Pope Francis ‘left without words’ after children’s shocking stories of violence in eastern Congo

By Courtney Mares

Rome Newsroom, Feb 1, 2023 / 13:07 pm

In a moving encounter with Pope Francis, children from eastern Congo laid down the machetes and knives used to kill their families at the foot of Christ’s cross to symbolize their forgiveness.

“I place before the cross of Christ the Victor the same knife as the one that killed all the members of my family,” Léonie Matumaini from Mbau elementary school told the pope on Feb. 1.

The child’s heartbreaking witness on the pope’s second day in the Congolese capital of Kinshasa served as a shocking reminder of the horrors taking place in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s conflict-ridden eastern region.

It was one of several wrenching testimonies the pope heard during his encounter with victims of the violence. He told them afterward their stories had left him “without words.” (continue reading)

Blood-stained shirt of beatified judge killed by Mafia displayed in Rome

By Hannah Brockhaus

Rome Newsroom, Jan 20, 2023 / 13:30 pm

The shirt worn by Blessed Rosario Livatino when he was murdered by the Mafia in Sicily in 1990 was displayed in churches and government buildings in Rome this week.

Livatino was beatified in 2021 in Agrigento, Sicily, after Pope Francis declared him a martyr for his death on Sept. 21, 1990, at the age of 37.

While driving toward the Agrigento courthouse where he had been working as a judge, Livatino’s car was hit by another car, sending him off the road. While the young magistrate ran from the crashed vehicle into a field, he was brutally shot in the back and then killed by further gunshots.

The blood-stained shirt the Catholic lawyer and magistrate was wearing that day is now preserved as a relic and has been brought from Sicily to Rome to be temporarily displayed for veneration. (continue reading)

Twin sisters with a special bond speak out for the unborn

By Katie Yoder

Washington D.C., Jan 20, 2023 / 08:40 am

Sister Mary Casey O’Connor has more than 100 sisters. But only one of them is her twin sister: Casey Gunning, who has Down syndrome.

“I wish everyone had someone like her because she just taught me what it means to love and to not expect anything back,” O’Connor told CNA. “And I mean, that’s ultimately our experience of God … Casey, for me, is an expression of God’s love.”

The sisters were featured speakers at Friday’s Life Fest and the 50th annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. (continue reading)

‘Because love is the answer’: Pre-March for Life rally fires up young crowd

By Peter Pinedo

Washington D.C., Jan 20, 2023 / 13:25 pm

Could the “Life Fest” become a new staple of the annual March for Life?

There were promising signs early Friday morning as an estimated 3,500 people, including many young people, filled a district arena for the inaugural, pre-march rally, organized by the Sisters of Life and the Knights of Columbus.

“Good morning, Life Fest! Our early arrivers — it’s so good to see you!” Catholic singer Sarah Kroger said as her band got the 7:30 a.m. rally started inside the Entertainment & Sports Arena in southeast Washington, D.C. (continue reading)

Report: Christian persecution at its highest point in 30 years

By Hannah Brockhaus

Rome Newsroom, Jan 18, 2023 / 13:05 pm

The persecution of Christians is at its highest point in three decades, according to the latest report from advocacy group Open Doors.

The World Watch List, released by Open Doors on Jan. 18, reported that, overall, the number of Christians facing persecution worldwide remained steady in 2022 at approximately 360 million.

In a list of the 50 countries with the most persecution, North Korea returned to the first spot in 2022. The year prior, Afghanistan had landed in the top ranking following the Taliban’s takeover of the country’s government.

Afghanistan ranks ninth in the latest list because the country’s Christians have either been killed, fled, or are in strict hiding, according to Open Doors’ Italian director Cristian Nani (continue reading.)

‘Catholics Got Talent?’: Competition invites musicians to promote zeal for the Eucharist

By Francesca Pollio Fenton

Denver, Colo., Jan 18, 2023 / 16:00 pm

Catholic poets, composers, and songwriters are invited to participate in a competition in which the winning piece could be performed before 80,000 people at the 2024 National Eucharistic Congress.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Evangelization and Catechesis is sponsoring a Eucharistic Revival musical competition in an effort to renew zeal for the Eucharist.

The musical competition is one facet of the multiyear National Eucharistic Revival launched on June 19, 2022 — the solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, or Corpus Christi. The revival’s mission is to “renew the Church by enkindling a living relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ in the holy Eucharist,” as stated on the initiative’s website (continue reading.)

Making room

By Marrick Kowalski - Youth Ministry Coordinator, Christ the King Parish, Regina

I was recently at a Mass, where in the homily, the priest said something that stood out to me. “We need to empty ourselves like Mary emptied herself.” I found this intriguing because I have never thought of Mary as empty. After pondering for a while, I concluded that it was less about being empty and more about making room. Mary was not empty for the sake of being empty; Mary was empty for the sake of being filled: filled with the Holy Spirit, filled with grace, filled with love, filled with trust, filled with Jesus Himself. So, if we are to be empty like Mary, then we are also called to be filled like Mary.

What makes Catholicism different than other world religions is that Catholics don’t empty themselves for the sake of being empty; we empty ourselves to be filled with something, or rather someone, greater. Mary was physically filled with Christ as she carried Him in her womb for nine months, but she continued to be filled and to make room for the rest of her earthly life. Our call to carry Christ and to make room looks a little bit different than Mama Mary’s, but it does not mean that call is any less practical! (Continue reading.)

FULL TEXT: Pope Francis’ homily for the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord

By Pope Francis

Vatican City, Jan 6, 2023 / 05:45 am

The following is the full text of Pope Francis' homily for the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord celebrated in St. Peter’s Basilica on Jan. 6, 2023.

Like a rising star (cf. Num 24:17), Jesus comes to enlighten all peoples and to brighten the nights of humanity. Today, with the Magi, let us lift our eyes to heaven and ask: “Where is the child who has been born?” (Mt 2:2). Where can we find and encounter our Lord?

From the experience of the Magi, we learn that the first “place” where he loves to be sought is in restless questioning. The exciting adventure of these Wise Men from the East teaches us that faith is not born of our own merits, thoughts, and theories. Rather, it is God’s gift. His grace helps us to shake off our apathy and opens our minds to ask the important questions in life (continue reading.)

Young Catholics converge at SEEK23: ‘I love seeing people fall in love with Jesus’

By Jonah McKeown

St. Louis, Mo., Jan 6, 2023 / 15:45 pm

After three years apart, more than 17,000 people — students, adults, families, bishops, priests, sisters, and more — descended on St. Louis this week for the SEEK23 Catholic conference, put on by the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS). 

The gathering marks FOCUS’ first fully in-person national conference since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. FOCUS held a national conference in Indianapolis in 2019 and a smaller student leadership summit in Phoenix in the earliest days of 2020. Conferences for 2021 and 2022 were held online due to the pandemic.

The keynote speakers at SEEK23 all told CNA that the conference felt like a return to how the Catholic faith ought to be lived — in community, rather than individually (continue reading.)

Archbishop Gänswein accompanies the Pope Emeritus and the faithful

Some of the faithful at St. Peter's praying before Benedict's body had the chance to thank his faithful secretary.

On January 2, 2022, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, who worked as personal secretary for Benedict XVI since 1996, was present in St. Peter’s Basilica as the faithful arrived to pray and pay their respects before the body of the late pope. Many of the faithful rushed to greet the German prelate, who received their thanks and condolences with a big smile and a few words.

Pope Benedict XVI is displayed at the foot of Bernini’s baldachin in St. Peter’s Basilica, as John Paul II was in 2005. The pontiff is dressed in a simple red chasuble over an embroidered white alb, and wearing a miter. He holds a rosary with wooden beads in his hand and does not wear the pallium of the bishop of Rome, unlike his predecessors who died in office (continue reading.)

A Letter to the editor of victoria times columnist

"Assistance in dying is not compassion

In Canada, we are on the verge of making Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) more accessible to those who are suffering from mental illness. When MAID was first made into law in 2016, many of us said that it was the “thin edge of the wedge” into a door that would never close and that expansion of the criteria would be inevitable.

We were scoffed at. However, that door is about to be blasted wide open and many of us could never have predicted the rapidity with which this has escalated.
MAID is not compassion. It masquerades as compassion; but it is not. Suffering has a purpose in this life. It is a part of our collective humanity and always has been.

If you are considering MAID under the present or the new criteria, please consider this first. Perhaps you are lonely, in pain, you feel you are burden to those who love you and that no one needs you around. I would put it to you that there is someone who needs you.

You don’t know this person yet, you will meet them in the future. Maybe the future is tomorrow. This is the person whose hand you will take, whose tear-filled eyes you will look into and to whom you will say: “I have been where you are. I made it to the other side. I’m going to share with you how I did it.” Then you will tell them how to make it through that day and the next day.
This is what compassion and empathy really look like and the only teacher of these qualities is suffering. It takes effort though, more effort than simply putting a needle in someone’s arm. Are we willing to do this work for one another? This is what human beings, decent human beings, have done for one another since time immemorial.
I believe that Canada is filled with decent human beings. Can we all please come together as a human ­family and speak up to oppose these new measures that will turn our ­country into a merciless and ­indifferent ­dystopia?
Please Canada, can we do this now?

Patricia Cuthbertson

Victoria, BC"

Pope Francis: Let us think of the Ukrainian children without heat this Christmas

This college’s Newman Institute is attracting non-Catholics with its ‘Catholicism 101’ class

Pope Francis: Freedom is found in offering to God what is hardest to give up

By Courtney Mares

Rome Newsroom, Dec 7, 2022 / 04:03 am

Pope Francis spoke Wednesday about how freeing it can be to let go of the things that we are most attached to in life and place them in God’s “benevolent hands.”

In his general audience on Dec. 7, the pope said that in the face of rejection, when things do not go our way, it is good to remember that “only God knows what is truly good for us.”

Sometimes there can be a lesson from the Lord in a denial of what we want, the pope explained, adding: “This is not because he wants to deprive us of what we hold dear, but in order to live it with freedom, without attachment.”

“We can only love in freedom, which is why the Lord created us free, free even to say no to him,” Pope Francis said. (continue reading)

Memorial of saint Ambrose, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

Prayer is a kiss: What we learn from the Latin roots of ‘adore’

Adoration is a deeply intimate expression of love — prayer as embrace.

The reason we can adore God is because the Father “has caused us to be reborn to his life by adopting us as his children in his only Son” (CCC 2782). Adoration is our prayerful reciprocation to the belonging that we are part of.

In the best sense of the word, adoration is an act of submission. The Catechism tells us that “to adore God is to acknowledge, in respect and absolute submission, the ‘nothingness of the creature’ who would not exist but for God. To adore God is to praise and exalt him and to humble oneself, confessing with gratitude that he has done great things (2097). This is not about groveling or obsequiousness, but affection. Adoration is the kind of submission we willingly show to someone we love.

Cardinal Ratzinger emphasizes the Latin roots of “adoration”— ad oratio refers to mouth to mouth contact. In other words, a kiss. Adoration is a deeply intimate expression of love— prayer as embrace. The submission that is adoration “liberates us deep within.” (continue reading.)

An unlikely saint: Jacques Fesch was a murderer; now he’s up for beatification

3 Tips for avoiding family fights on the way to Mass

Pope Francis explains to America Magazine why women cannot be ordained priests

By Zelda Caldwell

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 28, 2022 / 12:30 pm

In an interview published in America Magazine today, Pope Francis unequivocally stated that women cannot be ordained as priests but emphasized the important role they have to play in the life of the Church. 

“Many women feel pain because they cannot be ordained priests. What would you say to a woman who is already serving in the life of the Church but who still feels called to be a priest?” asked Kerry Webber, executive editor of the monthly magazine published by the Jesuits of the United States.

The Holy Father was unequivocal on the question of the ordination of women priests:

“And why can a woman not enter ordained ministry? It is because the Petrine principle has no place for that,” the pope said (continue reading.)

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