Pope Francis has sent a video message to the Philippines to mark the 500 year anniversary of the first Mass on Philippine soil on Easter Sunday. “Give thanks for the gift of faith. Thank God for the people who have given you faith and for
Let all pious men and all lovers of God rejoice in the splendor of this feast; let the wise servants blissfully enter into the joy of their Lord; let those who have borne the burden of Lent now receive their pay, and those who have
For Catholics who welcomed the Vatican’s recent statement barring blessings of same-sex unions, the flurry of objections that followed has seemed eerily reminiscent of the outcry against the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae. Just as St. Paul VI’s letter articulating the Church’s stance against artificial contraception was met with
“Behold the wood of the Cross, on which hung the salvation of the World.” Relics of Our Lord’s Passion have always been dear to his followers. The True Cross, the actual wood on which Jesus was crucified, has attracted special veneration since the reign of
“WWJPD,” I scribbled frantically on the piece of paper. “What Would John Paul II do?” I poked my wife, pointed at the paper, and then frantically tried to get the moderator’s attention. We were at the final talk in a Catholic conference, listening to speakers
It is apparent our times are in need of St. John Henry Newman’s emphasis on persons, the personal nature of reality, life, and history. Anxieties abound over ‘systemic,’ ‘cultural,’ ‘economic’, and ‘historical’ forces, as if mankind were driven by impersonal semi-spirits rather than particular human
Before he became the fourth bishop of Philadelphia, St. John Neumann spent a considerable amount of time in my hometown of Niagara Falls, New York, as the founding pastor of St. Mary’s parish, and then 30 miles south in Buffalo, where he built Sts. Peter
Early on March 24, 1944, a Nazi patrol surrounded the home of Józef and Wiktoria Ulma on the outskirts of the village of Markowa in southeast Poland. They discovered eight Jewish people who had found refuge with the couple and executed them. The Nazi police
One hundred years ago or more, if you had problems in your marriage or suffered from depression, you might turn to your pastor. In response, he’d address your problems in explicitly Christian terms. “The problem was sin, and the solution was salvation,” writes John Bernau,
We think of St. Joseph as a carpenter, teaching the Lord Jesus his trade. In this Year of St. Joseph, we ought to honor another carpenter saint, Nicholas Owen, one of the English Martyrs, killed in 1606. His feast day is today. St. Nicholas was
