Sunday reading

Reading for pleasure, but if I learn something along the way, that's gravy...

Vatican Villa Director Reveals Rich History Behind Pope's Summer Home

Saverio Petrillo, director of the Pontifical Villas at Castel Gandolfo, knows that the villas and farm at Pope Benedict's summer residence have been centuries in the making.

Petrillo, who has worked for the Pontifical Villas for 50 years, said that the Pontifical Villas are a complex of three historic properties which have “come together little by little to form the summer residence of the Holy Father.” Read more »

Vatican: Muslims And Christians Should Be "Heralds" Of Justice And Peace

The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue has encouraged young Muslims and Christians to be “genuine heralds of justice and peace and builders of a culture which respects the dignity and the rights of every citizen” in a message for ‘Id al-Fitr, the Islamic religious holiday which concludes the month of Ramadan.

In the message, the President of the Council, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran (left), writes that “in the tormented world of ours, educating the young for peace becomes increasingly urgent.” Read more »

Pope St. Pius X And The Olympic Games

It was 1908 when, in the wake of a serious economic crisis, Rome renounced hosting the Olympic Games which were eventually celebrated in London, England.

In the same year Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, sought help from the Vatican to support the Games, and Pope Pius X in person offered him his support. Read more »

Gospel Story: Jesus Multiplying The Loaves

The scene in John’s Gospel now shifts to what is possibly the greatest miracle Jesus ever worked, the multiplication of loaves by the lakeside in Galilee, when Jesus fed more than five thousand people with no prior arrangements at all.

It was such an important miracle that each of the four evangelists record it in detail, some of them repeating the narrative as if a second miracle had been performed. Read more »

Church Honours Saints Joachim And Anne - Parents Of The Virgin Mary

In the Scriptures, Matthew and Luke furnish a legal family history of Jesus, tracing ancestry to show that Jesus is the culmination of great promises. Not only is his mother’s family neglected, we also know nothing factual about them except that they existed.

Even the names Joachim and Anne come from a legendary source written more than a century after Jesus died. Read more »

Olympic Cross Aims To Foster Faith During Games

Catholics in England have created an Olympic Cross to help reach out to Olympians and attendees of the 2012 Olympic Games.

“We wanted to create a keepsake that symbolizes everything the games truly represent, something we could then pass on to future Olympic host nations,” explained James Parker, Catholic Executive Coordinator for the 2012 Games. Read more »

Global Snapshot: Catholicism Doing Fine, Thanks

With success stories from China and Korea to Africa and Brazil, the Catholic Church is doing much better than might be expected in combating the march of secularism.

The Catholic Church is like Fiat-Chrysler. Slumping in Italy and Europe, it is coming back strong in the United States and has its most promising market in the rest of the world. With a clue about who the future pope will be. The nation that has the largest number of Catholics today is Brazil, with 134 million, more than Italy, France, and Spain put together. Read more »

Iran Says New Gospel To Cause Christianity Collapse

Tehran says a religious text containing verses attributed to Jesus Christ, proves Islam is the righteous religion and will cause the downfall of Christianity.

The Christian world denies the existence of such a gospel and calls it a fake.

The book, thought by some to date from the fifth or sixth century was confiscated in Turkey in 2000. It was seized during a crackdown on a gang charged with smuggling antiquities, illegal excavations and the possession of explosives, the Daily Mail reports. Read more »

From Olympic Skater To Religious Sister

From Olympic speed skater to religious sister. That is the unusual career path of one American Franciscan sister who shared with us her story of how she came to discern her own religious vocation.

It's an inspirational story that comes as the Church celebrates this weekend the World Day of Prayer for Religious Vocations. 

Susy Hodges spoke to Sister Catherine Holum to find out how and why she decided to ditch her glittering career as a world class speed skating champion and embraced a religious vocation instead. Read more »

Luciani, The Humble Pope

Muslims "have the right to build a mosque" and “If you don't want your children to become Muslim you need to teach them the catechism better." These were the words of Albino Luciani as he explained the decree on religious freedom at the end of the Council.

A few months before being nominated Patriarch of Venice, the future pope opened up the possibility of a validation of common law marriages in order, he believed, to avoid the introduction of divorce in Italy. Read more »

Syndicate content