Mexico

VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican's doctrinal office said that when alternative vaccines are not available, it is morally acceptable to receive COVID-19 vaccines developed or tested using cell lines originating from aborted fetuses.

The following is the Christmas message from Archbishop Richard Gagnon, president of Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and Archbishop of Winnipeg:

CLEVELAND -- A once-every-two-decade conjunction involving the solar system’s two gas giants will give earthbound observers a look at a so-called “Christmas Star” on the winter solstice.

A spruce tree donated by a retired Catholic teacher is helping to make Christmas in Kenora in northern Ontario a little merrier.

JERUSALEM -- Walk down St. Peter Street from the Old City’s New Gate, past some shuttered shops and the closed Knight’s Palace hotel, continue down through the winding stone-paved alleyway of the Christian Quarter and soon you will hit “Santa Lane.”

In a year that has been anything but normal, the Christmas spirit is still alive and well at Ontario Catholic schools.

Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Dec. 27 (Year B) Genesis 15:1-6; 17:3b-5; 15-16; 21:1-7; Psalm 105; Hebrews 11:8, 11-12, 17-19; Luke 2:22-40

After we leave this Earth, will we be remembered? And if we will be remembered, what form will that memory take?

The students from Sudbury, Ont.’s Marymount Academy have let Canadian military serving overseas that they aren’t forgotten this Christmas season.

In a famous fifth-century sermon, St. Leo the Great preached that Christmas is a time for rejoicing. “Sadness should have no place in the birthday of life.”

By Christmas Eve the Advent wreath is aglow with the candles of love, hope, joy and peace, and we await the lighting of the White Candle which signifies the coming of Jesus into our world and into our lives. We pray again that this presence will become a reality which we can sense and touch, but for many it becomes an elusive dream that vanishes when they awaken from their restless sleep.