Father Emil Kapaun, a priest of the Diocese of Wichita, was a U.S. military chaplain and prisoner of war during the Korean War who has been called a “Shepherd in Combat Boots.” In 2013 he was honored posthumously by President Barack Obama, who presented the Medal of Honor. His cause for Beatification is currently being considered by the Vatican. Now, the Most Reverend Carl A. Kemme, Bishop of Wichita, has declared a Year of Father Kapaun, beginning June 7, 2015 and concluding June... Read more
I hear this all the time, on Catholic radio and in Catholic Facebook groups: A majority of American Catholics have been “sacramentalized,” but never catechized or evangelized. That is, they’ve gone through sacrament prep classes for First Communion and Confirmation, rote courses, but have never really been given the tools to understand what the Catholic Church teaches and why. That’s why they can’t be blamed for not knowing what the Church says about, say, abortion or birth control or any of a... Read more
“Another shameful moment for Michigan.” That’s what the Detroit Free Press Editorial Board said yesterday regarding House Bills 4188-4190, which were approved by the Michigan House and Senate and signed into law by Governor Rick Snyder. The legislation grants legal protections to faith-based child placement agencies, ensuring that they can continue to provide foster care and adoption services in concert with the agencies’ religious mission. That means that the bills guarantee that Catholic and other religious adoption and social service agencies will... Read more
“Dear friends, make sure that every person—of whatever nationality or social background—can find in you a welcoming heart, able to learn and understand.” –Pope Benedict XVI June 11, 2012 Good advice for all! In this case, though, our Holy Father was speaking to airport chaplains. At the invitation of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, some 100 priest chaplains and assistants gathered in Rome June 11-14 to discuss new methods and new forms of evangelization... Read more
Today, nineteen days after Pentecost, the Catholic Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. But where did that tradition originate? Devotion to the wounded heart of Jesus has its origins in the eleventh century, when pious Christians meditated on the Five Wounds of Christ. There grew up among the faithful prayers to the Sacred Heart, prayers to the Shoulder Wound of Christ—private devotions which helped Christians to focus on the passion and death of Christ, and thus... Read more
It gets hot in the Eternal City this time of year! Two Marist Sisters survived three hot days in a Rome elevator by drinking their own urine and praying a lot. A 58-year-old sister from Ireland and a 69-year-old sister from New Zealand became trapped in an elevator in the Marist Sisters’ residence in Rome, after the electrical power failed. The convent, which hosts visitors from religious communities around the world, was otherwise unoccupied over the long weekend; so the sisters’... Read more
Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore, Maryland: Two flashpoints in American race relations. . In August 2014, a white police officer in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri shot and killed an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, who had stolen cigarillos from a convenience store. The shooting sparked unrest in Ferguson, where protests and violence broke out. A grand jury exonerated the officer, citing corroborating evidence from witnesses; but the vigorous debate continues regarding police officers’ use of force in Missouri and... Read more
An altar cloth that’s been missing for nearly 70 years is being welcomed home to Germany on June 12. A letter from Dr. Gary Rohwer, pastor of Atonement Lutheran Church in Dearborn, Michigan, accompanies the richly embroidered cloth and will be read to the Bundestag, the German parliament. The letter explains the cloth’s long history and requests that it be delivered to the Lutheran Church in Germany. But how did the altar cloth cross the Atlantic and find a home in the... Read more
Abraham Lincoln, in his Second Inaugural Address, quoted Matthew 7:1-3, a scripture which has become inextricably linked to the papacy of Pope Francis: “Let us judge not, that we be not judged.” Lincoln sought to move this nation forward with as little hate as possible; and so he repeated that “judge not” line when Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts called for Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States, to be hanged. In 1858, speaking in Springfield, he delivered what has become known... Read more
A new mosque in the Syrian coastal city of Tartous has been dedicated to the Virgin Mary–the only Islamic place of worship in the Islamic world which bears her name. The “al-Sayyida Maryam” mosque, named after Mary the Mother of Jesus Christ, was inaugurated on Saturday, June 6. According to Lebanon’s Daily Star newspaper, The minister of awqaf, or religious charitable endowments, said the mosque’s construction symbolized the openness of Islam, in stark contrast to the “deviation” being seen today thanks... Read more
Seasons of Grace
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