting the Choice for Life, co-chaired by Professor Margaret Brinig, the Fritz Duda Family Chair in Law and associate dean for the law school, and by Professor John Cavadini, the chair of the Department of Theology and the McGrath-Cavadini Director of the Institute for Church...READ MORE

Last Wednesday, 7-year-old Emma Watson of Craigmont, Idaho, finally got her wish to meet Pope Benedict XVI. Register readers will remember first meeting Emma through this story.

Nearly aborted, Emma was born with mosaic Turner syndrome and hypoplastic left heart syndrome and has undergone five open-heart surgeries for palliation of her congenital heart condition. She has wanted to meet the Pope since age 3.

Originally scheduled to meet the Pope in February, that trip had to be canceled because Emma had to be hospitalized for intestinal bleeding. The trip was made possible through the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which granted 13,425 wishes to children last year.

This time around, she almost...READ MORE

The The Flint Journal is reporting that longtime pro-life advocate James Pouillon was shot and killed in front of Owosso High School this morning. 

“We do not know the motive yet. But this is a time to console one another, and to renew our determination to organize peaceful protests,” said Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life. “It is no time for fear. And I am waiting to hear the abortion advocates condemn this killing.”

A suspect was taken into custody shortly after the shooting.

Contrary to secular media reports, there’s a fair amount of violence perpetrated by abortion advocates - in addition to the violence done to the unborn - against pro-life advocates....READ MORE

In a move described by religious scholars as unprecedented, 10 members of the Episcopal religious community All Saints Sisters of the Poor were received into the Catholic Church by Baltimore Archbishop Edwin O’Brien on Sept. 3. The community’s chaplain, Rev. Warren Tanghe, also converted with the nuns.

Members of the order had been considering conversion for seven years. “We were drifting farther apart from the more liberal road the Episcopal Church is traveling. We are now more at home in the Roman Catholic Church,” Mother Christina Christie, superior of the order, told the The Baltimore Sun. In particular, she cited the Episcopal Church’s decisions to consecrate homosexual bishops and...READ MORE

One of the more interesting findings from the recent CARA study on religious life was the difference in those joining orders associated with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) versus those joining the smaller Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious (CMSWR).

The data found that just 1% of religious orders associated with the LCWR have more than 10 women in the process of joining, whereas among the CMSWR, 28% reported having 10 or more candidates. The “Study of Recent Vocations to Religious Life” conducted by Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate was on behalf of the Chicago-based National Religious Vocation Conference.

That’s...READ MORE

Former Congressman and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was received into the Catholic Church on March 30, 2009, at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Washington. Yesterday I spoke with him about his decision to convert from being Baptist to Catholic.

Here’s part of what he had to say. To read the entire interview, you’ll have to obtain the print edition of the Register.

How does a Baptist come to be Catholic?
It was a pretty long progression. My Ph.D. is in European history. You can’t engage in understanding Europe and America without trying to understand the Bible, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. From that standpoint, you inexorably have to...READ MORE

What do you get when you combine three priests, cheese curds, and over 1 million visitors? “Grill a Priest,” part of Theology on a Stick, at the Minnesota State Fair.

Conceived by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ Cathedral Young Adult group, this is the second year that the group has brought its innovative bite-sized theology program to the state fairgrounds. Housed in the St. Bernards Bulldog Lodge and sponsored by the Catholic Aid Association, the event, held during five evenings of the fair, includes a lineup of Catholic speakers such as Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis Auxiliary Bishop Lee Piche and University of St. Thomas professor Michael Naughton, “Grill the...READ MORE

If you were to meet 10 average Americans on the street, nine of them would say they believe in God. So, why is the gospel of love dividing America?

Dan Merchant (a.k.a. The Bumper-Sticker Man) put on a bumper sticker-clad jumpsuit and decided to find out.

After talking with scores of men and women on streets all across the nation, and also interviewing many well-known active participants in today’s “culture wars,” the result is Merchant’s documentary Lord Save Us From Your Followers.

The documentary takes a look at the often divisive and angry rhetoric that’s come to characterize religious media coverage. In the documentary, Merchant interviews people on all sides of the divide,...READ MORE