2018-12-26T07:52:59-05:00

Last updated on: December 26, 2018 at 7:52 am   By

For a country that is overwhelmingly Muslim, with only a small minority of Christians, this is huge:  Iraq has made Christmas Day a national holiday, its government confirmed this morning. The Iraqi Cabinet approved an amendment to its national holidays law which creates a new official one ‘on the occasion of the birth of Jesus Christ’. Previously, Christmas Day had been designated as a religious break only for the Iraqi Christian community, but the amendment extends the holiday to everyone. Iraq is a... Read more

2018-12-25T14:42:30-05:00

Last updated on: December 25, 2018 at 2:42 pm   By

You hear about these things from time to time, but I’ve never heard of an imposter who fooled the public for nearly two decades. Here’s a stunner for the holidays: A man who pretended to be a priest for more than 18 years has been dismissed by the Catholic Church in Spain. Miguel Angel Ibarra carried out weddings and baptisms, first in Colombia and then in southern Spain, despite having never been ordained. Those ceremonies will still be recognized, the... Read more

2018-12-25T06:39:20-05:00

Last updated on: December 25, 2018 at 6:39 am   By

Christmas Eve, I was invited to offer the invocation at the annual Forest Hills Christmas Eve Celebration, held this year at Greenway Terrace Park. It’s always a festive event, bringing together a few hundred locals to sing, drink hot chocolate and get in the Christmas spirit. My remarks kicked off the festivities, just a few yards from the Nativity scene set up in the park: Let us pray. Almighty God, we gather tonight on the earth you created, beneath the... Read more

2018-12-24T15:04:39-05:00

Last updated on: December 24, 2018 at 3:04 pm   By

Probably the most memorable Christmas Eve I can recall was the night I proposed to the woman who became my wife. It sounds schmaltzy, and it was: we went out for a romantic dinner and, at desert, the waiter brought out a tray containing a small package: the engagement ring. (Spoiler alert: It was hardly a surprise. We’d been talking about getting married for months.) Everything after that was a blur, but I’ll always think of that Christmas Eve as... Read more

2018-12-24T14:32:41-05:00

Last updated on: December 24, 2018 at 2:32 pm   By

Details:  A Brooklyn priest killed himself inside a church rectory less than two weeks before Christmas, police sources told The Post on Sunday. The body of the Rev.` Patrick Burns, 57, was found a little after 5 p.m. Dec. 14 in the living room of the rectory at Holy Name of Jesus Roman Catholic Church in Windsor Terrace, according to sources. He had slash marks on his left wrist, and an empty bottle of the antipsychotic drug Risperidone was discovered... Read more

2018-12-22T23:28:24-05:00

Last updated on: December 22, 2018 at 11:28 pm   By

The New York Times columnist (and convert) offers a hope-filled and eloquent testimony of faith this weekend — citing the long and complicated genealogy of Jesus recounted in Matthew’s Gospel: I’m stealing this point from an essay by a 20th-century Dominican priest, the late Rev. Herbert McCabe, which was recently excerpted by the important Catholic Twitter account known as Woke Space Jesuit. Matthew’s genealogy, McCabe writes, link Jesus explicitly to “the squalid realities of human life and sex and politics.” Then he... Read more

2018-12-22T23:01:53-05:00

Last updated on: December 22, 2018 at 11:01 pm   By

This could be one of the great, defining questions of Advent, when an astonished Elizabeth sees her young cousin at the door and realizes the source of humankind’s salvation is about to enter her home. “How does this happen to me?”  How does this gift happen to any of us?  How are we so blessed to receive God’s grace in our lives? We can only wonder. And wonder is the perfect sentiment for these last days of Advent.  The Incarnation,... Read more

2018-12-22T15:50:55-05:00

Last updated on: December 22, 2018 at 3:50 pm   By

Amid all the controversy surrounding the Vatican’s new relationship with China, this detail is one that hasn’t gotten much attention. But the National Catholic Register offers this:   Further concerns involve the lifting of seven bishops’ excommunications. According to Cardinal Zen, two of them, Paul Lei Shiyin and Joseph Liu Xinhong, are widely known to have children. “That is for certain, for a long time it’s public knowledge,” Zen said. The Vatican insists it is just rumor, and there is not sufficient... Read more

2018-12-22T14:04:14-05:00

Last updated on: December 22, 2018 at 2:04 pm   By

I grew up hearing this rendition by the immortal Maurice Chevalier, sung in English and French. It was included in one of the Goodyear Christmas records in the mid-1960s that was in regular rotation on my parents’ stereo.  To this day, it never fails to move me. It is more recited than sung — Chevalier was well past his prime when he recorded it — but this year, the 200th anniversary of this timeless hymn, is a perfect opportunity to... Read more

2018-12-22T12:57:05-05:00

Last updated on: December 22, 2018 at 12:57 pm   By

From CNS:  A Michigan priest criticized for emphasizing suicide in his homily during a recent funeral for an 18-year-old who took his own life has since apologized. “As with any funeral, it was my intent to serve this family in their time of grief, but I fell well short of providing them the comfort they so desperately needed. Instead, I added to their pain. I deeply regret that, and I am sorry,” said Father Don LaCuesta, pastor of Our Lady... Read more

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