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Gregory III Laham, the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem and All the East, has proudly declared: “We, the Arab Christians, always defend Islam and our Muslim brothers – no one defends Islam like the Arab Christians do.”

January 26, 2016 Memorial of Saints Timothy and Titus, Bishops Reading 1 2 Tm 1:1-8 Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of Godfor the promise of life in Christ Jesus,to Timothy, my dear child:grace, mercy, and peace from God the Fatherand Christ Jesus our Lord. I am grateful to God,whom I worship with a clear conscience as my ancestors did,as I remember you constantly in my prayers, night and day.I yearn to see you again, recalling your tears,so that I may be filled with joy, as I recall your sincere faiththat first lived in your grandmother...

Monday is the beginning of National School Choice Week, featuring over 16,000 organized events across the country, an attempt to take on the anti-choice progressive left in America, the Democrat Party that prefers a government monopoly in the nation's school system in order to continue brainwashing children with their godless and anti-American Marxist ideology. Constitutional conservative presidential candidate Ted Cruz, a long proponent of school choice in America, came out with a video both celebrating and supporting school choice on Monday - calling it the "civil rights issue of the 21st century."...

Defining Ministry or Muddling It? A Reflection on an Article "Assigned" to Me Msgr. Charles Pope -- January 24, 2016 -- Recently one of my readers sent me a collection of sayings or proverbs on the topic of ministry. The collection is entitled Defining Ministry. The reader, who apparently does not think I follow modern trends very well, scolded me for being out-of-touch and recommended that I review the list. That reader apparently believes that those "proverbs" describe what I should be like, but am not.I took my "assignment" seriously and read each one of the sayings. And I'm...

January 25, 2016 Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, Apostle Reading 1 Acts 22:3-16 Paul addressed the people in these words:"I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia,but brought up in this city.At the feet of Gamaliel I was educated strictly in our ancestral lawand was zealous for God, just as all of you are today.I persecuted this Way to death,binding both men and women and delivering them to prison.Even the high priest and the whole council of elderscan testify on my behalf.For from them I even received letters to the brothersand set out for Damascus to...

Stranded on buses overnight by a monster snowstorm that has shut down parts of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, hundreds of Catholic high school students from Nebraska and elsewhere nevertheless seemed to have things relatively in hand this afternoon. Returning from Washington D.C., where they took part Friday in the annual March for Life, they at least had food and water on board, said Tim McNeil, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Omaha. A nearby maintenance building gave them access to bathrooms. And while there was nothing resembling a chapel anywhere near the cars, buses and trucks stopped westbound between the Bedford and...

* See above slide show of 22 photos sent to LifeSiteNews from pro-lifer marchers at the scene. Click on blue arrows to advance photos.* Update 9:10 p.m. Sat: This just now from Mandie DeVries who has two middle school girls and a four month old baby. She said baby is sleeping peacefully. Dubuque County RTL bus started moving at 7 pm. Iowans for LIFE bus about 40 min later. The backup was said then to be 32 miles long and some won't get out tonight. No idea about any of the many others PENNSYLVANIA TURNPIKE, January 23, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) –...

On The Wonder of the Word of God -- A Homily for the Third Sunday of the Year Msgr. Charles Pope- January 23, 2016 - The gospel for this Sunday is continued next week, so I will postpone the analysis of it until then. Instead, I will focus on the first reading, from Nehemiah 8. It is a wonderful meditation on the glory and wonder of the Word of God and it deserves our attention.The background of the text is that in 587 BC, Israel had been conquered by the Babylonians and the survivors of the war were led...

A post on Facebook describes the scene: Amazing site from Pennsylvania. Dowling Catholic [High School, in Iowa] students stuck on the Pennsylvania Turnpike meet kids on the bus from Missouri. They have a priest. And create a snow altar for mass in the middle of this stand still. Very proud of all you Dowling Catholic students.WBAY from Green Bay reports on another stranded band of marchers: A group of 150 people from the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay, mostly students, is stranded in their buses by the East Coast blizzard.The group was in Washington, DC, for the "March for...

January 24, 2016 Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Neh 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10 Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly,which consisted of men, women,and those children old enough to understand.Standing at one end of the open place that was before the Water Gate,he read out of the book from daybreak till midday,in the presence of the men, the women,and those children old enough to understand;and all the people listened attentively to the book of the law.Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that had been made for the occasion.He opened the scrollso that all the...

Vatican City, Jan 23, 2016 / 04:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The martyrdom of a 16th-century Samurai who died for his Catholic faith was approved this week by Pope Francis, making the Japanese warrior one among nine other causes that advanced toward sainthood. Takayama Ukon was born in 1552 in Japan during the time when Jesuit missionaries were becoming introduced within the country. By the time Takayama was 12, his father had converted to Catholicism and had his son baptized as "Justo" by the Jesuit Fr. Gaspare di Lella. Takayama's position in Japanese society as daimyo allowed him many benefits, such...

God in Winter -- Finding God in the Falling Snow Msgr. Charles Pope - January 22, 2016 - Holy Comforter Church Washington DCIt's snowing today in Washington, D.C. and I had a beautiful walk coming back from the March for Life this afternoon. Tonight I will enjoy another walk through the winter wonderland.Not everyone likes snow but it is an amazing work of God. He takes a barren winter landscape and creates it anew. I can almost hear the Lord saying, "Behold, I make all things new!"In the modern world we often walk past the glory of God hardly...

January 23, 2016 Saturday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 2 Sm 1:1-4, 11-12, 19, 23-27 David returned from his defeat of the Amalekites and spent two days in Ziklag.On the third day a man came from Saul's camp, with his clothes torn and dirt on his head.Going to David, he fell to the ground in homage.David asked him, "Where do you come from?"He replied, "I have escaped from the camp of the children of Israel.""Tell me what happened," David bade him.He answered that many of the soldiers had fled the battle and that many of...

Does anybody, anywhere, believe that the HHS Mandate was ever intended to be anything other than a deliberate attack on the Catholic Church?Anyone?The duplicitous way that the Mandate was handled from day one should have convinced most Americans that shenanigans were afoot.The Mandate was drafted in closed-door meetings of a committee of abortion industry insiders. It violated promises that the President of the United States made to Congress in order to pass Obamacare.The administration rolled it out with an orchestrated apologia from the pandering press. Equally pandering organizations such as the ACLU joined in with assurances that the Mandate...

Relics which escaped Reformation and became a symbol of resistance to Communism return to site of murder after 800 years in gesture of unity between Anglicans and CatholicsA fragment of bone believed to come from the body of Thomas Becket is to return to England from Hungary for the first time in more than 800 years in a vivid symbol of reconciliation between Anglicans and Roman Catholics. The relic, held in the Basilica of Esztergom, the country's most important Catholic church, is to form the centrepiece of an elaborate week-long "pilgrimage" to London and Canterbury involving the Hungarian President Janos...

The Miracle of Life Msgr. Charles Pope • January 21, 2016 • We March today with cold weather and possible snow bearing down on the area. The coldest march I ever endured was back in the mid 1980s when the temperature was 4 degrees, and there were 15 inches of snow. It was so cold that year that Regan's Second Inaugural outside was cancelled the day before and moved inside. The next day when it was even colder we marched!But the Sacrifice is worth it, for he magnificence of life is really too wonderful too describe. I found this...

January 22, 2016 Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children Reading 1 1 Sm 24:3-21 Saul took three thousand picked men from all Israel and went in search of David and his men in the direction of the wild goat crags.When he came to the sheepfolds along the way, he found a cave, which he entered to relieve himself.David and his men were occupying the inmost recesses of the cave. David's servants said to him, "This is the day of which the LORD said to you, 'I will deliver your enemy into your grasp; do with him...

Washington The annual March for Life, set for Jan. 22, will convene in a new location in the nation's capital for the traditional midday rally. Because of the ongoing refurbishment of the National Mall and strict new regulations that require temporary flooring to protect the grass, the rally has been moved from the West Front of the Capitol to the Washington Monument grounds. "We were lucky to get that. It's going to cost us $70,000, and it's not something we budgeted for," said Jeanne Monahan-Mancini, president of March for Life. "It's the most economical wide-open space we could afford." Other...

"Everyone Is Looking for You" -- A Meditation on a Short Sentence from Scripture Msgr. Charles Pope January 20, 2016 There is a brief line in the first chapter of Mark's Gospel that simply and completely sums up what we all are doing, even if we're not aware of it. The setting of the passage is the outskirts of Capernaum in the early morning.The prior day Jesus had healed a great many people at the house of Simon Peter. As the new day dawned there was already a multitude gathered in hopes of seeing this healer. Word must have...

January 21, 2016 Memorial of Saint Agnes, Virgin and Martyr Reading 1 1 Sm 18:6-9; 19:1-7 When David and Saul approached(on David's return after slaying the Philistine), women came out from each of the cities of Israel to meet King Saul,singing and dancing, with tambourines, joyful songs, and sistrums.The women played and sang: "Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands." Saul was very angry and resentful of the song, for he thought:"They give David ten thousands, but only thousands to me.All that remains for him is the kingship."And from that day on, Saul was jealous of...