US Catholics

Between 2007 and 2014 the number of Catholics in the US fell from 24 to 21 per cent.

Pope Francis will visit the US from next Tuesday to Sunday having spent the previous four days in Cuba.

Will the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), William Levada be invited to papal events during the visit of Pope Francis to the US?

The excerpt below is from words spoken by Cardinal William Levada.

A wise Dominican was once overheard saying that he wondered would the Catholic Church be in such a 'frenzy' about abortion if it was not linked to sexuality.

When Cardinal Levada sat behind the wheel of his car having consumed too much alcohol was he aware that he could take innocent life as a result of his behaviour?

"The individual politician, like any Catholic, who is at odds with the teaching of the Church about the principle involved, i.e., that abortion constitutes the killing of innocent human life and is always gravely immoral (cf. Evangelium Vitae, nn. 57–62), has an obligation to reflect more deeply on the issue, in the hope of allowing the persuasive character of this infallibly taught teaching to become part of his belief and value system. I say infallibly taught not because Pope John Paul II has assumed in Evangelium Vitae the special prerogative recognized for individual papal teachings in the First Vatican Council, but rather because he has called attention explicitly to the fact that Catholic teaching on abortion has been an infallible doctrine of the Church by virtue of the universal ordinary Magisterium, recognized for the teachings of the Pope and worldwide college of bishops together by the Second Vatican Council.

Archbishop Charles Brown, papal nuncio to Ireland, Cardinal William Levada, Ms Elaine Mahon, Veritas and Cardinal Seán Brady, Archbishop of Armagh at a Year of Faith event in November 2013 on the Catechism of the Catholic Church in Saint Patrick’s College Maynooth.