2016-09-30T15:59:22-04:00

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 3:59 pm   By

Details from HuffPo:  As the center of the biggest commercial season in the U.S., it’s no surprise that a majority of Americans — Christian or not — observe Christmas. But a new survey shows that while nine in 10 Americans take part in the holiday that theologically commemorates the birth of Jesus, only about half actually see it as a religious celebration, and about three in four believe in the virgin birth. The Pew Research Center’s survey on Christmas observations, released Wednesday,... Read more

2016-09-30T15:59:22-04:00

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 3:59 pm   By

CNS has the story:  A 51-year-old man was severely injured after he set himself on fire in St. Peter’s Square. The unidentified man doused himself with gasoline he had carried in a bottle and then lit himself aflame at the end of the colonnade near Piazza Pio XII at 8:30 in the morning Dec. 19. A Jesuit priest on his way to work at the Vatican was the first passer-by to come to the man’s aid, according to a written... Read more

2016-09-30T15:59:22-04:00

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 3:59 pm   By

Details:   A retired Filipino priest based in Phoenix, Arizona has invented a computer-based confession tool that would facilitate confession for hearing-impaired penitents. Fr. Romuald P. Zantua, DS, formerly of Daet diocese and founder of a religious community called Disciples of Hope has created a technology-based confession device that will make the valued sacrament of reconciliation easily available to hundreds of thousands of people with hearing problems. The confessional tool—also called the St. Damien Confession Box—consists of two laptop computers running... Read more

2016-09-30T15:59:22-04:00

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 3:59 pm   By

Here’s an interesting take on what is happening in evangelical churches, a strain of Christianity which is seeing the decline of places like the Crystal Cathedral, shown here. From The American Scholar: These days, young Christians in Orange County attend very different kinds of churches, some unrecognizable as churches at all. Laundry Love, a ministry in Santa Ana, is an ad hoc community of young Christians who gather monthly at various inner-city, coin-operated laundries and wash patrons’ clothes for free. The... Read more

2016-09-30T15:59:23-04:00

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 3:59 pm   By

And the presider, it turns out, was a deacon. From KHOU in Houston:  Morrissia Sauer only wanted a few more moments of happiness in her final days, and on Saturday the hospice patient received the gift she’d wanted most of all — a trip down the aisle of Houston’s Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart with her husband by her side. Sauer, who we profiled last month, is receiving care at her Richmond home from Silverado Hospice. She suffers from congestive... Read more

2016-09-30T15:59:23-04:00

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 3:59 pm   By

Having mastered the art of the spiritual essay, in spades, Elizabeth Scalia now plunges headlong into fiction. The result is—almost literally—breathtaking. But don’t take my word for it. Read it all here.   Read more

2015-03-13T16:35:10-04:00

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 4:35 pm   By

Seminarian Connor Danstrom, from Mundelein Seminary, did that in downtown Chicago a few days ago and wrote about it over at Word on Fire: “Without cost you have received, without cost you are to give.” My phone told me it was three degrees when I woke up at 7 A.M. This was the gospel reading at Mass, which seemed fitting as I prayed my holy hour afterward. Once I was done, I set to making the sign I had thought... Read more

2016-09-30T15:59:23-04:00

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 3:59 pm   By

If you want to know which writer in America is read more than any other…it has to be the wizard who wrote the copy in this clip.  This sterling prose was read, verbatim, by dozens of local news anchors around the country. This is just…just… Words fail. Literally. Watch. Read more

2016-09-30T15:59:23-04:00

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 3:59 pm   By

Photo: John Minchillo/AP Wow:  Gallant guide dog Orlando was just doing his duty. The black Lab bravely leapt on to the tracks at a Manhattan subway platform Tuesday after his blind owner lost consciousness and tumbled in front of an oncoming train. Cecil Williams, 61, and Orlando both escaped serious injury when the train passed over top of them — a miraculous end to a harrowing ordeal that began when Williams began to feel faint on his way to the... Read more

2016-09-30T15:59:23-04:00

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 3:59 pm   By

A delightful detail from the breakfast meeting Pope Francis had today with three homeless men (and a dog), from CNS: As part of a low-key celebration of his 77th birthday, Pope Francis had breakfast with three people who live on the streets near the Vatican. A small dog belonging to one of the homeless men was also on the guest list. The pope started the day with his usual morning Mass held in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae... Read more

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