Thousands of prayerful witnesses dwarf black mass turnout in OKC
Oklahoma City, Okla., Sep 22, 2014 / 04:32 pm (CNA/EWTN News) - Thousands of Catholics across Oklahoma responded to a sparsely attended black mass in Oklahoma City with prayers, Eucharistic processions, and demonstrations, as the city’s archbishop emphasized God's love and mercy.
“We are gathered as witnesses to hope at a time when darkness seems to be gaining ground both here and around the world,” Archbishop Paul Coakley said in a homily for a Holy Hour at Oklahoma City’s St. Francis of Assisi parish on the afternoon of Sept. 21 attended by more than 2,000.
“We know that Christ is victorious! He has conquered Satan. He has destroyed the reign of sin and the power of death through his holy Cross and glorious Resurrection.”
Laypeople must share responsibility
for church, pope tells delegates
By CINDY WOODEN
Catholic News Service
ROME (CNS) -- Laypeople are called not simply to help their priests run their parishes, but to share fully in the responsibility of building up the church, Pope Benedict XVI told delegates to the annual convention of the Diocese of Rome.
“This will require a change of mentality, especially regarding laypeople -- to move from considering them to be the clergy’s collaborators to recognizing them as truly sharing responsibility for the existence and action of the church,” the pope said during an evening talk at the Basilica of St. John Lateran.
Pope Francis to couples: Cross illuminates purpose of marriage
By ANN SCHNEIBLE
Vatican City, Sep 14, 2014 / 07:59 am (CNA/EWTN News) - “Marriage is a symbol of life... the Sacrament of love of Christ and the Church, a love which finds its proof and guarantee in the Cross.”
This was the central theme of Pope Francis' homily for the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, delivered moments before presiding over the marriages of 20 couples from the Diocese of Rome.
The weddings, which took place in Saint Peter's Basilica on Sunday morning in the presence of family and loved ones, come just weeks before the Synod on the Family is set to begin in the Vatican.
“The love of Christ, which has blessed and sanctified the union of husband and wife,” the Pope said in his homily, “is able to sustain their love and to renew it when, humanly speaking, it becomes lost, wounded or worn out. The love of Christ can restore to spouses the joy of journeying together.”
Marriage, he continued, is about “man and woman walking together, wherein the husband helps his wife to become ever more a woman, and wherein the woman has the task of helping her husband to become ever more a man.
No scandal here: How the 20 couples married by Pope Francis were legit
By KEVIN JONES and ANN SCHNEIBLE
Vatican City, Sep 15, 2014 / 05:05 pm (CNA/EWTN News) - Pope Francis’ witnessing of marriages between Catholics who cohabited or who have had annulments is not a change, but is part of the Church’s effort to bring people to Jesus Christ, said two experts on Christian marriage.
“I think there is a perception out there, especially in some media circles, that Pope Francis is trying to undermine what the Church has taught and what the Church has practiced,” Catholic University of America moral theology professor John Grabowski told CNA Sept. 15.
“I see absolutely no evidence of that. When he’s pressed on issues concerning the Church’s teaching on marriage, on sexuality, he is very firm, saying he is ‘a son of the Church’,” Grabowski continued. “What he wants to do is simply put the Church’s focus on mercy, on an encounter with Christ as the heart of its life.”
On Sept. 14, Pope Francis celebrated the marriages of 20 couples from the Diocese of Rome. In his homily, he told them that Jesus Christ “will bring them healing by the merciful love which pours forth from the Cross, with the strength of his grace that renews and sets married couples and families once again on the right path.”
Pope prays for migrants, encourages
international assistance
By KRISTIN GOBBERG
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI expressed concern for the millions of migrants around the world, and encouraged the agencies trying to help them.
“I entrust to the Lord all those who, often forcibly, must leave their homeland, or who are stateless,” the pope said at his noon blessing Dec. 4.
“While I encourage solidarity for them, I pray for all those who are doing their utmost to protect and assist these brothers and sisters in emergency situations, even if it means exposing themselves to serious hardships and dangers,” he said.
Natural Family Planning Conference
Jan. 28 at Cathedral
A Natural Family Planning Conference will be presented from 9 a.m.-4 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 28, at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Dodge City.
Presenters will include Father Matthew Habiger, OSB, Ph.D., and Dr. Martha Garza, MD.
Natural Family Planning (NFP) is an umbrella term for certain methods wherein the couple observes the naturally occurring signs of the fertile and non-fertile phases of a woman’s cycle for the purpose of either achieving or postponing pregnancy. It is a comprehensive acceptance of the divine gift of fertility within marriage.
First parish dedicated to John Paul II in Chinese-speaking world
Kaohsiung. Taiwan, Sep 16, 2014 / 09:49 am (CNA) - The Diocese of Kaohsiung in Taiwan has become the first in the Chinese-speaking world to have a parish dedicated to St. John Paul II, where a first-class relic of the Polish saint’s blood is kept.
Archbishop Peter Chen-Chung Liu of Kaohsiung presided at the Mass of Inauguration and Consecration on Sept. 6, with 20 priests concelebrating and more than 1,200 faithful in attendance.
According to Fides, the pastor of the parish, Father Calogero Orifiamma, an Italian missionary and architect of the new church, traveled to Italy to obtain the relic of St. John Paul II.
“The biggest and most beautiful news was the celebration of four baptisms during the Mass,” Father Orifiamma said. Two of the baptized were babies who took the name of John Paul, he added.
The parish is located in the middle of the island in a town of 7,000 Paiwan aborigines. The Catholic population is about 2,000.
Construction of the church began in February 2014, thanks to donations from the local Catholic community. Father Orifiamma said the parish still needs financial help to finish paying for the costs of construction.
The Italian priest said he owes his vocation to St. John Paul II after attending World Youth Day 1997 in Paris. Shortly after the experience, he entered the seminary of Kaohsiung in Taiwan and was ordained in 2007.
Cathedral anniversary celebration
honors Church ‘builders’
By DAVID MYERS
Southwest Kansas Register
Editor’s Note: The Feb. 12, 2012 issue of the Southwest Kansas Register will be devoted to the 10th anniversary of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and the celebration of the retirement of the debt on its construction.
Ten years ago, Catholics representing every parish in southwest Kansas gathered on a windswept prairie covered in wheat and scrub brush, and broke ground for what would become the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
War is never inevitable: Pope Francis rues 'senseless slaughter'
By ELISE HARRIS
Vatican City, Sep 8, 2014 / 05:30 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In a message to inter-religious faith leaders attending a conference on peace, Pope Francis said there are always alternatives to war and urged participants to seek avenues of dialogue.
“War is never a necessity, nor is it inevitable. Another way can always be found: the way of dialogue, encounter and the sincere search for truth,” Pope Francis said in his Sept. 7 message to conference attendees.
Organized by the Italian Sant'Egidio community, the Sept. 7-9 International Peace Meeting is being held in Antwerp, Belgium in commemoration of the centenary of the start of the First World War.
Antwerp the capital of the Antwerp province of Belgium. With a population of 510,610, it is the second largest city in Belgium, after the capital Brussels.
Leaders and representatives from various Christian churches and interfaith communities have assembled for the meeting, which is reflecting on the theme “Peace is the Future.”
Diocese celebrates
Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Part I:
Part II:
On Dec. 9, 1531, St. Juan Diego was on his way to morning Mass, when the Blessed Mother – Our Lady of Guadalupe -- appeared to him on Tepeyac Hill near what is now Mexico City. She asked Juan to request that his bishop build a shrine at the site of her appearance. When the bishop refused, the Blessed Mother told Juan to gather several roses, even though it was wintertime. The Holy Mother placed them in his tilma [cloak] and told Juan to deliver them to the bishop as proof of her appearance. When Juan Diego dropped the flowers to the floor at the feet of his bishop, there was revealed on Juan’s tilma an image of the Blessed Mother.
The event was one of the defining moments which gave birth to the spread of Catholicism in Mexico.
Some 420 years later, the faithful of the Catholic Diocese of Dodge City gathered in their own corners of the diocese to celebrate this momentous event.
At the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Dodge City, throngs of faithful entered into the social hall Sunday, Dec. 11, to honor the patroness of the Cathedral in anticipation of her feast day.
The celebration began in the early afternoon and went on into the night. In addition to the large groups of danzantes and dancing couples were karate classes and singers, all displaying their skills as a way to honor God and His Holy Mother. The celebration continued the next day, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.