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Ash Wednesday, the Lenten journey begins

Ash Wednesday, the Lenten journey begins

TORONTO - Today, Ash Wednesday, marks the first day of the Lenten season for Christians throughout the Greater Toronto Area and around the world. In Catholic churches in the archdiocese of Toronto, the faithful will gather today to participate in the distribution of ashes — a tradition that has united Christians together in their faith for more than a millennium.

Ryan Worms, at a refugee camp in Niger, intend to fast for the 40 days of Lent in solidarity with the poor and hungry in the Global South.

Fast in solidarity with world’s hungry

‘Live simply so that others may simply live’

Don't worry about being imperfect when called to vocation, Pope says 

Don't worry about being imperfect when called to vocation, Pope says 

VATICAN CITY - Men and women called to a religious vocation should not worry about being imperfect but should trust in God to transform their lives, said Pope Benedict XVI.

In his annual message for Lent, Pope Benedict XVI said that "Faith is genuine only if crowned by charity."

Faith is genuine only if coupled with charity for others, Pope says

VATICAN CITY - Faith and charity can never be separated nor opposed to each other, just as faith by itself isn't genuine without charity, Pope Benedict XVI said.

Father Thomas Fusco, pastor at St. Edward the Confessor Parish in Syosset, N.Y., listens to a penitent's confession during a Catholic men's conference at Holy Trinity Diocesan High School in Hicksville, N.Y., in 2012. Each Lent parishes and dioceses acro ss the U.S. invite inactive Catholics to return to church and to take advantage of sacrament of reconciliation.

Priests offer tips for Catholics long absent from the confessional

WASHINGTON - After "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned" -- even if they get that far -- there are millions of Catholics who don't exactly know what to say next.

Father Wojciech Giertych, Pope Benedict XVI's personal theologian, is pictured in the chapel at his residence in the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican Dec. 12. Father Giertych said that although women cannot be ordained priests, they do not play a secondar y role in the church.

Why not women priests? The papal theologian explains

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In October, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith dismissed Roy Bourgeois from the priesthood because of his participation in the invalid ordination of a woman.

Pope Benedict XVI shakes hands with a member of the Roman Rota to mark the start of the judicial year at the Vatican Jan. 26. The Rota is a Vatican-based tribunal that deals mainly with marriage cases.

Lack of faith can hurt marriage, may affect validity, Pope says

VATICAN CITY - A lack of faith in God can damage marriage, even to the point of affecting its validity, Pope Benedict XVI said.

Pope Benedict XVI releases a dove from the window of his apartment overlooking St. Peter's Square after praying the Angelus at the Vatican Jan. 27. Two children representing Catholic Action Rome helped the pope observe the annual tradition of releasing d oves as a symbol of peace.

Pope marks Holocaust Remembrance Day, calls for end to hatred

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI said the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day calls humanity to work to overcome all forms of hatred and racism and to respect the dignity of each human person.

Bishop Donald Bolen, Archbishop James Weisgerber and Archbishop Albert LeGatt at a Theology on Tap in Winnipeg.

Three bishops share faith, stories on Saskatchewan roots

WINNIPEG - Three bishops walked into a bar... and there, before an enthusiastic crowd of youth and young adult ministers, they shared their stories of how they came to have the faith that they have today.

Archbishop Gerhard L. Muller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, attends the presentation of his book on Pope Benedict XVI's writings in Rome Jan. 11.

Politics without God bound to fail

ROME - Politicians who act as if God did not exist and as if there was no such thing as objective moral truths are bound to fail in their efforts to promote the common good, said the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

“The politics we have today in Europe and North America without ethical foundations, without a reference to God, cannot resolve our problems, even those of the market and money,” said Archbishop Gerhard Muller.

Speaking Jan. 11 at a Vatican bookstore in downtown Rome, Muller said, “Faith and reason are like two people who love each other deeply, who cannot live without each other, and who were intimately made for one another, so much so that they cannot be considered separate from one another and cannot reach their goals separately.”

Twins Hawa and Adama Keita, 15, warm a pot of tea in late November outside an area where 15 other family members rent rooms in a suburb of Bamako, Mali. More than 200,000 Malians have migrated to the south since a March 2012 military coup, while a simila r number have fled to Niger, Burkina Faso, Morocco and Algeria.

Bishop in Mali says people in hiding, afraid to enter churches

OXFORD, England - A Catholic bishop in war-torn Mali whose diocese lies in the path of Islamic insurgents said "people are hiding in their homes, unable to venture out."

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