Article Archive
Please click below to view any of the articles in our archive.
Cappella sings "O Sacrum Convivium" at the University of Mary on Holy Thursday, March 28, 2024. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Rebecca RaberCNA Staff, Apr 7, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).A group of 28 choral students left the University of Mary (UMary) in Bismarck, North Dakota, in May of last year to embark on a world tour as part of a two-year Eucharistic Revival project, culminating this year in a choral album. As part of their Eucharistic Revival project, the students and their director, Rebecca Raber, have been performing and recording music at sites of Eucharistic miracles.The ultimate goal is to record enough choral songs to create an album focused on Eucharistic hymns. "When I heard about the Eucharistic Revival, I knew I wanted to do something from the perspective of liturgical music," Raber told CNA in an email. The choir, known as "Cappella," has been recording a collection of music focused on the Eucharist that includes a wide variety of styles of music such as...
Cardinal Angelo De Donatis. / Daniel Ibanez/CNARome Newsroom, Apr 6, 2024 / 08:57 am (CNA).Pope Francis has transferred the vicar of Rome Cardinal Angelo De Donatis to a different post as head of the Vatican's Apostolic Penitentiary, the Vatican announced on Saturday.De Donatis, 70, has overseen the administrative needs of the Diocese of Rome as cardinal vicar since 2017. His reassignment leaves the important post of Vicar General of Rome vacant until the pope appoints his successor.The Vatican also announced on April 6 that one of Rome's seven auxiliary bishops, Bishop Daniele Libanori, SJ, will be transferred to a new position as the Holy Father's supervisor for Consecrated Life. The Jesuit bishop played a key role in uncovering alleged serial sexual, spiritual, and psychological abuse of women religious by Jesuit mosaic artist Father Marko Rupnik. Libanori reportedly learned of the women's accusations while investigating the Loyola Community Rupnik co-founded in Ljubljana, S...
Archbishop Carlo Vigano. / Edward Pentin/National Catholic RegisterCNA Newsroom, Apr 6, 2024 / 11:00 am (CNA).A Wisconsin bishop has publicly rebuked the former apostolic nuncio to the United States, accusing him of defamation and a possibly illicit ordination.The clash between Bishop James Powers of the Diocese of Superior and Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò stems from a March 22 post on X in which the controversial former Vatican official criticized what he called a "shamanic ceremony" at the start of the Superior Diocese's 2024 Chrism Mass. The March 19 Mass at its outset featured four Ojibwe women engaging in traditional dance while accompanied by indigenous drumming. Viganò in his post called the ritual "a very serious sacrilege," describing Powers as "a squalid official of the ecumenical religion" and "not a Successor of the Apostles, but a servant of Freemasonry." You can watch the beginning of the Mass in the diocese's video here.Powers responded in a ...
A room at the former hospice facility run by the Delta Hospice Society in Delta, British Columbia, Canada. The Canadian government in 2020 ended a $1.5 million funding contract with Delta Hospice over the organization's refusal to implement medical assistance in dying (MAID). Then British Columbian Fraser Health Authority terminated the property lease with Delta Hospice, which shut the facility down. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Delta Hospice SocietyCNA Staff, Apr 6, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).A Canadian hospice leader is working to promote a new anti-euthanasia film to help raise awareness of what she calls the "predatory doctor-assisted suicide regime" of the Canadian government. Angelina Ireland is the president of Delta Hospice Society in Delta, British Columbia. The organization, founded in 1991, is "dedicated to helping families and individuals experiencing life-threatening diagnoses, advanced illness, or bereavement" by offering palliative care and other end-of-life serv...
"A retreat is a moment of prolonged personal encounter, without distractions, with God, and in God, with oneself," says Father Guillermo Serra. / Credit: ShutterstockACI Prensa Staff, Apr 6, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).Four Catholic priests shared their reflections in answer to a simple but very important question for the life of faith: Why go on a spiritual retreat?Father Antonio Domenech Guillén, a priest of the Diocese of Cuenca in Spain, said that "a retreat is always worthwhile, especially during Lent and Easter, those more focused times that help us bring our hearts closer to the Lord.""We always need it. Jesus says in the Gospel that 'those who are healthy do not need a doctor, but only the sick,' and if we recognize that we are sick, the Lord heals us every day, and a good way is to go on a retreat to be cured, like the person who goes to a hospital, to the doctor," the priest explained."If you give your time to God, he multiplies it like all spiritual goods. Material th...
null / fieldwork via Shutterstock.CNA Staff, Apr 5, 2024 / 16:15 pm (CNA).In response to gender studies programs that often churn out ideology contrary to Catholic teaching, the University of St. Thomas, Houston, (UST) is launching a sexuality and gender studies program based on "Catholic anthropology.""For some time now, conversations about gender and sexuality have dominated our headlines," reads a UST press release. "Christian leaders in education, ministry, health care, law, psychology, and other professions often feel ill-equipped to enter into these conversations because they lack the necessary knowledge to speak with equal measures of authority and compassion." The University of St. Thomas will offer a part-time, "flexible," program that will enable students to earn a graduate certificate in sexuality and gender studies. Kevin Stuart, director of the Nesti Center for Faith & Culture, launched the program, and Leah Jacobson, Catholic speaker and author ...
View of a pantheon built by the Red Cross to bury the bodies of irregular migrants at the Municipal Cemetery of El Real de Santa Maria, Darien Province, Panama, on March 8, 2023, on the eve of its delivery to Panamanian authorities. The Red Cross constructed the hundred niches pantheon to bury the bodies of irregular migrants who die during their journey through the inhospitable Darien jungle in search of the American dream. / Credit: LUIS ACOSTA/AFP via Getty ImagesACI Prensa Staff, Apr 5, 2024 / 17:00 pm (CNA).There is no exact figure on how many people die trying to cross the Darien Gap, but those whose bodies are recovered can receive a decent burial thanks to the work of the priests of the Apostolic Vicariate of Darién in Panama and the nuns of the community of the Daughters of Mary, Help of Christians.The inhospitable Darién jungle, shared by Panama and Colombia, has for years become an unavoidable route for hundreds of thousands of migrants who want to reach the United S...
Former Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton (right) meets with legislators in the Netherlands in 1983. / Credit: Rob Croes for Anefo|Wikimedia|National Archives, NetherlandsCNA Staff, Apr 5, 2024 / 15:30 pm (CNA).Thomas Gumbleton, a vocal peace activist and critic of war and nuclear weapons who served as an auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Detroit, died on Thursday at age 94. Born in Detroit in 1930, Gumbleton studied at both St. John's Provincial Seminary in Plymouth, Michigan, and the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome, the latter at which he earned a doctorate in canon law. He was ordained in the Archdiocese of Detroit in 1956 and made an auxiliary bishop there in 1968, becoming the youngest U.S. bishop at the time.His long tenure as a bishop was marked by several controversies, including his arrest in 1987 in connection with a protest at a Nevada nuclear testing site as well as another arrest at the White House in 1999 while protesting the NATO bombing of Yugosl...
Father Jude Nwachukwu (left) and Father Kenneth Kanwa were kidnapped from their parish rectory in the Diocese of Pankshin in Nigeria on Feb. 1, 2024. / Credit: Ahiara DioceseCNA Staff, Apr 5, 2024 / 11:15 am (CNA).A prominent Catholic bishop urged U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in an April 2 letter to engage in a "partnership" with Nigeria to help the nation "withstand the forces of violence and extremism." Bishop Elias Zaidan, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on International Justice and Peace, called on Blinken to "support the concerns of my brother bishops in Nigeria" following the Nigerian bishops' recent declaration urging their government to address internal corruption, security, and economic issues.One Nigerian bishop has described the situation in Nigeria as a Christian "genocide." There have been recent kidnappings and in some cases, murder, of Nigerian Catholic priests as well as a seri...
Credit: ShutterstockCNA Staff, Apr 5, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).The U.S. Catholic bishops announced on Wednesday that April 27-28 will be this year's annual Catholic Home Missions Appeal, which supports vital ministries for more than 75 U.S. dioceses in need. Every year, Catholic parishes throughout the U.S. take up this appeal to help support remote, impoverished, or small parishes. (Some dioceses can opt to have the collection during a different weekend.) Bishop Shawn McKnight of Jefferson City, Missouri, who heads the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' (USCCB) Subcommittee on Catholic Home Missions, shared his appreciation for the support of the faithful who "help the Church maintain its presence" in these dioceses. "There are places where ministry is marked by the deep commitment of parishioners and the clergy who serve them, who often travel many miles through mountains, deserts, or arctic terrain to attend Mass and serve each other and their communities," McKnight...
