American layman Curtis Martin, founder of the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS), was named by Pope Francis to serve along with 13 other consultors as advisors to the members of the Dicastry of Evangelization. Since FOCUS was founded in 1998, it has grown to have hundreds of full-time student missionaries who serve tens of…
CNA—A school district in Utah has issued an apology after a fourth-grade student was told by a teacher that he must remove the cross from his forehead on Ash Wednesday. William McLeod, a student at Valley View Elementary School in Bountiful, Utah, arrived at school with ashes on his forehead in the shape of a…
December 23, 2009 As we rapidly approach the Christmas Eve vigil of 2009, I am reminded of another Christmas Eve just 10 years ago, a Christmas Eve that I had spent six years preparing for in a special way. The late Holy Father, the recently named Venerable John Paul II said the Great Jubilee 2000 was the event…
October 13, 2009 From the Vatican: VATICAN CITY(VIS)—At 10 a.m. today the Holy Father celebrated the Eucharist in the Vatican Basilica. During the ceremony he canonised five blesseds: Zygmunt Szczesny Felinski, Polish former archbishop of Warsaw and founder of the Congregation of Franciscan Sisters of the Family of Mary; Francesc Coll y Guitart, Spanish professed priest of the…
July 22, 2009 October 7, 1571, the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. The Feast date was so named for the powerful role of the Rosary in winning the Battle of Lepanto; a victory that literally turned around the unrelenting tide of ongoing Islamic invasion and conquering of Christian Europe at the time. (Remember, today’s city of…
