2016-09-30T17:24:19-04:00

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 5:24 pm   By

Via Matt Weber and Catholic TV, some insight  for Lent — or any time, really: The pope himself has had confession on his mind recently: Confession can help Catholics build lives filled with hope and holiness, which are needed for effective evangelization, Pope Benedict XVI said. “New evangelization, therefore, also starts from the confessional,” he told confessors and other participants attending a course sponsored by the Apostolic Penitentiary — a Vatican court that that handles issues related to the absolution... Read more

2016-09-30T17:24:19-04:00

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 5:24 pm   By

Sad and sobering news, from the New York Times: Iraq’s dwindling Christians, driven from their homes by attacks and intimidation, are beginning to abandon the havens they had found in the country’s north, discouraged by unemployment and a creeping fear that the violence they had fled was catching up to them. Their quiet exodus to Turkey, Jordan, Europe and the United States is the latest chapter of a seemingly inexorable decline that many religious leaders say tolls the twilight of... Read more

2016-09-30T17:24:19-04:00

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 5:24 pm   By

Details: William Hamilton was a tenured professor of church history at a small divinity school in Rochester in April 1966 when Time magazine created a sensation with a cover article featuring some of the ideas he had been writing about for years in journals read mainly by ministers and theologians. In large red type against a black background, Time boiled those ideas down to three words: “Is God Dead?” It became one of the magazine’s most famous covers, and it... Read more

2016-09-30T17:24:20-04:00

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 5:24 pm   By

That seems to be the way things are going, with online ministry services providing more and more instant wedding officiants. From the New York Times: For generations, getting married meant solemnly standing before an authority figure charged with upholding the rules of civil society or religious traditions. But when Amity Kitchen wed Matthew Saucedo in January, a gregarious family friend, Chris Coughlin, officiated. Mr. Coughlin’s credentials for performing the ceremony? He clicked his mouse at a site offering ordination as... Read more

2016-09-30T17:24:20-04:00

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 5:24 pm   By

Some good news: The Catholic Church appears to be in good health, with a global increase in the number of faithful, bishops, priests – especially in Asia – deacons and seminarians. The decline of men religious seems to have halted however that of women religious continues, even if contradicted by their growth in Africa and Asia. These are the figures that emerge from the Pontifical Yearbook 2012, which was presented this morning to Benedict XVI, along with the Annuarium Statisticum... Read more

2016-09-30T17:24:20-04:00

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 5:24 pm   By

For the life of me, I can’t remember ever attending a church that had a bowling alley, but evidently it was a big deal for a while in some parts of the country. But that’s changing.  This, from USA TODAY: When Max Carson watched his bride Nancy walk down the aisle at St. Ann Catholic Church at their 1974 wedding, organ music was accompanied by the unmistakable sound of balls crashing into bowling pins. “I said ‘I do’ and bowling... Read more

2016-09-30T17:24:20-04:00

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 5:24 pm   By

Scanning the Catholic press, I don’t think this item got much attention.  But it should have: Sacred Hearts Father Victorian (Stephen) Van den Eynde died on Feb. 11 in a foster care home in Pearl City, the last in a line of Belgian missionaries to Hawaii going back before St. Damien de Veuster, a group that left an enormous impact on the growth of the Catholic Church in Hawaii. He was 90 and a priest for 64 years. Father Christopher... Read more

2016-09-30T17:24:20-04:00

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 5:24 pm   By

A big h/t to Jim Lackey at CNS, who just posted this gem from Salt + Light. It’s a brief glimpse at what it means to be a priest today.  Just watch. Read more

2016-09-30T17:24:20-04:00

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 5:24 pm   By

And no place is it more prominent than in California: Thanks largely to the fundraising efforts of Chargers quarterback Phillip Rivers, San Diego this week became the 26th city in the U.S. to turn on Immaculate Heart Radio. Together with San Francisco 1260 AM and Sacramento 1620 AM, this leaves LA as the only major California city without such an English-language Catholic beacon. The San Diego station went live Wednesday afternoon during a special ceremony at St. Therese of Carmel Catholic Church;... Read more

2016-09-30T17:24:20-04:00

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 5:24 pm   By

Details, from CNS: Permissive attitudes toward sex, cohabitation before marriage and acceptance of same-sex marriage can damage individuals and are harmful for society, Pope Benedict XVI told a group of U.S. bishops at the Vatican. “It is in fact increasingly evident that a weakened appreciation of the indissolubility of the marriage covenant, and the widespread rejection of a responsible, mature sexual ethic grounded in the practice of chastity, have led to grave societal problems bearing an immense human and economic... Read more

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