WASHINGTON (EWTN News) —Two leading Catholic bishops have asked their fellow bishops to encourage pastors and parishioners to support Catholic Relief Services’ emergency-relief efforts in the Horn of Africa, suggesting that churches hold a second collection to address the need.

“Every day we are seeing more and more heartbreaking news about the drought and famine in Somalia and the eastern parts of Africa. We see millions of people being forced from their homes, leaving behind what meager possessions they had, and walking for days over rough terrain,” Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York and Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, Ariz., wrote.

Archbishop Dolan heads the U.S. Conference of...READ MORE

For Christopher Dawson is More Like a Movement than a Man - Carl Olson, Ignatius Insight Scoop

Protect the Poor, Not Poverty Programs - John Couretas, Acton Institute/Acton Commentary

Myth Busters: Catholics Worship Mary - Brent Stubbs, Almost Not Catholic

Contraception & Healthcare Rights - Christopher O. Tollefsen, Public Discourse

Pundits want Pope to Change His “Policies”, How to Explain He Can’t? - William Oddie, Catholic Herald

Eclectic Convert: Julie Nicholson - Why I’m Catholic

Pope Benedict XVI Rebuts Criticism of World Youth Day - Patrick Madrid

Cardinal Pell on ‘Authentic Catholicism vs Cafeteria Catholicism’ - Lux Occulta

Cardinal Pell: A Good Old-Fashioned Irish...READ MORE

It’s “American Saints Week” at the Register.

We’ve been looking at updates in the cases of several American men and women whose causes for beatification have been ongoing. Yesterday, we spoke about a new cause, that of Father Aloysius Ellacuria. Today, we look at another cause that was just introduced this year.

Father Joseph Muzquiz

Although devoted to his Basque heritage, Father Ellacuria became an American citizen, as did Father Joseph Muzquiz, who worked and died in the Boston Archdiocese.

Father Muzquiz was one of the first three priests ordained for Opus Dei and the first Opus Dei priest to come to the United States. He arrived in 1949 to establish Opus Dei at the request of...READ MORE

Patricia Neal, who died a year ago this August, was one of the 20th century’s most gifted actresses of stage and screen. But soaring achievement was met with heart-rending tragedy, including three strokes that nearly ended her life at age 39.

Through it all — in a plan that only God could have written — she secured her greatest achievement of all: a surpassing quality of love, guided, after she hit rock bottom, by the richness of Catholicism.

It was a most unexpected development, making her remarkable life even more so.

Patricia Neal — christened “Patsy Louise” — was born on Jan. 20, 1926, in the small town of Packard, Ky., a close-knit community in the heart of coal country, where...READ MORE

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (EWTN News/CNA) — We need to make time for silence in our lives if we are to pray and listen to God, said Pope Benedict XVI in his weekly general audience on Aug. 10.

“Silence is the environment that best promotes recollection, listening to God, meditation,” he told pilgrims gathered at his summer residence in the hilltop town of Castel Gandolfo, 15 miles south of Rome.

“The very fact that a taste of silence leaves us, so to speak, to ‘fill’ the silence predisposes us to prayer.”

It is for this reason, noted the Pope, that monks and nuns have traditionally established their communities “in particularly beautiful places, in the countryside, in hills, in...READ MORE

Things Not Said By St. Lawrence - LarryD, Acts of the Apostasy

Mother Bernardine Goulter Survived the Atomic Bomb at Nagasaki - Catholic Herald

On Human Power & Temporal Authority - Fr. Robert John Araujo SJ, Mirror of Justice

Movie Review: Marty, The Quest for Beauty - Allison Salerno, Ilsussidiario

What is the Purpose of Government? - Dr. Jeff Mirus, CatholicCulture.org

How to Organize Successful Pilgrimage! - Richard Collins, Linen on the Hedgerow

Secular Recognition for the Word “Chalice” - Fr. Tim Finigan, The Hermeneutic of Continuity

The Departure of an Order - Mike St. Thomas, First Things/On the Square

Dirty Habits - Sister Marie Morgan CSF, The Integrated Catholic Life™

...READ MORE

Read the Register’s “World Youth Day, Here We Come!” to see how other young people have been preparing for the big event.

ATLANTA (EWTN News) — In record-breaking numbers, thousands of young people from dioceses all over the U.S. are preparing to head overseas to celebrate World Youth Day in Madrid from Aug. 16-21.

More than 1 million people are expected at the final Mass with Pope Benedict XVI on the event’s last day.

“It’s a great sense of unity with people that you have nothing in common with,” 22-year-old Grace Lee from Atlanta told the archdiocesan paper the Georgia Bulletin.

The Archdiocese of Atlanta is sending 90 local men and women to join the more than 29,000 young people...READ MORE

COLUMBUS, Ga. (CNA) —The Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers have notified Father Roy Bourgeois he will be dismissed from their order unless he renounces his “defiant stance” against Catholic teaching on the ordination of women.

Denver-based canon lawyer J.D. Flynn said the continuing disciplinary action against the excommunicated priest is about restoring justice and repairing scandal.

“The issue is that Father Bourgeois is in a position of public ministry in the Church. He is perceived to be speaking for the Church. When he says things which aren’t consistent with what we know to be true, it can lead people into sinfulness,” Flynn told CNA on Aug. 9.

“When the sacraments are simulated, we...READ MORE