The head of the Oregon prison system is looking to make significant changes to the way the state views punishment, and she insists that Catholics and other people of faith have an important role to play. Colette Peters is the director of the Oregon Department of Corrections and a cradle Catholic. She is currently heading up a 10-year plan in the state that draws largely from the Norwegian prison system. The collaboration is part of the European Prison Project, which was initiated in 2017. Read More

A former linebacker for the Indianapolis Colts, the married father of two studied to become a pastor after leaving the league in 1998. Gray made headlines earlier this year when he announced that his Transformation Church donated had $50,000 to the Women’s Enrichment Center, a pro-life pregnancy resource center in South Carolina. Read More

Washington D.C., Apr 16, 2019 / 12:06 am (CNA).- A bipartisan bill introduced in Congress last week would allow inmates in federal and state prisons to be eligible for Pell grants, to pay for college classes while they are in jail. Known as the “REAL Act,” the bill would repeal a 1994 Clinton-era ban on prisoners’ eligibility for the grants. The Senate bill was introduced April 9 by Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii). The corresponding House bill was introduced by Congress members Jim Banks (R-Ind.), Danny Davis (D-Ill.), and French Hill (R-Ark.), and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.). Read More

Notre Dame on fire and perhaps unusable for months if not years is undoubtedly a trial. But faith does not allow to see this as a punishment or the confirmation of a decline and fall. There is some comfort to be found in the massive sense of affliction and solidarity of non-believers, since it proves that for them, however irreligious they are, the visible Church is not a mere remnant of the past, but a vital part of the scenery, without which they themselves miss something. Yet, in the end, this support does not make that much of a difference. What is decisive is the knowledge that Jesus Christ the Groom will never abandon his bride the Church – which does not mean that her faithfulness will never be tested. The Temple on Mount Zion was destroyed, rebuilt and destroyed again. St. Peter’s in Rome was plundered several times. The crusaders lost Jerusalem. What ultimately matters is not the signifier (the cathedral), but the signified (God’s glory) which remains forever fertile and will forever inspire those who long for it. Read More

Washington D.C., Apr 12, 2019 / 05:54 pm (CNA).- Students at Georgetown University voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to pass a referendum that would create a new student fee each semester in order to create programming benefiting the descendants of the 272 slaves the Maryland Province of Jesuits sold in 1838. “The results of the referendum are as follows: 66.08% for yes (2541 votes), 33.92% for no (1304 votes). This means that the referendum passes,” tweeted the Georgetown University Students Association Election Commission on Thursday evening. According to the GUSA Election Commission, 57.9% of Georgetown students voted in the election. Read More

Pope Francis during Mass on Palm Sunday tells the faithful, “there is no negotiating with the cross: one either embraces it or rejects it. By his self-abasement, Jesus wanted to open up to us the path of faith and to precede us on that path.” Read More

Pope Francis has named Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory as the seventh Archbishop of Washington. Archbishop Gregory is currently the Archbishop of Atlanta, and will succeed Cardinal Donald Wuerl, who served as Washington’s archbishop from June 2006 to October 2018. Archbishop Gregory has been a member of the Knights of Peter Claver for over 5 years. He was initiated into our Noble order in May of 1984. Read More

On the morning after his installation Mass in Memphis, Bishop David Talley joined a group of friends and family for a tour of the city’s historic National Civil Rights Museum. “It was an extraordinary two-hour immersion in the evil of slavery, its institutional character, the disastrous effects seen through the generations, and the children and teens and adults that affected great change in our nation in their suffering,” he tweeted after leaving the museum, which is on the site of the Lorraine Hotel where the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed 51 years ago. The following day - on the very anniversary of King’s assassination - Pope Francis appointed Archbishop Wilton Gregory to lead Catholics in the nation’s capital, making him the first African-American prelate to lead an archdiocese seen as a center of African-American culture. Read More