Learning to be Quick to Listen

Sharing and celebrating the joy of faith with thousands of Catholic teenagers from around the globe was a rare moment that not many people are able to experience, a U.S. teen said. "It was a different atmosphere than what I'm used to, but it's good because it shows that the beauty of the Catholic Church is there," Emily Sullivan told Catholic News Service April 25. Emily, her brother Ryan and parents Matt and Susan, came from North Carolina to participate in the Year of Mercy celebration for young teens April 23-24 in Rome. Both siblings, who are preparing to receive the sacrament of confirmation, said that despite the language barrier, they were able to join in singing and praying during the April 23 youth rally at Rome's Olympic Stadium. "It was awesome; the energy was insane," Emily said. "The people knew all the lyrics and they were jamming out. So we came up with a couple of words that we could sing along. It was really cool to be in that atmos...

April 23 marks the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, the playwright, poet, and actor widely considered to be the most influential literary figure in the English language. Yet, there's one mystery which continues to elude scholars to even this day: what exactly was Shakespeare's relationship with the Catholic Church? And, could he have been a secret Catholic, forced to conceal his true religious identity in an era of persecution? At the time of Shakespeare's writing, Britain was in a period of religious upheaval. Its people were still caught in the crossfires of the English Reformation that had begun decades earlier when Henry VIII declared himself head of the Church of England. Shakespeare, like many of his contemporaries, outwardly followed the State-imposed religion, since it was illegal at that time to practice as a Catholic in England. However, scholars say he nonetheless maintained strong sympathies with the Church of Rome. Shakespeare...

Without a repentant heart, Christians can risk living out their faith superficially and fail to live out God's desire for " mercy, not sacrifice ," Pope Francis said. Instead, Jesus' love for sinners shows that the church is not "a community of perfect people, but disciples on a path who follow the Lord because they recognize themselves as sinners and in need of his forgiveness," the pope said at his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square April 13. Jesus' mission is "to search for each one of us, to heal our wounds and call us to follow him with love," he said.  The pope reflected on the Gospel passage, which recounted Jesus calling Matthew to follow him despite the fact he was a tax collector and considered a sinner by the people. Jesus, he said, did not rebuke him for his past but dines with him and "opens up a new future." "There is no saint without a past and there is not sinner without a future. This is beautiful...

The problem of sex-selective abortion is not limited to China and India, but is increasing in communities within Western countries, a new report by the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute says. “I think for a long time we’ve been denying that sex-selective abortion happens in the United States,” said Anna Higgins, J.D., associate scholar with the Charlotte Lozier Institute. However, she told CNA, “it does happen here.” Countries like China, with its miserable human rights record, are notorious for sex-selective abortions because of the country’s long-time forced one-child family policy, now a two-child policy. Human rights activists have termed the situation “gendercide” because so many families choose only to have a boy to carry on the family name. The practice has led to demographic disaster, with 33 million more men than women in the country, according to human rights activists. Yet sex-selective abortion happens not just in China and India, but within Western countries as...

What you say and how you live always go hand in hand, building up the church and the people of God, Pope Francis told new priests. "Therefore, may your doctrine be nourishment to the people of God, joy and supporting those faithful to Christ (be) the fragrance of your life, because the word and example go together," he said. "Word and example edify the house of God, which is the church," he said in his homily April 17, the World Day of Prayer for Vocations. Celebrating Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, Pope Francis ordained 11 new priests; nine were ordained for the Diocese of Rome and two of the new priests -- including one born in Baghdad -- belong to the Rogationist religious order. In his homily, the pope urged the men to read, reflect on and teach the word of God and to be a living example of what they preach. He asked that they imitate Jesus in their lives, including "carrying Christ's death" inside of them and walking with him in new life. ...

There are many things about Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta that could be called heroic – her tireless service to the world's most rejected and her courageous witness to millions of what it is to live the Gospel, just to name a couple. But the priest charged with overseeing her path to sainthood said that for him, one thing stands out above all the rest: her experience of spiritual darkness and what she described as feeling totally abandoned by God for the majority of her life. “The single most heroic thing is exactly her darkness. That pure living, that pure, naked faith,” Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk, the postulator for Mother Teresa's canonization cause, told CNA in an interview. Fr. Kolodiejchuk is a priest of the Missionaries of Charity Fathers, founded by Mother Teresa in 1989. By undergoing the depth and duration of the desolation she experienced and doing everything that she did for others in spite of it, “that's really very heroic,” he said. Pope Francis re...

Mother Angelica’s life must be viewed in reference to Jesus, the homilist at her funeral Mass said on Friday. “We cannot understand Mother Angelica without reference the One that she loved with the passion of a bride, Jesus, the Eternal Word Who became man and dwelt among us,” said Fr. Joseph Mary Wolfe, MVFA, in his homily at the funeral Mass for Mother Angelica, foundress of EWTN and Abbess Emerita at Our Lady of the Angels monastery in Hanceville, Alabama. “Her legacy is a legacy of His work in her,” Fr. Joseph Mary added. An estimated 2,000 mourners attended Mother Angelica’s funeral Mass at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville, 45 miles north of Birmingham. Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia said the Mass, joined by the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, as well as Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix, Bishop Richard Stika of Knoxville, Bishop Robert Baker of Birmingham, and his predecessor, Bishop David Foley, Moth...

The veto of a religious freedom bill means faith-based groups that support marriage as a union of a man and a woman won’t have needed protections, the state’s Catholic bishops said. “The Virginia Catholic Conference is deeply dismayed by the governor’s action,” the conference said March 30. “This veto risks the destruction of Virginia’s long tradition of upholding the religious freedom of faith communities which dates back to Thomas Jefferson.” The bill would have forbidden the state of Virginia from punishing religious groups that follow their sincerely held beliefs that marriage is between a man and a woman. The bill passed the House of Delegates by a vote of 59-38 and the Senate by 21-19. Virginia’s Catholic conference said the bill would ensure “that clergy and religious organizations are not penalized by the government.” The bill would also protect these individuals and organizations from civil liability. Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, vetoed the bill on live radio Wednesda...