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BEIJING — The number of babies born in China last year fell to a nearly six-decade low, exacerbating a looming demographic crisis that is set to reshape the world’s most populous nation and threaten its economic vitality. About 14.6 million babies were born in China in 2019, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. That was a nearly 4 percent fall from the previous year, and the lowest official number of births in China since 1961, the last year of a widespread famine in which millions of people starved to death. That year, only 11.8 million babies were born. Births in China have now fallen for three years in a row. They had risen slightly in 2016, a year after the government ended its one-child policy and allowed couples to have two children, a shift that officials hoped would driv...

By Tom Hoopes, January 16, 2020 There is no greater joy in this world than encountering Jesus. There is no greater peace than being in communion with God. No work is as satisfying as work that you know pleases him. These are three rock-bottom truths that the world, the flesh and the devil continually lie to us about (and that we lie to ourselves about) but the Church brings them into sharp focus in the readings for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A. A real encounter with Jesus floods you with happiness. Many people practice the recognition of God with various prayers. A morning offering may pray, “let me see you, Lord, in the events of every day.” At the elevation of the host, many pray, “My Lord and my God” (and “My Jesus, mercy,” at the elevation of the chalice). These pray...

Grocery shopping and Christmas-themed aerobics classes are not part of a typical high school curriculum. But at Marian High School, these are important lessons for particular students. Marian has five additions this year, and principal Mark Kirzeder hopes to see a similar increase next school year. Not new classes, but special new students — students with mild intellectual disabilities. They are the first of the school’s Bernadette Scholars, and they are making their mark at Marian. The Bernadette Scholars Program is separate from individualized education/resource room programs, and the 2019-20 school year marks its pilot year at the Mishawaka high school. Affectionately called “Bernies,” Bernadette Scholars are on non-diploma, certificate-of-completion tracks. They spend the bulk of the d...

2 minutes Summary Our job as parents is to stop pigeonholing genius to classrooms and books, embrace the countless forms of genius, and see the brilliance in our children. Aesop might refer to what follows as “sour grapes,” but I’m willing to run that risk. Here it goes. In America, there is a radical overemphasis on the relationship between academic grades and overall intelligence. Test scores—typically, the largest component of final grades—receive a hyper-focus. In many circles, whether you are deemed “smart” depends on how well you do on tests. Here’s where the part of the sour grape comes in: I never did well on tests in college. In fact, I don’t remember ever receiving an “A” on an exam. Not once. If final grades depended on quizzes and tests alone, I would have failed out of college...

Pope Francis listens as Cardinal Claudio Hummes addresses the Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon Region, Oct. 7, 2019, at the Vatican. (Photo by Andreas Solaro/AFP via Getty Images) In a letter circulated privately to bishops, the Brazilian cardinal advises the document is on schedule to be promulgated later this month or in early February. Cardinal Claudio Hummes, the general relator of the Pan-Amazon Synod last October, has written a letter to bishops saying Pope Francis’ post-synodal apostolic exhortation is expected to be “promulgated by the end of this month or early February.” The letter, which seeks to prepare bishops ahead of the publication of the exhortation, offers them some suggestions in order to “discreetly support you, as Ordinary, in communion ...