More than two dozen popes have celebrated Mass under the giant canopy that rises over the main altar of St. Peter’s Basilica, but the impressive view from the top of 100-foot-tall bronze structure has been reserved for a select few: cleaners, contractors and restoration experts.
“You have your Lebanon and its dilemma. I have my Lebanon and its beauty.” Those prophetic words were written by Kahlil Gibran in the 1920s, and some believe they may be truer today than ever before.
As the Holy Land marked a grim first anniversary Oct. 7 of the Hamas attack on southern Israeli communities and subsequent Israel-Hamas war that has devastated the Gaza Strip, the papal almoner raised $35,000 in one afternoon from delegates to the Synod on Synodality and immediately sent it to Holy Family Parish in Gaza City.
Several of the new cardinal designates announced by Pope Francis have applauded the increased diversity of those getting a red hat, saying the appointments signal a shift in the center of Catholicism from the West to the global South.
As conflict rages worldwide, 1 million children are set to storm heaven with prayer.
Participants in the ongoing Synod of Bishops on Synodality have said that while questions surrounding the role of women in the Church are important, they can be distracting from other key issues on the agenda.
As hostilities heighten across the Middle East, the concern for Jason Knapp — and, by his estimation, for other humanitarian workers in Gaza — is what a potential escalation of the conflict might mean for the almost two million displaced people who remain in dire conditions, and who have significant needs ahead of the winter months.
Pope Francis announced he would create 21 new cardinals Dec. 8, including a 99-year-old former nuncio and the 44-year-old Ukrainian bishop who heads his church’s eparchy in Melbourne, Australia.
Even though death surrounds them every day, Gaza Strip’s Christian community tries to “relieve the suffering” by assisting each other with spiritual and material needs.
The celebration of the Jewish New Year this Oct. 2-4 took place just ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel and just after a new act of violence by the terrorist organization that left seven more people dead and 16 injured in Tel Aviv Oct. 1. Israeli police and emergency services described it as a “combined shooting and stabbing attack” on people taking public transportation.
