St Bernadette Soubirous is usually depicted in statues around the world as the confounded peasant girl on her knees at the grotto in rural France. Without a doubt, those apparitions at Lourdes forever changed the life of the 14-year-old girl. In his homily at Mass on September 27 at the Prairie of the Sanctuary of…
One of the most beautiful homilies of Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate to date was delivered May 8, 2026, the first anniversary of his election. Pope Leo marked the occasion by visiting the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary, also known as Our Lady of Pompeii, “to place my service under the protection of the…
Church and state were intertwined when the Emperor Constantine legalised Christianity in 313. While it meant Christians no longer were persecuted, new challenges and difficulties awaited believers. Resolution of doctrinal arguments was now a political problem as much as anything. At best, such theological clashes meant that Christians would not talk to each other and,…
How striking it was to hear the first words of Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate. They surprised, in no small part of course, because the world had never heard before from a pontiff born in the United States. But even more significantly, the first words he spoke as pope were not his own. Stepping out onto…