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ROME – In a move some have said is already a direct result of Pope Francis’s highly anticipated visit to the country in March, Iraqi parliament earlier this week voted to establish Christmas as an annual national holiday. The vote, which took place Dec. 16, was unanimous and goes into effect this year, meaning that for all of its woes, 2020 will have at least one silver lining for the Iraqi Christian community. Previously, Christians had been given the day of Dec. 25 off, but it was not considered a holiday for the rest of the population in the Muslim-majority nation. In 2008, the Iraqi government declared Christmas a “one-time” holiday, but the provision was not renewed. In recent years, Christmas has only been a public holiday in the province of Kirkuk. The decision to formally declare C...

What advice can the Curé of Ars offer to the reluctant penitent today? The sacrament of Penance has become unpopular in recent decades. Pride, fear, embarrassment and the denial of sin itself keep many of the laity away. Simultaneously — especially considering its eternal ramifications — the topic of Confession rarely receives the attention it deserves from the pulpit. Throw in this year’s COVID-19 restrictions, and you’re looking at a world in which comparatively few Catholics have confessed their sins in many months. In this environment, especially during Advent and Christmas, we need to turn to St. John Vianney. The “Curé of Ars,” is not only the patron saint of parish priests, but he may be the greatest champion of the sacrament of Penance since its institution by Jesus. To defend that...

Joshua Wong is a young Chinese human rights activist, recently sentenced to 13 and a half months in prison on the Orwellian charge of “incitement to knowingly take part in an unauthorized assembly” – meaning, in Chinese Newspeak, urging others to protest peacefully the tyranny now throttling Hong Kong. In his first letter from prison, the uncowed Mr. Wong wrote, “Cages cannot lock up souls.” Indeed, they cannot. But the failure to defend the caged by standing in solidarity with them can do the gravest damage to evangelization. Jimmy Lai, one of Hong Kong’s most prominent Catholic defenders of religious freedom and other basic human rights, was back in jail in early December; his bail in a civil lease dispute was revoked on the grounds that he might flee and is a national security risk to b...

By Tom Hoopes, December 17, 2020 On the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year B, the Gospel has direct application to our lives as we prepare, not just to celebrate Christmas, but to become a dwelling place for the Son of God who wants to make us his adopted sons and daughters. In the final week of Advent, God asks each of us directly: Will you allow yourself to be remade in the image of Jesus Christ? He wants a thoughtful, honest, affirmative reply. We can well imagine what Mary and Joseph were doing on the original Fourth Sunday of Advent. It would take about a week to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem. So the last week of the original “Advent Season” was a strong push to the end, to find Jesus a place to be born. It was one final week in preparations Mary had started making months earlier,...

“We’ve gotten stuck in the summer mode, in chronic summer… In fall and winter we should move into a new mode, a contractive and restorative mode… like coming home at the end of the day… with a sense of settling, of slowing down, of peace, of belonging, of gratitude and of generosity… being more vulnerable, more present with fewer people who mean more to us.”Dallas Hartwig (my paraphrase from an interview with Caroline Leaf) The plan of nature for the good human life has much nuance. As Hesiod saw and expressed in Works and Days, this plan includes the gift of seasons, and how they can channel our lives into nourishing and fruitful rhythms. What I found most arresting in what I heard from Dallas Hartwig was the diagnosis that we are stuck in chronic summer. The summer mode is characterized ...

In recent days, several vaccines for COVID have reached the final approval process. The USCCB indicated that Catholics can morally take the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines. At least 28 other US bishops have issued concurring statements. There is a concern about remote material cooperation in evil. The USCCB notes it in their statement. However, some have thought this so grave that Catholics should not get vaccinated. Receiving these vaccines is so remote that in our everyday lives we do things that are more proximate cooperation in evil. At a certain degree of remoteness, cooperation in evil is unavoidable living in modern society. I will point out first how remote this is in the case of COVID vaccination, then 12 other things that are less remote. On top of these being less remote, the proport...

A few years back, a friend gave me the book, Drinking with the Saints – The Sinner’s Guide to a Holy Happy Hour written by Michael P. Foley. This friend knew that I enjoyed the Catholic method of drinking and that I have loved the Lives of the Saints, so he bought this book for me as a gift and knew that I would appreciate it and use it.   In the book, Michael Foley lays out humorous antidotes and creative directions on how to consume the correct beverages that correspond with different liturgical seasons, feasts, solemnities, and saint’s days during the Church’s yearly calendar. There are more than 300 recipes, a manual on beer, spirits, and wine, and even tips on how to give a proper toast. Over the years, I have tried some of the cocktails in this book, but for the month of Decembe...

CNA Staff, Dec 14, 2020 / 09:00 am MT (CNA).- The United States bishops’ conference has said that Catholics can take two of the three available COVID-19 vaccines, even though they were developed with a “remote connection” to “morally compromised” cell lines. In a statement released Monday, the bishops also said it is morally permissible in some circumstances to receive a third vaccine, developed in close connection with aborted cell lines, but that Catholics cannot allow the pandemic to “desensitize” or “weaken our determination” to oppose the evil of abortion.  Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, the chair of the USCCB’s doctrine committee, and Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City in Kansas, chairman of the USCCB’s pro-life activities committee, outlined their co...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Two years ago, the U.S. attorney in Philadelphia joined the long line of ambitious prosecutors investigating the Roman Catholic Church’s handling of priest-abuse complaints. The Justice Department had never brought a conspiracy case against the church, despite exhaustive reports that showed its long history of burying abuse complaints in secret archives, transferring problem priests to new parishes, silencing accusers and fighting laws to benefit child sex assault victims. U.S. Attorney William McSwain sent subpoenas to bishops across Pennsylvania asking them to turn over their files and submit to grand jury testimony if asked. The FBI interviewed at least six accused priests, court files show. ADVERTISEMENT But as McSwain’s tenure likely nears its end with President-el...

You don’t need to go undercover and follow around employees from Planned Parenthood like David Daleiden at the Center for Medical Progress to find out how the remains of aborted children are used in research. All it takes is a look at scientific reports. The methods are detailed in the words of the scientists themselves, who depend on abortion to design experiments. With the focus lately on the use of aborted fetal cell lines in vaccines, I thought it would be helpful to walk through what is really going on, to show why some pro-life Catholics are so concerned about the passive acceptance of aborted children in research. We are not denying that vaccines serve a common good. We are, however, encouraging Catholics to unite a protest against the evil of abortion, to demand that university, go...

Editor’s Note: The following homily was given by Cardinal Raymond Burke for the Solemnity of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Dec. 12, at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, Wisconsin. It is republished with permission.  *   *   *   *   *   *   * Praised be Jesus Christ! We come to Our Lady of Guadalupe on her feast day with troubled and heavy hearts. Our nation is going through a crisis which threatens its very future as free and democratic. The worldwide spread of Marxist materialism, which has already brought destruction and death to the lives of so many, and which has threatened the foundations of our nation for decades, now seems to seize the governing power over our nation. To attain economic gains, we as a nation h...