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“You were so good at making pies!” my mother said to her childhood friend who was visiting our family. “I can’t make pies.” “Oh, pies are easy,” the other woman answered and her face lit up as she explained the secrets to a flaky crust. Both women were in their mid-70s, and as they shared […]
Sister Marie Angela Natoli, 87, former general superior of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, died Nov. 13 at Camilla Hall Nursing Home in Immaculata, Pa. Sister Marie Angela was born in Reading, Pa., the second of five children of Thomas J. and Mariana Stella Natoli. She pursued undergraduate studies at Immaculata […]
MARYKNOLL, N.Y. – Thirty-five years after they were murdered in El Salvador, four American churchwomen were remembered in their own eerily prescient and profoundly moving words. Colleagues and successors of the women gathered Dec. 2 for a vespers service at the headquarters of the Maryknoll Sisters. On Dec. 2, 1980, Salvadoran National Guardsman abducted, raped […]
RYE, N.Y. – The secular world ignores Advent, begins celebrating Christmas the day after Halloween and packs up the holiday before the New Year, Paul J. Murray said. The director of music at a midtown Manhattan parish thought the Advent message was getting drowned out by the noise of commercialism, so he decided to make […]
VATICAN CITY – When Pope Francis planned the Year of Mercy and the opening of the Holy Door, he did not mean to give the starting signal for a frenzied wave of pilgrims to Rome. More than a call to sign up for an Eternal City package tour, the pope is inviting people to strike […]
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. – San Bernardino Bishop Gerald R. Barnes urged people to pray for unity and healing after the mass shooting in San Bernardino Dec. 2 that left 14 people dead and 17 others wounded. “For those who lost their lives, we pray for their eternal rest and God’s strength to their loved ones […]
Usually, people delivering cautionary news begin with, “Are you sitting down?” For the topic of this column, I’ll turn it around: “How often do you stand up? Or walk? Or do something besides sit?” My question is prompted by a newspaper headline from The Independent in the United Kingdom that read: “Each hour of sitting […]

An entire book could be devoted just to the patrons of children. More saints have been assigned to watch over infants, little boys and girls, and adolescents than any other group, perhaps because they are the most vulnerable members of the human family.

The saint with the longest history as patron of children is St. Nicholas, the 4th-century bishop of Myra and one of the most popular saints of all time.

How do you honor and pay tribute to a humble priest and bishop who has served the church and countless numbers of people for 50 years? One way is to invite people to share their thoughts with him and honor him by ensuring that priestly vocations and caring for retired priests in the Arlington Diocese […]
WASHINGTON – Maureen Orth, a special correspondent for Vanity Fair magazine who has written about music icons, world leaders and Hollywood celebrities, tackled a completely different subject for National Geographic magazine: the Virgin Mary. For the magazine’s December cover story, “Mary the most powerful woman in the world,” Orth visited several countries and interviewed dozens […]