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Cardinal to Priests: Carry On! Affirms There's No Room for Mediocrity ROME, JUNE 10, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Since Christ is at the base of the priesthood, there is no room for mediocrity in a priest's life, says the prefect of the Vatican's congregation for worship and sacraments.Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera affirmed this Tuesday at a conference called "In the Image of the Good Shepherd," held at the Regina Apostolorum university. The conference was held in the context of the closing of the Year for Priests, which ends Friday."The priest must be like Christ. He must be holy. Priestly holiness is not...

ROME – Groups that have long demanded that women be ordained Roman Catholic priests took advantage of the Vatican's crisis over clerical sex abuse to press their cause Tuesday, demanding the Vatican open discussions on letting women join the priesthood.Representatives of a half-dozen Catholic reform groups marched on St. Peter's Square on the eve of a three-day rally marking the end of the church's yearlong celebration of the priest. Vatican officials have said the during the rally Pope Benedict XVI may apologize for the decades of rapes and molestation that children suffered at the hands of priests.The umbrella group Women's...

The average age of the respondents was 48 years old, and the average number of years ordained was 20.The study showed that 94.7% of priests worldwide access the Internet on a daily basis for a variety of activities. Of the respondents, 82.8% have access to a laptop and 81.2% to a desktop computer.

Rockford Abortion Mill Continues Vicious Attacks On Catholic PriestsAs number of abortions decline in Rockford, the abortion mill seems to be (rightly) blaming the spiritual power of Priests.     Rockford IL,  May 29, 2010  - In September of 2008 a group of Catholic Priests began praying every week at Rockford's abortion mill special prayers of the Church that the abortion mill be cleansed from evil.  Immediately, the pro-life women who sidewalk counsel at this abortion facility noticed a dramatic decline in the numbers of mothers coming for abortions and a tangible rise in the numbers of mothers who choose life at the...

On the Church’s Birthday, Let’s Pray for Our Priests May 22nd, 2010 by Archbishop Charles Chaput Ten years ago, as St. John Vianney Theological Seminary opened its doors for the first time, I wrote the following words to the people of our local Church:“The Church is not just a collection of individuals convened around a sacred text. She is a community — a community rooted both in God’s Word and in sacrament. No matter how many other things bear good fruit for the Gospel in our day, there is no on-going presence of Jesus Christ in the world without the...

WARSAW, Poland (CNS) -- When a Catholic priest who was murdered by communist agents is beatified in Warsaw June 6, it will confirm his place as one of the church's most conspicuous modern martyrs.

Budding Priests In A Time of Crisis: Seminarians Enter Scandal-Scarred Vocation Two dozen graduates will be ordained into the priesthood, helping to fill a nationwide shortage. During their years of training, they deepen their faith and learn to avoid temptations. By William Wan May 14, 2010 From behind his desk and wire-rimmed glasses, Monsignor Steven Rohlfs surveyed the class of 24 men. For almost six years, he had led them on the long, difficult path to priesthood, and now, as they stood on the cusp of reaching that goal, he worried. He knew his seminarians would be entering an institution...

Featured Term (selected at random):SUBDIACONATE Formerly one of the major orders, although not considered a sacrament. a subdeacon assisted a deacon and had certain other auxiliary responsibilities. The subdiaconate was the normal prelude to the diaconate and priesthood. Subdeacons took the vow of celibacy before ordination. The subdiaconate was suppressed by Pope Paul VI for the Latin Church in 1973. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

These days, anyone wanting to become a Roman Catholic priest must be someone with a very thick skin and an unflinching faith. Catholic priests have been at the centre of the child sex abuse scandal that has so damaged the Church. Some have found themselves defrocked, on trial, or both. But it seems, despite a scandal that has been building for years, that there are many who still receive the calling.

A “Celibacy Problem”? Catholic-Bashing, NAMBLA and the Dalai Lama    Celibacy brings consolation, independence, more freedom. The Dalai Lama (Posted May 2, 2010 www.RemnantNewspaper.com) On April 4, 2010 the blog page of the London Review of Books posted an article titled “The Celibacy Problem,” concerning the current priest scandal in the Catholic Church. The author, R.W. Johnson, states: Nobody I knew at either my convent school or at the Christian Brothers was ever the victim of sexual abuse. But I could weep as I think back not just to the savage physical punishments common to both schools and the...

Following is...text of a talk given by Elder Neil L. Andersen, on January 10, 2010, as a CES fireside for young adults at Brigham Young University.SNIP Our pre-mortal life was not a passive existence. We had choices to make there as we do here. We had progressed and were in need of a physical body and the experiences of mortality. We needed to prove our willingness to live by faith. Our Heavenly Father presented a plan to us. Central to that plan was the role of His Only Begotten Son to provide a way back for us. We accepted the...

Prayer for Vocations This Sunday "Three Aspects ... I Consider Essential for an Effective Priestly Witness" VATICAN CITY, APRIL 23, 2010 (Zenit.org).- As this Sunday is the 47th World Day of Prayer for Vocations, ZENIT is republishing excerpts from Benedict XVI's message for this day, which he wrote on the theme "Witness Awakens Vocations." The message was originally published last November.* * *The 47th World Day of Prayer for Vocations, to be celebrated on the Fourth Sunday of Easter -- Good Shepherd Sunday -- April 25, 2010, gives me the opportunity to offer for your meditation a theme which is...

CHICAGO, Illinois, April 16, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In the latest episode in an ongoing controversy, Fr. Michael Pfleger has again publicly voiced his support for women's ordination, this time in a comment posted to his Facebook fan page.  In that comment, he also notes that the archdiocese made him issue the apology he put out on Wednesday.“Sunday, I mentioned in my Sermon that I believe in married Priests and Woman Priests,” the Facebook comment reads.  “I was then told that I had to apologize for saying it durning [sic] a Sermon because that is not allowed, even though that is...

A seminary is not the place where you'd expect sex to be a regular topic of conversation. But at the North American College in Rome, where student priests from across the United States are sent, new efforts to prevent sexual abuse are changing that. Part of the psychological element of the examination, says the Rev. Gregory Grannazzisi, involves asking students directly about sex and celibacy. "Some will ask you about your friendships," Deacon Michael Novajosky says. "They will ask about what is your sexual past." The difficult questions aren't kept secret, but discussed openly at the seminary as an integral...

These days Nicholas Azar dresses in black. But for many years, he wore a colourful uniform, a reflective vest. This was for his job as an airport attendant. At the beginning, Nicholas Azar guided passengers of Sky Team Cargo toward the gates for departure. He was promoted throughout the company until he reached one of the most important positions, manager of finance. He has a masters in business, speaks six languages, and in addition to all of this, now he is a priest. Nicholas Azar"For many years I struggled with the possibility of becoming a priest. I enjoyed dating girls,...

Charlotte's parishes add overflow Masses, think creatively to accommodate attendance boomThe pews are packed at many Charlotte-area Catholic churches, but a scarcity of priests is leaving even some of the biggest parishes short-staffed and scrambling for help from retired and visiting clergy. Recent examples aren't hard to find: Just one full-time priest for months at 13,000-member St. Gabriel in Cotswold. A pastor's heart bypass operation, with complications, that left 14,000-member St. Mark in Huntersville struggling to find substitutes to celebrate Mass. A sanctuary so crowded on Ash Wednesday that a parishioner at St. Matthew in Ballantyne, where two priests serve...

I write today for my son and other young men about what an extraordinary privilege it is to be an Aaronic Priesthood holder. You have been ordained and given POWER, by someone with authority from God, to act in God’s name on the earth today. You know all about superheroes. It’s fun to watch movies and see the powers superheroes like Spiderman, Batman and Superman have. But that’s just the movies and not real. However, from the moment you are ordained a deacon in the Aaronic Priesthood, you are given more power than all the superheroes in the world combined...

An Hermeneutic of Priestly Continuity By Father Mark on March 12, 2010 8:43 PM | I was inspired to offer a little commentary on the brilliant address that the Holy Father gave this morning to the International Theological Conference, "Fidelity of Christ, Fidelity of the Priest," organized by the Congregation for Clergy. My remarks are in italics.The Priest: A Man Strange to Common OpinionIn the context of widespread secularization, which progressively excludes God from the public sphere and, by tendency, also from the shared social conscience, the priest often seems "strange" to common opinion, precisely because of the more fundamental...

ROME, MARCH 8, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Priestly celibacy is not psychologically dangerous, and in fact, sexual behavior based on "anything goes" is what is truly destructive to the personality. This is the affirmation made by Dr. Aquilino Polaino Lorente, a physician and psychiatrist who teaches courses on psychopathology at the University of St. Paul in Madrid. The psychiatrist -- best known for his work in children's and family psychology -- was a speaker at the two-day conference held last week at Rome's Pontifical University of the Holy Cross. The conference, "Priestly Celibacy: Theology and Life," was sponsored by the Congregation for...

ROME, MARCH 9, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Married priests are an exception and the Church is increasingly convinced that they must remain so, according to a spiritual theology professor at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross. Father Laurent Touze explained the foundations of priestly celibacy when he spoke at a two-day conference held last week at Rome's Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.  The conference, "Priestly Celibacy: Theology and Life," was sponsored by the Congregation for the Clergy as an event for the Year for Priests. ZENIT spoke with Father Touze about the exceptions to priestly celibacy and the future of...