By Hannah Brockhaus Vatican City, Dec 28, 2022 / 02:16 am Pope Francis on Wednesday asked for prayers for a “very ill” Benedict XVI. Francis made the appeal for the 95-year-old pope emeritus at the end of his weekly public audience on Dec. 28 in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall. “I …

By Hannah Brockhaus Vatican City, Dec 28, 2022 / 03:48 am The Vatican confirmed Wednesday that pope emeritus Benedict XVI has experienced a sudden decline in his health, but is stable and under medical care. “I can confirm that in the last few hours there has been a worsening due to …

The Holy Innocents are the children mentioned in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 2:16-18. Herod, perceiving that he was deluded by the wise men, was exceeding angry, and sent his soldiers to kill all male children ages two and under that were in Bethlehem and on the boarders, according to …

by Jonah McKeown St. Louis, Mo., Dec 25, 2022 / 10:00 am The experience of fighting in “The Great War,” World War I, was marked by brutality and misery on a scale never before seen. The grisly realities of trench warfare had already, in just five months, claimed a million …

By Jonah McKeown St. Louis, Mo., Dec 26, 2022 / 10:00 am 1968 was a turbulent year for America. As the Vietnam War raged and peaceful figures such as Martin Luther King, Jr., lost their lives at assassins’ hands, cities across the United States were convulsed by riots. In the midst …

St. John, the son of Zebedee and brother of St. James the Great, was called to be an Apostle by our Lord in the first year of His public ministry. He became the “beloved disciple” and the only one of the Twelve who did not forsake the Savior in the …

by Kevin J. Jones Denver, Colo., Dec 25, 2022 / 08:00 am The Catholic calendar has several ways to divide the Christmas season. The Church’s Western liturgical tradition sees Christmas as an octave, an eight-day celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. The octave of Christmas begins on Christmas itself, the feast …

By Hannah Brockhaus, ACI MENA Rome Newsroom, Dec 23, 2022 / 10:00 am Every year on the feast of St. Nicholas, Issa Anis Kassisieh dons a red suit, black boots, and a thick white beard. He mounts a camel in the outskirts of Jerusalem and rides into the streets of the Old …

By Pope Francis Vatican City, Dec 25, 2022 / 07:00 am On Christmas Day 2022, Pope Francis delivered his “Urbi et Orbi” address and blessing from the central balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square. The following is the full text of the pope’s Christmas message. Dear brothers and sisters in Rome and …

By Hannah Brockhaus Rome Newsroom, Dec 23, 2022 / 08:00 am It’s a well-known origin story: how the young and wealthy Francis of Assisi freely abandoned his noble patrimony to serve Christ’s Church as a poor, itinerant preacher. One of the world’s most beloved saints, the founder of the Franciscan order …