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Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and his wife plan to attend a mass led by Pope Francis during his visit to Washington, D.C., later this month, according to the Washington Post. Bush aides stressed that the GOP primary candidate intends to leave a “light footprint” on the event. The mass will take place Sept. 23 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. During the service, Pope Francis will canonize Junipero Serra, an 18th-century friar who founded missions in California. It will be the first beatification ceremony to take place in North America. Bush, who converted to...

July 1, 2015  Wednesday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Gn 21:5, 8-20a Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Isaac grew, and on the day of the child’s weaning Abraham held a great feast. Sarah noticed the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham playing with her son Isaac; so she demanded of Abraham: “Drive out that slave and her son! No son of that slave is going to share the inheritance with my son Isaac!” Abraham was greatly distressed, especially on account of his son Ishmael....

Pope Francis celebrates Junipero Serra at Rome's North American College 2015-05-02 Vatican Radio(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Saturday made the short trip to Rome’s Janiculum Hill to the Pontifical North American College, the national seminary for the United States.The College was hosting a day of reflection on Blessed Junipero Serra, the Franciscan missionary to California who will canonized by Pope Francis during his trip to Washington, DC, in September.Pope Francis said during his homily he wanted to discuss three aspect of the life of Blessed Serra – his missionary zeal, his Marian devotion, and his witness of holiness.Pope Francis said...

Pope Francis weighed in on a thorny topic in California history Saturday when he spoke at length at a Rome Mass about Father Junipero Serra, the controversial California mission founder set to become America's first Latino saint later this year. Addressing an audience that included many American priests, including Los Angeles Archbishop Jose H. Gomez, the pope referred to the 18th century Franciscan priest as “one of the founding fathers of the United States” and praised his willingness to abandon the comforts and privileges of his native Spain to spread the Christian message in the New World. I wonder if...

Santa Cruz, Calif., May 9, 2012 / 07:09 am (CNA).- The parishioners of Holy Cross Church and the Diocese of Monterey, Calif. are “shocked and saddened” after a Sunday vandalism spree damaged irreplaceable items like a baptismal font that the famous missionary Bl. Junipero Serra brought to the area in 1791.“The Diocese of Monterey is deeply saddened by the apparent hate crime committed against Holy Cross Church in Santa Cruz last weekend,” diocese spokesman Deacon Warren Hoy told CNA May 8.Damage affected the church, the attached Mission Santa Cruz Museum and the parish’s ministry and outreach building Siena House....

A vandal or vandals caused widespread damage at Holy Cross Church early Sunday in what police are investigating as a possible hate crime. The damaged items included a baptismal font brought to Mission Santa Cruz by Junipero Serra in the late 1700s, a church spokesman said... A custodian discovered the destruction to the main church and other areas on the property about 6:50 a.m., ...It included windows shattered by rocks and paint sprayed and poured on doors, walls, statues, a fountain area and sidewalks, Friend said. Some anti-church slogans and symbols were painted, he said. Targets included the main church,...

LOS ANGELES - A Muslim fundamentalist was sentenced to nearly five years in state prison for vandalizing religious statues at a Roman Catholic church and stealing hundreds of magazines from a mosque. Emad Ibrahim Saad, 35, of Los Angeles, was sentenced Tuesday to 56 months in prison for vandalism, theft and hate crimes. Saad fired several attorneys and insisted on representing himself at his trial. However, on the last day of the trial, he refused to leave his jail cell and show up for court. Prosecutors said Saad decapitated a Virgin Mary statue, cut off the hand of a statue...

<p>Police arrest LA man for allegedly vandalizing churches By Christina Almeida Associated Press Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A man suspected of vandalizing three Roman Catholic churches and placing a stolen religious statue near a mosque with material saying, "Allah is the only true God" has been arrested. Emad Ibrahim Saad, 35, of Los Angeles, was arrested Thursday and booked for investigation of vandalizing a place of worship, said police Det. Kurt Wachter. He was jailed in lieu of $70,000 bail, pending a Monday arraignment. He remained in jail Friday. Among the sites Saad is suspected of vandalizing is St. Augustine Church in Culver City. There, a statue of the Virgin Mary was beheaded and one of Father Juniperro Serra, founder of California's early missions, was ripped from its pedestal and taken to a nearby mosque. Authorities say Saad is also suspected of stealing Islamic literature from a Los Angeles mosque and leaving it behind at the vandalized churches in Culver City and Los Angeles. He was arrested by Culver City and Los Angeles police Thursday morning as he distributed Islamic literature in the suburban city adjacent to Los Angeles. Wachter said authorities believe Saad acted on his own and was not part of a larger group. Maher Hathout, a senior adviser for the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said whoever committed the crimes violated the tenets of Islam. "This is an act contrary to the spirit and the teaching of Islam," he said. Earlier this week, Cardinal Roger Mahony cautioned against a rush to judgment, saying the vandal or vandals could be taking advantage of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to cause rifts between Catholics and Muslims. "We have to continue to be people of faith, and, most important, we have to trust each other," he said.</p>

Blessed Junípero Serra1713 - 1784[ Chronology | The Man | Biography | Birth to Missionary | Travels ]  Chronology 1713. . Miguel Jose Serra, born at Petra on the Island of Mallorca, Spain.1729. . At the age of 16 he entered the service of the Catholic Church. He soon entered the Order of St. Francis of Assisi, and and took a new first name, Junípero, that of St. Francis' beloved original companion friar.1749. . Father Serra volunteered to serve the Franciscan missions in the new world. He left Cadiz, Spain and sailed for Vera Cruz, Mexico, at the age al...

SAINTLY SKETCH The Significance of Blessed Junípero Serra by Gerard Beigel, S.T.D. In the providence of God, Mission San Carlos Borromeo was destined to hold the remains of the Franciscan priest who planted the Gospel of Jesus Christ in California: Blessed Junípero Serra. It is only a matter of time, please God, before he will be canonized as a saint of the Church. As someone who is already beatified, he is held up to the faithful as a model of heroic Christian virtue. Let us reflect upon the spiritual character of this man who continues to influence the Church....

Bl. Junípero Serra and the Holy Family Sean FitzpatrickOn September 25th, 1988, Pope St. John Paul II beatified a swarthy, Spanish, asthmatic priest of small stature who was a dazzling scholar, a tireless apostle, and the founder of many missionaries from San Diego to San Francisco—Junípero Serra, who walked the western desert to irrigate souls with the water that becomes a spring welling up to eternal life.Born Miguel Jose Serra Ferrer on November 14, 1730, in Petra, Majorca, Spain, this servant of God and God’s people became a Franciscan after a brilliant career as a scholar of philosophy, taking...

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Surprising even the people who have been promoting the sainthood cause of Blessed Junipero Serra, Pope Francis announced Jan. 15 that in September, he hopes to canonize the 18th-century Spanish Franciscan who founded a string of missions across Mexico and California. Blessed Serra is credited with directly founding nine missions in California, one in Baja California in Mexico and with reinvigorating established missions in Mexico. Friars under his tutelage founded many others across California, in territory that was then part of New Spain. The vice postulator for Blessed Serra's sainthood cause, Franciscan Father John Vaughn, told Catholic...

The statue of Father Junipero Serra (Far Left) inside the National Statuary Hall in Washington D.C. Washington D.C., Feb 10, 2015 / 04:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Just weeks after Pope Francis announced his intention to canonize missionary Father Junipero Serra during his upcoming visit to the states, a California legislator has proposed replacing the soon-to-be-saint's statue in the U.S. Capitol – but critics of the move are beginning to speak out. “I certainly wouldn't endorse it,” Monsignor Francis J. Weber, an author and historian of 18th century missionary, told CNA Feb. 6. Father Serra helped establish the California missions, many...

Featured Term (selected at random):SERRA INTERNATIONAL An organization under Catholic leadership whose purpose is to foster vocations to the priesthood and the religious life. Aggregated since 1951 to the Pontifical Society for Priestly Vocations. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

          A Brief History of Serra International . . . The year was 1934; the place was Seattle, Washington, and four Catholic friends had an idea. They decided to meet regularly over a meal to discuss how their Christian values could be lived out in their professional lives. Soon more friends were joining them, and within several months they had decided on an additional focus: the encouraging of vocations to the priesthood and religious life. They chose Padre Junipero Serra, the noted Spanish missionary, as patron.This small group has grown into Serra International. Serrans today are still...

The wall footings, foundation and floor of the oldest Christian house of worship in California were found during grading work on Monterey's San Carlos Cathedral on Monday. The "third chapel" of the Royal Presidio of Monterey was a rectangular adobe building located directly in front of the present stone church, according to archaeologist Ruben Mendoza of CSU-Monterey Bay. The chapel was built in 1772 after the first two chapels — a lean-to made of brush and a later log pole structure with a thatched roof — burned down. Historian Gary Breschini, writing on the Monterey County Historical Society Web site,...

Featured Term selected at random:CALIFORNIA MISSIONS The parish centers established among the American Indians by Catholic missionaries from Spain. Three sets of missions were founded, in sequence, by the Jesuits and Dominicans in Lower California (now Mexico), and by the Franciscans in Upper California (now the United States). The Jesuit missions and the years of their foundation, beginning from south to north, were: San José del Cabo (1730); Santiago de las Coras (1721); San Juan de Ligní (1705); Nuestra Señora de los Dolores del Sur (1721); Nuestra Señora del Pilar (1720); Santa Rosa or Todos Santos (1733); San Luis Gonzaga...

When one reads the new atheists, one gets the impression that the influence of Christianity has been entirely baleful, that Christianity’s contribution to morality has been entirely negative, and that the United States, far from being a Christian country historically, is really the finest flower of the anti-religious Enlightenment, and that we therefore ought to stamp out all public manifestations of Christianity, which will most likely wither away anyway as Americans become as sensible as contemporary Britons and Scandinavians. These peculiar beliefs often find expression in lawsuits trying to suppress all public expressions of Christianity. It is therefore with some...

In January 2005, GOP state Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth (R-La Mesa), while in Washington, D.C., for the Inauguration of President Bush, toured Statuary Hall in the national Capitol with Congressman Duncan Hunter. Each of the 50 states provides Statuary Hall a pair of statues honoring notable persons from the state. California’s statues are of Father Junipero Serra and Thomas Starr King. Father Serra, of course, is well known. King, who lived from 1824 to 1864, was a Unitarian minister, lecturer, and orator credited with playing a prominent role in keeping California in the Union during the Civil War. Taking nothing away...

July 1, 2008                                 Tuesday of the Thirteenth Week                                 in Ordinary Time       Reading 1Responsorial PsalmGospel Reading 1Am 3:1-8; 4:11-12 Hear this word, O children of Israel, that the LORD pronounces over you,over the whole family that I brought up from the land of Egypt: You alone have I favored, more than all the families of the earth;Therefore I will punish youfor all your crimes. Do two walk togetherunless they have agreed?Does a lion roar in the forestwhen it has no prey?Does a...