VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Foreign trips, a focus on the rights and needs of migrants and refugees and a Synod of Bishops dedicated to young people all are on the 2018 calendar for Pope Francis. His activities and the passions that drive them are familiar by now. In fact, March 13 will mark the fifth
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Christmas joy expressed through music brings a message of peace and brotherhood for those most in need, Pope Francis said. Meeting with organizers and artists participating in a benefit Christmas concert at the Vatican, the pope said the talents of musicians and artists during the festive season “is a formidable way
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Spending too much time looking in the mirror makes men and women conceited and focused on how their appearance, rather than their behavior, affects others, Pope Francis said. When vanity becomes a part of life, “you begin to dialogue with the mirror with an attitude that is almost or totally narcissistic,
MONTREAL (CNS) — For sculptor Sylvette Chanel, Advent is the busiest time of the year. She is among the few people left who keeps alive the ancient New France craft of making and repairing wax Jesus figures for Nativity scenes. This art was brought to Canada by the first female religious congregations more than three
COLCHESTER, Vt. (CNS) — Father Lino Oropeza is a fan of technology. He worked in information technology in his native Venezuela before becoming a priest of the Society of St. Edmund, based at St. Michael’s College in Colchester. So, it seems natural that he would come up with an idea to combine technology and education
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Celebrating his 81st birthday, Pope Francis blew out the candles on a 13-foot long pizza after being serenaded with song and dance by children and employees from a Vatican pediatric clinic. A group of children receiving assistance from the Vatican’s St. Martha Dispensary, a maternal and pediatric clinic, had given the
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Countries with low birthrates suffer from that awful disease called “demographic winter,” Pope Francis said in a morning homily. They do not have children for fear of undermining their economic well-being or they try to justify it with other reasons, he said in his homily during morning Mass Dec. 19 at
WASHINGTON (CNS) — A panel discussion last year on the challenges faced by refugees didn’t sit well with a freshman at the Jesuit-run College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. “The stories that I heard reminded me that when we picture refugees, we falsely imagine a mass of people hoping to hoard into our
DUPONT, Wash. (CNS) — Catholic leaders in the Archdiocese of Seattle and the Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon, offered prayers for all affected by the Dec. 18 derailment of an Amtrak train that had just come from the Tacoma station and was headed to Portland. “Our community of faith is praying for the victims and families
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis advanced the sainthood causes of Holy Cross Father Patrick Peyton and St. John Paul II’s mentor, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski. The pope approved the decrees recognizing their heroic virtues during an audience Dec. 18 with Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes. The pope also recognized the
