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Our Catholic liturgical year follows a rhythmic cycle. It points us toward beginnings and ends and, in so doing, emphasizes an important truth that can only be grasped through faith. This is the Thirty Fourth or last Sunday in the Western Church year and we celebrate the Feast of the Solemnity of Jesus Christ the Sovereign King. Then, no sooner than we have celebrated the last Sunday of the Year, the feast of Christ the King, we will celebrate the First Sunday of Advent, and begin the time of preparation for the great Nativity of Our Savior. Our Catholic Christian...

Pontius Pilate would feel very much at home in our culture. His cynical question — “What is truth?” (Jn 18:38) — captures the prevailing mindset of our day. It provides a three-word summary of relativism — the view that objective truth does not exist, that there is not objective “right” or “wrong” about human behavior. Relativism refuses to limit or define human behavior. All is relative and depends on the situation, the culture, the person, etc.Although often depicted as a courageous rebellion against forces of intolerance and persecution, relativism is really cowardice. Because truth requires something of us. Pontius Pilate...

Prior to the opening of formal conversations between officials of the Holy See and leaders of the Lefebvrist Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), which began on Oct. 26, the mainstream media frequently misrepresented these discussions as a negotiation aimed at achieving a compromise that both sides can live with. That was to be expected from reporters and commentators for whom everything is politics and everything is thus negotiable. Alas, similar misrepresentations came from “Vatican insiders” who suggested that the teaching of the Second Vatican Council was under joint review by the Holy See and the SSPX, which only made...

Thanks to technical problems, I wasn’t able to comment on Rowan Williams (”Archbishop of Canterbury” in the Henrician usurpation tradition, as Gerald Warner calls him) lecturing the Vatican on the virtues of women priests. I’m glad he did, because it is high time that the Church of England stopped apologising for this innovation. Anglicans have women priests; Catholics and Orthodox don’t. End of story, so far as corporate reunion is concerned. “Oh, but the Roman Catholic Church will certainly ordain women one day,” Dr George Carey once told me. No it won’t. Why do Anglicans find this so hard to...

H/T In Hoc Signo Vinces for news of the Bad vestments blog. Here is the Vision Statement:This site is dedicated to subjecting particularly awful Christian liturgical vestments to the ridicule they so richly deserve.Submissions are welcomed and can be e-mailed to websterglobe at juno dot com.

www.catholicnewsagency.com USCCB: Senate health care bill 'morally unacceptable' Washington D.C., Nov 20, 2009 / 08:02 pm (CNA).- As the Senate prepares for the discussion of its health care reform bill this weekend, several bishops have sent the Senators a letter on behalf of the USCCB, calling the current version of the health care bill both “a huge disappointment” and “morally unacceptable.”The letter, signed by Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, Chairman of the Committee on Pro-life Activities; Bishop William F. Murphy Diocese of Rockville Centre, Chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development and  Bishop John Wester, Chairman of the...

Top Stories for Thursday, November 26th, 2009: The Basilica of St. Thomas the Apostle, Chennai, India. According to tradition, St. Thomas the Apos­tle traveled to India in 52 A.D., and was martyred and buried here in 72 A.D. Since then his tomb has been venerated by the faithful, and a succession of magnificent churches have been built over it since at least the sixth century. The present basilica was constructed from 1893-1896 under the direction of Captain J.A. Power, a retired officer of the Royal Engineers and a parishioner. Says Bishops Must Unify Catholics By PAUL LIKOUDISBALTIMORE — In...

November 21, 2009                                   Memorial of the Presentation                                    of the Blessed Virgin Mary Reading 1Responsorial PsalmGospel Reading 11 Mc 6:1-13 As King Antiochus was traversing the inland provinces,he heard that in Persia there was a city called Elymais,famous for its wealth in silver and gold,and that its temple was very rich,containing gold helmets, breastplates, and weaponsleft there by Alexander, son of Philip,king of Macedon, the first king of the Greeks.He went therefore and tried to capture and pillage the city.But he could not do so,because his plan became known to the people of the citywho rose up in battle against him.So...

Part Three:  The Will of God Eighth Commandment Table of Contents     In both versions of the Decalogue, the wording of the Eighth Commandment is the same: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor (Exodus 20:16; Deuteronomy 5:20). Throughout the Old Testament, the full meaning of this commandment includes both the prohibition against telling a lie and the precept of telling the truth. Thus, “Lips that tell the truth abide firm forever; the tongue that lies lasts only for a moment. Lips that lie are abhorrent to Yahweh; dear to Him those who speak the truth” (Proverbs 12:19, 19:22).The...

Featured Term (selected at random):WAKE A watch or vigil. The term was originally applied to the all-night vigil in Anglo-Saxon times before certain major holidays. By the sixteenth century it was used of the holiday itself, and of the fair held to honor a local saint. In some countries, e.g., Ireland, a wake is the watch over the body of the deceased before burial. And more commonly a wake is the period, one or two days before the funeral, when mourners may visit the body of the deceased and offer their condolences to the bereaved. THe Church now provides for...

Devotion to Mary 1411. It is unscriptural to attribute power to Mary. That is a very unscriptural statement. At His mother's request Jesus changed water into wine at Cana, though He had said, "My time is not yet come." St. James tells us that "the prayer of a just man availeth much." Jas 5:16. How much more the prayer of Mary! 1412. Does the Bible sanction such prayers to Mary? Yes. All through the Bible you will find God conferring favors through the prayers of others. In the Old Testament we read of the prayers of Abraham, Moses, and of...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI lamented the serious lack of public programs and measures to address the needs of deaf people and a lack of even basic health care, which often can prevent hearing impairment. He spoke Nov. 20 to some 400 people attending a Vatican conference addressing the role of the deaf in the church. A handful of interpreters signed the pope's words to deaf participants during the audience in the Clementine Hall of the papal palace. The Nov. 19-21conference was organized by the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry and was dedicated to "The Deaf Person...

HINSDALE, Ill. — Sister Donna Quinn referred to herself as a “peacekeeper” when she escorted women into a Chicago-area abortion business to shield them from pro-life advocates.But leaders of her Sinsinawa Dominican community, saying they fully support Church teaching on abortion, have told her that her actions violated her profession as a religious sister. Now, Sister Donna may be facing further discipline as the bishops of Madison, Wis., and Joliet, Ill., and the archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Francis George, consider whether she formally cooperated with abortions by volunteering at the business. Under canon law, the penalty for formal cooperation with...

A Vatican scholar claims to have deciphered the "death certificate" imprinted on the Shroud of Turin, or Holy Shroud, a linen cloth revered by Christians and held by many to bear the image of the crucified Jesus. Dr Barbara Frale, a researcher in the Vatican secret archives, said "I think I have managed to read the burial certificate of Jesus the Nazarene, or Jesus of Nazareth." She said that she had reconstructed it from fragments of Greek, Hebrew and Latin writing imprinted on the cloth together with the image of the crucified man. The shroud, which is kept in the...

ROME – A Vatican researcher claims a nearly invisible text on the Shroud of Turin proves the authenticity of the artifact revered as Jesus' burial cloth. The claim made in a new book by historian Barbara Frale drew immediate skepticism from some scientists, who maintain the shroud is a medieval forgery. Frale, a researcher at the Vatican archives, said Friday that she used computers to enhance images of faintly written words in Greek, Latin and Aramaic scattered across the shroud. She asserts the words include the name "Jesus Nazarene" in Greek, proving the text could not be of medieval origin...

Fr Daniil Sysoyev, rector of the parish of the Holy Apostle Thomas in Kantemirovskaya, Candidate of Theology (a Kandidat (Candidate) degree is equivalent to a PhD, somewhat more rigorous: editor’s note) I think that one of the most important problems facing the Orthodox Church in Russia, and even beyond its borders, is the ideological rigor mortis of the Church. The Church is considered as a kind of dead body, it is thought to be frozen. According to some, nothing should be changed in it. It is understandable that we should not change dogmatics and Church Tradition, no one argues with...

We, as Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical Christians, have gathered, beginning in New York on September 28, 2009, to make the following declaration, which we sign as individuals, not on behalf of our organizations, but speaking to and from our communities. We act together in obedience to the one true God, the triune God of holiness and love, who has laid total claim on our lives and by that claim calls us with believers in all ages and all nations to seek and defend the good of all who bear his image.... While the whole scope of Christian moral concern, including...

The Archbishop of Canterbury yesterday made his most outspoken challenge to the Roman Catholic Church since the Pope invited disaffected Anglicans to switch to Rome. Speaking before he meets Benedict XVI tomorrow, Dr Rowan Williams told a conference in Rome that the Catholic Church’s refusal to ordain women was a bar to Christian unity. “For many Anglicans, not ordaining women has a possible unwelcome implication about the difference between baptised men and baptised women,” he said. The Anglican provinces that ordain women had retained rather than lost their Catholic holiness and sacramentalism, he said. Addressing an ecumenical conference at the...

Friday, November 13, 2009 Le Curé d'Ars Camille Dolard (1818- ?) Le Curé d'Ars sur son lit de mort (saint Jean-Marie Vianney, 1786-1859) Also entitled: Le Curé d'Ars, décédé le 4 août 1859, photographié d'après nature Taken 1859 pos. montées sur carton : papier albuminé : d'après nég. sur verre au collodion Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris Saint Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney died on 4 August 1859 By 1855, the number of pilgrims who came to see him had reached twenty thousand a year. Vianney yearned for the contemplative life of a monk, and four times ran away from Ars, the last...

www.catholicnewsagency.com Unprecedented coalition of religious leaders call Americans to stand for sanctity of life, marriage, and religious freedom Washington D.C., Nov 20, 2009 / 06:21 am (CNA).- An unprecedented coalition of prominent Christian clergy, ministry leaders, and scholars has crafted a 4,700-word declaration addressing the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and religious liberty. The declaration issues “a clarion call” to Christians to adhere to their convictions and informs civil authorities that the signers will not “under any circumstance” abandon their Christian consciences. The statement,  called “the Manhattan Declaration,” has been signed by more than 125 Catholic, Evangelical Christian, and Orthodox...

I was so moved reading this last night. Ballad of the White Horse is Chesterton's poem about the English King Alfred, who fought the Danes in 878. "But it is also the story of Christianity battling against the destructive forces of nihilism and heathenism" (Alquist comments). The Blessed Virgin has appeared to King Alfred right before the battle; he queries her as to the outcome of the battle. "If he fail or if he win/ To no good man is told," she tells him. And continues: The men of the East may spell the stars, And times and triumphs mark,...

Last Monday I was traveling to Tampa, Florida for a week long retreat with other Catholic priests who were once Anglican priests. In the airport I got an email with the news that the new Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus had been published. Suddenly the rest of the week’s program was decided. My brother priests and I spent time studying the document and discussing its implications. The wider implications of Pope Benedict’s invitation to Anglicans to come into full communion are genuinely historic. It impacts discussions not only with Anglicans, but with all of the churches derived from the Protestant Reformation....

I was recently delighted to learn that Ave Maria University was the recipient of a Four Million dollar ($4,000,000.) gift from a man named Tom Golisano. The first words which came into my heart upon reading the news were from St. Paul, “Rejoice with those who rejoice…” (Romans 12:15) I am convinced that the most important work being done in this new missionary age is the preparation of the next generation of faithful, well educated young Catholic men and women, prepared to respond to the call to every Christian vocation and to participate in the mission of the Church. It...

November 20, 2009                                        Friday of the Thirty-third Week                             in Ordinary Time     Reading 1Responsorial PsalmGospel Reading 11 Mc 4:36-37, 52-59 Judas and his brothers said,“Now that our enemies have been crushed,let us go up to purify the sanctuary and rededicate it.”So the whole army assembled, and went up to Mount Zion. Early in the morning on the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month,that is, the month of Chislev,in the year one hundred and forty-eight,they arose and offered sacrifice according to the lawon the new altar of burnt offerings that they had made....

Part Three:  The Will of God Seventh and Tenth Commandments Table of Contents     The biblical precept of the Seventh Commandment, like the Sixth, is a short imperative, “You shall not steal.” It is the same in both versions of the Decalogue. The Tenth Commandment, as already seen, is that part of the Ten Commandments which forbids coveting what belongs to someone else, whether his house, servant, ox, donkey, or anything else. Deuteronomy distinguishes between coveting “your neighbor’s wife,” and “setting your heart” on other possessions, including the neighbor’s field (Exodus 20:15; Deuteronomy 5:19). Like the Sixth and Ninth Commandments, the...

The Vatican has just completed a five day conference on astrobiology where scientists convened to discuss the detection and implications of extraterrestrial life. A major driving force behind the conference was the Director of the Vatican Observatory, the Jesuit priest Father Jose Gabriel Funes. In May 2008, Funes gave an interview to the Vatican’s L’Osservatore Romano newspaper saying that the existence of intelligent extraterrestrials posed no problems to Catholic theology. The conference itself was officially convened by the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences, chaired by its religious leader Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, and was held on private Vatican grounds from...

The use of Latin 1392. Why, in all ceremonies and sermons, do Priests speak in Latin? In the Epistle to the Hebrews, Heb 5:1, you will find these words, "Every Priest is ordained for men in the things that pertain to God, that he may offer up gifts and Sacrifices for sins." A Priest has two chief duties: to offer sacrifice to God, and to sanctify men by his teaching and instruction. Now, when a Priest is speaking, not to men, but to God in the name of men, he speaks in the language of the Church — in Latin...

There recently was a death of a 98 year-old lady named Irena. During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an 'ulterior motive' .. She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews, (being German.) Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried and she carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack, (for larger kids..) She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers...

Neither did I. And that's why this article in today's Daily Mail online caught my eye and raised my eyebrows. This insidious effort on the part of the Nazis to superimpose their own atheistic symbols and thought categories onto Christendom's ancient Christian symbols associated with the celebration of the Nativity of Christ was ultimately a failure, mainly because the Nazis were beaten by the Allies before this program of "re-education" could gain traction and take effect. But it is a good reminder that one of Hitler's prime directives was to do everything in his power to neutralize the Catholic Church,...

The archbishop of Canterbury today pleaded with Roman Catholics to set aside their differences with Anglicans over the issue of female bishops, insisting there was more uniting the denominations than dividing them. Rowan Williams was giving a lecture in Rome before Sunday's meeting with the pope, their first encounter since the Vatican's surprise announcement of a special institution for traditionalist Anglicans wanting to convert to Catholicism. In his address at the Gregorian University, Williams said the Anglican communion was proof that churches could stay together in spite of their differences. The communion has teetered on the edge of schism for...

With its annual collection coming up this Sunday, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development is fighting back against the organized effort encouraging Catholics to ignore the collection.   CCHD's woes began last year, when its grants to ACORN were terminated following the allegations of voter fraud and embezzlement brought against them during the 2008 election. Since then, a growing number of other CCHD grantees have been found to advocate either abortion or same-sex marriage -- or both. Rob Gaspar of Bellarmine Veritas Ministry, Stephanie Block of the Catholic Media Coalition, American Life League, and Human Life International have published...

Last Sunday, as part of my commentator duties at the close of Mass, I read an announcement reminding parishioners of this SundayÂ’s collection for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). Moments later, I left church with a copy of Our Sunday Visitor in hand. This Catholic weekly newspaper carried an article warning that a number of CCHD grants funded organizations that act against Catholic teaching. The CCHD have given millions of dollars to groups that participate in such things as abortions, promotion of homosexual marriages and some recipients were involved in cases of alleged embezzlement and voter registration fraud.What...

Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl Washington D.C., Nov 18, 2009 / 06:32 pm (CNA).- The Archdiocese of Washington’s announcement that services would have to be cut if the District of Columbia City Council recognizes same-sex “marriage” without religious exemptions was not a “threat” or “ultimatum” but a simple recognition of the policy’s consequences, the Archbishop of Washington said in an opinion essay in the Washington Post.Without strong religious freedom protections, the proposed legislation would force the Church to choose between expressing Christ’s love in service to others and defending the nature of marriage, Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl wrote in his...

ROME, November 18, 2009 – Cardinal Walter Kasper has admitted it: "There has been a bit of confusion." He himself contributed to some of the confusion, involuntarily. When on October 20 Cardinal William J. Levada, prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, announced the imminent publication of an apostolic constitution that would regulate the admission of groups from the Anglican Communion into the Catholic Church, he, Kasper, president of the pontifical council for Christian unity and therefore absolutely entitled to be involved, was not in Rome, but in Cyprus, busy with completely unrelated matters. From this, some...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- To really see the Sistine Chapel, it's more important to have a Bible in your hands than mini-binoculars, said Msgr. Roberto Zagnoli, an official of the Vatican Museums.The Italian monsignor is the principal author of "The Painted Word," a new series of books published by the Vatican Museums and the Italian financial newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. In the four-part series, the Italian monsignor quotes and explains the biblical passages that inspired the famous frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. The first volume focuses on Michelangelo's work on the Sistine ceiling. "Fascinating the eyes and the spirit,"...

Featured Term (selected at random):EPISCOPAL CURIA The group of persons who assist a bishop, or the prelate taking the place of a bishop, in the administration of a diocese. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

M-O'M DISCLOSURE CAUTION: CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS IN YOUR ARTICLE AT YOUR OWN RISK.A new Web site hopes to use the oldest trick in the book to combat the Catholic Church’s opposition to same-sex marriage: A good, old-fashioned forced outing!At ChurchOuting.org, you’re invited to scroll through a list of every Achbishop, Bishop, and Reverend in the Archdiocese of Washington, zero in on one you know is gay, and then submit your “detailed account of how you know the priest in question is being hypocritical through his silence.” (Alternately, get at them via Twitter or Facebook).ChurchOuting.Org is the brainchild...

The Archbishop of Westminster has blamed Church of England bishops for keeping their leader in the dark about the Pope’s attempts to entice Anglicans to Rome. As the Archbishop of Canterbury prepared to visit Pope Benedict XVI for the first time since plans to admit Anglican opponents of women priests into the Catholic faith were published, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, deepened the row. Archbishop Nicholls said that it had been the “duty” of the Anglicans involved in the talks to keep their primate informed about the Pope’s plans. The...

CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE ADDER, Iraq – The acting bishop of Basra held Catholic Mass here Nov. 7 in honor of the service members and civilians working toward a safer, more secure Iraq. Bishop Imad Al Banna, a Chaldean priest, spoke Aramaic, an ancient language spoken in Palestine 2,000 years ago and still spoken in parts of Iraq to this day. Al Banna began his sermon with a message of peaceful coexistence. “Peace can be achieved only by respecting other people’s opinions,” said Al Banna. “All nations who respect themselves take care of all of their citizens. National must also learn...

At Medfield’s Montrose School, in BC grad’s book, women cite positive role served by Catholic group"Opus Dei" means work of God in Latin. At the Montrose School in Medfield, it means educating girls to be leaders with “faith, character, and vision,’’ said the independent Catholic institution’s head, Karen E. Bohlin. For Mary Brennan, a Franklin mother of six, it is a search for divinity in everyday life as she cares for her children and works part time. “It’s faith in practice,’’ said Brennan, who prays several times a day, using a rosary, Latin readings, and the New Testament. “As Catholics,...

BALTIMORE (CNS) -- Despite the concern voiced by some bishops about the document's pastoral tone and content, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops approved a pastoral letter on marriage Nov. 17. Nearly 100 changes in two rounds of amendments preceded the 180-45 vote in favor of "Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan" during the bishops' fall general assembly in Baltimore. Two-thirds of the USCCB membership, or 175 votes, was required for passage. There were three abstentions. An effort by retired Archbishop Francis T. Hurley of Anchorage, Alaska, to remand the document to the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family...

BALTIMORE (AP) -- Fallout continues from the spring controversy over the University of Notre Dame awarding an honorary degree to President Barack Obama, who supports abortion rights. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops went behind closed doors at their fall meeting Wednesday to discuss, among other issues, what action they should take to increase oversight of the nation's more than 200 Roman Catholic colleges and universities. Chicago Cardinal Francis George, president of the bishops' conference, revealed this week that he had formed a task force charged with reviewing the issue. Its research included a look at what church law says...

The good news is that, as a result of the faithful’s righteous outrage, funds from CCHD no longer go to ACORN. The bad news, however, is that CCHD will still funnel money to leftist groups such as the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing umbrella group, the mission of which is “to bring about social justice and collectively transform our society.” Sound familiar? These are the code words of Socialism. Gamaliel is funded by none other than ultra left wing radical George Soros. See http://www.newswithviews.com/Kincaid/cliff367.htm For a thoroughly disgusting video of Gamaliel members praying to Obama, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUazd8DqcNk Go to www.all.org/cchd...

November 19, 2009                                    Thursday of the Thirty-third Week                                     in Ordinary Time   Reading 1Responsorial PsalmGospel Reading 11 Mc 2:15-29 The officers of the king in charge of enforcing the apostasycame to the city of Modein to organize the sacrifices.Many of Israel joined them,but Mattathias and his sons gathered in a group apart.Then the officers of the king addressed Mattathias:“You are a leader, an honorable and great man in this city,supported by sons and kin.Come now, be the first to obey the king’s command,as all the Gentiles and the men of Judahand...

Part Three:  The Will of God Sixth and Ninth Commandments Table of Contents     In the Catholic version of the Decalogue, the Sixth and Ninth Commandments are coupled together. They both prescribe the practice of chastity. The biblical text for the Sixth Commandment is simply “You shall not commit adultery” in both Exodus 20:14 and Deuteronomy 5:18. But the Ninth Commandment is part of a longer prohibition of covetousness. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his servant, man or woman, or his ox or his donkey, or anything that is his (Exodus...

A Reality Check from the Discipleship Front November 19th, 2009 by Archbishop Charles Chaput What the hell don’t you understand about the term separation of Church and State. Keep your evil hands off of our Health Care Bill. Mind your own business. We don’t care about your beliefs, and if you want to meddle in our affairs, we will be coming for you. If that’s how you want to play, we will come for your pedophile priests, your ill-gotten money you stole for decades. The Catholic church is just another organized crime syndicate that should be put out of business....

November 19 Spiritual Bouquet: For the clean, all things are clean. Titus 1:15 SAINT ELIZABETH of HUNGARYWidow(1207-1231) Elizabeth was the daughter of the just and pious Andrew II, king of Hungary, the niece of Saint Hedwig, and the sister of the virtuous Bela IV, king of Hungary, who became the father of Saint Cunegundes and of Saint Margaret of Hungary, a Dominican nun. Another of her brothers was Coloman, King of Galicia and prince of Russia, who led an angelic life amid the multiple affairs of the world and the troubles of war. She was betrothed in infancy to Louis,...

Spiritual Healing 1377. Why don't you include public healing services in your Catholic ceremonial? Because such services are not in the spirit of Christianity, nor included in the commission given to the Church by Christ. 1378. If you are a Christian Priest, who told you to drop healing? No one ever told me to take it up. 1379. Christ gave us the religion we need, and we need a religion of healing. We do not. We need the religion of Christ. The poor, whether by lack of health or wealth, have always existed, and always will exist, according to Christ....

NEWS AND EVENTS: September 15, 2009 Marian visionary Maria Alfonsina Danil Ghattas to be Beatified November 22 VATICAN CITY, 8 SEP 2009 (VIS) - The Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff today announced that the following rites of beatification, approved by the Holy Father, will take place over the coming months:- Servant of God Eustachio Kugler (ne Joseph), German professed religious of the Hospitaller Order of St. John of God: at 2 p.m. on Sunday 4 October in the cathedral of Regensburg, Germany.- Servant of God Ciriaco Maria Sancha y Hervas, Spanish cardinal and archbishop, founder of the...

On Europe's Cathedrals "Beauty Is a Privileged ... Way to Approach the Mystery of God" VATICAN CITY, NOV. 18, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of Benedict XVI's address today during the general audience, which was held in Paul VI Hall. * * * Dear brothers and sisters, In the catecheses of recent weeks I have presented some aspects of Medieval theology. However Christian faith, profoundly rooted in the men and women of those centuries, did not only give origin to masterpieces of theological literature, of thought and of faith. It also inspired one of the loftiest artistic creations of...