‘Shameful Act’: If She Had Done This to a Newborn Baby, Would Anyone Have Cared?

Last updated on: April 23, 2019 at 10:28 am By Deacon Greg Kandra

Details: A woman has been arrested for allegedly throwing a bag containing seven newborn puppies into a Southern California dumpster. Riverside County Animal Services arrested 54-year-old Deborah Culwell on Monday at her Coachella home, reports CBS Los Angeles. Surveillance video showed a woman get out of a car and drop a bag containing the pups into a dumpster behind an auto parts store on Thursday. Investigators say the bag was sealed and cavalierly tossed into the bin, causing Animal Services to term... Read more

Young Martyr: 11-Year-Old Murdered While Standing in Line for Communion

Last updated on: April 22, 2019 at 1:08 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

The horror of this story just continues to mount — made more grievous because it could have been prevented. From The New York Times: The little room could hold no more grief. All day Monday, through the steamy heat, mourners quietly stepped inside and paused in front of a sealed coffin containing what was left of Sneha Savindi Fernando. Sneha was standing in line for communion at Easter Mass on Sunday when she was blown apart. She was 11. “Why... Read more

Evangelization Ahead of Doctrine? Report Suggests Major Vatican Shift

Last updated on: April 22, 2019 at 12:15 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

From Crux: A new “super dicastery” on evangelization might be one of the most significant reforms of the governing structures of the Vatican, according to a new report. Spanish journalist Dario Menor Torres, writing for the weekly Vida Nueva, reveals several elements of the new Vatican constitution that has been in development for years. The biggest novelty in the document, called Praedicate Evangelium [“Preach the Gospel”], will be the creation of the “super dicastery” for evangelization, which will potentially be more important than... Read more

Easter Is Not What It Was: What I Saw This Sunday

Last updated on: April 22, 2019 at 2:15 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

Well, yes, the church was packed. It started that way on Thursday and continued all the way through Easter Sunday. Our church, Our Lady Queen of Martyrs in Forest Hills, New York, seats close to 1,000 people, and I’d wager that most the liturgies had at least 700 people — a few had over 1,000. There were standees at some of the Masses over the weekend, and some even spilled into the vestibule. (As I ventured back there during the... Read more

Easter Horror: Catholic Churches Bombed, at Least 189 Killed — UPDATED

Last updated on: April 21, 2019 at 3:40 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

Details: As worshipers gathered on Sunday at Roman Catholic churches across Sri Lanka to celebrate Easter Mass, the culmination of Holy Week, a wave of explosions rocked the congregations. At about 8:45 a.m., at least eight bombing attacks struck at least three churches, along with three five-star hotels favored by foreigners, killing almost 200 people, in what the police said had been a coordinated attack. • A senior presidential aide said it appeared that the attacks had been carried out by suicide... Read more

Great Moments in Journalism: The AP’s Headline About Notre Dame

Last updated on: April 19, 2019 at 10:14 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

Seriously? Check this out: I’ll give them this: the story is better than the headline. Snip: The soaring beauty of Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral as it echoed with Gregorian chants so moved French poet Paul Claudel on Christmas Day 1886 that the avowed atheist converted to Catholicism on the spot. “In an instant, my heart was touched and I believed,” Claudel, who remained a committed Catholic until his death nearly seven decades later, wrote of the religious transformation that is... Read more

When God Wept: The End of ‘The Passion of the Christ’

Last updated on: April 19, 2019 at 10:33 am By Deacon Greg Kandra

It remains for me one of the most haunting and defining moments of the movie — and can serve as a meditation for Good Friday. We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIS0IjLIjDc Read more

WATCH: Pope Francis Washing Feet of Prisoners on Holy Thursday

Last updated on: April 18, 2019 at 3:47 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

The story: Jesus’ gesture of washing his disciples’ feet, an act once reserved to servants and slaves, is one that all Christians, especially bishops, must imitate, Pope Francis told hundreds of inmates and prison employees on Holy Thursday. “Jesus’ rule and the rule of the Gospel” is to serve others and not “to dominate, do evil or humiliate others,” the pope said April 18 during his homily at the Velletri Correctional Facility, 36 miles south of Rome. “The church asks... Read more

‘Attempted Arson’: Details Released on Man Carrying Gas, Lighter Fluid Into St. Patrick’s

Last updated on: April 18, 2019 at 4:24 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

From CNN: A man will be charged with attempted arson and reckless endangerment after he tried to enter St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York on Wednesday night with gallons of gasoline, lighter fluid and lighters. Police identified the suspect Thursday as Marc Lamparello, who was also arrested by the Essex County Sheriff’s Office last Monday in Newark, New Jersey, at Sacred Heart Cathedral after refusing to leave, NYPD’s John Miller said at a news conference. Miller previously said that a... Read more

‘Why Was This Beauty Built?’: Homily for the Mass of the Lord’s Supper

Last updated on: April 19, 2019 at 6:23 am By Deacon Greg Kandra

Tonight, in this church named for Our Lady, many of us are thinking of another church, on the other side of the world, also named for Our Lady. Our hearts are with the people of Paris, as they mourn the damage to Notre Dame and face a Triduum like no other. We all saw those pictures Monday. We watched in sorrow as the smoke spread, and that spire fell, and the flames tore through one of the most beautiful and... Read more