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Artist Timothy P. Schmalz touches the hands of Padre Pio in one of his sculptures. / Courtesy of Timothy P. Schmalz
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 23, 2022 / 07:15 am (CNA).
Catholic artist Timothy P. Schmalz calls Padre Pio his favorite saint….
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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 23, 2022 / 07:00 am (CNA).
A nonprofit legal organization specializing in religious liberty cases has conducted a study comparing U.S. states on the basis of how free its residents are to pract…
Posted by bcadmin | Sep 23, 2022 | Featured, News, Scripture Speaks |
Readings for the Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Last Sunday’s Gospel ended with a warning from Jesus: “You cannot serve both God and mammon.” Today we read about a man who thought he could. Gospel (Read Lk 16:19-31) St. Luke told us in last Sunday’s reading that Jesus had some bracing words to say about money to […]
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI / Vatican Media
Rome Newsroom, Sep 23, 2022 / 05:29 am (CNA).
In a new letter, Benedict XVI praised the story of a woman who lived “the inner drama of being a Christian” and dedicated her life to the spiritual encount…
Just about everyone has heard of Padre Pio, the Italian stigmatic whose death at age eighty-one on September 23, 1968, was even reported by the New York Times. The biographies that sell steadily year after year, including one by the author written with help from Pio’s friary, are crammed with accounts from people whose medically […]
Posted by bcadmin | Sep 23, 2022 | Europe, News, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom |
Statistics released by NISRA show that, for the first time, Catholics outnumber Protestants in Northern Ireland—the part of the island of Ireland which remains in the United Kingdom. Catholics now make up 45.7 per cent of the population in Northern Ireland, with the number of Protestants at 43.48 per cent. Ten years ago, the figures were 45.1 per cent
The post Catholics overtake Protestants in Northern Ireland for the first time appeared first on Catholic Herald.
Read MoreA Christian response to the current reality of immigration in the United States
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Rome Newsroom, Sep 23, 2022 / 04:20 am (CNA).
Padre Pio shows the world the power of bearing physical suffering with patience and love, Cardinal Seán O’Malley said at Mass for the Italian saint’s feast day on Friday.
O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, celebrated Mass on Sept. 23 in San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy, in the Church of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina.
“Padre Pio carried the burden of the stigmata for five decades, this and so many other physical sufferings were borne with love and patience. In a world where pain is seen as the greatest evil, Padre Pio shows us the power of the cross,” O’Malley said.
“He shows us that the greatest evil is not pain, but sin and selfishness,” the cardinal continued. “Pain can be a two-edged sword that turns us in on ourselves, leads to self-pity, anger or despair. When the cross is born with love and in union with Jesus it is life-giving and leads to resurrection.”
O’Malley, 78, has been a member of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin since 1965. Padre Pio, one of the 20th century’s most beloved saints, was also a Capuchin friar.
Pio, born Francesco Forgione in 1887, made solemn vows with the Capuchins at the age of 19. His life was marked by illness and physical suffering, including receiving the visible stigmata — bleeding wounds corresponding to the five wounds Christ received at his crucifixion — in 1918.
His desire to create a hospital founded on the principle of caring for both the body and soul of the sick and suffering also led him to establish Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, or Home for the Relief of the Suffering, today a state-of-the-art private hospital and research center.
Padre Pio’s mission, Cardinal O’Malley said, “was a mission of mercy, to those who were sick physically or spiritually and, in that context, he announced the good news of the gospel.”
“The confessional and the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza are just two of the ways Padre Pio manifested the loving mercy of God in the world convulsed by pain and suffering and sin,” he noted.
The cardinal quoted a line from the book “Padre Pio: The True Story.” The author, Bernard Ruffin, wrote that “Padre Pio made God real.”
“In a world of unbelief, the presence of holiness brings light and peace into a world of darkness and chaos,” O’Malley said in his homily. “The Saints next door, and the saints that God magnifies with his graces are a gift to increase in us a nostalgia for homeland yet unseen, for which we were created.”
He recalled when Pope Francis said that the two paths to holiness are prayer and community.
“Padre Pio,” he said, “is an outstanding example of this in a society that has largely abandoned prayer and the Sabbath observance, but this holy man teaches us that prayer brings the power of the cross into our lives and allows us to enter into the mystery of the Eucharist.”
Many people no longer attend Mass on Sundays because they do not know how to pray, Cardinal O’Malley said: “Today we stand in this holy place to ask Padre Pio to pray for us and teach us how to pray, to love and to heal.”
“May he lend us that ladder that will allow us to climb the cross and lovingly pull out the nails from the hands of our brothers and sisters who are, as Mother Teresa used to say: ‘Christ in a distressing disguise.’”
“Today we stand before this great saint and say thank you for showing the world that God is real and that the only real success in life is holiness,” he said.
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Sep 23, 2022 | Featured, News, Politics, Weekly Headlines |
Justin Trudeau has relented to public pressure and the growing national and international resentment against him and has thusly dropped his insane segregationist vaccine border mandate.
On September 22, Pope Francis received participants in the 11th International Thomistic Congress, organized by the Pontifical Academy of Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Angelicum Thomistic Institute.
“We’re seeing a modest renaissance of T…
Read MorePope Francis has written a preface for Por qué Patria Grande, a recent book by Miguel Ángel Barrios on Latin American politics in the time of pandemic.
In his preface, the Pope discussed facets of Latin America’s Christian identity …
Read MoreCardinal Pietro Parolin, the Holy See’s Secretary of State, met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in New York. The prelate participated in a UN conference, where he called for a renewed commitment to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban…
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Sep 23, 2022 | Church, Featured, News, Weekly Headlines |
The Flemish bishops caused a stir this week by issuing a document outlining a liturgy for blessing same-sex couples. In doing so, they abandon the way of the Lord.
Posted by bcadmin | Sep 23, 2022 | International, News |
“Seeing video footage of hungry families in agony breaks one’s heart,” Argaw Fantu writes in an e-mail from his home base in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.
Read MoreBishops in Belgium have introduced a liturgy for the blessings of same sex couples in defiance of teaching from the Vatican. A document issued by the Flemish-speaking bishops of Flanders also includes prayers, Scripture readings and suggested wording for same-sex couples to proclaim publicly and in a church setting “before God how they are committed
The post Belgian bishops defy Rome to introduce church blessings for same-sex couples appeared first on Catholic Herald.
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Sep 23, 2022 | Book Review, culture wars, Featured, News |
These are not the best of times for America’s men and boys. Recent data suggest the extent of the problem, without getting at its roots. Men now make up only 40.5% of college enrollment. Men’s median wage has been declining in real terms for over 20 years. And “deaths of despair”—resulting from suicide, overdosing on […]
Posted by bcadmin | Sep 23, 2022 | Caritas, Church in Asia, Flooding, floods, lead, Natural disasters, News, Pakistan |
Catholic leaders in Pakistan are working to help people affected by devastating floods that have displaced over 7 million people.
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