Fr. Raymond J. de Souza is the pastor of Sacred Heart of Mary parish on Wolfe Island, and chaplain at Newman House at Kingston, Ont.'s Queen's University.

Pope John Paul II greets Mother Teresa at the Vatican in an undated file photo. When Mother Teresa is canonized Sept. 4, she’ll join three other Teresas who are models for today’s Church.

Four Teresas: models for our time

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For centuries there was only one Teresa, the Carmelite reformer who was canonized on March 12, 1622, in the single most impressive canonization in the history of the Church. Gregory XV crowned the Catholic Counter-Reformation that day, canonizing in one ceremony the great Teresa of Avila, along with St. Francis Xavier, St. Philip Neri and St. Ignatius Loyola.

World Youth Day pilgrims hold candles during eucharistic adoration with Pope Francis, July 30. The Pope told WYD pilgrims their mission cannot begin on the couch.

Mission begins beyond the couch

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KRAKÓW, POLAND – The most impressive moment of World Youth Day had to be at the Saturday evening vigil, with Pope Francis leading more than a million young people in praying the Divine Mercy chaplet before the Blessed Sacrament. Not only was it a powerful witness of prayer, invoking mercy upon the Church and the world, but a confirmation of the marvellous ways of Providence.

Pope Francis greets retired Pope Benedict XVI prior to the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican in 2015.

Benedict XVI offers much encouragement to priests

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It’s become something of a routine now. Pope Francis delivers a spontaneous lambasting of priests who do this or that which he disapproves of, and priests get in touch to ask what we should make of it all.

Mother Angelica, founder of the Eternal Word Television Network, is pictured in a 1992 photo. She died March 27 at the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration monastery in Hanceville, Ala. She was 92.

Mother Angelica was called to greatness

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The death of Mother Mary Angelica, the American Poor Clare who founded EWTN, has produced much commentary puzzling over an apparent contradiction. An orthodox and traditional nun was at the same time an entrepreneurial pioneer in Catholic television and did not blanch from charting a path independent of Catholic bishops. How could this be? She had conservative ideas but seemed to operate like a liberal.

Five-year-old Nicole Vicente holds a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe to be blessed during a Dec. 11 Mass celebrating the anniversary of the appearance of Mary to St. Juan Diego in 1531. The Mass was celebrated at St. Joseph Church in Penfield, N.Y.

The Virgin of Guadalupe is the star of the new evangelization

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It was a good idea that didn’t work. Before the reform of the Roman calendar in the 1960s, the octave day of Christmas — Jan. 1 — was celebrated as the feast of the circumcision and holy name, as Jewish boys were named on the eighth day after birth. There was a minor feast of the divine maternity of Mary in the calendar on Oct. 11, which St. John XXIII chose for the opening of Vatican II, and now serves as his feast day.

Pope Francis raises the Book of the Gospels during the closing Mass of the Synod of Bishops on the Family in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican Oct. 25.

The Synod’s curious biblical commentary

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VATICAN CITY - One of the most repeated themes during the Synod on the Family was the need for a more biblically based approach. The original working document for the Synod — the Instrumentum Laboris — came in for repeated and severe criticism for taking as its starting point sociological data rather than the Word of God.

Cardinals Thomas Collins of Toronto and Jorge Urosa Savino of Caracas, Venezuela, talk as they arrive for a session of the Synod of Bishops on the family at the Vatican Oct. 14.

Which Canadian way will alter the Tiber?

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VATICAN CITY - Canadians had a rather prominent role in the first week of the Synod on the Family. Two of the language- based discussion groups elected Canadians as their moderators — Cardinal Thomas Collins of Toronto for one of the English groups, and Cardinal Gerald Lacroix for one of the French.

Nigerian Cardinal John Onaiyekan makes an impassioned argument for the Church doctrine on marriage.

African bishops fired up in defense of marriage

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The Synod on the Family begins Oct. 4 and promises to be a rather unpleasant few weeks in the life of the Church.

St. Philip Neri has left us a 500-year legacy of joy.

Philip Neri’s heritage of joy

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WOLFE ISLAND, Ont. - One of the highlights of my summer is “Seminarian Week” on Wolfe Island.

Should Pope Francis not succumb to the sexual revolution with this October’s Synod on the family, he will likely earn the same contempt his predecessor Paul VI did when he released Humanae Vitae.

Condemned for the holy truth

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When Pope Paul VI was beatified last October, his feast day was set for Sept. 26, the date of his birth in 1897, rather than the customary date of death, Aug. 6, 1978. Blessed Paul VI died on the feast of the Transfiguration, so another day for his feast had to be found, otherwise it would never be celebrated.

Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky

Andrey Sheptytsky and the lions of Lviv

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Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) for 44 tumultuous years, has been decreed by the Vatican to be worthy of sainthood, needing only an approved miracle for him to be beatified.

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