Young female Catholic university students in Canada are spiritually readying themselves for “navigating” through university culture, life and setbacks with the March 27-30 UNIV Inspire Congress — an annual international Catholic youth conference for high school seniors and college students held during Holy Week.

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio -- In response to the unprecedented economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, Franciscan University of Steubenville announced it will cover the remainder of tuition costs, after scholarships and grants have been applied, for the fall 2020 semester for all incoming full-time undergraduate students enrolled in its on-campus programs.

Growing up, there wasn’t the option to not go to church. In our household, if you don’t go to church, you don’t get to celebrate Christmas or Easter, which are two pretty big holidays for a young kid.

What if Catholic men are set apart from the rest of the men in the world?

When we speak of Catholic education it is almost a cliché to begin by saying that universities were born from the Church and to give Bologna and Oxford as examples of the foundational role the Church played in the development of higher education. 

Going to university often means leaving home and friends behind, but it doesn’t have to mean parting ways with your Catholic faith.

I grew up far away from my current home in Vancouver. My parents, Mauro and Gertrude Dsouza, made their home in Bangalore, India, and my childhood was filled with storybooks, swimming pools, piano classes and ballet lessons. Not to forget about school! 

Whenever someone asks me what I study in school, my heart always sinks a bit. 

Construction crews have been busy completing a $4-million renovation of 80-year-old Brennan Hall in the centre of the University of St. Michael’sCollege, but there’s more to what’s happening on campus than the crack of hammers and the whirr of electric drills, insists the college’s new president.

If anyone had asked me last summer about my plans after graduation, I would have said that I was going to move to the U.S. to complete a one-year postgraduate fellowship with a giant media company. 

Thanks to generous donors, St. Mary’s University in Calgary was recently able to complete the restoration of our nearly 100-year-old water tower. Built by the Sisters of Providence in 1921, the tower has stood over the Midnapore site for nearly a century, its fortunes waxing and waning — mostly waning — over time. 

VATICAN – Catholic universities are "called to be workshops of dialogue and encounter in the service of truth, justice and the defense of human dignity at every level," Pope Francis told a delegation from Pennsylvania's Villanova University.

Canadian Catholics and Christians generally are not paranoid if they harbour suspicions that their governmental overlords are unsubtly trying to control their rights of free speech, religion and assembly. 

Staying connected to my faith has always been easy for me. During my high school years at Holy Name of Mary College School, I attended mandatory Mass once a month, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and participated in faith-related reflections for class.

Pursuing higher education at the university level offers the opportunity to grow nearer to God.