Head

“Regardless of the official teaching of the Catholic Church, what do you personally believe about the bread and wine used for Communion?” A few options shown below were given for answers. “During Catholic Mass, the bread and wine…  1. Actually become the body and blood of Jesus Christ  More in US 2. Are symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ  3. No answer” The problem with the question, the report said, is that respondents could choose both 1 and 2 and still be correct, citing the U.S. bishops’ conference, which said: “The transformed bread and wine are truly the Body and Blood of Christ and are not merely symbols.” The Eucharist is “substance and symbol,” the CARA report said.  Mass attendance and education Respondents in the CARA study were also surveyed ...

As the Synod on Synodality approaches, the Catholic world will be watching how Germany’s controversial Synodal Way integrates (or collides) with the global Catholic event. As German bishops wrapped up their plenary meeting on Thursday with a final press conference amid tensions over same-sex blessings and a whole host of underlying issues, the focus was clear: All eyes were turned toward the fraught relationship with Rome and the forthcoming Synod on Synodality.  Bishop George Bätzing of Limburg, president of the German Bishops’ Conference, took public issue with the apostolic nuncio in Germany, Archbishop Nikola Eterović, for reminding the German bishops of statements by Pope Francis on anthropology, including gender ideology.  Citing Pope Francis, the papal ambassador had addre...

Steubenville’s Monforton appointed Detroit auxiliary Skip to content Steubenville’s Bishop Jeffrey Monforton was appointed an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Detroit Thursday, less than one year after the bishop announced an eventually stalled merger between the Steubenville diocese and its neighboring Diocese of Columbus. The bishop has reportedly been the subject of two Vatican-ordered Vos estis lux mundi investigations, but the results in neither case have been publicly released. Bishop Jeffrey Monforton preaches. Credit: Diocese of Steubenville. The Holy See press office made Monforton’s move to Detroit public in its Sept. 28 daily bulletin. It said that the bishop had been assigned the titular see of Centuria. A Sept. 28 USCCB statement said that the Holy See had appointe...

Sister Ivanka Hosta was quietly removed in June from the governance of the community, banned from contacting current or former sisters for three years, and ordered to make monthly pilgrimages to pray for Father Rupnik’s victims. A religious sister who co-founded a community with the ex-Jesuit and accused abuser Father Marko Rupnik three decades ago was quietly removed in June from the governance of the community, banned from contacting current or former sisters for three years, and ordered to make monthly pilgrimages to pray for Father Rupnik’s victims. Sister Ivanka Hosta, the superior general of the Loyola Community since 1994, is staying in a monastery in Braga, in northern Portugal, following the conclusion of an investigation into her leadership of the religious community by the Dioce...

In the same speech to 200 university personnel, Francis reflected on what he has termed a throwaway culture, saying it reveals “a lack of education to use the things that remain, to remake them, to replace them in the order of the common use of things.” He encouraged a “good use of nature,” including practical actions that can help the environment, such as the installation of solar panels. The pope also noted how environmental degradation can lead to another kind of “degradation,” namely, in how we treat others, especially those who are already living with fewer resources. Pope Francis announced last month he would be releasing a follow-up document to the 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’. He later said it would be published on Oct. 4, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi. Oct. 4 is also the first...

Monsignor John Devine, who is parish priest of St. Mary of the Isle, said the process of being granted co-cathedral recognition had lasted a whole year but expressed his delight that it had finally happened.  In a statement released by the Catholic Bishops Conference for England and Wales on Sept. 22, he said: “I am delighted that St. Mary of the Isle has been granted cathedral status; it is wonderful news for Catholics across the island.” Devine said he was first approached by Douglas Borough Council, who pointed out that cities have cathedrals and the island already has an Anglican cathedral on the west coast. They enquired whether it would be possible to elevate the Church of St. Mary of the Isle in Douglas to the status of a cathedral. “The archbishop of Liverpool, the Most Revere...

The French government is currently preparing to pass a controversial bill on end-of-life issues that could legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia in the country. The vote, which was postponed because of the pope’s visit, will be held Sept. 26–28. Francis said he did not address the topic of euthanasia with Macron on Saturday but that he had expressed himself “clearly” on the issue when the French president visited him at the Vatican last year. Macron, who made changing the end-of-life framework one of his campaign promises, declared his “penchant” for the Belgian model in April 2022. Pope Francis said it is not just an opinion that life should be safeguarded and warned that it is easy to fall into an idea that pain should always be prevented, even through what some might consider a “huma...

In his homily during Mass in Marseille, Pope Francis says those who have faith ‘leap for joy’ because they recognize the presence of the Lord. By Christopher Wells A cold, indifferent heart “becomes hardened and insensitive, to everything and everyone, even to the tragic discarding of human life,” which we see today “in the rejection of so many immigrants, of countless unborn children and abandoned elderly people,” Pope Francis said during Mass in Marseille on Saturday. By contrast, the Pope said, the hearts of those who truly believe in God and recognize His presence in the events of everyday life “leap for joy”: “Whoever prays, whoever welcomes the Lord leaps in the Spirit, feels that something is moving within, and ‘dances’ with joy”, as David danced before the Ark of the Covenant. ‘Lea...

“The U.N. Security Council must go beyond mere calls for action. No more empty rhetoric; we need concrete steps,” Vardenyan said in a Thursday X statement. “Currently, 120,000 Armenians are facing a dire situation, with hundreds killed, wounded, and missing. We urgently require a U.N. mission to be dispatched to Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh.” Vardenyan said that without aid from the international community, “the risk of massive ethnic cleansing will inevitably increase.” The Armenian people in Nagorno-Karabakh, who have been cut off from receiving supplies because of an Azeri blockade of the Lachin Corridor, are in urgent need of food, medicine, and doctors. “It is imperative that you take action now!” Vardenyan said. “We implore you to show that words carry weight and that aggression and the ...

On Sept. 19, the Catholic Church celebrates the feast of St. Januarius, bishop, martyr, and patron saint of Naples, Italy. Traditionally, on this day and on two other occasions a year, his blood, which is kept in a glass ampoule in the shape of a rounded cruet, liquifies. It is believed the miracle has taken place since at least 1389, the first instance on record. The liquefaction process sometimes takes hours or even days, and sometimes it does not happen at all. In local lore, the failure of the blood to liquefy signals war, famine, disease, or other disaster. At Mass Sept. 19, Battaglia spoke about the miracle and what it is — and is not. “Every year we see firsthand how the witness of a man who generously gave his life for the Gospel, until his last breath, until his last drop of blood...