Catholics in Connecticut are working to help those impacted by what one lawmaker described as “historic, unprecedented flooding” Aug. 18-19 that took two lives and forced hundreds to flee for safety.
World
With Los Angeles set to host the Summer Olympics and Paralympics in 2028, the Catholic Church in the U.S. is “in the quad” — a four-year-period of training between the global competitions — to hone its evangelization game.
If there is one place in the world where it’s worth spending the Aug. 15 feast of the Assumption at least once in a lifetime, it’s the Marian shrine of Lourdes. The national pilgrimage to Lourdes is currently underway — Aug. 12 to 16, attracting a record number of pilgrims.
Marina Frattaroli describes herself as the National Eucharistic Revival’s “first convert,” after a related social media post led her to a website describing the church’s teaching on Jesus’ true presence in the Eucharist. Now she’s spending most of her waking hours with the Eucharist as one of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage’s 30 perpetual pilgrims, who set out from points in California, Connecticut, Texas and Minnesota to meet at the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis July 17-21.
Catholic bishops in Malawi mourned the loss of the country’s vice president, a devout Catholic, who died June 10 in a tragic plane crash.
Saulos Chilima, 51, died alongside nine others, including the former first lady Shanil Dzimbiri, aboard a military aircraft.
While many Catholics around the world rejoiced upon hearing the news that Pope Francis had approved a second miracle attributed to Blessed Carlo Acutis, none was happier than his mother, Antonia Salzano.
Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York said he and other members of a delegation traveling in Israel and Palestine “feel safe and secure” April 14, after Israel defended itself overnight from unprecedented Iranian drone strikes and missiles.
Philippe Villeneuve, Notre Dame Cathedral’s chief architect, learned about the 2019 fire 300 miles from Paris and rushed to the capital to help firefighters save the iconic monument. For France’s top architect of historical sites, the evening of April 15, 2019, was especially dark as Notre Dame Cathedral was already his passion when he was a little boy. Since the inferno, he has worked tirelessly to finalize major parts of renovations by Dec. 8 when the cathedral is reopened.
Amid wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, this year’s World Mission Sunday is “even more important” than ever, said an executive from the U.S. offices of the Pontifical Mission Societies. The universal Catholic Church will mark the observance Oct. 22, and the collection taken up that day forms the primary financial support for the societies, which have a presence in some 1,100 dioceses in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Pacific Islands and parts of Europe.
Sister André, a Daughter of Charity and the world’s oldest known person, died at age 118, a spokesman of the nursing home where she died told AFP agency on Jan. 17.