Pope prays for sick and suffering before Mary (Vatican News) On Wednesday morning, just before 6:15 am, Pope Francis went to Piazza di Spagna for a private act of veneration to Our Lady, on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception liturgically celebrated on 8 December by the Church…
Statue of Mary vandalized outside Washington basilica shrine (WJLA) A case of vandalism at D.C.’s most notable Catholic church has been turned over to police, just days before one of the major feast days for Catholics in the United States. A statue of Our Lady of Fatima outside the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception was vandalized Sunday night, church staff told EWTN reporter Mark Irons. A tweet from Irons stated someone had cut the nose and folded hands off the statue, and the cross on top of the statue’s crown had also been removed…
Indian Catholics seek probe into nun’s suicide (UCANews) A group of Catholics have urged the Conference of Religious India (CRI) to investigate the recent suicide of Sister Mary Mercy, a member of the Franciscan Immaculate Sisters. The Dec. 8 letter addressed to Apostolic Carmel Sister Maria Nirmalini, the newly appointed CRI president, pointed out that the death of Sister Mercy was the latest among “nearly 20 reported suicides since 1987 involving novices and sisters serving in Catholic religious communities mostly in Kerala, a southern state…
Why Filipino Canadians are flocking to permanent diaconate (BC Catholic) Serving the Church is a calling many Filipino Catholic children have in a corner of their heart, which may explain why so many of the Archdiocese of Vancouver’s 34 permanent deacons are Filipino. for most Filipinos, especially those who grew up in the Philippines, a deacon was simply a young man studying to become a priest. So, when the opportunity came for Filipino men to join the ministry, these men prayed, discerned, and then wasted no time in answering the call…
Religious freedom commission welcomes Biden diplomatic boycott of Olympics (CNS) The Biden administration’s diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics in Beijing sends “a strong and unequivocal message” to the Chinese government that its persecution of religious minorities will not be tolerated, said the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. The decision demonstrates the United States’ “unwavering commitment to religious freedom,” Nury Turkel, the commission’s vice chair, said in a Dec. 6 statement…
Andy Warhol’s religious journey (The New Yorker) Born in Pittsburgh, in 1928, and baptized Andrew Warhola, he grew up in a close-knit community of immigrants from Ruthenia, near Poland’s southern border. As a boy, he spent Sunday mornings gazing at Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the saints in the St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church, a congregation that followed the Byzantine rite—the priest hidden behind a wall of icons and incanting in Old Church Slavonic—and he gained a religious sense of the power of images. Religious imagery was prominent at home, too. His mother, Julia, made pen-and-ink drawings of angels; a reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” hung in the hall. (“When you passed it,” he said, “you made a sign of the cross.”)…
