Vatican Notifications

By Courtney Mares On the feast of the Holy Family of Nazareth Sunday, Pope Francis encouraged families to get off their cell phones and talk to one another. “In your family, do you know how to communicate with each other, or are you like those kids at the table — each one has his or her own cell phone, chatting? ...

“We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor 5:20) Dear Brothers and Sisters, This year the Lord grants us, once again, a favourable time to prepare to celebrate with renewed hearts the great mystery of the death and resurrection of Jesus, the cornerstone of our personal and communal Christian life. We must continually return to ...

Pope Francis had already expressed his concern about the coronavirus epidemic on 26 January 2020 when he prayed for its victims and families during the Angelus. Following those concerns, the Holy See donated 600,000 masks for distribution to people in the most affected areas. In a statement the Vatican press office said the masks were sent to the provinces of ...

By Courtney Mares Pope Francis said Saturday that the Church suffers with couples who are in a “wounded marriage,” and seeks their healing in truth. “The wounds of marriage today – we know – have many and varied causes: psychological, physical, environmental, cultural – at times they are provoked by the closing of the human heart to love, by the ...

By Courtney Mares Pope Francis Sunday asked for prayer for persecuted Orthodox Christians in Ethiopia, who have been targeted in ongoing ethnic clashes that have left 78 people dead. “I am saddened by the violence of which Christians of the Tewahedo Orthodox Church of Ethiopia are victims,” Pope Francis said in his Angelus address Nov. 3. “I express my closeness ...

By Hannah Brockhaus In a message for Sunday’s World Day of Prayer for Care of Creation, Pope Francis encouraged Catholics to make simple changes to their lives so that God’s creation is treated with respect. “Too many of us act like tyrants with regard to creation. Let us make an effort to change and to adopt more simple and respectful ...

By Courtney Grogan Pope Francis said Sunday that prayer in adoration of God and service to others spreads the fire of God’s love, changing the world one heart at a time. “I invite everyone to discover the beauty of the prayer of adoration and to exercise it often,” Pope Francis said Aug. 18. Adoration of God in prayer is necessary ...

By Hannah Brockhaus Pope Francis’ visit to Mozambique Sept. 5-6 will be a moment of rejoicing for Catholics in that country, who greatly look forward to the encounter, according to a priest from the country. “Pope Francis will be in Mozambique and that will be a big reason for rejoicing, for being grateful to the pope for choosing Mozambique, and ...

By Hannah Brockhaus Worldly possessions do not make people happy; only knowing Jesus’ love and having love for others can do that, Pope Francis told a group of Catholic European scouts on Saturday. Jesus “gives you what no thing can give you; because the latest smartphone, the fastest car or the fashionable dress, besides never being enough, will never give ...

That families, through their life of prayer and love, become ever more clearly “schools of true human growth”.