As our beautiful country – the United States of America – celebrates its 250th year today, July 4th. We decided to feature the history and meaning of the flag that symbolizes our union. June 14, 1777, marks the date of the first official United States flag, approved by an act of Congress. Many forget that…
Jimmy Lai, a prominent media mogul of Hong Kong and a devout Catholic, has just been sentenced to 20 years in prison by the Communist regime. Read his hand-written letter from jail on how he sees his actions on the anniversary of Tiananmen Square, for which he was arrested, as a witness to his Catholic…
EWTNnews—78-year-old Jimmy Lai, the human rights advocate and outspoken Catholic who has faced what supporters say has been years of politicized prosecution and conviction in Hong Kong, was sentenced Monday, Feb. 9. to 20 years in prison over what Chinese officials claim were national security violations. The sentencing comes after Lai’s December conviction under China’s…
CNA—Teachers, coaches, and other public and private school leaders said their religious liberty was threatened in American schools at a hearing conducted by President Donald Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission on Sept. 29. Speakers said there must be a fight for schools to bring back the “truth” to protect students and religious liberty. Joe Kennedy, a…
CNA—Aug 15, 2025—The dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and his wife and “co-president” Rosario Murillo in Nicaragua on Aug. 12 confiscated the iconic San José Catholic School in Jinotepe, accusing the school of having been a place where “coup-plotters tortured and murdered.” In a statement released by a media outlet aligned with the dictatorship, Murillo said that…
An Important Message from Principal DeBoer and Father Zehren Aug 27, 2025 Dear Annunciation Parish and School Family, We are navigating an impossible situation together at this time. No words can capture what we have gone through, what we are going through, and what we will go through in the coming days and weeks. But…
CNA, ed. CBJ—Most people think of St. Maximilian Kolbe as the heroic martyr who traded places with another prisoner in the Nazi’s horrific Auschwitz prison, resulting in a painful death by starvation, but there is much more of the story to tell. What would give someone the courage to do such a thing? And, why…
CNA/NCR—A Massachusetts mayor is going to bat for including statues of two Catholic saints on the city’s new public safety building, saying he picked them because of their importance to police and firefighters and accusing opponents of harboring “‘negative attitudes’ toward Catholicism.” But lawyers for local residents who object to the planned 10-foot-high bronze statues…
Aug. 8, 2025—In today’s historic peace deal—after decades of bitter conflict and tremendous suffering for both nations over the ethnically Armenian-Christian Nagorno-Karabakh enclave—Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a peace deal at the White House. Pashinyan hailed the moment as “opening a chapter of peace” and “laying foundations to a…
CNA—England—The skull of St. Thomas More may be exhumed and preserved to coincide with the 500th anniversary of his historic martyrdom, according to a spokesperson for St. Dunstan’s Church in Canterbury, England, the Anglican church in which the relic reportedly currently rests. Ironically—given the reason for More’s beheading—an opportunity for ecumenical outreach and communication As…
CNA—A reported strike on the only Catholic Church in Gaza killed three people and injured nine others July 17, according to a statement from the Latin Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, OFM. Among the injured was the parish priest, Father Gabriel Romanelli. Pictures showed damage to the church’s roof and windows. Amid the ongoing war in…
In 2006, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles held a most remarkable exhibit, featuring ancient icons from Sinai’s St. Catherine’s Monastery. The first-ever exhibit from this 1,500 year old monastery included a video of the monastery, the vast surrounding desert, snippets of the monks’ daily life and local traditions such as Christians making the significant…
As my wife Pat and I reflect on the 15 years the St. John Paul II Life Center and Vitae Clinic which we co-founded in 2010 with Chris and Sheri Danze, we think about our goal to help women who have given birth to a beautiful girl or boy each being made in the image…
And just like that, Israel and Hamas agree on a ceasefire agreement…a week before a new U.S. President is sworn in. The SAME ceasefire agreement that was rejected just a few months earlier! It is interesting what can be achieved when there is clear leadership, and when other countries know clearly what they can (and…
ACI Prensa/CNA—The Cuban government’s announcement of the release of 553 prisoners has been described by an analyst and the opposition as “a swap” by the regime to obtain economic benefits from the United States, including removing the island from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism. The government of President Miguel Díaz-Canel reported on Monday, Jan.…
ACI Prensa/CNA—Franciscan friar Paolo Benanti, an expert in artificial intelligence (AI), warned of its ethical risks during a colloquium organized by the Paul VI Foundation in Madrid, pointing out that “the people who control this type of technology control reality.” The Italian priest, president of the Italian government’s Commission for Artificial Intelligence, emphasized that “the…
The B.C. Catholic/CNA—If the faithful can’t go to the shrine, bring the shrine to the faithful. So it will be with the relics of the Canadian Martyrs, usually housed in their Midland, Ontario, shrine, which will make their first tour of western Canada as part of the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope. Innovative solution for…
CNA, London, England—The lord mayor of Westminster in London said he is “blown over” after being chosen to become a papal knight — the highest honor a lay Catholic can receive from the Vatican. Councillor Robert Rigby will become a knight of St. Gregory sometime in 2025. Living his Catholic Faith as lord mayor The…
CNA—Bethelehem, West Bank—Being an artisan in Bethlehem isn’t just a job. It’s an art, almost a calling, a treasure handed down from father to son, but one that is now at risk of being lost. After two years of war… Younger generations are choosing other career paths, and after two years of war, fathers don’t…
CNA—Author and Catholic convert Lee Edwards, one of the foremost historians of the conservative movement in America, died Thursday. He was 92. Edwards co-founded the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington, D.C., authorized by Congress in 1993 and completed in 2007. He was a distinguished fellow of conservative thought at the Heritage Foundation for about…
