While most teens would spend their first summer off from college catching up with hometown friends and relaxing by the beach, Julia Baker took an alternate route when making her summer plans. The graduate of Incarnate Word Academy, Class of 2012, spent six weeks as an intern for the organization GlobeMed, working to improve healthcare for the people of the town of Gulu, located in northern Uganda.

We want to thank everyone who responded to our request last month to send in a post card expressing your wishes whether you want to continue receiving the South Texas Catholic. We received thousands of replies.

A very basic definition of prayer is, “Prayer is the lifting up of our minds and hearts to God.”

In last month’s issue of the South Texas Catholic, “The Assent of Love,” we raised the question of what it means to love and love well.

Responses from right-minded marriage proponents to the Supreme Court’s June 26 decisions in two cases involving the (re)definition of marriage seemed to come in three waves.

The Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate represents bureaucratically coerced personal and institutional involvement in the commission of intrinsic evils. No person should ever be coerced by the state to be directly complicit in such acts. The HHS mandate is an affront to every American. It is immoral and offensive.

As its golden anniversary as a faith community dawns on St. Joseph Parish in Kingsville, it is readying itself for the next half century of service to the church.

Father Thomas Francis Showalter, SOLT passed peacefully into eternity on Saturday, July 13. He was pastor at St. John Nepomucene Parish in Robstown.

Modern media is a great tool, and the Church has taught us that it should be embraced and used wisely as a tool for the salvation of souls.

I was nine years old when I first experienced the desire to serve the Lord. While all of my friends were collecting pictures of Elvis Presley, I was fascinated in collecting holy cards and pictures of nuns.

Sister Michelle Marie Kuntscher, IWBS, baptized Elizabeth Ann, was born Nov. 14, 1942, to Frank John Kuntscher and Margaret Marie Remlinger Kuntscher in Riviera, Texas. 

Perhaps priesthood has crossed your mind, but fear pushes the idea away.

Be joyous, authentic and loving while resisting fly-by-night commitments, catty gossip and sleek cars, Pope Francis told future priests, brothers and nuns.

Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation was “a great example” of what it means to follow one’s conscience through prayer, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis’ first encyclical, “Lumen Fidei” (“The Light of Faith”), is a celebration of Christian faith as the guiding light of a “successful and fruitful life,” inspiring social action as well as devotion to God, and illuminating “every aspect of human existence,” including philosophy and the natural sciences.

Here are excerpts from Pope Francis’ first encyclical, “Lumen Fidei” (“The Light of Faith”).

Bishop Mark J. Seitz promised to lead his flock into a new century characterized by the new evangelization as he was installed as bishop of the nearly 100-year-old Diocese of El Paso.

As people of faith and as Americans, the nation’s Catholics should kneel in prayer and also stand in defense of religious freedom, Washington Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl said July 4 during the closing Mass for the Fortnight for Freedom at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.

The drama in Texas over abortion that drew national and international attention came to an end for the moment after the state House of Representatives and the state Senate voted to adopt tougher abortion regulations.

Después de que los médicos le dijeron a Floribeth Mora Díaz que un aneurisma cerebral la vía dejado con días de vida, se retiró a su casa en Costa Rica y rogó al Beato Papa Juan Pablo II.