From The New York Times:  Bishop Manuel A. Cruz opened with a head count. “Four,” he said, looking out at the four parishioners in a small chapel behind the soaring Gothic sanctuary of the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart here. “The perfect number, because it is the number we are here.” Then Bishop Cruz said the evening Mass — the nightly service in English. Of the four worshipers, one was a lay reader, Edna Tan, who came to the... Read more

From CNA:  Citing conflicting interpretations of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation on love in the family, four prominent cardinals wrote a letter to him in September requesting that he “resolve the uncertainties and bring clarity.” The full text of the letter was published in an English translation by the National Catholic Register Nov. 14. “We the undersigned, but also many Bishops and Priests, have received numerous requests from the faithful of various social strata on the correct interpretation to give to... Read more

Details:  The Pope’s “Jubilee of Mercy” year, which ends this month, has brought more than 20 million pilgrims to Rome, the Vatican said Thursday. Monsignor Rino Fisichella, head of the Vatican’s evangelisation efforts, estimated that over 20.4 million participants had travelled to take part in the jubilee year events. Overall a billion people may have participated in churches around the world, Bishop Fisichella told members of the foreign press association. Fisichella said that the theme of mercy had been neglected... Read more

From The New York Times: Donald J. Trump rarely goes to church, said he’s never sought forgiveness for his sins, and in his acceptance speech early Wednesday morning, never mentioned God. Religion was almost invisible during the presidential campaign, and yet it is the missing piece in understanding Mr. Trump’s victory. The Christian right worked largely under the national media’s radar this year, but it helped deliver the presidency to a thrice-married mogul who bragged about groping women and has... Read more

Garrison Keillor used to begin his weekly monologue by saying: “It’s been a quiet week in Lake Woebegone.” I wish we could say that now. It hasn’t been a quiet week in Lake Woebegone—or in America. Monday, I read about a cashier who worked at Trader Joe’s, who saw a Muslim neighbor of hers in the checkout line. She had a basket full of groceries. The cashier asked her if she was planning a big party. She nervously replied no... Read more

  Has any pope ever done this before? Details:  Pope Francis on Friday met a group of young men who have left the priesthood during the past years to show his closeness and affection towards them. His surprise visit to an apartment in the outskirts of Rome to meet with the group made up of five  Italians, a Spaniard and a man from Latin America, came as part of his traditional gestures of Mercy on one Friday a month during... Read more

I think we need this right now. This comes from his Christmas sermon of 1967. I anticipate some of it may find its way into my homily this weekend: Every man is somebody because he is a child of God. And so when we say “Thou shalt not kill,” we’re really saying that human life is too sacred to be taken on the battlefields of the world. Man is more than a tiny vagary of whirling electrons or a wisp... Read more

The great songwriter and poet died yesterday at 82, but his signature song endures, in many versions and many styles. It crosses all religions and cultures. (A couple years ago, while attending Mass at a parish in Florida, I heard the music used for the “Alleluia” refrain sung before the gospel!) Further proof of its appeal: at least one adaptation has been done for Easter, with Cohen’s approval. NCR reported on it a few years ago: In 2006, Kelly Mooney,... Read more

From CNS:  He had planned this moment for months, had thought about it for years. What would he say in this profound moment in his life and the life of his brother that both would remember for the rest of their lives? Yet when Father John Hollowell came to his younger brother, Father Anthony Hollowell, to give him a sign of peace minutes after he was ordained a priest, all of his planning disappeared and he said words that he... Read more

A new collection of homilies by Pope Francis has just been published, and CNS has a first look: A pastor out of touch with his parishioners’ lives has little chance of preaching a homily that can make the Gospel come alive for them, Pope Francis said. “Sometimes our words respond to questions nobody is asking,” he said in a new interview with Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro, editor of the Jesuit journal, La Civiltà Cattolica. “If you don’t listen to people,... Read more