You can’t be a part-time Christian, says Pope Francis

Catholics can’t put their faith on a part-time schedule or rely on it just for the moments they choose; being Christian is a full-time occupation, Pope Francis said. If people don’t open their hearts to the Holy Spirit to let God purify and enlighten them, then “our being Christian will be superficial,” the pope said [...]

Failing popularity?

There are fewer church-goers now, say some pollsters or hacks (it is not too easy to tell the difference these days!) and that is because the Church will not budge on certain issues: contraception, women in Holy Orders, perhaps same-sex unions, and also, it is claimed, because of the scandals with which members of the [...]

Middle Eastern intolerance means Filipinos have to be careful about their faith

Celeste Macaldo says she’s a “devout” Catholic who attended Mass every week until she landed a job as a caregiver in Lebanon five years ago. “For five years, I remember going to church to attend Mass only five times, and only on Christmas Eve,” she told ucanews.com. Many times Muslim friends tried to persuade her [...]

Cardinal Tagle to Filipinos: Keep the faith, share with the poor

Manila Archbishop Jose Antonio Cardinal Tagle over the weekend stressed the need for Filipinos to have faith amid the troubles they now face. Tagle, in his Christmas message, reminded Filipinos that Christmas is all about faith, and would be an empty season without it. “In a real sense, Christmas is all about faith. To remove [...]

Young Indian and Filipino win global faith film ‘Oscars’

Congratulations to young film makers Charles Andrew Flamiano from the Philippines, Liat Har-Gill from Israel, and Mudit Muraka from India for winning the Tony Blair Faith Foundation’s 2012 global film competition, Faith Shorts. The three winners received their awards at 195 Piccadilly, the home of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) in front of over [...]

Ateneo and the RH bill

Back in college, my friends and I immersed ourselves in the communities of Smokey Mountain.  We marvelled at the scavengers’ ingenuity in creating products from scrap, but we despaired over the appalling living conditions and the enormity of the task of providing healthcare and education for so many children. Mothers tearfully said they did not [...]

Religious intolerance on the rise worldwide, says US report

Three-quarters of the world’s human population of seven billion live under strong government curbs on religion, or among serious “social hostilities” involving faith issues, find researchers. The US and UK, say the researchers, are among countries showing a worrying rise in religious discrimination. The conclusions of the project, conducted by the Pew Research Centre, an [...]

SEN. MIRIAM’S LIST: 8 reasons why Catholics support RH

A Doctor of Juridical Science and a candidate for Master of Arts in Religious Studies, the senator delivered this keynote speech at the program sponsored by the Catholics for Reproductive Health today, 15 September 2012, at the UP College of Social Work and Development. 1. The Catholic Church does not consider anti-RH teaching as infallible. Theology consists [...]

Religious Themes Dominate “Venice Film Festival”

If you have been keeping up with the “Venice Film Festival,” then you should be aware of winners and losers from best picture to best director.  But it’s fitting for a festival where about half the titles in the official competition had religious themes, the 69th Venice Film Festival awarded its top prize, the Golden [...]

Religion In College: How Has Your Faith Changed?

How does a college education affect one’s religious beliefs? Given that college is a period of intellectual engagement and exploration, many scholars have believed that a college education weakens one’s religious beliefs. In 1977 researchers David Caplowitz and Fred Sherrow wrote that college is “a breeding ground for apostasy.” In 1983 sociologist James Hunter claimed [...]

As countries get richer, they lose some sense of religion — survey

Traditionally Catholic Ireland has registered almost the steepest drop worldwide in people calling themselves religious in a new survey tracking international trends in faith and atheism in recent years. Only 47 percent of Irish polled said they were religious people, a 22-point drop from the 69 percent recorded in the last similar poll in 2005, [...]

Former sex worker finds God after HIV

While the incidence of HIV/AIDS has been arrested and is even falling in some regions, the Philippines is one of only seven countries in the world where it is on the rise.

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