– CNS photo/L’Osservatore Romano via Reuters Pope Benedict XVI looks through a microscope during his visit to the headquarters of the Vatican Observatory in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, Sept. 16, 2009. Dialogue and cooperation between faith and science are urgently needed for building a culture that respects people and the planet, the pope said in Nov. ...read more

To be contemplative as Christ is contemplative is to be open to all the fullness that the Father wishes to pour into our hearts. With our minds made still and ready to receive, with our self-generated fantasies about God and ourselves reduced to silence, we are at last at the point where we may begin ...read more

The Church’s deepest nature is expressed in her three-fold responsibility: of proclaiming the word of God (kerygma-martyria), celebrating the sacraments (leitourgia), and exercising the ministry of charity (diakonia). These duties presuppose each other and are inseparable. For the Church, charity is not a kind of welfare activity which could equally well be left to others, ...read more

The presence of Mary, Mother of Christ, is close to us. I entrust each one of you to this Mother. Because she is the source of our consolation and therefore of our hopes. Because the Mother of Christ, and our Mother, can give you the love of God as a gift. I want to entrust ...read more

Let us be buried with Christ by Baptism to rise with him; let us go down with him to be raised with him; and let us rise with him to be glorified with him. Everything that happened to Christ lets us know that, after the bath of water, the Holy Spirit swoops down upon us ...read more

Faith is certain. It is more certain than all human knowledge because it is founded on the very word of God who cannot lie. To be sure, revealed truths can seem obscure to human reason and experience, but “the certainty that the divine light gives is greater than that which the light of natural reason ...read more

Faith is a personal act – the free response of the human person to the initiative of God who reveals himself. But faith is not an isolated act. No one can believe alone, just as no one can live alone. You have not given yourself faith as you have not given yourself life. The believer ...read more

God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth”: that is, of Christ Jesus. Christ must be proclaimed to all nations and individuals, so that this revelation may reach to the ends of the earth: God graciously arranged that the things he had once revealed for the salvation ...read more

The members of the Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization have recommend the creation of church body to promote religious freedom. The recommendation was one of the propositions Synod members would present to Pope Benedict XVI. The Synod concluded on Sunday with a mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI at St. Peter’s Basilica. On ...read more

The full text of Pope Beendict XVI’s homily at the Mass concluding the XIII Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the New Evangelization. Dear Brother Bishops, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Brothers and Sisters, The miracle of the healing of blind Bartimaeus comes at a significant point in the structure of Saint Mark’s ...read more