Sister Shirley L. Owens, O.P., Montessori Directress at Sacred Heart School in Rockport, entered eternal life on June 26. Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated on Monday, July 2, at 10 a.m. at the Dominican Sisters Meeting Room of St. Dominic Villa with Msgr. Louis Kihneman presiding. Rite of Committal will follow at Forest Park Lawndale Cemetery in Houston.

MAYNOOTH, Ireland (CNS)—The Vatican’s top ecumenist expressed regrets June 8 at the mistaken impression that Protestants are honest in ecumenical dialogue and Catholics are not.

ROME (CNS) -- The life of a baptized Christian must be marked by a constant effort to say “yes” to God and “no” to the devil and all of his lies, Pope Benedict XVI said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS)—The Vatican is in line to control the new Internet address extension “.catholic” and decide who is allowed to use it.

Washington D.C. (CNA/EWTN News) - In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the 2010 health care law, a leading religious freedom law firm has new confidence in the future of its lawsuits against the federal contraception mandate.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI has approved the heroic virtues of U.S. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, the Vatican announced June 28, clearing the way for the advancement of his sainthood cause.

WASHINGTON—Today the United States Supreme Court issued a decision upholding as a tax the provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that requires individuals to purchase a health plan—the so-called “individual mandate.”

Students received their first Communion at Saints Cyril & Methodius Catholic Church with Rev. Msgr. Lawrence White.

The Diocese of Corpus Christi recently acknowledged the Directors of Religious Education at their first annual appreciation gathering.

Officials from Texas A&M University-Kingsville and the Diocese of Corpus Christi executed a land exchange agreement on June 25 that paves the way for construction of new Catholic Student Center on campus.

Catholics who include holy Mass in their celebration of Independence Day on July 4 will hear the call to justice in the first reading, from the Book of Amos. The Declaration of Independence expressed the same desire.

On Friday, June 22, Bishop Wm. Michael Mulvey, joined by scores of his brother priests, blessed the site for the new $5.5 million St. John Vianney Residence for Priests that will be built at the corner of Kostoryz and Saratoga in Corpus Christi. The facility will provide housing for as many as 20 retired priests through nine duplex units, a community center and an assisted living unit.

INDIANAPOLIS (CNS) -- The debate over the federal contraceptive mandate and the fight for religious freedom is not about "a particular policy choice" but is "a debate over the role of religion in American society and the freedom and integrity of the Catholic Church's mission," the head of the Knights of Columbus said June 22.

Bishop Wm. Michael Mulvey has made a number of priest assignments to better serve the Diocese of Corpus Christi.

PHILADELPHIA (CNA/EWTN News) - Facing a $17 million projected deficit, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia is cutting more than 40 jobs, closing and restructuring programs and closing its 117-year-old newspaper The Catholic Standard and Times.

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The U.S. Supreme Court, in a mixed opinion with several dissents, affirmed the section of an Arizona immigration law that requires state law enforcement officials to check the immigration status of detainees who they suspect are in the country illegally.

In the Church’s struggle for the protection of religious freedom, Bishop Wm. Michael Mulvey asked the people in the Diocese of Corpus Christi to pray. The bishop told a full Cathedral on July 21 that the Church is calling into question “secular tendencies that seek to limit the divine”

VATICAN CITY, (VIS) - The Holy Father told participants at the annual general meeting of the Reunion of Organizations for Aid to the Oriental Churches (ROACO), on July 21, that the global social and economic crisis does not spare the more economically developed parts of the world and affects the most disadvantaged areas.

The Second Annual Benefit Golf Tournament for The Ark Assessment Center and Emergency Shelter for Youth sponsored by Valero will be held Monday, June 25, beginning at 8 a.m. at the North Shore Country Club in Portland.

VATICAN CITY, (VIS) – On July 19, the Holy See presented the "Instumentum laboris" or the working instrument for the thirteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, which is due to be held in the Vatican from Oct. 7-28 on the theme: "The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith.”