For nearly two decades, Father Jim Cassidy has led groups of Minnesotans as they bring supplies to South Africa. "I always describe it to first-timers that I am going home to see family, and I am inviting you to come along to meet cousins that you have not yet met," he says.
Following more than four years of discussions that involved the whole parish and diocese, it was decided, said the priest, that the space could better serve the growing needs of the parish and school in other ways.
Two bombs exploded at a Roman Catholic cathedral in the Philippines during Sunday services. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Trump administration has inspired a new activism on the part of liberal religious groups. Like the Moral Majority of the 1980s, they fear an assault on their most basic Christian values.
On an unseasonably warm Saturday, along the banks of the Mississippi River as it flows between St. Paul and Minneapolis, the sounds of prayers and chanting drifted over the crunching of ice and the squeaking of winter boots.
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