Browsing News Entries

Browsing News Entries

Where Charity and Love Are, God Is There

Mark Bradford

Our Holy Thursday self-reflection begins. Jesus asks us to love as he loves, celebrate the priesthood, and honor the gift of the Eucharist.

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Bishop Robert Barron

DGR Eng

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus washes the disciples’ feet. He is giving them a visual proclamation of his new commandment: “Love one another.

Are We in a Post-Truth World?

Rachel Lu

Pilate with Jesus in front of the crowd

When the social and political order becomes sufficiently detached from any reliable source, what is truth anyway?

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Bishop Robert Barron

DGR Eng

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus asks his disciples to go into Jerusalem and prepare a Passover supper.

Evidence of the Resurrection

Bishop Robert Barron

Angel_Resurrection_Easter

Friends, a very happy and blessed Easter! We come to the climax of the Church’s year, the feast of feasts, the very reason for being of Christianity.

Bishop Burbidge Invites Faithful to Prayer as Supreme Court Hears Case on Abortion Drugs

WASHINGTON – “Abortion is not health care, and no child should experience such violence,” said Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington. As the Supreme Court of the United States hears oral argument in Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, Bishop Burbidge, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Pro-Life Activities said today, “With dangerous abortion drugs now making up the majority of abortions and increasing in use, we pray that the Supreme Court will restore the Food and Drug Administration’s safeguards for the health of women and protect more preborn children.” His full statement follows:

“With dangerous abortion drugs now making up the majority of abortions and increasing in use, we pray that the Supreme Court will restore the Food and Drug Administration’s safeguards for the health of women and protect more preborn children. The FDA’s diminishing safety standards in recent years means that a woman, for example, can now be led to order a chemical abortion pill online without seeing a doctor in person to make sure that she does not have a complicating condition and that she has not been pregnant for longer than the approved ten-week limit.

“Abortion is not health care, and no child should experience such violence. At the same time, a vulnerable mother who obtains an abortion must not be left alone without medical care afterwards.  In addition, we ourselves are to make present to her God’s mercy and love, which are, as we see especially now in Holy Week, without end.

“Yesterday, on the eve of oral argument, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the USCCB, and I made an invitation to prayer for an end to abortion and for the protection of women and preborn children. We encourage you to join in this prayer until the Court’s decision, and to search for ways in your community to help support mothers in need and make abortion unthinkable.”

The USCCB submitted an amicus brief in this case in February. Archbishop Broglio’s and Bishop Burbidge’s invitation to prayer may be found at https://www.usccb.org/prolife/nationwide-invitation-prayer. For more information on chemical abortion drugs, visit https://www.usccb.org/chemical-abortion-fact-sheets.

###

Pope writes meditations for Via Crucis at Colosseum, Vatican says

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- For the first time in his 11-year papacy, Pope Francis has chosen to write his own meditations for the Good Friday Way of the Cross service at Rome's Colosseum, the head of the Vatican press office said.

For the service March 29, Pope Francis has chosen the theme "In prayer with Jesus on the way of the cross," Matteo Bruni, the press office director, told reporters March 26.

St. John Paul II began a tradition in 1985 of entrusting the writing of the meditations to cardinals and other church personalities, well-known writers or groups of people, including young people and journalists. However, he wrote the reflections himself for the Colosseum ceremony during the Holy Year 2000.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote the meditations for Good Friday 2005, less than a month before being elected Pope Benedict XVI. Throughout his pontificate, though, he entrusted the drafting to different people each year.

Pope Francis at the Colosseum
Pope Francis leads the Way of the Cross outside the Colosseum in Rome April 15, 2022. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

The meditations in 2023 focused on the theme, "Voices of peace in a world at war." Several dicasteries of the Roman Curia formulated the prayers and meditations drawing from comments made at meetings with Pope Francis by people suffering from a lack of peace.

Pope Francis has asked Catholics to observe 2024 as a year of prayer in preparation for the Holy Year 2025.

The choice of "in prayer with Jesus" as the theme for the Way of the Cross, Bruni told reporters, is an indication that it will be "an act of meditation and spirituality with Jesus at the center."

Vatican News reported the meditations will have fewer direct references to current events than many previous editions had when migrants and refugees, victims of trafficking or people from countries at war helped write or inspired the reflections.

Bruni also told reporters that as of March 26 Pope Francis was still planning on attending the service. However, the weather and the pope's health will be the deciding factors. Released from the hospital just five days before Good Friday 2023, Pope Francis did not go to the Colosseum.

 

We Can Console Jesus

Michael Adams

Jesus on the cross

We are capable of consoling and offering our hearts as libations to Jesus on the cross so he may find solace and be satiated by our love.

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Bishop Robert Barron

DGR Eng

Friends, today’s Gospel is from John’s account of the Last Supper, where Jesus acknowledges Judas as his betrayer and tells him to get on with it.

Young people are the living hope of a missionary church, pope says

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Young people need to understand how much Christ loves them unconditionally and how much the church needs their voices and presence, Pope Francis said.

"Dear young people, you are the living hope of a Church on the move! For this reason, I thank you for your presence and for your contribution to the life of the Body of Christ," the pope told the world's young people in a written message.

The pope's message was released by the Vatican March 25 to mark the fifth anniversary of his apostolic exhortation "Christus Vivit" ("Christ is Alive"), published in 2019 and reflecting on the 2018 Synod of Bishops on young people, the faith and vocational discernment.

Pope Francis said he wanted to reach out again to young people with a message that could be "a source of renewed hope for you."

Christ is alive, he said in his message, and "his love for you is unaffected by your failings or your mistakes. He gave his life for you, so in his love for you he does not wait for you to be perfect."

"Walk with him as with a friend, welcome him into your life and let him share all the joys and hopes, the problems and struggles of this time in your lives," the pope wrote. "You will see that the path ahead will become clearer and that your difficulties will be much less burdensome, because he will be carrying them with you."

Pope Francis at World Youth Day 2023
Pope Francis, accompanied by an international group of World Youth Day pilgrims, waves to the crowd before beginning the WYD prayer vigil at Tejo Park in Lisbon, Portugal, Aug. 5, 2023. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)

"In today's world, marked by so many conflicts and so much suffering, I suspect that many of you feel disheartened. So together with you, I would like to set out from the proclamation that is the basis of our hope and that of all humanity: 'Christ is alive!'" he wrote, and "he loves you with an infinite love."

"How greatly I want this proclamation to reach every one of you, for you to accept it as living and true in your own lives, and feel the desire to share it with your friends!" the pope wrote.

Pope Francis noted that April 14 will mark the 40th anniversary of the first great gathering of young people that, during St. John Paul II's Holy Year of the Redemption, "was the seed of the future World Youth Days."

Pope Francis recalled his first World Youth Day as pope in Rio de Janeiro in 2013, and how "I urged you to make your voices heard! 'Hagan lio!' Make a mess!"

"Today, once again, I ask you: make your voices heard! Proclaim, not so much in words but by your life and your heart, the truth that Christ is alive! And in this way, help the whole Church to get up and set out ever anew to bring his message to the entire world," he wrote.

He encouraged young people to never "leave us without your good way of 'making a mess,' your drive, like that of a clean and well-tuned engine, and your own particular way of living and proclaiming the joy of the risen Jesus!"