Pope: Living the Gospel can change the world (Vatican News) “It is when Christianity takes root in the Gospel that it gives the best of itself to civilization,” while “it loses the best of itself when it ends up corrupting itself and identifying with worldly logic and structures,” writes Pope Francis in an unpublished text that appears in a new book entitled, “Il Cielo sulla terra: Amare e servire per trasformare il mondo” (“Heaven on earth: loving and serving in order to transform the world.”) The volume, which will be published next Tuesday, 24 November, by the Libreria Editrice Vaticana, is part of the ecumenical series “Exchange of Gifts”…
Deacon Art Miller on Black Catholic History Month (CNS) Deacon Art Miller, a cradle Catholic whose grandparents moved from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to the South Side of Chicago, grew up in a segregated society during the 1950s. He was friends with Emmett Till, the 14-year-old who was brutally murdered in Mississippi after being accused of whistling at a white woman. Miller remembers leaving Mass after the white pastor said he did not want Black people coming to his church…
One priest’s mission to have Fr. Emil Kaupin canonized (America) Father Kapaun’s arc from a farm boy educated in a one-room schoolhouse during the Depression to the most decorated chaplain in military history was compelling. His battlefield exploits were the stuff of adventure novels. He dodged the bullets of Chinese soldiers to rescue wounded Americans. He put them on his shoulders and carried them for days over frozen snow in subzero temperatures. In a North Korean prisoner-of-war camp, Father Kapaun kept hundreds of his fellow soldiers alive, and instilled the will to live in thousands more, by stealing food for their shriveled bodies and saying Mass and ministering to their crushed souls. When his captors decided they had had enough of the defiant priest, they removed him from the group. As he was carried away by stretcher—starved, sick and unable to stand—to die alone in a fetid death house, his fellow prisoners wept…
Catholic couple donates hundreds of turkeys for Thanksgiving (CNA) For one Catholic businessman in New York City, Thanksgiving has long been a time of sacrifice and generosity. For each of the past four years, Alphonse Catanese and his wife have donated hundreds of turkeys to needy families in the city. This year, amid the toll of the coronavirus pandemic, the Cataneses have stepped up their giving to ensure the needy of Brooklyn and Queens still get a fitting Thanksgiving dinner. “With the help of God, we’ll continue to do it,” Alphonse told CNA…
