Any church that cannot hand on its faith and values to its own younger generation has reason to be fearful. Until young people can enter into a dialogue with the Church, neither the Church nor young people can be fully renewed on their faith journey.
“Behold this Heart which has loved men so much that it has spared nothing, to the point of exhausting and consuming itself to show them its love.” That’s the deepest understanding of the Sacred Heart, whose feast we celebrate today.
For the London 2012 Olympic Games, Christian Churches in the UK have also picked up the theme of 100 days of peace around this major sporting event. It will be launched at an all night prayer vigil in London’s central Trafalgar Square on Friday June 8th by Church leaders including Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster and the Anglican Bishop of London Richard Chartres.
“Commending Your Majesty and all the Royal Family to the protection of Almighty God, I renew my heartfelt good wishes on this joyful occasion and I assure you of my prayers for your continuing health and prosperity.”
Jesus not only promised the coming of the Spirit, he also communicated to his disciples the day of the Resurrection as the first paschal gift, and the day of Pentecost as the outpouring of the Spirit on the young Church, gathered together in prayer around Mary.
Recent studies suggest that religious people tend to be happier and more fulfilled in their lives than non-believers. Here, a writer on religion and ethics assesses the evidence and identifies an essential component often missed.
Bishop Methodius Qu Ailin was ordained today, the second prelate this year to be ordained with both the Vatican’s approval and recognized by the Chinese government. The ceremony took place at the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception in Changsha city, with Bishop Joseph Liu Xinhong of Anhui – an illicitly ordained prelate – taking part.
The Vatican Council promised an open and dialogical Church - that was the overall emphasis at that time; that seems to be particularly missing in the Catholic Church now. What we have seen especially in the last 30 years is a resiling from the reforms of the Vatican Council - and a conservative interpretation put on them.
The Catholic imagination — the imagination that allowed Shakespeare to sprinkle his plays with references to Catholic religious beliefs and practices in meaningful ways — also helped to create the fictive worlds of Denmark, Rome, Verona, Venice, and Illyria. The imagination that made him Catholic also helped make him the greatest writer in the English-speaking world.
More than 3,500 adults were received into the Catholic Church in England and Wales last week. They included 1,397 catechumens, who had prepared to be baptised, and 1,843 candidates, who had already baptised in another Christian tradition.
We must seek to be messengers of God's love, declares Pope on Easter Monday. Jesus Christ is “present as a force of hope through his Church,” Pope Benedict XVI announced in his Easter greeting addressed to the city of Rome and the world on April 8. In his noon message, the Pope said the risen Lord inspires his Church to remain “close to all human situations of suffering and injustice,” including the persecution of Christians themselves.
A distressing Gallup Poll tells us that more than fifty percent of Catholics do not understand the teaching of the Church on the Eucharist. Furthermore, only one third of their number agree with the Church. But Mahatma Gandhi wrote, "In a world where millions go to bed hungry every night, the only form in which God would dare appear among human beings is food."
Reasons for the Pope's trip to Mexico and Cuba: The bicentenary of the independence of the peoples of Latin America; the Mexicans' enthusiastic desire to welcome the Pope; the twentieth anniversary of diplomatic relations between Mexico and the Holy See, and the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of the image of "Nuestra Señora de la Caridad del Cobre" in Cuba.
A week of celebrations mark the bicentenary of Augustus Welby Pugin, one of Catholicism’s great architects. The 200th anniversary of the birth of Augustus Welby Pugin on 1 March 2012 is being marked in England and Ireland with celebrations of Holy Mass, book-launches, exhibitions and lectures in Dublin, Birmingham, Cheadle, Nottingham and Ramsgate.
The Catholic Church does not oppose gay marriage. It considers it to be impossible. If it were possible, then we would have to support it since the Church tells that we must oppose all discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Spain's youngest bishop has taken a voluntary pay cut as a mark of solidarity with the poor and unemployed. His country has the highest unemployment rate in Europe with 5.3 million out of work, or 23 per cent of the working age population.
“I have worked for many years very closely with the Holy Father and I can tell you from my personal experience that he has always had, and he continues to have, a great love for the people of Ireland and a high regard for the Catholic Church in Ireland,” the Pope's representative said at his formal welcome.
One of the biggest ever British government delegations is to visit the Vatican and meet the Pope next week. The visit, which will be led by Baroness Warsi, Cabinet Minister without Portfolio, follows the success of Benedict XVI's visit to the UK in Sept 2010 They will be accompanied by The Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster.
The news of the death of Father Lawrence Zhang Wenchang has sparked heated words on the popular Chinese website Tianzhujiao Zaixian (Catholic Church online). Some netizens praised Fr Zhang’s fidelity to Rome. He was arrested in 1958 and sent to prison for counter-revolutionary crimes. He received reform-through-labor in a farm from 1962-82, after which he began to visit Catholics and work part-time.
It is good, too, as Pope Benedict reminded us, to remember what we have in common. For years I was Chairman of something called ‘ARCIC - The Anglican-Roman Catholic Ecumenical Commission' - and we used to study together many matters. But the key to our work was a term called, koinonia, which means ‘communion'.
