Reflections on life, meaning and purpose

Vatican grants plenary indulgence for St. Thomas Aquinas jubilee celebrations

The lunette of a side door depicting St. Thomas Aquinas, detail of the facade of the Church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, Italy. / Credit: Zvonimir Atletic/Shutterstock Vatican City, Jul 15, 2023 / 09:00 am (CNA). The Vatican is granting a plenary indulgence to anyone who participates in the two years of jubilee celebrations […]

7th Sunday after Pentecost: Christ’s Soldier Slaves

Our task this week is to dive into the first reading for Holy Mass in the Vetus Ordo, the Epistle, this week from Paul’s Letter to the Romans.   I am always blathering on about context and my context right now is that I am on a driving trip with limited resources, a ticking clock and […]

UN Report Calls on Governments to Adopt LGBT Agenda

“The report calls on governments to threaten and punish religious leaders and organizations that do not comply with LGBT orthodoxy, and, in a novel and unprecedented way, it calls on government to destabilize religions from within by supporting pro-LGBT factions within religious denominations.” Victor Madrigal Borloz, a Costa Rican lawyer and independent UN expert on […]

Vatican: No Violation of Confession in the Orlandi Case

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said on Wednesday, July 12, 2023, that the Office of the Vatican Prosecutor “is actively cooperating with the relevant Italian authorities” and that he had provided the documents available for the reopened Orlandi investigation. Among the documents given to the prosecutors of Rome are letters exchanged a few months after the […]

The Purple Thorn in Israel’s Foot

Pierbattista Pizzaballa will be created cardinal at the next ordinary public consistory to be held in the Vatican on September 30, 2023. “It was a big surprise for me,” he said in the wake of the July 9 papal announcement. Among his predecessors – and since the re-establishment of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem in […]

Cardinal Parolin at ordination: A Bishop gives his life for his flock

Cardinal Pietro Parolin confers episcopal ordination on Msgr. Gian Luca Perici, appointed Apostolic Nuncio to Zambia and Malawi last month by Pope Francis, and in his homily notes that the bishop is to be a ‘watchman’ who keeps unity and hope alive among the people entrusted to him. Read all