current events

An 86-year-old nun from Cleveland who works for a Catholic anti-poverty lobbying group has been selected to deliver the closing prayers one night during the Democratic National Convention. "I think you have a different perspective when you've lived some history," says Catherine Pinkerton, a member of the Cleveland-based religious order Congregation of St. Joseph who once served as princ...

The Church must lead in transforming social attitudes about gender inequality as part of the fight against HIV/AIDS, said a Christian agency on the closing day of the 17th International AIDS Conference. “There is a desperate need for the leadership of the Church to smarten up to gender-related issues like violence and issues of power and control,” said Tearfund’s chief executive...

The Beijing Olympics starting Friday will showcase the varying degrees to which Muslim countries are warming up to women's sports. The United Arab Emirates and Oman are sending women for the first time. AMMAN, Jordan (WOMENSENEWS)--Even before the Beijing Summer Olympics begin on Friday, Habiba Hinai is tasting victory. For the first time her country is sending a female Olympian to the games. ...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she, unlike other Catholic politicians who support abortion rights, has not clashed with her church about receiving communion. In an interview on C-SPAN that aired on Sunday, Pelosi was asked about how some church officials have raised objections about whether former presidential contenders -- such as Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and former New York City Ma...

    Shaista Ambar professes to "know the miseries of women in her community first hand." In her house Ambar sits surrounded by files of cases and paper clippings of women who have come to her for help. She lives outside Lucknow, the capital of India's largest state, Uttar Pradesh, and home to a sizeable Muslim population. "Muslim women are some of the worst victims o...

Over 50 Catholic organizations published a letter addressed to Pope Benedict XVI last week urging the Pope to lift the Church's anti-contraception policy introduced in the Humanae Vitae, the1968 Encyclical Letter of Pope Paul VI. The letter was advertised in the Corriere della Sera, Italy's largest circulating newspaper, according to Catholics for Choice. The letter marked the 40 anniversary o...