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Image copyright ESA/Hubble/NASA/Janaína Ávila Image caption Some of the pre-solar grains in the Murchison meteorite (inset) could have come from evolved stars similar to the Egg Nebula (pictured) Scientists analysing a meteorite have discovered the oldest material known to exist on Earth. They found dust grains within the space rock – which fell to Earth in the 1960s – that are as much as 7.5 billion years old. The oldest of the dust grains were formed in stars that roared to life long before our Solar System was born. A team of researchers has described the result in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. When stars die, particles formed within them are flung out into space. These “pre-solar grains” then get incorporated into new stars, planet...

ROME – Next week, Pope Francis will lead the first celebration of the Sunday of the Word of God, which he instituted as a yearly occasion to celebrate and study the Bible. Francis wants to “stimulate all Christians not to place the Bible on the shelf as one of many books, perhaps filled with dust, but as an instrument that awakens our faith,” said Italian Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella on Friday. “It is an evangelization initiative that can help Christian communities and also priests not to improvise when it comes to communicating the word of God,” Fisichella said at a press conference in Rome. “The people of God have a right to listen to the word of God and to receive an explanation from the priest [in his homily] that is coherent with the word of God and not a free interpretation of it....

> Italiano> English> Español> Français > All the articles of Settimo Cielo in English * In the beginning of the year speech to the diplomatic corps, Pope Francis found words on everything, from Burkina Faso to northern Macedonia. But not on China. This silence was not a surprise, given the fear of the Vatican authorities that any word of theirs in this regard could only irritate the Asian giant, already rather hostile toward “foreign” religions, including the Catholic Christian. Just before, however, the pope gave his speech, a magazine that reflects his thoughts very closely and is printed after review by him and by the secretariat of state, “La Civiltà Cattolica” directed by the Jesuit Antonio Spadaro, had come out with a thirteen-page article that spoke of China in spades...

Ponce, Puerto Rico, Jan 16, 2020 / 04:00 am (CNA).- Precariously resting on the edge of an altar leaning forward from the impact of the earthquake that struck Puerto Rico, a tabernacle was retrieved intact from a church in Puerto Rico and brought to safety. In the early hours of Jan. 7, a 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck the island, the last of a series of quakes that began Dec. 28. The earthquake left one dead, various people injured, serious damage to the infrastructure, and a power outage on the island. A state of emergency was declared. Previo a otros temblores durante la mañana, fieles rescatan el Sagrario junto al párroco. Esto en la Parroquia Inmaculada Con emoción de Guayanilla que quedó destruida tras el fuerte temblor registrado en el sur de Puerto Rico esta madrugada. pic.twitter...

I’ve been out of action for the better part of a week with a nasty case of flu, but have used the time to get through most of George Weigel’s new book The Irony of Modern Catholic History I’ll be reviewing it later over at Imaginative Conservative, but the book has reminded me how much God is always elsewhere. Weigel’s book charts the Catholic Church’s centuries long wrestling match with modernity, and reminds us that controversy, quarrels, confusion and seeming chaos have always been part of church life. You could even say one of the marks of the authenticity of the Catholic Church is that her members are engaged in an eternal internal tug of war. We see this as alarming and upsetting. We want everything to be happy and peaceful and calm, but that ain’t reality. The fact is, the...

TOP 3. L to R: Amazing Grace, One Child Nation and A Hidden Life (Neon, Amazon Studios, Fox Searchlight) Religious themes graced an unusual number of notable films in 2019, which our critic says may be the best movie year of the decade — with one notable caveat. Steven D. Greydanus An exquisite art-house film about a beatified martyr. The triumphant arrival of a belated documentary of a celebrated gospel concert. A fact-based drama about an alliance of devout and unbelieving survivors of clerical sex abuse calling for justice. These are just a few of an unusually large crop of notable films that tackled religious and spiritual themes in 2019. Prayer, clerical characters, and church services and liturgical celebrations featured in several films, from the baptism and confession scenes in Mar...

If you were HBO, you couldn’t ask for better publicity. Just as their television series “The New Pope” presents the crisis rising between the fictional Pope John Paul III and his predecessor Benedict XIII, news arises of a possible “conflict” between Pope Francis and the pope emeritus, Benedict XVI. On Sunday, it was revealed that Benedict had co-authored a short book with Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah strongly supporting celibacy in the Church. Sarah heads the Vatican’s office on liturgy and is recognized as one of the most conservative of Francis’s department chiefs. The short book, called Des Profoundeurs De Nos Couers [“From the Depths of Our Hearts”], consists of a chapter by each of the co-authors, as well as a jointly written introduction and conclusion. The book was written in the ...

In Bible Study in my Parish we  have been reading through Genesis. This past evening we read of Lot and the horrifying results of his decision to pitch his tent toward Sodom. We also see in his life a significant spiritual problem: sloth, one of the seven deadly sins. Sloth is a sorrow, sadness, or aversion to the good things God offers. Rather than being joyful and zealous to obtain these gifts, the slothful person sees them as too much trouble to obtain and is averse to the changes such gifts might introduce into his life. This is clearly the case with Lot, who resists the attempts of God to rescue him and his family from the sinful city of Sodom, which is about to be destroyed. Let’s examine his struggle in several steps. I. Roots – Lot’s personal troubles were many, but for our pu...

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> Italiano> English> Español> Français > All the articles of Settimo Cielo in English * They met. They wrote to each other. Precisely while “the world rumbled with the uproar created by a strange synod of the media that took the place of the real synod,” that of the Amazon. And they decided to break the silence: “It was our sacred duty to recall the truth of the Catholic priesthood. In these difficult times, everyone must be afraid that one day God will address to him this harsh reproof: ‘Cursed are you, who did not say anything’.” An invective, this latter, taken from Saint Catherine of Siena, a tremendous flogger of popes. Pope emeritus Benedict XVI and Guinean cardinal Robert Sarah sent this book of theirs to the presses shortly before Christmas, and here it is coming out...

Betelgeuse in 2015, before recent dimming. Distance from Earth to the sun Betelgeuse in 2015, before recent dimming. Distance from Earth to the sun Betelgeuse in 2015, before recent dimming. Distance from Earth to the sun Betelgeuse in 2015, before recent dimming. Distance from Earth to the sun A Fading Giant Around 700 years ago, the red star Betelgeuse began to fade. The light from that unusual dimming is only now reaching Earth, some 700 light-years away. Betelgeuse is normally one of the 10 brightest stars in the sky, but is now fainter than ever recorded. Magnitude 0 Betelgeuse now ▶ Magnitude 0 Betelgeuse now ▶ Magnitude 0 Betelgeuse now ▶ Magnitude 0 Betelgeuse now ▶ Betelgeuse typically fades and brightens in short cycles of 14 months and longer cycles o...