When the much anticipated and much discussed preliminary session of the Synod on the Family concludes on Sunday Oct 19 2014 a concelebration of the Mass will take place at the Vatican and will be presided over by Pope Francis along with the bishops and cardinals who attended and participated in

Recently in a corner of a small island in the North Atlantic an elderly man died He was 88 years old and had been in failing health for some time In his life he had started out as an ordained minister and along the way unavoidably or more accurately eagerly got involved in politics With h

In that all-too-brief time when you were with us—33 days—you gave everyone a glimpse of what it means to be a joyful follower of Jesus.

The summer of 1974 was one of uncomprehending discontent it was when everything was in a flux mdash and the wider world was no better Here in the United States a presidency was endangered as a result of political gamesmanship it was the summer of countless committees investigations and TV cove

Today is July 31st, your Feast Day, and here I am writing a letter to you, one of God’s illustrious saints.

Another birthday has just passed me by in the rearview mirror of life nbsp It came and went so fast I hardly had time to notice it nbsp The candles on the cake are piling up so and are increasing in number that I rsquo m left to wonder will I be able to see the cake through the forest of candles

A reflection on the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing

In recent months Pope Francis has come back time and again to the thought that Christians mdash and Christianity mdash are still being persecuted in the world that all of us sinners live in It conjures up tales of the Middle Ages and the long ago when martyrs were made from those who went about b

I am not accustomed to writing to anyone of importance, of royal lineage or otherwise.

One hundred years ago this summer a disgruntled teenager decided to take matters into his own hands and exact revenge for what he felt were numerous injustices perpetrated against him his family his culture and his people by others who were not his own He had plotted for weeks with the assistan