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The patron saint of parish closings   By Phil Lawler | March 17, 2010 5:11 PM Needless to say, there is no patron saint of parish closings. The closing of a parish is a tragedy. A parish church is more than just a building. It is a repository of memories: of the children baptized there, the happy couples married, the parents mourned and buried. It is a testimony to the faith of the Catholic families who scrimped and saved and sacrificed to build a suitable house of worship for their community. It is a place of prayer, sanctified by the fervent...

Vatican City, Feb 18, 2010 / 12:07 pm (CNA).- Pope Benedict hosted priests from the Diocese of Rome in the Vatican's Benediction Hall on Thursday morning for a "lectio divina" during their traditional Lenten audience. The Pope used his reflection on St. Paul's Letter to the Hebrews to encourage priests to protect communion between God and man, especially in areas under attack by society. Referring to the Letter to the Hebrews, the Holy Father shed light on the nature of the priest. "The author of the Letter," he said, "understood that in Christ two premises are united: (that) Christ is...

Good news from Rome: the Vatican has further underlined the freedom of priests to celebrate Mass in the Extraordinary Form whenever they choose. Two important points have been clarified by Ecclesia Dei, which will make it more difficult for the English, Welsh and above all Scottish bishops to stall the implementation of Summorum Pontificum: 1. A priest does NOT have to be approached by a “stable group” of the faithful in order to schedule a PUBLIC celebration of the Extraordinary Form – he may choose to do so, for example, in order to introduce his parishioners to this ancient form...

Featured Term (selected at random):REDEMPTORISTS Members of the congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, founded by St. Alphonso Maria de' Liguori at Scala, Italy, in 1732. They form a clerical religious congregation engaged in the preaching and writing apostolate among the faithful, in giving parish missions and spiritual exercises and in missionary work among non-Christians. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Featured Term (selected at random):PRIEST An authorized mediator who offers a true sacrifice in acknowledgment of God's supreme dominion over human beings and in expiation for their sins. A priest's mediation is the reverse of that of a prophet, who communicates from God to the people. A priest mediates from the people to God. Christ, who is God and man, is the first, last, and greatest priest of the New Law. He is the eternal high priest who offered himself once and for all on the Cross, a victim of infinite value, and he continually renews that sacrifice on the...

100 Prayers For PriestsNOTES1. This collection of Prayers for Priests was gleaned over a 12-month period, from mid-February 2003 to mid-February 2004. It was planned as a short one. But it grew and grew and is still expanding. Most of these prayers were posted to Franciscan_Spirit@yahoogroups.com by Nadine Mansour <nadine.mansour@mbnet.fi>.2. Your best prayer is your own. However, if you wish to consult an example, do not read these 100 all at once; be selective. Reading several prayers may become boring. Choose only one -- at random if you wish -- and stay with it. Meditate on it, deepen it out....

USCCB News Release 10-008January 11, 2010FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Priest Offers 'Ten Things That Promote Vocations' In Honor Of National Vocation Awareness WeekWASHINGTON—The Catholic Church celebrates National Vocation Awareness Week January 10-16. To encourage Catholics to foster vocations, Father David Toups, interim director of the Office of Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) offers “Ten Things” Catholics can do to promote vocations to priesthood and religious life. The first five steps on this list are directed toward all Catholics. The second five are specifically an invitation to younger Catholics to consider saying “yes” to...

OVER 4,000 Anglican priests all over the world, including married ones, are expected to join the Catholic Church, Bishop Matthias Ssekamanya announced on Friday. Ssekamanya, who doubles as the chancellor of Uganda Martyrs University, said this does not mean that the Catholic Church is removing the requirement for priests to remain unmarried. “We are not becoming soft on celibacy for Catholic priests. We shall also not tolerate homosexuals and polygamous marriages in the Catholic Church,” he added. He was officiating at the 15th graduation ceremony of the Nkozi-based university. Vatican officials announced that married Anglican priests would be allowed to...

WILMINGTON, Del.-- The Catholic Diocese of Wilmington is obligated to pay retirement benefits to six priests who are confirmed pedophiles, church officials argued in a bankruptcy court filing Thursday seeking permission to keep making the payments. After filing for bankruptcy last month, the diocese agreed not to make payments to priests accused of sexual abuse without court approval. That agreement was made after objections were raised by attorneys for alleged abuse victims who now sit on a creditors committee. Attorneys for the diocese now seek authorization to provide pensions, housing costs and medical coverage to six confirmed child abusers. They...

A Russian Orthodox priest, Fr. Daniel Sysoyev, who carried out missionary work among immigrants from ex-Soviet republics, many of them Muslims, received over a dozen death threats before his murder on Thursday, a Russian paper said. Fr. Daniel of St. Thomas Church in Moscow foresaw his death, writing in his internet diary that he had received telephone threats from Muslims. Fr. Daniel’s evening ‘talks’ for inquirers included several especially designed for Muslims.

Researchers at New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice, reporting initial findings in their look into causes of the Catholic church's 2002 sexual-abuse scandal, yesterday said they can't attribute it to gay priests or seminaries for teenagers. "We do not have data to support ... those assertions," said Karen Terry, lead researcher for the $1.8 million study commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is meeting this week in Baltimore. Dr. Terry presented her interim report on the same day that the bishops conference also adopted a pastoral letter on marriage and a statement on reproductive technologies...

Acting Bishop of Basrah, Imad Al Banna, holds a Catholic Mass at Contingency Operating Base Adder, Nov. 7. Banna also had lunch with troops and civilians and was given a Liberty Bell statuette by the 28th Combat Air Brigade, Pennsylvania National Guard. Photo by Sgt. Matthew Jones, 28th Combat Aviation Brigade. COB ADDER — The acting Bishop of Basrah held Catholic Mass here in honor of the service members and civilians working toward a safer, more secure Iraq, Nov. 7. Bishop Imad Al Banna, a Chaldean priest, spoke Aramaic, an ancient language spoken in Palestine 2,000 years ago and still...

Former Episcopalians who have found a traditional refuge in Catholicism, where the priesthood remains closed to women and openly gay clergy, are applauding the Vatican’s plan to help additional dissatisfied conservatives convert. But while the welcome extends to married priests — a narrow loophole in the Catholic Church’s celibacy requirement — most of those who have already converted say they want to remain rare exceptions. “We trust the church’s wisdom regarding the discipline of celibacy,” said the Rev. D. Paul Sullins, who left the Episcopal Church 10 years ago with his wife and recently surveyed his colleagues on this issue....

The official Vatican guide to the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass has arrived on YouTube, where you can find long sections of Ecclesia Dei’s DVD about the Extraordinary Form. The clip below shows a priest saying the canon of the Mass. Coming soon to a church near you? Not if certain bishops can help it.

Priesthood Sunday - October 25, 2009 Priesthood Sunday, is a special day to honor Priesthood in the United States. It is a call for parishioners to honor Christ as Priest and the men who were called to be his priests on earth. It is also a day to honor all religious and to focus on the importance of vocations. Catholic Scout Packs, Troops and Venture Crews are encouraged to make a special effort to involve the youth in programs of making appreciation cards to be presented after Mass on the last Sunday in October or at an event planned in...

The Archdiocese of New Orleans and its charitable arm, Catholic Charities, said Tuesday they will pay $5.182 million to an undisclosed number of adults who claimed that years ago as children they were beaten, berated and sexually molested at two Catholic orphanages that were supposed to shelter them because their families were in disarray. The archdiocese announced a package settlement of 20 lawsuits, most of them filed by adults alleging that in the 1950s and 1960s they were abused at Madonna Manor and nearby Hope Haven on the West Bank. "I hope these mediations and negotiations will bring some peace...

Jews in the town of Mitzpe Yericho are taking practical steps to prepare for the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem, by preparing descendents of Cohanim (priests) and Levites for service. At the Mitzpe Yericho school, Temple priest hopefuls learn exactly how to conduct the daily Temple service and offer the required sacrifices.

Bl. Fr. Damien de Veuster Honolulu, Hawaii, Sep 26, 2009 / 01:08 pm (CNA).- Eleven elderly leprosy patients from Hawaii will travel to the Vatican for the canonization ceremony of Fr. Damien de Veuster, the heroic priest who cared for leprosy patients in Hawaii and died of the disease. The patients’ attending doctor called Fr. Damien their “personal saint.”The Belgian-born priest is a hero in Hawaii for caring for those victims banished to the isolated Kalaupapa peninsula. Native Hawaiians were devastated by leprosy, which appeared after the arrival of Captain James Cook in 1778.About 90 percent of the approximately...

SAUK CITY -- At a recent Mass at St. Aloysius Catholic Church, the Rev. John Blewett urged parishioners to emulate their savior and stand firm on matters of church doctrine. ...Blewett and his fellow members of the Society of Jesus Christ the Priest, a religious group based in Spain. Beginning in 2006, Bishop Robert Morlino invited priests from the society to serve in the Madison Catholic Diocese, and in the ensuing years, they have thrilled some and dismayed others with their staunch Catholicism and tough-love approach.... The priests no longer let girls be altar servers, and they have dispensed with...

Vatican City, Sep 14, 2009 / 11:20 am (CNA).- A rare event took place at St. Peter's Basilica on Saturday when Pope Benedict XVI consecrated five priests who had served in the Vatican's government as bishops.Three of the newly consecrated bishops will be serving as diplomats for the Church, one will continue to work in the Roman Curia and one will take up service as a diocesan bishop. The prelates had worked in the Secretariat of State, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Governorate of Vatican City State. The new papal nuncios are: Archbishops Gabriele Giordano...