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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- After more than a year of preliminary studies and three difficult operations, a medical team at the Vatican-owned pediatric hospital successfully separated conjoined twin girls.
When he started his career as a teacher at an inner-city Catholic high school in Washington in 1964, Dan Curtin had no ambitious plans to rise through the ranks of Catholic education, advising bishops and cardinals, and becoming a leader in the organization that serves as the national voice for Catholic schools.
Not long after coming to power in 1933, the German government headed by Adolf Hitler sought a formal agreement with the Holy See — a concordat setting terms of the church-state relationship. No sooner was the concordat in place, however, than the Nazis began violating it, prompting dozens of formal protests from the Vatican.
This case examined if courts can hear employment discrimination claims brought by teachers at Catholic elementary schools.
Tonight I wrote two events on my calendar: a birthday party and a baptism.
They will be sanitized, scaled-down gatherings — and they will be fun — but still, it pained me to sully those blank boxes with black ink.
In a 7-2 ruling July 8, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Trump administration rules that give employers more ability to opt out of providing contraceptive coverage in their health plans.
My experience at Mass the other day got me down. The hundred or so masked people who gathered in our cavernous sanctuary included friends for the better part of a decade, but we all seemed locked in our own worlds, unapproachable.
Last week, I moved into a very old house. It’s more than 250 years old. This new-to-me house is steeped in history. It’s also exceedingly dusty and has not a few dents and dings to its name. Before moving here, I was an admirer of old houses; I thought them lovely to tour and to visit — and then to leave, escaping to modern conveniences and sparkling clean baseboards. I admit here and now that I was skeptical about “old house love.”
The last several months have been an unusual and spiritually trying time for the people of God. Until recently, most of the lay faithful were unable to attend Mass in person. Priests and bishops, whose very lives are dedicated to the spiritual care of the faithful, have been separated from their people. During this time of isolation, we have been reminded frequently to make acts of spiritual communion. By an act of spiritual communion, those who cannot receive Our Lord sacramentally express their desire to be united with him, ask him to be present within them through his Holy Spirit, and beg for the grace that would normally come from receiving the Eucharist when actual reception is impossible.
People love the idea of angels — especially at Christmas time. We create statues of angels, we decorate with paper angels, and we make them look as beautiful or elusive as we like. We may invoke their help and expect their protection at times of danger. But what do we really know about angels, and are we really “assigned” an angel at the time of our birth? Are guardian angels only for Catholics? How do we explain angels to children, and why do children seem to like angels so much? And how is it that just when we need a nudge or some inspiration, our angel always seems to come through?
