Fifteen thousand priests, 350 bishops and 80 cardinals joined Pope Benedict today in celebrating the closing Mass of the Year for Priests. It’s the largest concelebration ever held at the Vatican. The Holy Father did not shy away from addressing the clerical sexual abuse scandal in his homily.  He brought it up early explaining that ...read more

Pope Benedict led priests in a consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The consecration occurred at the end of the concluding Mass for the Year for Priests, while the Holy Father knelt before an icon of our Blessed Mother. See the consecration below: CONSECRATION TO THE IMMACULATE HEART OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY Immaculate ...read more

When I was growing up, the only thing that could possibly put a damper on a Sunday Beach day was fulfilling our Sunday obligation… on Saturday night. Like many Catholics in the summertime, our family took advantage of the Saturday night Mass option in order to maximize outdoor time together at the family cottage or ...read more

Only about 3% of the population of Cyprus is Catholic. But the small community received a big boost last weekend when Pope Benedict XVI became the first Pope to visit the Mediterranean island. This week in the Vatican Report, Catholic News Service’s Cindy Wooden and John Thavis highlight the Holy Father’s visit to Cyprus. To ...read more

How can we fail to be moved when we recall that the gift of our priestly ministry flows directly from this heart?  How can we forget that we priests were consecrated to serve, humbly yet authoritatively, the common priesthood of the faithful?  Ours is an mission which is indispensable for the Church and for the ...read more

Are you aware of the persecutions endured by our Eastern Catholic brothers and sisters, in the past and at present? In his May 28th National Catholic Reporter article, John Allen writes of the Greek Catholic Church’s sufferings in the past: Under the Soviets, the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine was the largest illegal religious body ...read more

Doors Open Toronto, which took place a couple of weekends ago, opened my eyes to the city I live in. Doors Open Toronto is an annual event in which the City of Toronto opens the doors of at least 150 of its buildings of architectural, social, or historical significance.  These are buildings you usually can’t ...read more

Today in his farewell address at Larnaca airport in Cyprus, the Holy Father made direct reference to the political unrest in Cyprus saying that his accommodations at the Apostolic Nunciature, which is located in the United Nations buffer zone, provided a vantage point from which he witnessed Cyprus’ pronounced division first-hand. “Having stayed these past ...read more

The following is Pope Benedict’s full address from today’s presentation of the Instrumentum Laboris for the Synod of Bishops’ Special Assembly for the Middle East: Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I thank Archbishop Eterovic for his kind words, and I renew my greetings to all of you who have come here in connection with ...read more

This trip to Cyprus has indeed been a full one with, no doubt, reams of fruit yet to come. One highlight of the the trip came to us only after the cameras stopped rolling yesterday. Catholic News Service’s Cindy Wooden writes about a moment involving the grand sheik of a Muslim spiritual movement from northern ...read more