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Norway’s official statistics agency says the country’s Roman Catholic and Muslim communities have added tens of thousands of members in recent years while the state Lutheran Church is declining. Statistics Norway said Friday the number of Catholics has jumped 42 percent since 2012, to 145,000 this year. Membership in Islamic groups rose by 32 percent to 148,000 in the same period. Those figures were not broken down by denomination. …

VATICAN, November 23, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Cardinals Raymond Burke and George Pell will not remain members of the Congregation for Divine Worship, the Vatican has confirmed in a list of the liturgical office's new members. Burke and Pell are known for their Catholic orthodoxy and strongly pro-life and pro-marriage stances. Burke is one of the four cardinals who has formally requested that Pope Francis clarify whether Amoris Laetitia is at odds with Catholic moral teaching. After the cardinals' request went unanswered for two months, the cardinals went public with their concerns. Burke has said cardinals will need to make a...

Run to Jesus! An Advent Reflection Msgr. Charles Pope • November 24, 2016 • The Lord’s coming is near. And though we have all been well taught that the word “Advent” means “coming,” there is the danger that we think that we are only passively waiting for Him to come. It is not just that the Lord is coming to us; we are also journeying to Him. In fact, as the Advent prayers in the Roman Missal instruct, we ought to run, not walk, and hasten to greet Him as He draws near.This notion of running to meet God...

November 25, 2016 Friday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Rv 20:1-4, 11—21:2 I, John, saw an angel come down from heaven,holding in his hand the key to the abyss and a heavy chain.He seized the dragon, the ancient serpent,which is the Devil or Satan,and tied it up for a thousand years and threw it into the abyss,which he locked over it and sealed,so that it could no longer lead the nations astrayuntil the thousand years are completed.After this, it is to be released for a short time. Then I saw thrones; those who sat on...

Did you know that November is Black Catholic History Month?This month, we’re honoring the men and women from Africa who have pioneered the faith! Many forget that Christianity didn’t start in Europe. Black Catholics have had a huge impact on the history and traditions of Christianity. The church has been celebrating Black Catholic History Month since 1990 when the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus of the United States instigated it. November seemed appropriate because it holds special days for two prominent African Catholics: St. Augustine whose birthday is on November 13, and St. Martin de Porres whose feast day...

November 23, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – After months of successful pro-family marches protesting an attempt to amend the constitution to create homosexual “marriage,” Pope Francis’ new apostolic nuncio to Mexico has come with a perplexing message for Mexicans: Don’t march, but rather enter into “dialog” over the gay agenda. Archbishop Franco Coppola, a career diplomat with the Holy See who has served as nuncio to several African countries, arrived in Mexico on September 29. He soon began commenting on the struggle underway in the country over a proposed set of reforms by Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto to amend the constitution...

True Thanksgiving Isn’t Just Something We Do; It’s Something That Happens to Us Msgr. Charles Pope • November 23, 2016 • One of the dangers in presenting New Testament moral teaching is reducing the Gospel to a moralism, a rule to follow using the power of one’s own flesh. This is an incorrect notion because for a Christian, the moral life is not merely achieved; it is received. The moral life is not an imposition; it is a gift from God.The Gospel chosen for Thanksgiving Day features the familiar story of the ten lepers who are healed by Jesus,...

November 24, 2016 Memorial of Saint Andrew Dung-Lac, Priest, and Companions, Martyrs Reading 1 Rv 18:1-2, 21-23; 19:1-3, 9a I, John, saw another angel coming down from heaven,having great authority,and the earth became illumined by his splendor.He cried out in a mighty voice: “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great.She has become a haunt for demons.She is a cage for every unclean spirit,a cage for every unclean bird,a cage for every unclean and disgusting beast.” A mighty angel picked up a stone like a huge millstoneand threw it into the sea and said: “With such force will Babylon the great...

The Real Jesus of Scripture Might Surprise You Msgr. Charles Pope • November 22, 2016 • If we could travel back in time to 30 A.D. and meet the Lord Jesus as He carried forth His public ministry, we might be quite surprised by what we saw. I say this because many of us are heirs to a rather filtered description of Him that is both Western and modern.Most picture Jesus as fair-skinned and slender, with long, straight hair and a gentle beard. This physical reimagining of Him began rather early, gathered steam during the Renaissance, and has come...

November 23, 2016 Wednesday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Rv 15:1-4 I, John, saw in heaven another sign, great and awe-inspiring:seven angels with the seven last plagues,for through them God’s fury is accomplished. Then I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire.On the sea of glass were standing thosewho had won the victory over the beastand its image and the number that signified its name.They were holding God’s harps,and they sang the song of Moses, the servant of God,and the song of the Lamb: “Great and wonderful are your works,Lord God almighty.Just...

Video Link: http://www.churchmilitant.com/video/episode/vortex-the-forgotten-man I will post the transcript below.

New Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark told Crux on Monday that when it comes to the pope’s document Amoris Laetita and its provisions on Communion for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, U.S. bishops should get together and work out a strategy rather than individually asking the pope for clarifications.ROME - I’ve often said that one of the best ways to know you’re getting old in the Catholic Church is when guys you used to pal around with in Roman bars and restaurants start getting named bishops. By that standard, I suppose, the test of getting really old is when those...

CatholicCulture.org has tried to be both accurate and forthright in reporting and commenting on the words and actions of Pope Francis. We have tried to treat Francis as sons; to give Francis the benefit of every doubt; to recognize the complexity of the issues he addresses; to acknowledge the possibility of differences among Catholics of good will; and to interpret his remarks, ideas and initiatives in the best possible light. But we have also been forced to admit the Pope’s shortcomings, and in particular the confusion he causes when the faithful compare what the Church has always asked of them...

With many of the world’s cardinals gathered for the Consistory that added 17 to their number and the closed the Year of Mercy, Rome was abuzz with the story of the four Cardinals who presented a set of yes-or-no questions to the Pope seeking clarity on the Pope’s recent Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia. At the reception for the three new American cardinals at the Pontifical North American College, each was asked about the so-called "dubia" and the Pope’s refusal to answer. Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who recently had the media follow his war of words with Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput over...

November 22, 2016 Memorial of Saint Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr Reading 1 Rv 14:14-19 I, John, looked and there was a white cloud,and sitting on the cloud one who looked like a son of man,with a gold crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand.Another angel came out of the temple,crying out in a loud voice to the one sitting on the cloud,“Use your sickle and reap the harvest,for the time to reap has come,because the earth’s harvest is fully ripe.”So the one who was sitting on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth,and the...

VATICAN CITY, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Pope Francis on Monday extended indefinitely to all Roman Catholic priests the power to forgive abortion, a right previously reserved for bishops or special confessors. Francis, who has made a more inclusive and forgiving Roman Catholic Church a characteristic of his papacy, made the announcement in a document known as an "apostolic letter" after Sunday's close of the Church's "Holy Year of Mercy". He said he wanted to "restate as firmly as I can that abortion is a grave sin, since it puts an end to an innocent life" but "there is no sin...

Why Was Christ Crucified Between Two Thieves? Msgr. Charles Pope • November 20, 2016 • It is good and necessary to ponder more of the Gospel of yesterday’s Solemnity of Christ the King. It remains a profound teaching that Christ was crucified between two thieves. Why?St. Thomas Aquinas proposes three answers to the question. Let’s consider them, with particular emphasis on the third. I. To Identify with Fallen Sinners – St Thomas said, As Christ became accursed of the cross for us, so for our salvation He was crucified as a guilty one among the guilty (Comm. xxxiii in...

November 21, 2016 Memorial of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Reading 1 Rv 14:1-3, 4b-5 I, John, looked and there was the Lamb standing on Mount Zion,and with him a hundred and forty-four thousandwho had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads.I heard a sound from heavenlike the sound of rushing water or a loud peal of thunder.The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps.They were singing what seemed to be a new hymn before the throne,before the four living creatures and the elders.No one could learn this hymn except...

Among the greater mysteries of the New Testament are those surrounding the Mother of God. A large segment of modern Christianity has become tone deaf in this regard, a result of centuries of antagonism towards certain aspects of older tradition. It is a deafness that grieves my heart, primarily in that it represents a great gulf within the broader experience of the faith. A few years after my reception into the Orthodox Church, a friend from my Anglican past asked me if I ever thought of returning. He had no idea of how foreign the thought was to me....

Pope Francis will create 17 new cardinals from across the globe Saturday in a time-honoured ceremony, elevating them to an elite body that advises and elects popes. Three of them are from the US, while others come from corners of the world where the Catholic Church needs a boost. Dressed in red robes, these "princes of the Church" will kneel before the pontiff to pledge their allegiance in a solemn ceremony known as a consistory. Thirteen of them are under 80 and therefore eligible to take part in the next secret conclave to elect or become the head of the...