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“Keep a Bible close to you,” says Pope, as Church celebrates first “Sunday of the Word of God”…
Vatican City, Jan 26, 2020 / 04:30 am (CNA).- Pope Francis preached Sunday about the life-changing power of God’s word in Scripture, encouraging everyone to keep a Bible close for daily inspiration. “Let us make room in our lives for the word of God. Each day, let us read a verse or two of the Bible. Let us begin with the Gospel: let us keep it open on our table, carry it in our pocket, read it on our cell phones, and allow it to inspire us daily,” Pope Francis said in his homily Jan. 26. “The Lord gives you his word, so that you can receive it like a love letter he has written to you, to help you realize that he is at your side. His word consoles and encourages us. At the same time it challenges us, frees us from the bondage of our selfishness and summons us to conversion. Because his wor...
Francis X. Maier — Good Servant of a Good Shepherd…
Fran and Suann Maier, pictured above with their son Dan, were named ‘Knight Commander’ and ‘Dame Commander’ in the Order of St. Gregory the Great by Pope Francis. The papal honors were conferred Dec. 9 by Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia. (Top inset photo below courtesy of Francis X. Maier. All other photos by Sarah Webb.) Francis X. Maier, Good Servant of a Good Shepherd “Christianity is fundamentally about friendship,” says the former Register editor in chief and longtime aide to Archbishop Charles Chaput, “and helping each other get to heaven.” In the late 1970s native New Yorker Francis X. Maier made the decision to leave Hollywood screenwriting to focus on writing a novel, The World on the Last Day, about the fall of Saigon. To support his wife and young family and supplement...
Elizabeth Wurtzel made a mess of her life, and ended up dying as she lived…..
“This is it for me,” she declared in the pages of New York magazine just seven years ago. “I am a free spirit. I do not know any other way to be. No one else seems to live as I do. In a world gone wrong, a pure heart is dangerous.” Elizabeth Wurtzel died last week, of cancer. She was only 52. She’d come to fame at 27, writing the story of her struggles with depression in the big best-seller Prozac Nation. She continued writing confessional articles and books. She spoke openly about her problems, but in a way that revealed she didn’t really know what her problems were. Chief among them was her idea, her silly, cheap, foolish idea, that she was a free spirit with a pure heart, and that made everything all right. A One-Night Stand of a Life Hers was a typical delusion of our age. One few...
As an “act of mercy,” God has given some saints visions of Hell. Here’s what we can learn from them…..
Hell is the final guarantee that what we do here and now really matters: That’s the message Paul Thigpen gives in the book Saints Who Saw Hell: And Other Catholic Witnesses to the Fate of the Damned. “If Hell doesn’t exist, then all roads lead to the same destination, whether it’s Heaven, or annihilation, or something else. And if all roads lead to the same place, it ultimately makes no difference which road we take. On the other hand, if our choices will lead us ultimately to one of two utterly different destinies, then our choices have crucially different consequences,” he continues. Reflecting on Hell, Thigpen emphasizes, deepens our appreciation of Heaven. “The more horrible we understand Hell to be, the more deeply we fathom what God wants to save us from, the more grateful we are tha...
Father Leo Heinrichs, Denver priest shot at Mass in 1908, could be declared a saint…
When Joseph Heinrichs fled Otto von Bismarck’s Kulturkampf in Germany, he thought he was escaping persecution. He didn’t know that shortly after being ordained a Franciscan priest and taking the religious name Leo, he would be shot because of one man’s hatred for the Catholic faith. Fr. Leo Heinrichs initially served at various places in New York and New Jersey, but in 1907 he was assigned to St. Elizabeth’s parish in Denver, Colorado. According to the parish website, “When Fr. Leo Heinrichs, O.F.M., became pastor of St. Elizabeth’s on September 23rd, 1907, Denver’s poor learned they had a friend in the pastor of St. Elizabeth’s, and every morning a line formed at the friary gate.” He was a holy priest, a shepherd who cared deeply about the people he served, especially the poor and working...
Are you a “conversational narcissist?” Here’s how to recognize it, and how to avoid it…..
With our archives now 3,500+ articles deep, we’ve decided to republish a classic piece each Friday to help our newer readers discover some of the best, evergreen gems from the past. This article was originally published in May 2011. Last month I met up with an old friend I hadn’t seen in forever to have lunch. Having both read and written about how to be an effective and charismatic conversationalist, I followed the old dictum of listening more than talking and asking the other person engaging questions about themselves. This is supposed to charm your conversation partner. I guess it worked because my friend talked about himself for an hour straight and didn’t ask me a single question. When we’ve talked about the ins and outs of making good conversation before, someone inevitably ask...
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, former head of Congregation for Bishops, elected new dean of the College of Cardinals…
Vatican City, Jan 25, 2020 / 05:30 am (CNA).- Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re has been elected the new dean of the College of Cardinals with Cardinal Leonardo Sandri as vice-dean. Re, 85, will serve a five-year term under the new term limits created by Pope Francis in a motu proprio issued Dec. 21. Previously, cardinal dean, considered “first among equals,” was a position held for the duration of one’s life. The dean of the College of Cardinals presides at the conclave for the election of the pope and represents the Holy See during the sede vacante. Because Cardinal Re is over the age of 80, he is ineligible to take part in a conclave. The responsibility of presiding over the conclave will therefore fall to 76-year-old vice-dean, Cardinal Sandri. Both Re and Sandri’s elections were approved ...
Canon law and Catholic common sense…
A small but intense drama unfolded last week in the Catholic Diocese of Richmond, Virginia. Thanks largely to the graciousness of the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia, the matter was resolved in the least painful way possible. Even so, it warrants a few words of reflection. The Episcopal diocese was seeking a large, convenient venue for the upcoming consecration of Rev. Susan Haynes as bishop. The diocese asked for permission to use the spacious parish of St. Bede Catholic Church in Williamsburg for the rites. The parish pastor and the Catholic bishop of Richmond, Barry Knestout, granted permission. This sparked a backlash from many lay Catholics, who were distraught by the news that a Catholic parish planned to host the consecration of an Episcopalian bishop (a woman, as it happened...
What do we mean by the word “mystery?”…
In the secular world, a “mystery” is something that baffles or eludes understanding, something that lies undisclosed. And the usual attitude of the world toward mystery is to solve it, get to the bottom of, or uncover it. Mysteries must be overcome! The riddle, or “who-done-it” must be solved! In the Christian and especially the Catholic world, “mystery” is something a bit different. Here, mystery refers to the fact that there are hidden dimensions in things, people, and situations that extend beyond their visible, physical dimensions. One of the best definitions I have read of “mystery” is by the theologian and philosopher John Le Croix. Fr. Francis Martin introduced it to me some years ago in one of his recorded conferences. Le Croix says, Mystery is that which opens temporality and give...
On day of March for Life, VP Pence and Pope Francis discuss US pro-life movement during Vatican meeting…
Vatican City, Jan 24, 2020 / 09:20 am (CNA).- As the March for Life got underway in Washington, DC, Pope Francis and Vice President Mike Pence met in the Vatican Friday to discuss the Church’s commitment to the pro-life movement. “It was a great privilege to spend time with Pope Francis and to be able to do so on a day that literally hundreds of thousands of Americans, including many Catholic Americans, are gathered on our National Mall in Washington D.C. standing up for the right to life, was a particular joy for me,” Pence told EWTN News Jan. 24. “And to hear his passion for the sanctity of life … It was a great privilege,” Pence added. “I believe that the Church in the U.S. has been a bulwark in the right to life movement since Roe v Wade was first adopted by our...
A plea for Pakistan’s Christians…
Archbishop Charles J. Chaput sent the following letter to Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan this morning. January 21, 2020 Prime Minister Imran KhanCare of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to the United States3517 International Court NW,Washington, DC 20008 Your Excellency: Many Pakistani Catholic families currently live in the Greater Philadelphia region. They are a great blessing to our community. These are very impressive people, grateful for their Pakistani heritage, whose Catholic faith was nourished in Pakistan. However, the hardships now faced by Christians in Pakistan profoundly concern them. On their behalf, I write to you—as their local archbishop, but also as a former Commissioner with the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (...
State of contradiction: Despite its liberal politics, family life in California is more stable than in the country as a whole…..
California has been at the vanguard of family change in America. Culturally and legally—from the Human Potential Movement to the passage of no-fault divorce under then-Gov. Ronald Reagan, from Hollywood movies and shows like “The Graduate” and “Friends”—the Golden State has played a central role in pioneering and representing the cultural attitudes that have transformed marriage and family life across the nation. Indeed, because of Hollywood’s, and now Silicon Valley’s, outsized influence on the global stage, California has amplified values and virtues like expressive individualism, personal fulfillment, and tolerance across the world. These liberal values and virtues can be valuable in the public square, yet they often stand in tension with stable, married family life. In fact, scholars h...
