Free Republic

Church officials in the Diocese of Metuchen are helping to oversee a church investigation into whether a nun who's being considered for sainthood is the cause of a medical miracle. The probe, the first in the history of the Diocese of Metuchen, involves Mother Mary Angeline Teresa McCrory, who died in 1984 at age 91 and was founder of the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm. A unidentified married couple in New Jersey whose unborn baby was diagnosed with a genetic disorder is claiming that prayers to McCrory helped their child, who was born far healthier than expected, said...

Exactly 447 years to the day that St. Teresa of Jesus founded the first convent of the Carmelite reform, a solemn Mass and blessing of the enclosure of a new Carmelite community took place at the Carmel of Jesus, Mary and Joseph in Elysburg. The community of 11 Discalced Carmelite nuns arrived from Valparaiso, Neb., in April and came to the Diocese of Harrisburg due to a constant increase of vocations.... Father Joseph Howard of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, who will serve as chaplain at the monastery, celebrated the Mass. Those present included Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, Msgr....

An overflow crowd of more than 500 people gathered at the Elysburg Monastery Monday as the bishop of the Diocese of Harrisburg blessed the facility's reopened chapel. The most important people of the day, however - the 11 Discalced Carmelite nuns from Nebraska who moved into the Elysburg facility in April - were never seen by the public.... Following the 2 1/2-hour Mass, the bishop, the Most Rev. Kevin C. Rhoades, conducted the private "enclosure" ceremony. The diocese said he moved through the building, blessing each room, then locking the door to the sisters' portion of the monastery. While they...

38 year old Fr. Thomas Pandippallyil, was assassinated on the night of August 16th on his way to a village to celebrate Sunday mass. His body showed signs of torture, with wounds to his face, his hands and legs broken and his eyes pulled from their sockets. The bishop of Hyderabad denounces the growing climate of “violence against Catholics” in the country. New Delhi (AsiaNews) – “Father Thomas is a martyr: he sacrificed his life for the poor and marginalised.  But he did not die in vain, because his body and his blood enrich the Church in India, particularly the...

The French Revolution reveals the titanic struggle between good and evil. During the terror, over 40,000 Frenchmen were executed just for holding fast to the Catholic Faith and objecting to the worst excesses of the Committee of Public Safety. The blood lost in the years of 1792-1794 staggers the imagination even in the retelling and the campaign against the Church was as diabolical as it was cruel. Contemplative religious communities had been among the first targets of the fury of the French Revolution against the Catholic Church. Less than a year from May 1789 when the Revolution began with the...

OUTSIDERS ARE GENERALLY FORBIDDEN to enter the walls of this cloistered monastery, but reporter Jessica Ravitz and photographer Paul Fraughton were invited inside. Though the monks spend most of their days, outside of Mass, in silence, this observance was lifted for the occasion. CLARK, Wyo. -- The goodbye was bid not just to people he adored, but to a life he'd be leaving forever. Nicholas Maroney embraced his weeping mother and grandmother, told them he loved them, then turned to his future. Three times he knocked on the wooden gate and listened as the small community assembled in the yard...

Our Rule explains that as monks we need to earn our keep by the work of our hands. We were praying about what sort of product most people utilize on a daily basis, and it came to us that everyone needs coffee to start the day. On our side of things, roasting coffee can be very contemplative. It only takes one monk to run the roaster and bag the coffee, so it is very complimentary to our life. All the brothers have worked together to perfect the Mystic Monk roasts, from the selection of beans, to the creation of special...

The idea that there a "God spot" in the brain, a circuit of nerves which could explain mankind's almost universal belief in a deity, is questioned today by a study of Carmelite nuns. Scientists have been in the pursuit of the brain processes underlying the Unio Mystica - the Christian notion of mystical union with God - and this endeavour is now part of a newly-emerging field called "neurotheology".   Carmelite nuns assisted scientists in their quest to discover a circuit of nerves in the brain to explain man’s almost universal belief in a deity But the God module, as...

From cloister to chaos to a new life There is a photo Nicole Ingra keeps in the living room of her Kenilworth home of "clothing day" - the day she received her habit as a Carmelite nun. A crown of flowers rests on her head. "That was a big day," Ingra recalled. "It was the first time I was called Sister John of the Cross." All she wanted that February day in 1984 was to spend her life in cloistered meditation and prayer behind the walls of a Morris Township Carmelite monastery. "Here I thought I was going to be...

Throughout the centuries various ways of following Christ have been tried and tested. Some of these ways have endured to our present day and still have the power to attract many people and help them to live a deeper life of allegiance to Jesus Christ. One of these ways is the Carmelite way. A vocation is a very personal call from God. Each of us has our own particular vocation to become what God knows we can be. An important part of our vocation is our attraction to a particular way of following Christ. Some people are attracted to the...

At the peak of her legal career, Fran Horner earned more than $350,000 a year as a partner with the Washington firm Covington & Burling, specialized in tax issues for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and lived in Paris near the Arc de Triomphe. At 40, her resume was sterling: former assistant to the U.S. Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service; undergraduate and graduate degrees in math from Johns Hopkins; a law degree, cum laude, from Harvard. She ate at fantastic restaurants. She had many friends, plenty of work and a wonderful apartment. She was not unhappy....