Which is your favourite Holy Week liturgy? Of the 156 people who responded to the question, Easter Vigil came out on top with 82 votes. Good Friday received 27 votes, Holy Thursday 20 votes, Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday came out almost even at 12 and 11 respectively… and there 4 votes in the ‘other’ ...read more

Just a 30 minute train ride from Madrid, in the region of Castilla – La Mancha, lies Toledo. Today it’ a small town with medieval roots and a whole host of inhabitants who commute to work in Madrid every day on the high speed AVE train. In it’s bricks however, one glimpses the days when ...read more

Salt + Light, a leader in Catholic media, has today launched This Side of Eden, a feature-length documentary that presents a poetic, compelling and richly intimate portrait of the Benedictine Monks of Mission, BC, in the days of Holy Week and the Easter Triduum. The documentary acts as a powerful portal into the world and ...read more

Working at World Youth Day is like working inside a laboratory where everything happens fast, loudly and with an explosion of colour…and all of it is fueled by a faith that needs to be shared. Even so, there are days when a familiar face is a welcome site. This past week I got a visit ...read more

When Pope Benedict arrives in Madrid on August 18 one of the first things he will do is visit two of the most iconic places in the city…and, of course, meet with the more than one million young people who will be in town to see him. The Holy Father is expected to arrive at ...read more

VALENCIA, Spain — In medieval Valencia carpenters would mark the feast of St. Joseph by clearing their workshops of old projects, prototypes, pieces that didn’t work out, etc. On the eve of the feast of St. Joseph Valencian carpenters would set these pieces on fire. This fire was considered a purifying fire, eliminating the old ...read more

Pope Benedict has repeatedly urged the universal Church to encourage and support Christians in the Holy Land. One way to do this is financially through the collection traditionally taken up on Good Friday. A letter from the prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches Cardinal Leonardo Sandri was released Monday calling on the faithful to ...read more

World Youth Day pilgrims are internationally-renowned for being polite. So it must have been in hushed tones that some expressed their dissent. Not to Pope Benedict, who generated enthusiastic responses at the Cologne and Sydney events in ’05 and ’08, respectively. Nor to the selection of this year’s host city, sunny Madrid. But rather, displeasure ...read more

The Vatican is using YouTube and Facebook to promote the upcoming Beatification of John Paul II. He will be named Blessed on May 1st this year. This official Facebook page and YouTube channel uses social networking tools to open up the vast documentary archives held by Vatican Radio and the Vatican Television Centre. Using modern ...read more

World Youth Day Madrid will be a totally “green” event according to organizers. In Madrid Thursday  morning the Main Events department and Zeroemissions, a Spain-based company that specializes in making large world events emissions free, announced plans to make WYD eco-friendly. Some of the initiatives aimed at making WYD environmentally friendly have never been seen ...read more