“Quid est veritas?” I will never forget that line, “What is truth?”, from the movie The Passion. I remember quoting it constantly among friends. We were fascinated by the line delivery by the actor who played Pilate. …And perhaps we were looking for the truth. I recalled all this recently when reading parts of Pope ...read more

The Church certainly does her share of proclaiming saints. If you think about it, it’s an amazing act of faith–the Church, by Her relationship to the Holy Spirit is able to confidently announce that a soul is in Heaven. If we recall  St. Luke’s account of the good thief on the cross adjacent to Jesus; ...read more

Who killed Jesus? From the Gospels, we know that he was crucified directly by Roman soldiers. But those who want to attribute blame for his death have drawn in a wider pool of suspects: Judas Iscariot, Pontius Pilate, the Jewish people, and all of humanity. The question of Jewish culpability in “deicide” is particularly charged, ...read more

Last week, the Downtown Chapel in Portland, Oregon, made a special announcement:  they’re changing their parish name.  A recent degree by the Archbishop of Portland will change the Church’s patronage from St. Vincent de Paul to the Congregation of Holy Cross’ first saint, St. André Bessette. For any of you who have seen the documentary ...read more

The Church is rejoicing today as the Vatican announced that Pope John Paul II will be declared “Blessed.” Our own, Fr. Thomas Rosica penned a message from WYD Madrid meetings noting the excitement at the meetings over the news.  He also explained the significance of the beatification date of May 1st, shared that the Polish ...read more

In February 2009 my wife and I drove my colleague, Kris Dmytrenko, to the Buffalo, New York airport. He was flying to Rome for work, and giving him a ride to the airport gave us the opportunity to visit a few shrines in the upstate New York area. One of the shrines we visited was ...read more

Pope Benedict XVI’s Wednesday general audience this week highlights the life of St. Catherine of Genoa. Two things stood out for me about this talk: the 15th century saint’s words on purgatory and also what the Holy Father said about mystics.  He recounted the “profound union” Catherine had with God, but that she also cared ...read more

This year we celebrated Brother André’s first feast day as Saint André. There were many special celebrations throughout Canada, and at Ottawa’s Notre Dame Cathedral there was a bilingual Mass of Thanksgiving for Canada’s newest saint. Ottawa’s Archbishop Terrence Prendergast was the main celebrant.  In his homily, he spoke of the qualities that make Brother ...read more

On Thursday December 30, 2010, the 600 participants in the CCO National Conference traveled to St. Joseph’s Oratory where a special Mass was celebrated with all of them in the Crypt Church.  Bishop Paul André Durocher, Bishop of Alexandria-Cornwall, presided at the liturgy along with religious and diocesan priests from every part of Canada.  Watch ...read more

On Thursday, January 6th, the universal Church celebrates the 74th anniversary of the death of its first male Canadian-born saint – St. André Bessette.  As you may remember, the end of last year was marked by the celebrations for St. André’s canonization on October 17th.  Salt + Light also produced a documentary on his life ...read more