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December 16, 2016
VATICAN CITY – Governments need to report, condemn and address all forms of discrimination against Christians, including intolerance shown in the media and public debates, said a Vatican diplomat.
KRAKOW, Poland – Christina Shabo was born under a tree in a refugee camp after her family fled bombing in their Iraqi hometown in 1991.
December 17, 2016
For five decades, Fr. Thomas Raby held a very special place for readers of The Catholic Register. His weekly column — The Little World of Fr. Raby — was a favourite, with stories and messages that continue to resonate, even three years after his death at age 95. At right, we present one of his Christmas poems, which were a tradition for almost 40 years. As well, here is one of his Christmas columns, published Dec. 24, 1960, when the the Cold War was escalating.
Two simple words are all the payment Carla Martella needs for helping the Good Shepherd Ministries provide a holiday meal to the homeless and those in need.
GOWER, Mo. – Tucked away off a rocky road in Gower in rural Missouri, a small community of cloistered nuns has just come out with a new Christmas album.
Toronto’s Gardiner Museum has put up 12 artist-decorated Christmas trees again this year, but this time it’s about more than pretty baubles hanging from artificial trees.
From seeds for farmers to seed money for businesses, Chalice Canada has been evolving its charity work to match the fast-changing needs in developing countries.
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India – For vendor Elizabeth Antony, who ekes out a living selling fish on the roadside in the heart the capital of Kerala state, the Christmas season is not very festive.
You may have wondered, and rightly so, why the ox and the ass appear so often beside the Christ child in various images of the Nativity.
A greener Christmas might not be such a bad thing.
Before Christmas last year, Wartohi Myrdijian had to worry about the bombs falling on either side of her house in Aleppo. She was most afraid of the crude, unpredictable, improvised bombs that came from the ISIS side of the conflict.
December 18, 2016
If all you want for Christmas is to be more spiritual — pray more deeply, contemplate on a higher plain — there’s a 16th-century app for that.
HAMILTON – The audiences are generally well into senior years (and so are some of the performers), but the spirit in the rooms where the Harmonknights sing is forever young.
With the secularization of our culture galloping away on all fronts, Advent and Christmas can be haunting and haunted times of year.
In his 28 years as a New York City firefighter, Fred Fausak has been called to douse holiday flames more times than he cares to remember.
Mix eight parts family and a whole bunch of music, friends and dancing and you’ve got the recipe for a perfect Celtic Christmas in Natalie MacMaster’s family.
St. Michael’s Cathedral re-opened this fall in plenty of time for Christmas, but the rededication was just one milestone in the $128-million restoration of Toronto’s Catholic cathedral. The work continues.
VATICAN CITY – Art restorers toiling on the sumptuous 500-year old apartments of Pope Alexander VI, are rediscovering a Renaissance artist who left his mark on the pontificate of a controversial pope.
Every year St. Michael’s Cathedral fields an RCIA class of 20 to 30 for adult baptisms and confirmations. A lot of that success starts on Christmas Day, according to cathedral rector Fr. Michael Busch.
December 19, 2016
VATICAN CITY – Make time to get ready for what Christmas really is about – the child born in Bethlehem signalling that "God is with us," Pope Francis said.