Dear brothers and sisters, Happy Easter! Jesus is risen from the dead! This message resounds in the Church the world over, along with the singing of the Alleluia: Jesus is Lord; the Father has raised him and he lives forever in our midst.
Ordained in 1965, the young Fr O’Brien worked in parishes before becoming spiritual director at St Andrew’s College, Drygrange, a seminary that closed in 1986, and then Rector at St Mary’s College, Blairs, another seminary that has since closed. He was installed as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh in 1985 and appointed to the College of Cardinals in 2003.
'I think that only his Christian faith, animated by love, could have demanded of him this superhuman sacrifice' With a rare act of bravery that ended in tragedy, Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Beltrame has become a hero to the French and a symbol of selfless service inspired by his patriotism and Christian faith.
Christians are obliged during Lent to honor those who have suffered as a result of gross rights violations. During this season of repentance for Christians, there is a need to really reflect on Jesus' passion and death. He has become a paragon of selflessness and genuine love. He challenges everyone to a supreme sacrifice.
Massimo Franco, the political editor of Corriere della Sera and widely respected commentator on the Vatican, said this week (Wednesday) that he believes the “revolutionary appeal of Pope Francis is almost over”. There was, Franco said, growing resentment over the contrast between Francis’ easy and direct contact with ordinary people and his less happy and often fractious relationship with his “ecclesiastical army”.
Indian Catholics have begun Lent by asserting the different ways in which they observe the period. For most Catholics in India, as in other parts of the world, Lent runs for 40 days from Ash Wednesday, which this year fell on Feb. 14. But the two Eastern Catholic churches in India start Lent on a Monday, two days earlier to Ash Wednesday, making Lent a 50-day season.
It really has been a turbulent time for sexual politics this past six months. Weinstein is but the tip of the iceberg. We have the #MeToo movement, and a growing list of prominent peopleaccused of various degrees of sexual misconduct, though it is often hard to distinguish these degrees and so gain a proper perspective and sense of proportion.
L’invito è quindi a rallentare il «nostro passo» e prendere «coscienza dei nostri bisogni». A riporre in Dio la nostra sete «di relazioni, di accettazione e di amore», «un patrimonio biografico», afferma il teologo portoghese, che è presente in ogni essere umano dall’infanzia alla vecchiaia e che «siamo chiamati a riconoscere e ringraziare».
The Philippine Senate has approved a bill that will declare the last Monday of January each year as "National Bible Day" to celebrate the Christian faith and reflect on the Scriptures.The bill was tabled by boxing champion-turned-senator Manny Pacquiao. "National Bible Day" would allow Christians "to unite and celebrate the Holy Bible as the cradle of the Christian faith," said the senator.
Popular Indonesian television presenter Daniel Mananta has put his Catholic faith into practice in a far-flung corner of the sprawling archipelago. The TV celebrity was impressed by the way local Catholics would walk many kilometers to attend services in the run-down chapel in Ruteng Diocese. "I was touched by the experience and wanted to fix the church," said Mananta, 36, the first of two brothers from a family of retail merchants.
Pastoral care does include patterns of regular visiting, the encounters around baptisms, weddings and funerals and so forth. But it is by no means confined to this and fundamentally needs to take seriously that clergy are not chaplains to a gathered community but priests for a parish.
To Mary, Mother of tender love, we wish to entrust all those who are ill in body and soul, that she may sustain them in hope. We ask her also to help us to be welcoming to our sick brothers and sisters. The Church knows that she requires a special grace to live up to her evangelical task of serving the sick.
We must not bludgeon those who cannot see what we see; we must gently guide to them the truth we see, and win them over not only by clarity of argument but also by force of charity. Truth without charity becomes ideology in the eye of those looking on from outside. We have had enough of ideology, surely.
The source said Vatican delegates also worked with Vietnamese officials on the possibility of establishing educational centers run by the Catholic Church in the country. Religious organizations are now only allowed to manage nursery schools.
Nearly 10,000 people have signed the online petition set up by the Association of Italian Organists and addressed to the head of the Congregation for Divine Worship, Cardinal Robert Sarah. It calls on “the whole cultural world” to express regret for “the presence of the surrogate of an authentic musical instrument within the most important home of Catholicism”.
Mosul and the villages of the plain of Nineveh are liberated from Daesh. But while the foreign fighters have fled, most of their Iraqi collaborators have merely shaved off their beards and melted back into the local population. The atmosphere in the whole country is thick with fear and insecurity.
Pope Francis in a message for the opening of the World Economic Forum in Davos, says it is vital to safeguard the dignity of the human person, in particular by offering to all people real opportunities for integral human development.
After several failed attempts, the prelate of Marawi was able to visit his desecrated cathedral this week, almost three months after the five-month conflict in the southern Philippine city ended.
Jesus’ invitation to the kingdom—to a personal relationship with God here and now—was in no way restricted to the special few. In the parable, when the original guests declined, the host ordered: “Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in” (Luke 14:23). The invitation was not restricted to the already righteous: “It is not the healthy who need a physician but those who are sick” (Matthew 9:12).
Just-completed surveys of young Africans and young Americans have highlighted the challenges facing the Church’s Youth Synod taking place in October this year, and the contrasting views and experiences that young people will bring to the synod, entitled “Young People, Faith and Vocational Discernment”.