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Our Lady’s Maronite Catholic Church I was raised as a Latin Rite Catholic. I did not hear that there was such a thing as the “Eastern Rite” until I was about 20 years of age. I was attending Christian Brothers College (now Christian Brothers University) in Memphis, Tennessee, and I took a concentration of courses in Religion and Culture (one short of a minor). My father, who was not Catholic, and I were talking about religion one day when he mentioned the Eastern Rite.Like many Catholics I have met since then, I asked what is often the question when someone...

Saint Charbel Makhlouf. Denver, Colo., Jul 22, 2012 / 06:52 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On July 24, the Catholic Church celebrates the life of St. Charbel Makhlouf, a Maronite Catholic priest, monk, and hermit who is known for working miracles both during his life and after his death. On the occasion of his beatification in 1965, the Eastern Catholic hermit was described by Pope Paul VI as “ a new, eminent member of monastic sanctity,” who “through his example and his intercession is enriching the entire Christian people.” Born into humble circumstances in Lebanon during 1828, Yussef Antoun Makhlouf was...

As Christians went forth from Jerusalem they encountered different traditions, cultures, customs and languages, soon the Church became a communion of Churches united in love with each other, looking to the See of Peter in Rome as the first among them all. The Gospel of Christ has reached the four corners of the world. Jesus prayed for their unity, “that they all may be one” (John 17:21). For Catholics united with the Pope in Rome, there is already an amazing unity even within the reality of cultural diversity. The Catholic Church, comprised of twenty-one Eastern Churches and one Western Church,...