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Excavations in Turkey highlight the intriguing history of the real St. Nicholas…
Archaeologists believe they have uncovered the location where the sarcophagus of St. Nicholas of Myra (A.D. 270-343) was originally located. Various media were quick to report that the “Tomb of Santa Claus” was discovered, but, in fact, the many and varied resting places of the great bishop and saint have been known for some time, and his remains were translated to Italy more than a thousand years ago. The new announcement arises from an excavation that finally cleared centuries of sediment at St. Nicholas Church in Demre, formerly Myra, in the Antalya province of southern Turkey. The church itself was built around 520 over a previous church that had likely served as the bishop’s cathedral and later became his resting place for a time. As sea levels rose in the Middle Ages, the church was ...
Pope Francis Issues New Motu Proprio Decreeing Tighter Control of Vatican Funds and Foundations…
The motu proprio is complemented by a law covering entities in the Vatican City State. Both were published Dec. 6 and come into force on Dec. 8. Pope Francis issued a decree on Tuesday aimed at improving the financial accountability of funds, foundations, and other legal entities inside the Vatican. In the future, these entities — also known as juridical persons — will be controlled by the bodies such as the Secretariat for the Economy and not just supervised by their respective institutions. The motu proprio is complemented by a law covering entities in the Vatican City State. Both were published Dec. 6 and come into force on Dec. 8. Pope Francis noted in his apostolic letter that foundations and other affected entities “are instrumental in the realization of the ends proper to the curial...
The allegory of the Jordan River…
2nd Sunday of AdventBy Fr. Victor Feltes Preceding Jesus’ public ministry, St. John the Baptist appeared preaching in the Judean wilderness. People from Jerusalem, all Judea, and the Jordan River region were going out to see him. John said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” The crowds regarded him as a prophet and were being baptized by him as they acknowledged their sins. Like a bath which cleanses one’s outer self of dirt and odor, John’s baptism was an appeal to God for an inner self cleansed from sin. John’s ministry prepared for Jesus Christ and foreshadowed Christian baptism. The Jordan River in which John baptized embodies an allegory whose symbolism remains important for us today. The fresh waters of the Jordan River originate in the north from the living Sea of Galil...
Malta is set to legalize abortion soon. President George Vella, who is also a pro-life physician, says he’ll quit if it happens…..
Malta, 2010, 16 September (original upload date) Source https://web.archive.org/web/20161110003224/http://www.panoramio.com/photo/40867948 Author Bengt Nyman We need more leaders like George Vella, current president of Malta. The small jewel of an island nation, in the middle of the Mediterranean, with one of the most pleasant climates and locales on earth. Besides its geographic beauty, Malta is also spiritually rich, steeped in Catholic tradition and history, and still, until recently, one of the few places left on earth where the Faith was still lived in a communal, integral way, in that harmony between the Church and the State, for which Pope Leo XIII and many other Popes have called. The Great Siege of Malta in 1565 is one of the greatest military episodes in all of history, when a va...
Supreme Court Leans in Favor of a Christian Website Designer’s Right to Turn Away Same-Sex Weddings…
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Monday sounded ready to rule that a Christian website designer has a free-speech right to refuse to work with same-sex couples planning to marry. The justices heard arguments in a Colorado case that posed a conflict between the 1st Amendment rights of a business owner and a state antidiscrimination law that gives customers a right to equal service without regard to their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation. The outcome could cut out a hole in the laws of California and 21 other mostly blue states that directly forbid discrimination against LGBTQ customers. Several justices, however, expressed interest in finding a narrow ruling that could bolster the 1st Amendment rights of some business owners, without creating a broad new free-s...
Mysterious ‘large object’ detected near Titanic wreck finally identified…
An unexpected sonar “blip” first detected in 1998 near the wreck of the Titanic has finally been identified. “We didn’t know what we would discover,” veteran explorer PH Nargeolet, who first spotted the blip, said in a news release. “On the sonar, this could have been any number of things including the potential of it being another shipwreck. I’ve been seeking the chance to explore this large object that appeared on sonar so long ago.” Advertisement OceanGate Expeditions has been sending crews in a submersible to document the condition of Titanic since last year. During one of this year’s trips, a team that included Nargeolet ― who has been diving to the site for some 30 years ― checked out the anomaly near the legendary wreck. As the video above shows, it was not another shipwreck. Instea...
There isn’t anything else quite like it. Marriage stands out in all of creation…..
“From the beginning, family duties are distinct; some are proper to the husband, others to the wife. Thus mutual needs are provided for, when each contributes his own services to the common good.”Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics There isn’t anything else quite like it. Marriage stands out in all of creation. It is the very archetype of the astounding reality called ‘complementarity’: where two are different for the sake of one shared good. A common good. Sometimes, even often, it can feel as though something is simply wrong: Why are the differences between man and woman—and the reasons and implications of the differences—so hard to discern? Why are they so hard to live out? Why do they seem to be unfair, at least sometimes? Isn’t the difference between man and woman commonly the very thing th...
The Church is a prophet who is preparing the world for the Second Coming of Christ…
The Second Sunday of Advent usually features the Ministry of St. John the Baptist. He was the Prophet who fulfilled the Office of Elijah of whom it was said: See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction (Mal 4:4-6). Therefore St. John is a prophet who prepared the people of his time for the coming of Jesus, by summoning them to repentance and opening them to the Kingdom of God in its fullness. But of course the coming of Jesus for which St. John prepared them has been fulfilled. And thus, for us who ponder John’s office, we need to realize that the coming of Christ f...
New scientific study says these three things are the secret to waking up alert and refreshed…
Many people who find it hard to wake up in the morning blame it on their constitution or their genes. But how you slept, what you ate for breakfast and the amount of physical activity you engaged in the day before have a lot more to do with your ability to wake up alert. (Shutterstock image) Do you feel groggy until you’ve had your morning joe? Do you battle sleepiness throughout the workday? You’re not alone. Many people struggle with morning alertness, but a new study demonstrates that awaking refreshed each day is not just something a lucky few are born with. Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have discovered that you can wake up each morning without feeling sluggish by paying attention to three key factors: sleep, exercise and breakfast. The findings come from a deta...
Biden administration waives Supreme Court review in key transgender fight…
For the last six years, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has pushed a controversial “transgender mandate,” which threatens religious doctors and hospitals with multimillion dollar penalties unless they perform gender transitions in violation of their conscience and medical judgment. When those doctors fought back—winning a major victory in federal appeals court in August—the fight appeared poised to head to the Supreme Court. But on Friday, the Biden administration gave up on seeking Supreme Court review—meaning the hard-fought victory for religious liberty now stands as a powerful precedent nationwide. The case, called Franciscan Alliance v. Becerra, was brought by a Catholic hospital system and the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, a nationwide organiz...
Pope’s Sunday Angelus: ‘Advent Is a Moment of Grace to Confess Our Sins and to Welcome God’s Pardon’…
By Vatican News staff writer Speaking to pilgrims gathered for the Sunday Angelus, Pope Francis spoke about the role of John the Baptist as recounted in the Gospel in inviting everyone to conversion, saying “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” John the Baptist was an austere and radical believer, the Pope said, calling people to conversion with a “cry of love to return to God.” Allergic to hypocrisy The Pope said we might think that John the Baptist, given his severity, was a harsh person, even instilling a bit of fear, and we might wonder why he is our primary companion during the Season of Advent. Instead, rather than harshness, it was the Baptist’s strong reaction when he encountered duplicity in persons. Recalling episodes when the Pharisees and Sadducees, ...
This Christmas, introduce your family to Servant of God Julia Greeley (and be prepared for miracles)…
By all odds, the life of Julia Greeley should have been lost to history. Born into slavery in the 1840s, she came into the world with no last name and few prospects, and by all accounts, was poor all her life. Yet today she qualifies as a true heroic figure — the kind of real-life hero that parents would be eager to introduce to their kids. Now, the accomplished essayist and writer of children’s books, Maura Roan McKeegan, has done just that. Her latest picture book, Julia Greeley: Secret Angel to the Poor (Ignatius-Magnificat, 2022) recounts the true — and truly heroic — story of a woman who overcame cruel racial oppression, physical disabilities and lifelong poverty to become celebrated even in her lifetime as “Denver’s Angel of Charity.” As befits a hero, her life story has not on...
