Free Republic

Patriarch Kirill is overheard telling the Pope: 'Things are easier now' At long last, Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow have embraced, kissing each other three times.“Finally,” the Pope told the Patriarch as they met in a lounge at Havana’s José Martí International Airport . “We are brothers,” he told the Patriarch.Amid the clicking of cameras and multiple flashes, Patriarch Kirill was overheard telling the Pope, “Things are easier now.”“It is clearer that this is God’s will,” Pope Francis told him.A flight of almost 12 hours capped months of intense negotiations and more than two decades of...

Pope Francis gives a thumbs up (CNS photo/Paul Haring) See POPE-AUDIENCE-SCANDAL Oct. 14, 2015. Francis encourages young people to read the Bible, sharing his own reading habits in his prologue for the new YoutCat German Bible The Bible is a “dangerous book” that young people should read daily rather than letting it gather dust on their shelves. “The Bible is not meant to be placed on a shelf, but to be in your hands, to read often – every day, both on your own and together with others,” the Pope wrote in the prologue for a youth bible published...

Trappist Brother Jonah Pociadlo prepares to pour Spencer ale (CNS) Two members spent six months learning the art in BelgiumA Trappist brewery has opened for the first time in the United States.The new brew, Spencer Trappist Ale, is made at St Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, by Cistercian, or Trappist, monks who wear the distinctive black and white habit.Brother Jonah Pociadlo told Catholic News Service: “It’s got a wonderful smell to it. I hesitate to describe it, because it’s something I think is pretty subjective. But I can almost taste it without it even touching my lips.”The association requires...

This year marks the 750th anniversary of the death of St Simon Stock I wonder what you were thinking when you dressed this morning. Had you already laid out your clothes for the day? Did certain expectations dictate your choices? The simple fact is that how we dress can say a lot about who we are, what we do, how seriously we take life and its tasks. I have clear memories of one Christmas, when a child, having received a soldier’s outfit as a present and I can remember to this day the sense of pride and purpose that...