Learning to be Quick to Listen

In an effort to respond to a "clear and pressing" need for priests, the Vatican released a set of guidelines to help bishops and church communities promote, recruit and educate a new generation of men for the priesthood. The church needs "suitable" candidates and must avoid men who "show signs of being profoundly fragile personalities," while helping others heal from any possible "individual deviations" from their vocations, the document said. "The witness of Christian communities giving account of the faith that is in them becomes even more necessary," because it's a community of believers committed to passing on God's love that "prepares the Lord's call that invites people to consecration and mission," it said. Based on responses to a questionnaire sent to bishops' conferences and directors of national vocations offices around the world in 2008, the Congregation for Catholic Education sought to address a wide...

The Catechism of the Catholic Church now has more of a presence in the increasingly popular world of e-books. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has made the catechism available as a browser-based e-book . The catechism is a compendium of Catholic beliefs structured around the four pillars of faith: creed, sacraments, commandments and prayer. The USCCB announcement about the latest e-book format comes at a time when more active readers are moving to e-books from traditional formats. A Pew study conducted in February shows 21 percent of adults say they read an e-book in the past year, compared with 17 percent in December 2011 who said they had done so. Additional research shows that overall e-book owners are more likely to read than those who read via print formats. In late 2011, the USCCB accommodated that trend by releasing the e-book edition of the catechism through Amazon, iTunes and the USCCB online bookstore. Why make it available through browsers? "Providing the catechi...

Are you prepared to pray for your religious freedom? The U.S. bishops have called for a fortnight of prayer to end the assault by our government on our right to worship. The fourteen days begin on June 21. According to the bishop's appeal, the fortnight will culminate on Independence Day. This special period of prayer, study, catechesis, and public action will emphasize both our Christian and American heritage of liberty. It is a time to remind ourselves of the importance of our faith. I know that I have never felt more threatened as a Catholic than in the past several years. The intense worldly pressure has certainly caused me to appreciate the freedoms that we hold dear in this nation. None are more important though than the freedom to worship as we wish. So over the next three days, prepare yourself for a spiritual renewal. And come this Thursday, join the rest of the nation's approximately 68 million Catholics and pray and don't stop for the next fourteen days. Who know...

June 13 is the feast day of one of my favorite saints, Anthony of Padua. He is usually pictured holding the child Jesus (history says that this is due to a man, at whose home St. Anthony was spending the night, came upon the saint and found him holding in his arms the Child Jesus, unspeakably beautiful and surrounded with heavenly light)and a book. St. Anthony is recognized as a Doctor of the Church because of his ability to preach plainly on any topic so that anyone could understand him regardless of their educational level. Saint Anthony was canonized less than one year after his death. There is perhaps no more loved and admired saint in the Catholic Church than Saint Anthony of Padua. Though his work was in Italy, he was born in Portugal. He first joined the Augustinian Order and then left it and joined the Franciscan Order in 1221, when he was 26 years old. The reason he became a Franciscan was because of the death of the five Franciscan protomartyrs -- St. Bernard, St. Peter, St. ...

The Sacred Heart "is a reality that marks the core of Christ's being," Philadelphia Auxiliary Bishop John J. McIntyre told attendees at the June 1-3 national conference for charismatic Catholics. It is Christ's heart "into which each of us is drawn, so that more and more, each day after day, each passing year, like his," we are "rooted in charity and full of that light which he has unleashed upon the world; a light that is stronger than sin and death and hell itself," the bishop said. Bishop McIntyre was the principal celebrant and homilist at the opening Mass of the conference, which drew approximately 2,500 Catholic women and men from around the country. They gathered at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia for a joy-filled conference and celebration of the Holy Spirit. "Let us pray with one heart together with Mary in the Upper Room" was the theme of the conference, held every five years. It brought together four distinct...