Did you know that the Roman Catacombs were not built to serve as secret churches? The Catacombs were truly just burial places. Just like today’s cemeteries which have chapels on-site, these early burial places also had built in chapels to perform the final blessing of a body before entombment. While Christians were persecuted at various ...read more

Cor ad Cor Loquitur – Heart Speaks unto Heart. That was announced last week as the motto for Pope Benedict XVI’s September visit to the UK. The phrase is an appropriate one — it’s the motto on the coat of arms of Cardinal John Henry Newman. The Holy Father will beatify Cardinal Newman on the ...read more

So far we’ve looked at sin and at the reasons why the Sacrament requires that we confess to a priest. I know some of you still struggle with that. Perhaps going through the ritual will help a bit. Remember that every Sacrament has a ritual – but the Sacrament is not just the ritual. In ...read more

Listening to these people on the streets in Whitehorse made me think a lot about why we celebrate fathers (and mothers) and why it’s important to do so. Not so much that I have to thank my own father for what he’s done for me, my brother and our sisters, what he sacrificed for us ...read more

Love, marriage and children. The three are so intertwined that after a while they become interchangeable. But should they? This week we asked you ” If you could give one piece of parenting advice what would it be?” The answers ranged from “unconditional love” to “read with and to your child”. Gabrielle Suthers writes via ...read more

The Year for Priests officially came to a close last Friday. This week in the Vatican Report, Catholic News Service’s Cindy Wooden and John Thavis highlight some of Pope Benedict XVI’s words during concluding events for the Year. To download Flash Player please click here – CNS photo/Paul Haring ...read more

For the past ten months Archbishop Thomas Collins’ Lectio Divina has been meditating on the parables of Jesus. In the final episode of the season, and appropriate to this Sunday’s Father’s Day, Archbishop Collins meditates on the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). Hearing this parable year after year I had always focused more on the son ...read more

The past two weeks have been a whirlwind adventure through Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. I am overwhelmed by how much I’ve been exposed to and had the opportunity to learn about  in such a relatively short amount of time. I tried to soak everything up from religious affairs, politics, Irish culture, economics, ...read more

Just over a week ago, Pope Benedict returned to the Vatican from his three-day trip to Cyprus. This might be news to some of you. The papal visit was the most under-reported of 2010. Cynics might theorize that the media yawned because there was no apparent clergy sex abuse angle. Just as likely, the relative ...read more

Bishop Don Bolen of Saskatoon was in Rome this week, introducing the priests of his diocese to his former home. In truth they were here for the International Meeting for Priests that wrapped up Thursday in St. Peter’s square. Alas, it’s a long flight from Saskatoon to Rome, so Bishop Bolen and his priests, along ...read more