by Paul Catafago Growing up in Queens, Christmas decorations meant my mother setting up the traditional crèche, the Nativity scene, in our living room. The practice is a popular one amongst Catholics in Mediterranean countries. Every year around Christmas, the Metropolitan Museum in Manhattan features a Neapolitan baroque crèche, a Nativity scene set around a […]
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Celebrating the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe and confirming he will travel to Mexico and Cuba in the spring, Pope Benedict XVI called on the people of Latin America to hold firm to their faith. During his homily at the Mass Dec. 12 in St. Peter’s Basilica, the pope prayed […]
WASHINGTON (CNS) – An emotional pastoral letter to immigrants from the U.S. Hispanic and Latino Catholic bishops offers love, encouragement, welcome, sympathy and assurance that “you are not alone or forgotten.” “We recognize that every human being, authorized or not, is an image of God and therefore possesses infinite value and dignity,” begins the strongly […]
by Antonina Zielinska In order to show their devotion and love for Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patroness of the Americas, parishioners from St. Matthias, Ridgewood, processed down the chilly streets of Ridgewood last Sunday night. When Father Silvester Sarihaddula, who ministers to the Latino community of the parish, shouted “Viva La Virgen de Guadalupe!” […]
by Tom Dermody PEORIA, Ill. (CNS) – Boxes wrapped in ribbon and a happy little boy are Christmas images, but the combination had another joyful meaning Dec. 11 during ceremonies closing the Diocese of Peoria’s inquiry into an alleged miraculous healing through the intercession of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. “May God, who has begun this […]
PHOENIX (CNS) – A Mercy sister who was automatically excommunicated because of her role on the ethics committee that allowed an abortion to be performed at a Catholic hospital in Phoenix in 2009 is back in good standing in the Catholic Church. In May, 2010, officials at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center publicly acknowledged […]
DARBY, Pa. (CNS) – U.S. Cardinal John P. Foley, who spent more than two decades leading the Church’s social communications council and later worked for the Church in the Middle East, died Dec. 11 after a battle with leukemia. The cardinal, who had been residing at Villa St. Joseph, the home for retired Philadelphia archdiocesan […]
by Cindy Wooden, VATICAN CITY (CNS) – In the dry spiritual desert of modern society and the darkness of moral and economic confusion, Christians draw joy from knowing that Christ is near, Pope Benedict XVI said. Celebrating a morning Mass at Rome’s Our Lady of Grace parish and reciting the Angelus at the Vatican later […]
by Patricia Zapor WASHINGTON (CNS) – When the pastoral letter “Economic Justice for All” was published by the U.S. bishops in November, 1986, its release was both the culmination of years of work and the beginning of a sometimes heated public debate. That debate continues today, as was proved during a panel discussion Dec. 6 […]
Every gift is, more or less, a part or extension of ourselves. One cannot give what one does not have. Thus, unless there is also a certain “giving up” or “giving away,” it seems the gift is less than complete. Giving “with strings attached” is always felt to be an incomplete or even insincere “gift,” […]
