CNA—Cardinal Peter Turkson sent a message Wednesday encouraging Catholics to see the sacrifices required to slow the spread of coronavirus as a chance to deepen their relationships with God and their neighbors. “Prayer is our strength, prayer is our resource. Here then is the favorable moment to rediscover the fatherhood of God and our being…
Amid increasing spread and panic regarding coronavirus COVID-19, Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued the following statement on behalf of the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops (USCCB)—ed. With the worldwide outbreak of the coronavirus, we are confronted once more with the fragility of our…
March 19, 2020 On March 19, we will celebrate the Solemnity of St. Joseph. The Litany of St. Joseph invokes his intercession under the titles Spouse of the Mother of God, Foster Father of the Son of God, and Head of the Holy Family. St. Joseph is called the Glory of the Domestic Life and Pillar of Families. In this Year of the Family, it is fitting that…
Pastoral Message for the Archdiocese of Lingayen Dagupan Archbishop Socrates B Villegas March 10, 2020 The epidemic of godless fear of the unknown is spreading and we must return to the basics of our Catholic faith. Let us not leave God out of the threat of COVID 19. Our first combat gear against all sickness…
The Philadelphia Inquirer, CNA, CBJ—Archbishop Charles Chaput has been a diocesan bishop for 31 years. For most of that time, his people have known where to find him on Sunday afternoon or evening: Hearing confessions and offering Mass at Philadelphia’s Cathedral Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul. Chaput celebrated his last Sunday Mass as a…
January 6, 2020 This article was originally posted December 29, 2015 yet it is especially relevant today after recent (Sunday, December 27, 2020) kidnapping at gunpoint of Bishop Moses Chikwe, Auxiliary Bishop of Nigeria’s Archdiocese of Owerri, and his driver, both of whom were released two days ago by Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram. 12/29/15—Nigerian Bishop Oliver Dashe…
CNA—Bishop James Conley announced Friday that he is taking a medical leave of absence from his ministry as Bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska. “I have been medically diagnosed with depression and anxiety, along with chronic insomnia and debilitating tinnitus, which is a constant ringing of the ears,” Conley wrote in a Dec. 13 letter to Catholics…
Fifteen years ago, in 1999, Pope St. John Paul II declared that the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe would be celebrated in every Church in the Americas, because, he said, she is the Patroness, the Evangelizer, and the Mother of the Americas. John Paul said that through her intercession, the new evangelization in America…
In the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, directly over the very spot where our Lord’s Cross stood, right where our Savior died for our salvation, there stands a Greek altar. Directly next to it stands a Latin altar. In between the two altars hangs an icon of the Mother of God. Right at…
Scientists say that diamonds need more than 350 tons of pressure per square inch and heat levels above 2200 degrees Fahrenheit to form within the earth. And since we know that God’s own inner order and life imprint themselves on all of creation, this simple scientific fact has something to teach us about spiritual reality. …
CNA—It is important to consider what we are willing to die for, Archbishop Charles Chaput reminded students and faculty in a speech at the University of Notre Dame on Friday. “It’s a good thing, a vital thing, to consider what we’re willing to die for,” Chaput said in a lecture given to the Constitutional Studies…
As we approach October, the month of the Holy Rosary, we remember and rededicate ourselves to the simple request of Our Lady at Fatima that the whole world recite the Rosary daily for peace in the family and in the world. We may be personally aware of the life-changing power of this prayer in our…
Archbishop Chaput delivered the following keynote remarks on September 12, 2019 during the seventh annual St. Joseph the Worker Medal Awards at Malvern Retreat House— I don’t have any illusions about earning the award you’ve given me tonight. But I’m very glad to be here, because it gives me a chance to join in honoring…
CNA—St. John Paul II’s encyclical Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason) will mark its 21st anniversary this year, on Sept. 14. Last year, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia reflected on this encyclical in his essay “Believe that you may Understand” that appeared in the March 2018 issue of First Things. It is worth revisiting this…
Exactly 20 years ago, in U.S. Senate testimony just weeks after the Columbine High School massacre, I offered these thoughts: The real problem [of Columbine-like violence in our culture] is in here, in us . . . In the last four decades we’ve created a culture that markets violence in dozens of different ways, seven…
On July 25th, the Church celebrated the Feast of St. James the Apostle, whose journey from fisherman to evangelist should inspire and encourage us all. Imagine that you are at work sitting at your desk, giving a presentation, or doing some manual labor and a man that you’ve admired and heard about approaches you and…
Speaking at the University of Notre Dame in October 2016, just a few weeks before a national election that seemed sure to put a second Clinton in the White House, I noted that [Q]uite a few of us American Catholics have worked our way into a leadership class that the rest of the country both…
On January 18, 2019, a video of Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann went viral. He was at the Lincoln Memorial standing face to face with a Native American man during the March to Life in Washington, D.C. On the basis of that picture, a frenzy of condemnations from reporters, commentators and politicians were…
Prayer should not be seen simply as a good deed done by us to God, our own action. It is, above all, a gift, the fruit of the living presence, the life-giving presence of the Father and of Jesus Christ in us. And we know how true it is when the Apostle [Paul] says: “we…
CNA—Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia called for broad participation in a pro-life rally this week, scheduled in response to a Penslyvania state representative’s livestreamed harassment of a woman praying outside of a Planned Parenthood clinic. “These videos, which Representative Sims took himself, have rightly sparked broad outrage … His actions were unbecoming of an elected…
