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A proposed pro-abortion amendment in Florida failed to pass on Tuesday, bringing an end to an effort to enshrine broad abortion access in the state constitution and serving abortion advocates with a major defeat in the 2024 election.  The failure of Amendment 4 offers a sharp rebuke to the pro-abortion lobby, which poured more than $100 million into Florida in an effort to enshrine abortion in the state constitution and negate the state’s Heartbeat Protection Act, one of the most pro-life laws in the country.  Prior to the Tuesday vote there were indications that the measure might fail. Less than a week before Election Day, polling indicated that support for the ballot measure was just short of the requisite 60% it needed to pass. By 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, with roughly 90% of the ...

Show Caption Hide Caption Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki signs his retirement letter Now 75, Listecki sending retirement letter to pope. But he will go on as Milwaukee’s archbishop. Chicago Auxiliary Bishop Jeffrey S. Grob, who grew up on a farm just west of Madison in Cross Plains, will be installed as the 12th archbishop of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, the Vatican announced Monday. Grob, 63, will succeed Jerome E. Listecki, who gave his notice of retirement on March 12, as bishops are required to do when they turn 75. Listecki has been Milwaukee’s archbishop since 2010. Ordained a bishop in the Archdiocese of Chicago in November 2020, Grob (pronounced “Graab”) will be installed as archbishop of Milwaukee on Jan. 14. Listecki will continue in his position...

Warda: ‘The whole Middle East is burning” Skip to content Bashar Batti Warda is the Chaldean archbishop of Erbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan.  Archbishop Bashar Warda, Archbishop of Erbil in Iraq© Mazur/catholicchurch.org.uk Ten years ago he was on the frontline over helping over 13,000 families who fled the terrorists of ISIS and found refuge in Erbil — since then he has overseen the reconstruction of towns and villages, but has also watched tens of thousands of his faithful leave the country in search of stability and peace abroad.  In recent months, the archbishop has also been a prominent figure in an internal and unresolved dispute between the patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, and a group of bishops which includes Warda .  Warda sat down with The Pillar at the end...

Notre Dame of Chartres Cathedral in France, a Christian landmark since the Middle Ages, is currently celebrating the first millennium of its foundation. This Marian shrine, whose fame almost equals that of Notre-Dame de Paris, will host a series of religious and artistic celebrations until Aug. 15, 2025.   A vast renovation and embellishment project has been developed in the cathedral’s crypt for this occasion, in collaboration with the French Ministry of Culture. It will feature a new jubilee itinerary, a special pilgrimage focusing on conversion and baptism.  For Father Emmanuel Blondeau, rector of the cathedral for the past eight years, this jubilee, which promises to swell the stream of visitors from around the world, represents a privileged means of offering a powerful exper...

When the final document of the Synod on Synodality’s was confirmed on Oct. 26, it emphasized that the possibility of women deacons remains unsettled. “The question of women’s access to diaconal ministry remains open,” reads the document, which was expressly approved by Pope Francis after each of its 155 paragraphs were affirmed by 355 voting members. “This discernment needs to continue.” But that language wasn’t included in the initial draft that members of the monthlong assembly were presented with earlier in the week.  In fact, according to a copy of the draft obtained by the Register, there was no mention of the possibility of women deacons at all. The language’s last-minute insertion may be an indication of why the paragraph in question received significant push-back from synod de...

With hot-button issues sidelined and major changes seemingly off the table, progressive Catholics feel led astray by synod organizers’ grand promises. For progressive Catholics hoping for dramatic changes in the Church, the Synod on Synodality was supposed to usher in a new springtime. Instead, with the final document set to be approved this Saturday, those who have advocated for things like women deacons and the acceptance of same-sex relations are bracing for a “final cold shower.” That’s the image used by Vatican journalist Franca Giansoldati to describe the widespread disappointment among progressives that seems to be setting in within and around the synod hall. Stories of disillusionment within Paul VI Hall have trickled out to the media, including a minority of delegates who support ...

On Thursday, Pope Francis will publish a new encyclical focusing on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in the context of a world “which seems to have lost its heart.” By Salvatore Cernuzio “Dilexit nos” (He Loved Us) will be Pope Francis’ fourth encyclical, and it comes at a time of profound global challenges. The world today is scarred by war, social and economic imbalances, rampant consumerism, and technologies that threaten to undermine human nature. With this document, Pope Francis will call for a change of perspective, urging humanity to rediscover what is most essential: the heart. The Pope’s Announcement The full title of the encyclical, “Dilexit Nos – Encyclical Letter on the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ,” was confirmed ...

(OSV News) — As 40 years have passed since the murder of Blessed Jerzy Popieluszko, one of their church’s most famous priests, Polish Catholics are urging people everywhere to revisit and learn from his heroic testimony. “He was treated as a criminal and killed by state agents for daring to proclaim the Gospel,” explained Father Jan Sochon, a childhood friend. “Though times have changed, some of the mechanisms used to rule over people are still in place today. This is why he remains influential, a sign of the times summoning us to reflect and change,” he said. The Warsaw-based priest spoke ahead of 40th anniversary commemorations of the death of Blessed Popieluszko (1947-1984), chaplain of Poland’s Solidarity union — the first independent trade union in the Soviet bloc — who was brutally m...

In what could be the closing chapter in a landmark legal battle, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed to pay $880 million to victims of clergy sexual abuse dating back decades in the largest settlement involving the Catholic Church. Attorneys for 1,353 people who allege that they suffered horrific abuse at the hands of local Catholic priests reached the settlement after months of negotiations with the archdiocese. The agreement caps a quarter-century of litigation against the most populous archdiocese in the United States. The settlement leaves only a few lawsuits pending against the church in Los Angeles, attorneys for the victims say. Advertisement The archdiocese had previously paid $740 million to victims in various settlements and had pledged to better protect its church members,...

God or nothing? Modern science points only one way, says French author Skip to content Michel-Yves Bolloré is the co-author of “God: The science, the evidence,” a new book that aims to lay out the scientific evidence for the existence of God.  In a text spanning nearly 600 pages, he and his co-author Olivier Bonassies, argue that factors such as the thermal death and expansion of the universe, as well as its fine-tuning, make the existence of a creator the most rational explanation for its existence. Rendering of the universe at less than a billion years old. Image via NASA. The book’s foreword is written by Nobel prize winner and physicist Robert Wilson, and around 30 other scientists, from a variety of fields, contributed to the book, which also delves briefly into the historical, p...

Angelus Angelus Dómini nuntiávit Mariæ.Et concépit de Spíritu Sancto.Ave Maria… Ecce ancílla Dómini.Fiat mihi secúndum verbum tuum.Ave Maria… Et Verbum caro factum est.Et habitávit in nobis.Ave Maria… Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei génetrix.Ut digni efficiámur promissiónibus Christi. Orémus.Grátiam tuam, quǽsumus, Dómine,méntibus nostris infunde;ut qui, Ángelo nuntiánte, Christi Fílii tui incarnatiónem cognóvimus, per passiónem eius et crucem, ad resurrectiónis glóriam perducámur. Per eúndem Christum Dóminum nostrum. Amen. Gloria Patri… (ter)Requiem aeternam… Benedictio Apostolica seu Papalis Dominus vobiscum.Et cum spiritu tuo.Sit nomen Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus,Pa ter, et Fi lius, et Spiritus Sanctus. Amen. The Angelus Prayer The Angel of the Lord d...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Vatican’s doctrine office has mandated the laicization of an Argentine priest accused of sexually abusing minors, overturning a surprise ruling from the Vatican Secretariat of State that imposed limitations on the priest’s activities. In an Oct. 8 communiqué published via the news service of the Argentine bishops’ conference, Archbishop John Kennedy, head of the disciplinary section of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, said that the information regarding the restrictions placed on a priest specified by the Secretariat of State were “voided” and confirmed previous rulings for his laicization. The case involves former Argentine priest Ariel Alberto Príncipi, who was accused in 2021 of sexually abusing minors while performing “healing prayers” associated wi...