BOB MCKEON

This year, as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Vatican II, many of us are going back and rereading the documents of the council. A while back I agreed to give a public presentation on Gaudium et Spes, and so lately I have been researching all I can find about this document, the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.

SR. LOUISE ZDUNICH, NDC

I read recently that Hildegard of Bingen was declared a doctor of the Church.

Who was she and what did she do?

The day after Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, hailed his election as a “choice that unites,” exemplifying America’s ability to “overcome fractures and divisions that until only recently could seem incurable.”

The newly appointed leader of the world’s Anglicans is a former oil executive who said his spiritual director was a Catholic monk.

Sacred music can bolster people’s faith and help lapsed Catholics rediscover the beauty of God, Pope Benedict said Nov. 10.

Christian and Hindu parents, teachers and religious leaders must educate young people to recognize and resist ideologies that teach disrespect for certain groups of people and sow divisions in society, said the leaders of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

A Vatican court found Claudio Sciarpelletti, a computer expert in the Secretariat of State, guilty of aiding and abetting the papal butler, who was convicted of stealing sensitive Vatican correspondence.

Voters in Maine, Washington state and Maryland approved ballot measures legalizing same-sex marriage Nov. 6.

The link between respecting the environment and the sacramental life of the Church is inseparable for one bishop overseeing a diocese that encompasses a collection of small islands in the South Pacific.

In a Nov. 4 speech at the University of Notre Dame, the apostolic nuncio to the United States warned that the “menace to religious liberty is concrete on many fronts” today particularly “within your own homeland.”