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Here’s How the Church of the Future is Experimenting in the Cathedral of MilanWith video installations, electronic music, and abstract art. With Lenten readings from Oscar Wilde and Jack Kerouac. With the pulpit given over to nonbelievers. All this in the great diocese whose patrons are Saint Ambrose and Saint Charles BorromeoROMA, June 13, 2006 – One of the key phrases of the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI is “new evangelization.” But in the Duomo of Milan, the cathedral of one of the most important and populous dioceses in the world, governed by cardinal Carlo Maria Martini...

A group of Afghans are staging a sit-in at St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. The group of around 30 have been at the Cathedral since earlier this afternoon. It is understood those involved in the protest are failed asylum seekers facing deportation. Advertisement They have said they were planning to go on hunger strike. Gardaí say they are demanding to speak to officials at the Department of Justice.

Hard to believe how the time's flown, but six years ago tonight, John Cardinal O'Connor passed from our midst much too soon. How quickly we forget. In his final years, as he wound down his ministry as archbishop of New York, I was immeasurably blessed to know the cardinal, to meet up with him every so often, and to have received a good bit of his wisdom, humor and the lessons he had picked up along the way. His kindness to a young upstart was a gift which remains alive with me constantly. At sunset on 3 May 2000,...

The Rev. Robert T. Ritchie, the freshly appointed rector of St. Patrick's Cathedral, woke up at 3 a.m. in his old rectory in the Bronx yesterday to make sure he made it to Ash Wednesday services at his new church on time. "I couldn't take any chance that I'd be late," he said. A few weeks ago, in a move that surprised many in the Archdiocese of New York, Cardinal Edward M. Egan moved Father Ritchie, 60, from a parish in Kingsbridge Heights to St. Patrick's Cathedral, one of the nation's most exalted houses of worship. For a priest who...

Reclaiming America’s cathedral by George Weigel St. Patrick’s is, arguably, the most famous Catholic cathedral in the United States. The Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis is, arguably, the most beautiful. But Baltimore’s Old Cathedral, now the Basilica of the Assumption, is indisputably the most historic. It was conceived by Archbishop John Carroll, the founder of the American hierarchy, whose diocese originally encompassed the entire United States. Archbishop Carroll wanted the first Catholic cathedral in the new republic to embody the nation’s commitment to religious freedom and turned to Benjamin Henry Latrobe, architect of the U.S. Capitol (and son of a...

The Roman Catholic cathedral of Los Angeles on Monday rescinded its invitation to hold a Christian unity conference later this month after concluding that the principal speaker was to be a controversial self-proclaimed mystic who claimed to speak directly with God, Jesus and Mary. In a letter to the sponsors, Msgr. Kevin Kostelnik, pastor of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, said that what had been represented by sponsors as a Christian unity conference had turned out to be largely a forum for Vassula Ryden, a Greek Orthodox laywoman who has attracted worldwide attention with her reports of...

Moscow, October 27, Interfax - Interior decoration and painting of the church of St.Sava of Serbia will be completed next September. The church is considered the largest Orthodox church in the world. Christ the Saviour Cathedral square in Moscow is 60x60 metres, while the church in Belgrade designed in Serbian-Byzantine style is 91x81. The fresco of Christ in the cupola of St.Sava’s church will be the largest in the Christian world. The eyes of the Saviour will be as large as one metre, Kommersant newspaper wrote Thursday. The capacity of the cathedral will accommodate some ten thousand worshippers at a...

About a thousand people crammed a Catholic church in the heart of New Orleans for an emotional Sunday Mass and prayed for the resurrection of their storm-savaged city. Some worshippers hugged and wept as Archbishop Alfred Hughes spoke from the St. Louis Cathedral altar of suffering and losses endured, and thanked those who risked their lives to rescue others. "I thank God for all of you who have made such special effort," Hughes told the congregation. "We are coming to pray New Orleans comes back to life." The wooden pews under the vaulted ceiling and chandeliers were full and worshippers...

When he walks on to a movie set, he usually gets star treatment. But as Tom Hanks arrived at Lincoln Cathedral yesterday, he found himself somewhat upstaged. A handful of protesters were making their feelings known about the decision to film scenes from The Da Vinci Code in the historic building. Led by a Catholic nun, Sister Mary Michael, they claimed the movie, based on the bestselling novel by Dan Brown, should be filmed elsewhere. She led a 12-hour prayer vigil to push the message home. The controversial thriller is the story of a Vatican conspiracy to suppress the supposed...

The archdiocese of New York has just announced that Msgr. Clark's resignation from the Rectorate of St. Patrick's Cathedral has been accepted.

EACH AUGUST THE DEBATE RETURNS, this year won masterfully by my Front Page Magazine brother columnist Ronald Radosh: Should the United States on August 6, 1945, have dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima?  Given that the alternative would have required invasion of Japan and the deaths of perhaps a quarter-million Americans, a million or more Japanese, and prolonged suffering on both sides, most moral people answer Yes, we should have dropped the bomb.  We had only three bombs, one to test and two to use and none to spare on a demonstration for the Emperor. But we should also ponder...

Bishop Matthew Clark took over my home diocese of Rochester, New York, in 1978 when I was about ten years old. So fixed is his name in my memory that regardless of where I attend Mass, during the liturgy of the Eucharist I half expect the priest to say "Matthew our bishop" despite the fact that I haven't lived in Rochester for almost twenty years. A Visit Home The controversy surrounding the renovation of Sacred Heart Cathedral is something I've followed off and on since the bishop announced his intentions in 2000. Clark’s plan was to "update" the small 1928...

Background: St. John Lateran, the Pope's cathedral Rome, May. 06 (CWNews.com) - On Saturday, May 7, Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) will formally take possession of the basilica of St. John Lateran, the cathedral of the Rome diocese. Although it has not been the primary home of Roman Pontiffs since the 14th century-- St. Peter's Basilica is the site of most papal liturgical celebrations-- St. John Later remains the Pope's cathedral, and the Roman church par excellence. The name "Lateran" refers to the great patrician family of ancient Rome on his grounds the basilica now stands. For several centuries,...

MADISON, Wis. -- Firefighters spent Monday putting out hot spots after an early-morning blaze destroyed St. Raphael Cathedral, 222 W. Main St., in downtown Madison, near the Capitol. Video UPDATED SLIDESHOW: See FireDowntown Street ClosuresPaul Swain: "Our faith is not built around buildings"E-MAIL US: Your Digital Images Of FireSign-Up For Breaking News E-Mail Alerts The fire was reported at about 5:30 a.m. Monday. Large plumes of dark smoke could be seen from all directions toward the Capitol. Several area fire departments were called in to help Madison firefighters contain the fire. Firefighters got the fire under control at about 8...

From leaky roofs to secret agents: how the files I found in Iraq's looted foreign ministry cast light on the paranoid world of Saddam Hussein How many Iraqi officials does it take to fix the leaky roof of a diplomat's house in London? How long does a skilled translator need to convert one of George Galloway's parliamentary speeches into Arabic? In almost 1, 000 pages of Arabic prose, each stamped with the Eagle crest of Iraq, the files found inside the foreign ministry in Baghdad cast a somewhat surreal light on the questions that turned the bureaucratic wheels of Saddam...

While Catholic bashing continues to rear its ugly head in America, it is usually relegated to the lowest common denominator in society, Hollywood and liberal elites striving for a more manageable secular society. I truly could not fathom the notion that this type of hate speech would not only be sanctioned, but peddled, by one of the last vestiges of the Christian faith. I took my classes to Saint John the Divine Episcopal Cathedral in New York City earlier this year for our annual jaunt through the history of this wonderful structure. Unaware that an art display entitled "Season...

CHENNAI (ICNS) – The tsunami waves have subsided, but a miracle is being talked about across Chennai. It is the story of how St Thomas’ miraculous post kept the invading waves away, sparing the newly renovated Santhome Cathedral. The Cathedral, the world’s second basilica built on an apostle’s tomb, has been giving shelter to hundreds of tsunami victims ever since the waves ravaged many buildings across the coast. But even though the killer tsunami waves devastated the Chennai coast, Father Lawrence Raj, the parish priest of the Santhome Cathedral Basilica, says “the sea did not touch our church.” The reason?...

Upon returning to her childhood home of Oakland, California, Gertrude Stein noted that "there is no there, there." While this may have been true of the Oakland of 1934, more and more towns and cities since then, adopting the lifeless gray and brown boxes of Modernism, have become "placeless places." Rather than drawing upon the various local customs and traditions, we have found our cities over-run by the 'international style' of architecture: an architecture that has come to exist everywhere, but belongs nowhere. This Modernist modus operandi is especially devastating when applied to sacred architecture. The current design for the...

An informal exorcism performed at the Cathedral of St. Paul this month was more profane than sacred and was directed toward gay Catholics, police and church authorities said Tuesday. They said the ritualistic sprinkling of blessed oil and salt around the church and in donation boxes amounted to costly vandalism and possibly even a hate crime. The damage was discovered Nov. 7 after the noon mass, and after words were exchanged between members of the Rainbow Sash Alliance, a gay rights group, and the opposing group, Catholics Against Sacrilege.

Heavenly bodies give churchgoers a shockBy Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent(Filed: 11/11/2004) The young men of a Church of England cathedral choir have dismayed traditionalists by stripping off their shirts for a charity calendar. The "heavenly hunks" of Portsmouth cathedral choir have been photographed in a series of provocative poses for the 2005 calendar, which has the backing of the Bishop of Portsmouth, the Rt Rev Kenneth Stevenson. A number of the pictures of the choristers, aged between 18 and 26, have a nautical theme to tie in with the city's celebrations next year of the 200th anniversary of the Battle...