Today’s school checklists reflect modern times, potential troubles

By Carol Zimmermann
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Long gone are the days when school officials had to simply run an inventory of desks, school supplies and audiovisual equipment before the start of the school year.
Today’s back-to-school checklists are far more complex in order to ensure that faculty and staff members are ready to face any [...]

Nuns mark Mother Teresa’s birth, pray for victims of twin blasts

By Catholic News Service
CALCUTTA, India (CNS) — The head of the Missionaries of Charity prayed for victims of the Aug. 25 bomb explosions in Hyderabad, India, during this year’s commemoration of the birth of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
“We need to pray that those responsible realize their wrongs. We should also ask pardon from God [...]

Questions about God’s role in tragedies follow bridge collapse

By Maria Wiering
Catholic News Service
MINNEAPOLIS (CNS) — Weeks after th

Dean leaves path of flooding; Mexico reports storm-related deaths

 By Jonathan Roeder
Catholic News Service
MEXICO CITY (CNS) — As Hurricane Dean moved west and weakened to a tropical depression, it left widespread flooding across Mexico’s Gulf Coast and left at least three people dead.
They were killed in the Mexican states of Veracruz and Hidalgo, according to separate statements by the states’ governors Aug. 23. Meanwhile, [...]

Catholic colleges get good marks in regional rankings of top schools

By Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) — In the 2008 list of the nation’s best colleges, according to U.S. News & World Report’s ranking, Catholic colleges and universities were once again at the top in regional lists for the North and Midwest but did not have a significant representation in the overall national ranking.
In the national [...]

Pope says to follow Christ, show charity, solidarity with suffering

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Charity and solidarity with the suffering are indispensable signs of truly following Christ, Pope Benedict XVI said.
Citing the teaching of St. Gregory Nazianzen on charity at his Aug. 22 weekly general audience, the pope again appealed for international assistance for the victims of the Aug. 15 earthquake [...]

Catholic school guarantees tuition refund if students aren’t reading

By Kristin Lukowski
Catholic News Service
DETROIT (CNS) — Our Lady of La Salette Catholic School in the Detroit suburb of Berkley is making a guarantee: First-graders will be reading at a second-grade level by the end of the year. If not, parents can ask for a full tuition refund.
It’s an idea that came to came to [...]

Priest says all in central Utah want to aid miners families, rescuers

By Barbara Stinson Lee
Catholic News Service
HUNTINGTON, Ind. (CNS) — Father Donald E. Hope, pastor of a mission church near the mine where six miners remained trapped, said that wherever he goes, people ask, “What can we do for the families of the trapped miners?”
In locations from the parishes and missions of central Utah to its [...]

Today student loan debt seems as abundant as back-to-school supplies

By Mark Pattison Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) — In a seemingly more innocent age, the back-to-school supply rush meant getting new pencils, pens, paper, construction paper, binders, folders, a Duo-Tang binder or two, plus a compass and the ever-popular protractor.
Then came the calculator. And the bulkier textbooks. And the laptops. And the backpacks to cram [...]

Non-Catholic students find welcoming environment at Catholic schools

By Jennifer Burke
Catholic News Service
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Brooke Smith fell in love with Irondequoit’s Bishop Kearney High School even before she enrolled.
She looked into the school at the recommendation of her pastor at St. Luke Tabernacle Community Church in Rochester and knew it was the right place for her.
This fall, she will be a senior [...]