The press release from the USCCB offers an interesting snapshot of the men being ordained to the priesthood this year: The 2016 class of men ordained to the priesthood report that they were, on average, about 17 when they first considered a vocation to the priesthood and encouraged to consider a vocation by an average of four people. Seven in 10 (70 percent) say they were encouraged by a parish priest, as well as friends (48 percent), parishioners (46 percent),... Read more

Headaches are emerging in the massive project transforming the old Crystal Cathedral: Faced with major cost overruns in renovating the Christ Cathedral sanctuary, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange has moved to rein in the project’s construction expenses and streamline operations at the sprawling campus, church officials said this week. The diocese bought the 34-acre campus for $57 million in 2012 after its former owner, the Rev. Robert H. Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral Ministries, filed for bankruptcy. Since acquiring the property,... Read more

From The Washington Post:  Years ago, Bono invited a Christian writer to meet him, and the writer turned him down. Eugene Peterson, whose translation of the Bible into contemporary language,“The Message,” has proven enormously popular, was hard at work on adapting the Old Testament. A flabbergasted interviewer heard that Peterson had said no to the lead singer of U2. “It’s Bono, for crying out loud,” journalist Dean Nelson said. And Peterson responded coolly, “Dean, it was Isaiah.” Now, Peterson is... Read more

From NCR: Fr. Hans Küng, the Swiss theologian, says that he has received a letter from Pope Francis that responds “to my request to give room to a free discussion on the dogma of infallibility.” Küng declined to show the letter to NCR, citing “the confidentiality that I owe to the Pope,” but he says the letter was dated March 20 and sent to him via the nunciature in Berlin shortly after Easter. Küng says the letter shows that “Francis... Read more

From Vatican Radio:  Catholic and Anglican theologians have been meeting together near Rome to discuss ordination rites within the two communions, as well as the significant ecumenical implications of Pope Francis’ recent document ‘Amoris Laetitia’. A meeting of the Malines Conversation group took place from April 17th to 22nd at Rocca di Papa, south of Rome, culminating in an ecumenical evensong celebrated by Archbishop Arthur Roche of the Congregation for Divine Worship. A communique issued after the encounter said the... Read more

The conversation threw me for a loop. A religious ed teacher told me about a talk he had with a Catholic parent a few weeks back. The mother was upset because her grade-school-aged daughter was feeling guilty about missing Mass. The mother blamed the church. Isn’t it enough that they go to CCD classes,?  she asked. Don’t you people realize we have a busy schedule on Sunday? There’s sports! Projects! Homework! We can’t get to church every week, you know.  There’s too... Read more

Via Vatican Radio:  Pope Francis has sent a letter to prisoners detained in a prison in the Italian city of Velletri, a short distance from Rome. Prisoners at the facility had written to the Holy Father earlier this year, entrusting their letter to Bishop Marcello Semeraro, the Bishop of Albano, during a pastoral visit to the facility. In his response, Pope Francis thanked the detainees for thinking of him, and assured them that they, and others in similar situations, were often... Read more

From The Telegraph: Islamic State jihadists have blown up one of Mosul’s best known remaining churches, known as the Clock Church after its tower, according to Iraqi news reports. The clock tower was paid for by Empress Eugenie of France, wife of the last Emperor Napoleon III, as a gift to the Dominican Fathers who were building the church in the 1870s. It gave its name to the neighborhood around it, al-Saa – and overlooked it to the extent that the Dominican... Read more

From The Hollywood Reporter:  Madeleine Sherwood, who starred in the stage and film versions of the Tennessee Williams classics Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Sweet Bird of Youth, has died. She was 93. Sherwood, perhaps best known as the non-nonsense Reverend Mother Superior Lydia Placido on the 1967-70 ABC sitcom The Flying Nun starring Sally Field, died Saturday at her childhood home in Lac Cornu, Quebec, family spokesperson Melissa Fitch told The Hollywood Reporter. A native of Montreal,... Read more

Details:  Theologian and professor of Catholic Studies at Roehampton University, Tina Beattie, has signed a letter to the Polish Bishops’ Conference supporting “early, safe and legal” abortion. Although the letter begins, “We uphold the sanctity of all human life, including the right to life of women and their unborn children”, it goes on to say, “we also acknowledge that sometimes women and girls face agonising decisions about whether or not to continue with a pregnancy that is the consequence of... Read more