Bishops in the U.S. and Canada are exhorting the faithful to embrace the virtue of hope during the Catholic Church’s Jubilee Year 2025, which Pope Francis will commence by opening the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome Dec. 24.
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Signs around the Eternal City declare “Roma si trasforma” — “Rome is transformed” as an explanation for the ubiquitous infrastructure projects underway, including the restoration of iconic sculptures and monuments, ahead of Jubilee 2025, a Holy Year that begins Christmas Eve.
From Nigeria to Mozambique, Sudan and Congo to Burkina Faso, Christians across Africa were victims of horrific persecution in 2024, mainly because of their faith.
Mexico’s Catholic clergy have called for a truce on Dec. 12, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and on Christmas Day as criminal violence wracks swaths of the country and clergy working in conflictive regions come under threat.
Jesuit Father Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator, the dean of the Jesuit School of Theology of California-based Santa Clara University, has been awarded “The Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation” by the archbishop of Canterbury for his “outstanding contribution to ecumenical work,” honoring “his leadership of a 2019 retreat for politicians on opposing sides in South Sudan’s civil war.”
The list of miracles that have taken place at the French Marian shrine in Lourdes now includes, for the first time, an English-speaking soldier-patient.
Michael Fernandes has walked 68 miles through jungles across hills and crossed a river in the blazing sun to honor St. Francis Xavier on his solemn feast day Mass in Old Goa, the former Portuguese capital in western India.
Catholic bishops in England have decried a vote for assisted suicide, with one saying it represented a “dark day” in the history of the country.
It was the evening of April 15, 2019, and Notre Dame Cathedral — an 850-plus-year-old, stone-and-mortar monument to human ingenuity and religious aspiration — was burning.
At 92, Sister Demetria Smith is the embodiment of gentleness and joy.