Pope Francis has shown brave witness at the Mass he celebrated in the Armenian Rite when he called the systematic slaughter of Armenian Christians “the first genocide of the twentieth century” and connected the Armenian genocide to the persecutions and murders of Christians today throughout the Middle East.
Editorials
Power of Religious Life
This past week, the Vatican sponsored a workshop for formators and vocation directors of religious orders of women and men from around the world. It culminated in an audience with Pope Francis, who himself is a member of a religious order, the Jesuits.
Recognizing Evil
This coming Sunday, April 12, on the feast of the Divine Mercy, Pope Francis, is scheduled to preside at an Armenian Catholic rite Divine Liturgy at St. Peter’s. The main reason why he is choosing to celebrate this Armenian liturgy on this day is to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the massacre of Armenians by the Turkish Ottoman Empire, a Sunni Islamic state, in 1915.
New Life
2015, to date, has been a difficult and violent year for the world, to say the least. Perhaps more than ever, we need the realization, in the midst of all the tragedy that surrounds us, that the battle is already won — Christ is the victor over sin and death. A simple little Easter story can remind us of this.
Sacrament of Mercy
We’re still waiting on the concrete plans for the Holy Year of Mercy, which will be a Jubilee Year, announced by Pope Francis. We know that a papal bull will be proclaimed by the pope on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 12, and that the year will officially begin with the opening of the Holy Door […]
A Year of Mercy
Pope Francis caught the world by surprise by announcing a new Holy Year, a Year of Mercy. More than just a special year dedicated to a theme, this would be a Jubilee Year. The details of the year have not yet been fully released, but under the guidance of the Pontifical Council for the New […]
A Short Papacy?
Last week, we celebrated two years in the Petrine office for Pope Francis and as is his way, he gave an interview to a television network, Televisa. In the course of the interview, the Holy Father stated: “I have the feeling that my pontificate will be brief… four or five years. I don’t know, even […]
Thank You, Your Eminence
The entire New York community mourns the death of His Eminence, Cardinal Edward Egan, archbishop-emeritus of New York. The cardinal was a brilliant canon lawyer, astute organizer and a natural-born leader. From his early days in Chicago, to his work in Rome (most especially his integral role in the formulation of the 1983 Code of […]
50 Years in the Vernacular
Last weekend, at the Roman church of Ognissanti (All Saints – the titular church of German theologian Cardinal Walter Kasper), Pope Francis commemorated the 50th anniversary of the first time a pope celebrated Mass in the vernacular language (in this case, Italian).
A Growing Threat
More and more, the media are waking up to the harsh reality that the Islamic State is a clear danger to all people in the Western world, and to Christians in particular. Following the beheading of the 21 martyrs of the Coptic Church came the news that these terrorists had abducted over 220 Assyrian Christians.