Select Page
In his homily during Holy Thursday’s Chrism Mass, April 1, 2021, Pope Francis underlined that the preaching of the Gospel “is always linked to the embrace of some particular cross.”
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Apr 1, 2021 | Best of Week, Featured, meditation, News, podcast, Podcasts |
After a year of frustration and uncertainty, more people are able to return to Mass at their local parish. For many, this upcoming Easter weekend will feel like a homecoming of sorts after being physically absent during the last Paschal season. If you are among these pilgrims who can now come home, now is a […]
The last three days of Holy Week are referred to as the Easter or Sacred Triduum (Triduum Sacrum), the three-part drama of Christ’s redemption: Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday.
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Apr 1, 2021 | Homily of the Day, News |
The Lord prepares us for every invitation he offers to us, just like the Passover and the Last supper. During the Passover account, God gave instructions to the Israelites on what kind of animal to choose, how to prepare it, how to eat it, what to wear, and what they should do so that their […]
Read MoreOttawa, Canada, Mar 31, 2021 / 09:01 pm (CNA).- Rejection rates spiked after a Canadian government job grant program’s 2018 rules required groups to affirm abortion rights, and rejections fell only after legal challenges from pro-life groups.
&nb…
Trite and tautological though the claim may be, permit me to begin by stating the obvious: it is good when good things happen. Good fortune and good luck are called so for a reason, just as are bad fortune and bad luck. Humans disagree about what is and isn’t good, some of them even going[…]
The post The Magnanimity of Bearing Misfortune Beautifully appeared first on Catholic Insight.
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Apr 1, 2021 | COVID-19, Mask mandate, News, The Dispatch, Wisconsin |
MADISON, Wisconsin — The pendulum of statewide political power swung back toward the fulcrum on Wednesday when the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that Gov. Tony Evers’ repeated use of emergency declarations to control the […]
Read MoreAustin, Texas, Mar 31, 2021 / 08:01 pm (CNA).- The Texas Senate passed six pro-life bills on Tuesday, including one banning abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy and one that would ban it outright should the Supreme Court reverse abortion preceden…
Read MoreMassacres in Mozambique this week should bring overdue international attention to the violence in that country, said a representative of the South African bishops’ conference. Johan Viljoen said that: “Whatever the world is seeing now has b…
Read MoreCardinal Muang Bo of Yangon said that the “merciless killing” of pro-democracy demonstrators has made Myanmar a “21st-century Calvary.” He said that more than 500 protesters who have been killed were, in effect, “crucified…
Read MoreCNA Staff, Mar 31, 2021 / 06:43 pm (CNA).- Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami stressed this week that despite public health distinctions created over the past year, priests are essential for the Catholic community. On March 30, the archbishop celeb…
Read MoreNow that we in the midst of Holy Week, it is important to focus our attention on the Holy Triduum or the Easter Triduum. How many graces are restored for us if we just humbly and courageously open our hearts to receive God’s healing in these ‘three days but one day’, which liturgically starts from[…]
The post The Power of the Easter Triduum appeared first on Catholic Insight.
Read MoreThe Donkey BY G. K. CHESTERTON When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood Then surely I was born. With monstrous head and sickening cry And ears like errant wings, The devil’s walking parody On all four-footed things. The tattered outlaw of the earth, Of ancient[…]
The post Chesterton’s Donkey appeared first on Catholic Insight.
Read More
Chicago, Ill., Mar 31, 2021 / 06:01 pm (CNA).- Amid a plan to merge and close dozens of parishes, the Archdiocese of Chicago has disproportionately closed parishes that minister to black Catholics due to low attendance, according to an archdiocesan official.
“There have been disproportionate numbers of closings in the Black Catholic community, but this is going on all across the Diocese,” Cliff Barber, chief strategy officer of the archdiocese, said in a March 29 interview with the Chicago Crusader, a publication that focuses on the African American community.
“There has been some shared pain here, but it’s just been disproportionate in the Black Catholic community.”
Barber also heads the archdiocese’ Black Catholic Initiative, which seeks to support the Black Catholic community in the city. Barber said there are about 6,000 Mass-attending Black Catholics in the archdiocese, heavily concentrated in the south and west sides of the city.
The Chicago archdiocese has been closing and merging parishes for several years, with the latest round of mergers announced March 9-10.
One such parish is the predominantly African-American St. Peter Claver Mission, which will join the parishes of St. Benedict and St. Walter under a new parish name.
The Chicago archdiocese lists nearly forty parishes on its website as ministering specifically to the black community; Baker said there are nearly 800 predominantly Black Catholic parishes across the U.S., most of which are located in the east and south.
Overall, the church closures and mergers are part of Cardinal Blase Cupich’s project “Renew My Church,” which he announced in 2016. At the time, around 100 parishes were expected to close due to a shortage of priests and church buildings in need of repair.
Barber told the Crusader that the Black Catholic Initiative is relaunching itself in 2021 with an updated mission.
Chicago has been home to communities of Black Catholics for several hundred years. Following the evangelization of black slaves and freed men by Jesuit missionaries in the decades before the American Revolution, large African-American Catholic populations settled in cities including Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, and numerous cities throughout the South.
Chicago has at least one prominent African American Catholic who may someday be canonized — Venerable Augustus Tolton, who was born a slave in Missouri and was the first African-American priest. He was ordained a priest in the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran on Holy Saturday 1886, and was sent back to serve in Illinois in the Diocese of Alton. He worked at a parish in Quincy, but met with opposition from a white priest, and in 1889 secured permission to transfer to the Archdiocese of Chicago.
In Chicago he founded a black parish, Saint Monica’s. He died July 9, 1897 from heat stroke and heart failure, at the age of 43.
What is the biblical evidence for the Eucharist and the Catholic priesthood?
Questions Covered:
02:38 – My friends who are Messianic Jews and they say that the Last Supper was just a Passover meal, and he was speaking metaphorically. How can I r…
Read More
Recent Comments