“We shall overcome the indifference only by love. A love that will allow us to see in every unborn child a precious gift, a fellow human being. We must direct our love and attention to wherever life is most threatened and show by our attitudes, words and actions that life is precious, and we must not kill. We must work tirelessly to change the unjust laws, but we must work even harder to change hearts, to build a civilization of... Read more
View image | gettyimages.com Not if you believe this headline: 1 in 4 Americans Believe God Will Decide Who Wins the Super Bowl. Among the highlights: Sixty-five percent of Catholics and 68 percent of Protestants believe God rewards faithful athletes, while just 27 percent of the religiously unaffiliated say the same. Protestants, at 45 percent, are more likely than other religious groups to believe God plays a role in determining the winner of a sporting event. Thirty-one percent of... Read more
From America magazine, part of an interview conducted recently: Two issues at the present synod are divorced and remarried Catholics and gay Catholics, especially those in relationships. Do you have opportunities to listen directly to these Catholics in your present ministry? I have been a priest for 35 years. This problem is not new. I have the impression that we have a lot of work to do in the theological field, not only related to the question of divorce, but... Read more
From Vatican Radio: Pope Francis told an ecumenical delegation from Finland Thursday that Catholics and Lutherans can do much together “to bear witness to God’s mercy.” The delegation’s visit to Rome coincides with the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and the Feast of St. Henry, the patron saint of Finland. St. Henry via Wikipedia In his discourse to the Finnish delegates, Pope Francis applauded the progress achieved in ecumenical dialogue between the two Churches over the last thirty years... Read more
From blogger Mark de Vries (h/t to Diane Korzeniewski) An interesting interview in Christ & Welt, a weekly supplement to Die Zeit in Germany, with Archbishop Georg Gänswein yesterday. It sheds some interesting lights on recent developments in the Vatican, such as Pope Francis’ Christmas talk to the Curia, the Pope’s relationship with the media, the Synod and also retired Pope Benedict XVI and some personal touches. Worth a read: Q: At Christmas Pope Francis caused some furore with his talk... Read more
View image | gettyimages.com From Bloomberg: Malaysia’s top court dismissed a final bid by the Catholic church to use the word “Allah” in its newspaper, highlighting a debate on non-Muslims using the word in a climate of rising religious tensions. The Federal Court will not review the case because there was no procedural unfairness when it ruled in June that the weekly Herald Malaysia newspaper could not refer to God in that way, Judge Abdull Hamid Embong said in a unanimous verdict... Read more
Who didn’t see this controversy coming? Details: For generations, fourth graders in California’s schools, often with a parent’s touch, built models of church missions out of poster board or sugar cubes to celebrate the Rev. Junipero Serra and the religious communities he established along the West Coast in the late 1700s. Last week, Pope Francis announced plans to canonize Father Serra, putting “the evangelizer of the West in the United States” closer to sainthood. These days, the pious preacher who... Read more
View image | gettyimages.com From the U.K.’s The Telegraph: A judge has ordered a father to take his children to Roman Catholic mass as part of a divorce settlement, even though he is not Catholic. The man, who can only be identified as “Steve” because of reporting restrictions on the case, faces possible contempt of court and a jail sentence if he fails to go to church when he has custody of the children. The church attendance requirement was imposed by... Read more
From The Fall River Herald: The Rev. Roger Landry, a Fall River Catholic priest and pastor of St. Bernadette Church in the Flint, will soon be leaving parish life for a high-profile assignment at the United Nations. On March 3, Landry, 44, will begin working for the Holy See’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations. The Permanent Mission is comparable to the Vatican’s embassy at the U.N. Landry, who speaks six languages, will be helping the Vatican delegation’s work on... Read more
Photo: Iraqi refugees by Don Duncan / CNEWA The Apostolic Nuncio raised that possibility yesterday. From Aid to the Church in Need: The Apostolic Nuncio in Iraq, Archbishop Giorgio Lingua, expressed the hope that the Christians driven out of northern Iraq by the terrorist militia “Islamic State” would be able to return to their homes this year. The Nuncio said this to the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) on Tuesday in Bethlehem (Palestine), where he was attending... Read more
The Deacon's Bench
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In