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June 9, 2017
Pope Francis on Friday urged Christians not to fall into the trap of vanity in moments of pain and sorrow but rather resort to prayer patience and hope in God. Do not be misled by the "cosmetic beauty" of vanity, but let that "joy of God" enter your hearts, thanking the Lord for the "salvation" he grants us. Pope Francis made the exhortation in his homily at Mass Friday morning, in the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta residence in the Vatican.
VATICAN CITY – The more women are involved in and contribute to communities, politics, economics and the church, the more positive changes will come about, Pope Francis said.
SEOUL, South Korea – A peace treaty is needed to replace the 64-year truce between North Korea and South Korea, ending a situation where the two countries remain technically at war, speakers at a symposium organized by the South Korean bishops said.
MANILA, Philippines – Martyrdom is "not a remote possibility" for Catholics in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao where a priest and several church staff members were abducted by gunmen last month, a Jesuit priest said.
VATICAN CITY – After twin terrorist attacks killed at least 17 people in Teharan, Iran, earlier this week, Pope Francis condemned the 'barbaric' act of violence and offered his prayers for the victims and their families.
VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis is giving priests belonging to the Diocese of Ahiara, Nigeria, 30 days to write a letter promising obedience to him and accepting the bishop appointed for their diocese or they will be suspended.
WARSAW, Poland – A Lithuanian archbishop who was murdered with a lethal injection after 16 years in prisons and labor camps was to become the first Catholic martyr from the country's communist era to be declared blessed.
In the year since state-sanctioned, medicalized suicide became legal on June 17, 2016, doctors have deliberately caused the death of their patients at a rate of about three a day.
KRAKOW, Poland – The pastoral care of families was one of the key areas of discussion for Poland's bishops in their latest plenary assembly, which focused on continuity between the teaching of St. John Paul II and Pope Francis.
Cancer has taken one of the Church’s constant, quiet, faithful and fervent servants. Canadian economist John Dillon, who worked 44 years in ecumenical social justice movements, died unexpectedly June 5. He was 68 years old.
June 10, 2017
NEW YORK – The clumsily fashioned horror flick "The Mummy" (Universal) turns out to be anything but tightly wound.
Dr. Robert Walley will never forget the moment when he watched a pregnant woman die.
WASHINGTON – Hidden in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, a war zone for the past few years, a U.S. Catholic missionary, Dr. Tom Catena, ministers to a village of 750,000 people as the single medical doctor in the area.
PORTLAND, Ore. – Countless immigrants across the country live in a climate of fear sparked by actions in the new administration, including President Donald Trump's plan to build a U.S.-Mexico wall, his executive order on immigration enforcement and several highly public raids.
While some soldiers question their faith when confronted by the horrors of war, Lt. Col. Joseph Nonato found that military service affirmed him as a Catholic.
June 11, 2017
The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America, Frances Fitzgerald, Simon and Shuster, 2017, 740 pages, $35. Although a child of evangelicalism (my father J.H. Hunter was the longtime editor of a magazine The Evangelical Christian), I learned much about the origins and development of evangelicalism from this incisive and fascinating book by Pulitzer Prize winning author Frances Fitzgerald.
BHOPAL, India – A priest in the north Indian state of Rajasthan is fighting to end discrimination against children whose parents live with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
ROME, Italy – When Fr. Ragheed Aziz Ganni was confronted by armed men after celebrating the Eucharist at his Chaldean Catholic parish in Mosul, they asked him why he was still there and why he hadn't closed the church as they had demanded.
WASHINGTON – In his youth, Jesuit Father Patrick J. Conroy pictured himself as a lawyer and a senator, working in the deep recesses of Washington's U.S. Capitol building. In a way, he's doing just that but not in the way he imagined.
Lucila Cordovero, or Lola Lucing as I call her, is very petite. Every day, she sits in the same bamboo rocking chair by the window of her bedroom, listening to the buzz of her radio novellas. Her right hand is always clutching a small promotional fan someone gave her years ago.