IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring By Cindy Wooden VATICAN CITY (CNS) — On the eve of his 83rd birthday, Pope Francis met with a group of his peers — although many were a few years younger — and told them that "old age is a time of grace." "Grandparents, who have received …

IMAGE: CNS photo/Rhina Guidos By Rhina Guidos WASHINGTON (CNS) — The ask for baby items heading to the Holy Land couldn’t be more appropriate: "swaddling clothes needed." The Gospel of Luke mentions, after all, that Mary wrapped the baby Jesus in "swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because …

IMAGE: CNS photo/Tyler Orsburn By Mark Pattison WASHINGTON (CNS) — Congress was busy in 2019, but the House and Senate were often at cross purposes with each other. The Republican-led Senate spent much of its time voting on seating federal judicial nominees. By early December, 170 of them had been …

IMAGE: CNS photo/Vatican Media By Carol Glatz VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Christmas season is a time to reflect on what life is all about, Pope Francis told an international group of performers. "The time before Christmas calls us to ask ourselves, ‘What is it that I am waiting for …

By VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis’ 2019-20 Christmas season celebrations will include the usual liturgies and traditions. Releasing the pope’s schedule Dec. 12, the Vatican said he would: — Celebrate Christmas Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica at 9:30 p.m. Dec. 24. — Address the crowds gathered in St. Peter’s …

IMAGE: CNS photo/Paul Haring By Carol Glatz ROME (CNS) — Celebrating the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Pope Francis said she reminds Catholics of her true essence as a woman, a mother and a "mestiza" or person of mixed race. She revealed herself to St. Juan Diego as a …

IMAGE: CNS photo/courtesy Archdiocese of Los Angeles By LOS ANGELES (CNS) — Mary, the Mother of God is "the mother of all of us," Los Angeles Archbishop Jose H. Gomez said in his homily for midnight Mass celebrated at Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels for the Dec. 12 …

IMAGE: CNS photo/Paul Haring By Carol Glatz VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The world does not need more empty words, it needs committed, active peacemakers who do not exclude or manipulate, but are open to respectful dialogue, Pope Francis said in his annual message for the World Day of Peace Jan. …

IMAGE: CNS photo/Joel Mason-Gaines, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum By Mark Pattison WASHINGTON (CNS) — Suzanne Brown-Fleming was on a track to the kind of career she wanted. After having been educated in Catholic schools in the Virginia suburbs of Washington for 12 years, she flourished further in her undergraduate …

IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring By Carol Glatz VATICAN CITY (CNS) — There always will be martyrs among Christians in the world, Pope Francis said. Martyrdom "is the sign that we are on Jesus’ path; it’s a blessing from the Lord that within the people of God there is someone who gives …