American journalist Russell Shaw’s book, Nothing To Hide: Secrecy, Communication, and Communion in the Catholic Church (Ignatius Press), takes a candid and sometimes surprising look at the abuse of secrecy in an ecclesiastical context. In this interview, Shaw, former information director of the US Catholic bishops’ conference, explains the book’s genesis and the nature of th...

Is Time magazine confirming Catholic teaching on marriage? By Christopher West   There has been less chatter in the Catholic press than I had expected about Time magazine’s July 13 cover story. Above a wedding cake with plastic bride and groom sinking below the icing, the headline read: “Unfaithfully Yours — Infidelity is eroding our most sacred institutio...

Why I became Catholic: Dr Michael Tandon speaks with The Record's Debbie Warrier.   Dr Michael Tandon     By Debbie Warrier I am a respiratory doctor at Hollywood Private Hospital in Nedlands and president of the Catholic Doctors Association. I was born a Hindu. My first introduction to the Catholic faith happened when I went to a Cathol...

Q&A with Fr John Flader. This week: Why is it that some saints are called confessors while others are not? I think, for example, of St Edward the Confessor. I have noticed that the title confessor is given to both clerics and lay people. What exactly is a confessor?   St Edward the Confessor.   By Fr John Flader   Let me say at the ou...

Building a culture of life - the simple things.   St Maximiliian Kolbe.   August 14, 2009, the day of Christian Rossiter’s landmark Supreme Court case, was also the feast of St Maximilian Kolbe, a Franciscan Priest who lived in Poland.  During World War II St Kolbe was arrested by the Gestapo for his work on a Catholic Magazine and sent to Aus...

Women are still oppressed and they are doing it to themselves. By Catherine Parish   I’m writing on the Feast of the Assumption, and delighted to see that the great difficulties within marriage are being acknowledged by the Church, and that concerned people within the Church are seeking to redress them. Married people helping other married people, the way it ...

Fr Anthony Paganoni, Scalabrinian, continues a series for The Record this week reflecting on what, if any, future the Church has in Europe and why this is important for us. A recent survey for Le Monde des Religions revealed that the number of self-described Catholics in France had dropped from 80 per cent in the early 1990s to just 51 per cent in 2007. The editor of the magazine ...

Challenges in Religious life should prompt recommitment, speakers at major US confernece say.     Archbishop Pietro Sambi, apostolic nuncio to the United States, waves to the crowd at the beginning of a pro-life youth Mass at the Verizon Centre in Washington on January 22. Addressing over 130 superiors of men Religious on August 6, he said some Religious communiti...

Cardinal says deacons must know Scripture, serve poor. Deacon candidates lie prostrate during their ordination Mass at the Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland, California, last year, when Bishop Allen Vigneron ordained 17 permanent deacons for the diocese. Photo: CNS/Greg Tarczynski. VATICAN CITY (CNS) - The Catholic Church increasingly relies on the ministry of permanent dea...

Newspaper says governments did little to stop Holocaust. Pope Pius XII writes one of his wartime Christmas radio messages using a typewriter at the Vatican in this undated photo. Photo: CNS. By John Thavis VATICAN CITY (CNS) - In a lengthy article, the Vatican newspaper said the US and British governments had detailed information about the Nazi plan to exterminate Europe...