Read & Reflect

Fulton Sheen’s Advice on Planning for Heaven

In my previous article, I shared a few of the insights that Archbishop Fulton Sheen taught me as I have grown older. Lessons about finding a new mission after retirement, remembering that we are made for eternity, and discovering the peace that comes from counting blessings instead of birthdays. As...

Psalm 112: A Standard for Men

Throughout my adult life, I have spent a fair amount of time praying and meditating about being—or, more accurately, becoming—a good man, a good husband, and a good father. In recent years, by a great gift of Providence, I have become more devoted to the model of St. Joseph proposed by my Catholic f...

Satanic Attacks and the Prayer “Especially Suited” to Conquering Evil

A Visitor from Heaven, Part IV: Apparitions in Northern Italy In Part III, I sketched the troubled life of the Italian visionary Francesca Sgobbi, noting her remarkable humility and briefly tracing her journey through Poland. THE DEVIL’S ASSAULT Amid encounters with personal evil, Francesca repeated...

The Same Weeds in the Wheat Field: Rome, Contraception, and Christ’s Call

While everyone was asleep, his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat. (Mt. 13:25) Things like that really happened in Christ’s time. People poisoned wells and sabotaged fields. They sowed weeds in their enemy’s wheat. Ancient Rome’s Decline What else did people do at the time of Christ? T...

Pope Leo XIV to U.S. religious superiors: Prioritize community life

Pope Leo XIV this week urged U.S. religious superiors to prioritize community life, describing it as a place of “witness and strength.” The Vatican published the letter on July 22 addressed to the Conference of Major Superiors of Men in the United States being held in Phoenix from July 20–23. The le...

Pope Leo XIV urges peace and nuclear disarmament in new book foreword

Pope Leo XIV has written a foreword to a new book, calling for peace and the elimination of nuclear weapons.Originally published by Vatican News, the pontiff’s text is part of the new book “Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift,” published by the Vatican Publishing House (Libreria Editrice Vatican...

Pope Leo XIV visits major Italian pilgrimage sites while on vacation

Pope Leo XIV visited two major pilgrimage sites in Italy while on vacation at Castel Gandolfo, stopping at the Sanctuary of the Most Holy Trinity in Vallepietra and the St. Benedict Monastery in Subiaco.As announced by the Holy See Press Office, the pontiff traveled to the two pilgrimage sites on Ju...

Vatican denies Marko Rupnik has been acquitted

The Vatican on July 22 denied reports circulating on blogs and social media that Father Marko Rupnik, the former Jesuit accused by several women religious of sexual abuse, had been acquitted.Matteo Bruni, director of the Holy See Press Office, described reports that the judges overseeing the case ha...

Pope Leo XIV names another Chinese bishop under Vatican-Beijing agreement

Pope Leo XIV has appointed another Chinese bishop under the agreement on episcopal appointments reached between the Holy See and authorities in Beijing during the pontificate of Pope Francis.Father Joseph Chang Yanfeng was ordained Wednesday as the new bishop of Chifeng in China’s Inner Mongolia reg...

Dicastery for Bishops prefect discusses selection of new bishops, challenges they face

The prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, Archbishop Filippo Iannone, explained the fundamental qualities sought when selecting candidates for the episcopate.In a recent interview with the Croatian Catholic weekly Glas Koncila (Voice of the Council), Iannone elaborated on the role of the Dicastery f...

[Daily Rosary Meditations] Mary Magdalene