“My name is Arouna Kandé,” says the young man from Senegal. “I am a climate refugee.” This brief introduction appears near the start of “The Letter: A Message for our Earth.” This 2022 Vatican-produced documentary is about “Laudato Si’” — the encyclical from Pope Francis sounding the alarm about climate change.
Author: Bill Miller
40 Years Ago, Brave Nuns Shielded a Maryknoll Msgr. From a Guatemalan Hit Squad
n the fall of 1984, Msgr. John Vesey was a Maryknoll missionary working with the indigenous people of southwestern Guatemala, but he became deathly ill with pneumonia. While bedridden, he slipped in and out of consciousness.
In moments of lucidity he saw, standing over him, Sister Alba Estela Orellana and her fellow Carmelite nuns. The Guatemalan sisters helped him minister to the Tz’utujil people of Santiago Atitlán. But Msgr.
NYPD Seeks Man Who Said He Was a Priest & Allegedly Stole $900 from Queens Pastor
Police request the public’s help to catch a man who reportedly bluffed his way into American Martyrs Parish Sunday, March 3, and took $900 in cash.
New Religious Community Aims to Be ‘Spiritual Mothers to Spiritual Orphans’
Jennifher Dircio and Basia Cdno are the first candidates for a new community of religious sisters under development — the Franciscan Sisters of the Pure Heart — in the Bronx.
‘Generous Benefactor’ Helps Aspiring Religious Sister Pay Off Debt, Pursue Vocation
Aloni Bonilla — a candidate to be a religious sister — had a rough 2023, but this year began with immense blessings.
Persecution And Death Continue to Stalk Clergy
Aggression against Catholic priests and religious — including kidnappings, imprisonment, and murder — is on the rise.
‘Cabrini’ Shows Patron Saint of Immigrants Living ‘Life in Hope’
Mention the word “masterpiece” and one could get eyed for exaggeration, yet one group of filmmakers believe they hit the mark with their biopic about Francesca Xavier Cabrini, patron saint of immigrants. “Cabrini,” distributed by Angel Studios, opens in theaters on March 8, International Women’s Day.
Catholicism in China Struggled Under Mao; a Vatican-Brokered Detente Signals Rebirth
The Cultural Revolution evolved under the rule of Mao Zedong, chairman of the Chinese Communist Party. The legacy of Mao to now, however, is full of crackdowns on Roman Catholicism and other religions going back to the Chinese Civil War in the late 1920s.
Born Into Slavery, Daniel Rudd Went on to Found Black Catholic Newspaper
In the 1858 tax records of a Kentucky plantation, there is perhaps the earliest mention of Daniel Rudd who would, as a newspaper editor, champion the equal treatment for all races via Catholicism.
First U.S. Black Catholic Church Has Persevered Since 1841
Just north of New Orleans’ French Quarter — on soil once worked by slaves — stands a Catholic church believed to be the oldest black parish in the U.S. St. Augustine Church, established in 1841, has been a sanctuary in the turbulence of emancipation, Jim Crow laws, the civil rights movement, and Hurricane Katrina.