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Our Lady of Good Counsel   by Zsolt Aradi The majesty of the Roman countryside has remained unchanged for centuries. Just to the south of the city rise the famous Castelli Romani, the Roman Castles, the popular name given to the hills and townships in Rome's immediate neighborhood. These hills are studded with the palaces of the once rich nobility of Rome who leave the city whenever the depressive and humid scirocco hits the Eternal City. The Castelli Romani are still a part of Rome, yet once we enter that district around Palestrina, popularly called Ciociaria, we are in a...

Dario Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos, President Emeritus of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei," is the Celebrant and Homilist at an extraordinary form Mass at the National Shrine, Upper Church, Saturday, April 24, 2010, 1:00pm. This is surely the first time in the post-conciliar period (corrections welcome). Here is the item....

The city's new archbishop gave the city's oldest Catholic cathedral a surprise gift for its 200th birthday. Archbishop Timothy Dolan will ask the Pope to bestow the title of basilica on Little Italy's St. Patrick's Old Cathedral, which began its bicentennial celebration on Sunday. The venerable Mott St. church would be the first in the Archdiocese of New York to get the prestigious designation, given only to churches of the highest historic and spiritual significance. "I just think it deserves it," said Dolan, who made the surprise announcement from the altar while celebrating a bicentennial Mass yesterday. "I'm so proud...

The group walked along Route 116 with a red banner bearing a lion and a cross. Some carried rosaries. Some prayed. Some chatted with their friends, while others just quietly reflected It was a 41/2-hour trek, spanning 13 miles. There was plenty of time for all of it. Walking under the hot sun, 13 members of the Spring Grove chapter of Tradition, Family and Property made a pilgrimage Monday morning to Sacred Heart Basilica in Conewago Township.... And, their goal was to pray the rosary for the family structure in America at the country's oldest stone church, and the first...

...[T]he Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter ended their annual pilgrimage of reparation with a Solemn High Mass in the Crypt Church of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Fr. Jonathan Romanoski, FSSP, assisted by his brother priests and seminarians of the Priestly Fraternity, offered the first Solemn High Traditional Latin Mass in the Crypt Church in over 40 years. It truly was a memorable occasion. Father Romanoski had been ordained only the week before on 30 May 2008 by Dario Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos in Lincoln, Nebraska. The main altar of the Crypt Church before Mass. The...

Everybody has been asking for the liturgical update from Rome and so here's the scoop: all is upbound! The F.S.S.P. continue with their Rome chapel of San Gregorio dei Muratori. This chapel is the only location in all of Rome where one can attend a Solemn High Mass sung in the Tridentine rite every Sunday (http://www.fssp-roma.org/). Meanwhile, there is now a daily Tridentine rite Mass celebrated each morning at eight o'clock at the Patriarchal Basilica of Saint Mary Major. The Mass is celebrated by a canon of the Basilica. At the same time, in recent months, flashy new Tridentine...

Friday, August 03, 2007 In Charm City, 100K Have Seen the Light When he announced plans for a stem-to-stern restoration of the US' first cathedral, Baltimore's Basilica of the Assumption, Cardinal William Keeler was met with no small amount of intense criticism. Neighborhood groups railed against the removal of the century-old stained glass as some of his presbyterate griped that the cardinal had proposed what one cleric deemed "a monument to himself." Ever the wise student of history, Keeler forged ahead anyway with the two-year, $35 million project. And since its completion in November, every outcome he foresaw at...

? THE DEDICATION OF THE CHURCH OF OUR SAVIOUR (COMMONLY CALLED ST JOHN LATERAN) Feast: November 9 From the beginning of the world altars were erected for offering sacrifices to God, and the places which were deputed for this supreme act of religion were always looked upon as sacred. Abel, Noe, Abraham, and the other patriarchs raised altars in retired and sanctified places, where they some times assembled their families or tribes to pay to God the most solemn religious worship. Abraham, to make the place more awful and retired, planted a grove round his altar at Beersabe,[1] and...

"Solemn Sacred Music an Important Means of Participation in Worship" REGENSBURG, Germany, SEPT. 13, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Here is a Vatican translation of the address Benedict XVI delivered today in the Basilica of Our Lady of the Old Chapel ("Alte Kapelle"), of which his brother, Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, was director. During the visit, the Pope blessed the new organ. * * * This venerable house of God, the Basilica of "Our Lady of the Old Chapel," has been splendidly refurbished and today receives a new organ, which will now be blessed and solemnly dedicated to its proper aim: the glorification of...

WASHINGTON -- A crescendo of applause and alleluias greeted the Most Rev. Donald Wuerl as he followed a procession of priests and bishops into the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception to be installed as archbishop of Washington. Three thousand people filled the largest Catholic church in the Western Hemisphere to welcome him. They ranged from U.S. senators to recent immigrants. Metropolitan Maximos of the Greek Orthodox Diocese of Pittsburgh accompanied Archbishop Demetrios of North America as representatives of the Orthodox tradition. "In an age that so desperately needs to hear the gospel of life, to witness...

November 9, 2005Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome Psalm: Wednesday 48 Reading IEz 47:1-2, 8-9, 12 The angel brought meback to the entrance of the temple,and I saw water flowing outfrom beneath the threshold of the temple toward the east,for the façade of the temple was toward the east;the water flowed down from the southern side of the temple,south of the altar.He led me outside by the north gate,and around to the outer gate facing the east,where I saw water trickling from the southern side.He said to me,“This water flows into the eastern district down upon...

BALTIMORE -- Four faces hidden since the Civil War emerged during renovations at the National Shrine of the Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, America's first cathedral. The 19th century shrine is closed for $32 million worth of renovations -- an overhaul that recently uncovered something priceless.

On Wednesday something very special happened at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. For the first time in US history – for the first time in all of history for that matter – a sitting president of the United States led a delegation from the US to The Vatican to pay their last respects to a great spiritual leader and honor the legacy of a visionary whose calling lead him to the reverence and preservation of human dignity. The US delegation, led by the president, included First Lady Laura Bush, the president’s father President George H.W. Bush, President Bill Clinton, Secretary...

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- John Paul's earthly remains lay clothed in crimson vestments, his head on golden pillows and adorned with a white bishop's miter. His hands held a rosary, a pastoral staff was tucked under his left forearm. Swiss Guards stood watch on either side. Karol Joseph Wojtyla was finally at peace, the lines of pain erased from his face after years of crippling disease. ''It was very satisfying for all of us to see him so serene,'' said Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, one of many church officials, diplomats and politicians who paid their respects at the...

CHENNAI (ICNS) – The tsunami waves have subsided, but a miracle is being talked about across Chennai. It is the story of how St Thomas’ miraculous post kept the invading waves away, sparing the newly renovated Santhome Cathedral. The Cathedral, the world’s second basilica built on an apostle’s tomb, has been giving shelter to hundreds of tsunami victims ever since the waves ravaged many buildings across the coast. But even though the killer tsunami waves devastated the Chennai coast, Father Lawrence Raj, the parish priest of the Santhome Cathedral Basilica, says “the sea did not touch our church.” The reason?...

November 18, 2004Thursday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time Reading IRev 5:1-10 I, John, saw a scroll in the right hand of the one who sat on the throne.It had writing on both sides and was sealed with seven seals.Then I saw a mighty angel who proclaimed in a loud voice,"Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?"But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earthwas able to open the scroll or to examine it.I shed many tears because no one was found worthyto open the scroll or to examine it.One of the...

November 9, 2004Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome Reading IEz 47:1-2, 8-9, 12 The angel brought meback to the entrance of the temple,and I saw water flowing outfrom beneath the threshold of the temple toward the east,for the façade of the temple was toward the east;the water flowed down from the southern side of the temple,south of the altar.He led me outside by the north gate,and around to the outer gate facing the east,where I saw water trickling from the southern side.He said to me,"This water flows into the eastern district down upon the Arabah,and empties...

August 5, 2004 Thursday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time Psalm: Thursday 34 Reading I Responsorial Psalm Gospel Reading IJer 31:31-34 The days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers: the day I took them by the hand to lead them forth from the land of Egypt; for they broke my covenant, and I had to show myself their master, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will...

Italy Thwarts Basilica Attack Plot Tue Aug 20, 2:43 PM ET A Moroccan man is shown walking in the San Patronio Basilica in Bologna, northern Italy, in this picture taken from a home video seized Monday by Italian authorities and made available Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2002, during a press conference. Four Moroccans and an Italian, left, whose names were not made public, were arrested Monday under the suspiscion of terrorism after they filmed themselves near the central altar and the frescoes in the basilica. (AP Photo/Gianfilippo Oggioni, HO) By FRANCES D'EMILIO, Associated Press Writer ROME (AP) - Italian police arrested...

Georgian archeologists discover basilica of middle ages Posted: 05/07/04 Georgian archeologists have discovered a monastery complex of the middle ages in the south-west of the village Bakuriani, at the 1700 m of the Black Sea altitude. The archeologists were working on the 185 km of the Baku-Tbilisi-Geyhan pipeline traffic. Givi Ghambashidze, chief of the Tsikhijvari archeological expedition, said that they have found a massive stone wall, in the interior of which they discovered basilica cells, important ceramic utensils, remains of the building. The scientists have studied a third of the monastery. The archeological research center at the Georgian Academy of...