Ss. Joseph and Cabrini Parish

A sister kneels before the tabernacle after inviting a group of women donating Christmas gifts to pray in the Missionaries of Charity house in Rome. / Credit: Courtney Mares/CNA

Rome Newsroom, Dec 16, 2024 / 14:30 pm (CNA).

On a crisp December morning in Rome, a group of women gathered not for their usual Bible study but to bring Christmas gifts to a homeless shelter run by the Missionaries of Charity, the order founded by St. Teresa of Calcutta, also known as Mother Teresa.

The women were greeted at the door by a petite Indian sister dressed in the familiar white sari trimmed with blue. With a gentle smile, she welcomed them inside and led them through the modest shelter into a small chapel. At the center was a simple tabernacle, flanked by a crucifix and the words “I thirst.” The sister gestured for them to sit and pray, then spoke quietly.

“Ask the Lord,” she said, “How can I be a channel of peace to people? … How can I be a sign of hope to people around me?”

“How can I become a sign of hope to my family, where I may be struggling with my husband, children, friends? How can I become the sign of hope in the place where we are?”

The Advent season, rooted in hope and longing for the Messiah, is a time when Christians prepare their hearts for the coming of Christ. It’s also a time for almsgiving and acts of charity to bring hope to a world filled with struggle and need. For the Missionaries of Charity, whose charism is to serve “the poorest of the poor,” this isn’t just for a liturgical season — it is a way of life.

The transformational power of charity

María Teresa Ávila Fuentes, a doctoral student at the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, has spent years studying the ripple effects of the Missionaries of Charity’s work. She calls it the “transformational power of charity,” a concept she is exploring in her dissertation.

“My doctoral research is around the transformative power of charity, and it’s a study through the prism of the missionaries of Mother Teresa,” Fuentes explained.

Fuentes’ research examines how the sisters’ simple yet profound acts of love impact not only the communities they serve but also the volunteers and laypeople who witness and participate in their work.

“It’s this idea that love is expansive,” Fuentes said, referencing Pope Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate. 

“Charity has an impact not only in micro relations but also in macro relations — society, culture, economy. Everything gets impacted by charity because charity is agape love.”

She shared stories of lives transformed by the sisters’ witness. “I’ve interviewed people who have adopted children because of the sisters’ testimony, people who have changed careers completely after volunteering, people who have founded NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] or schools. Volunteers often say that seeing the sisters’ relationship with the poor — and experiencing their relationship with the volunteers themselves — is what transforms them.”

The Missionaries of Charity, with their radical simplicity, live a profound trust in God’s providence. They do not fundraise, nor do they accept recognition for their work. Even their presence in this article is mediated by lay witnesses like Fuentes, as the sisters themselves are not allowed to be quoted by name or photographed.

“Precisely because they become so small and so empty, God is able to fill them so generously,” Fuentes told CNA.

This approach reflects Mother Teresa’s belief that small acts of love, done with great devotion, have the power to transform hearts and communities. 

One sister explained: “We don’t have to do big things to be a sign of hope. A smile, a compassionate look, just a listening attitude, a welcoming attitude. … We’ll be happy if we’ve given five minutes to someone patiently and lovingly, so at the end of the day, I was able to do something good with God’s grace. So we hope to be a sign of hope to others, especially this year of hope.”

Advent: a season of hope and charity

Advent, a time of joyful expectation, calls Christians to embody hope in their families, workplaces, and communities. The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes Advent as a season to renew the “ancient expectancy of the Messiah … by sharing in the long preparation for the Savior’s first coming.”

This year, Advent also leads up to the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee, themed “Pilgrims of Hope,” which will begin on Christmas Eve. For the Missionaries of Charity and their collaborators, this theme resonates deeply. Their work is a tangible expression of hope — bringing dignity to the destitute, companionship to the lonely, and a home for the neglected and abandoned.

“What is beautiful,” Fuentes reflected, “is that since they live this total surrender, you ring the doorbell and you just say, ‘I want to volunteer,’ and God will have something prepared for you there with the sisters.”

Fuentes herself experienced this transformation firsthand. Originally from Chihuahua, Mexico, she spent five months volunteering with the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India, an experience that she said changed the course of her life.

“I was teaching high school, but I quit, and my best friend and I went to Calcutta to volunteer in a house for kids with disabilities,” she said. “It transformed me.”

For those inspired to volunteer with the sisters, the order has launched a website listing the contact information for some of their missions.

At the time of Mother Teresa’s death in 1997, there were nearly 4,000 sisters in 594 missions in 123 countries. Today, the Missionaries of Charity are also present in some of the most dangerous and war-torn places in the world, including Gaza, Kiev, and Syria.

The Missionaries of Charity Fathers have also created the “I Thirst” apostolate, a movement for laypeople to grow in the charism of Mother Teresa to deepen their faith and learn how to serve others with love and humility.

“Charity in truth, to which Jesus Christ bore witness by his earthly life and especially by his death and resurrection, is the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity,” Benedict XVI wrote in Caritas in Veritate.

“Love — caritas — is an extraordinary force which leads people to opt for courageous and generous engagement in the field of justice and peace. It is a force that has its origin in God, Eternal Love and Absolute Truth.”

null / Credit: Ivanko80/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 16, 2024 / 14:00 pm (CNA).

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against an abortionist in New York, alleging that she illegally provided abortion drugs to a woman in Texas, which killed the unborn child and caused serious health complications for the mother.

The lawsuit, filed on Dec. 12, alleges that Dr. Margaret Daley Carpenter gave abortion drugs to a woman across state lines through telehealth services. It states she is not licensed to practice medicine in Texas and that state law prohibits the delivery of abortion drugs through the mail.

Most abortions are illegal in Texas, including both surgical and chemical abortions. In the state, abortion is only legal when continuing the pregnancy would put the mother’s life or physical health at serious risk. The lawsuit states that the recipient of the abortion drugs did not have any health risks from her pregnancy.

“In this case, an out-of-state doctor violated the law and caused serious harm to this patient,” Paxton said in a statement. 

“This doctor prescribed abortion-inducing drugs — unauthorized, over telemedicine — causing her patient to end up in the hospital with serious complications,” the attorney general added. “In Texas, we treasure the health and lives of mothers and babies, and this is why out-of-state doctors may not illegally and dangerously prescribe abortion-inducing drugs to Texas residents.”

Carpenter is a co-medical director and founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine (ACT), which opened after the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and states began passing pro-life laws to restrict abortion.

According to ACT’s website, the organization makes abortion “available to patients in all 50 states” and provides “telemedicine care for patients in abortion-hostile states.” The website further states it provides abortion drugs to women up to the 12th week of pregnancy. 

In a statement provided to CNA, a spokesperson for ACT accused Paxton of “prioritizing his anti-abortion agenda over the health and well-being of women by attempting to shut down telemedicine abortion nationwide,” adding that “by threatening access to safe and effective reproductive health care, he is putting women directly in harm’s way.”

 “We have seen attempts to further impede and erode a person’s right to make decisions about their own bodies,” the statement continued.

The lawsuit alleges that Carpenter “sees Texas patients via telehealth and prescribes them abortion-inducing medication” and that she knowingly continues to violate Texas law, which puts “women and unborn children in Texas at risk.” It asks the court to prohibit her from continuing to prescribe abortion drugs to women in Texas and seeks civil penalties of at least $100,000 for each violation of state law.

The lawsuit alleges that the mother went to the hospital on July 16 due to hemorrhaging or severe bleeding. It states she had been nine weeks pregnant before the unborn child died from the abortion drugs.

In June 2023, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a law that prohibits state law enforcement from cooperating with out-of-state cases that seek to prosecute abortionists for providing abortions in pro-life states. The law also prohibits insurance companies from disciplining abortionists who break pro-life laws in other states by providing abortions.

New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a Dec. 13 statement that her state “is proud to be a safe haven for abortion access.”

“We will always protect our providers from unjust attempts to punish them for doing their job and we will never cower in the face of intimidation or threats,” James said. “I will continue to defend reproductive freedom and justice for New Yorkers, including from out-of-state anti-choice attacks.”

Earlier this year, James sued pro-life pregnancy centers, accusing them of making misleading statements about abortion pill reversal drugs. The pro-life pregnancy centers countersued, alleging that they were being targeted. In August, a judge temporarily halted James’ efforts to restrict the speech of pro-life pregnancy centers, ruling that their statements about the abortion pill reversal drug “are of interest to women who have begun a chemical abortion and seek ways to save their unborn child’s life.”

ACT did not directly respond to a question about whether the organization follows the laws of other states, but the statement asserted that “shield laws” like the ones in New York “are essential in safeguarding and enabling abortion care regardless of a patient’s zip code or ability to pay.”

Katie Daniel, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America’s director of legal affairs, thanked Paxton for “leading the charge to hold out-of-state abortion businesses accountable for preying on Texas’ unborn children and their mothers.”

“Thanks to extreme blue-state politicians who shield them, abortionists in states like New York openly violate the protective laws of pro-life states, killing unborn children and sending women to the emergency room in dire condition — all while sitting comfortably thousands of miles away,” she said in a statement. 

“We hope his example will embolden other pro-life leaders and begin the undoing of the mail-order abortion drug racket,” Daniel added.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved mifepristone for chemical abortion use in 2000. Abortion drugs account for about half of all abortions in the United States. Although pro-life groups have urged President-elect Donald Trump to use executive actions to restrict these drugs, the incoming president has committed to ensuring they remain available.

This article has been updated.

Pope Francis and French President Emmanuel Macron meet in Corsica on Dec. 15, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/EWTN/Vatican Pool

ACI Prensa Staff, Dec 16, 2024 / 13:30 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis and French President Emmanuel Macron met on Sunday during the pontiff’s visit to Corsica, where they discussed international concerns and shared a moment of levity about the importance of maintaining a sense of humor.

The 40-minute private meeting took place in a room at Ajaccio’s Napoleon Bonaparte Airport, where the two leaders addressed several pressing international issues, including conflicts in the Holy Land, Lebanon, and Ukraine. 

Both expressed their desire for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and discussed the situation in Syria, advocating for a “just and inclusive” political transition that would protect minorities.

During their exchange, Macron presented the pope with a book about Notre-Dame Cathedral, while Francis reciprocated with papal medals and magisterial documents. The pope specifically recommended that Macron read his apostolic exhortation Gaudete et Exultate, drawing attention to the passage referencing St. Thomas More’s prayer for a sense of humor.

“Lord, give me a sense of humor. Grant me the grace to understand a joke, to discover in life a bit of joy, and to be able to share it with others,” reads the prayer, which Pope Francis has previously described as “very beautiful” and recites daily.

The meeting came just a week after the reopening of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, an event the pope declined to attend. Instead, he presided over a consistory at the Vatican, where he created 21 new cardinals on the same day, Dec. 7.

The brief but significant visit marked Francis’s 47th apostolic journey abroad. Earlier Sunday, the pope participated in a conference on popular piety in the Mediterranean region, where he advocated for “healthy secularism” that ensures political action without instrumentalizing religion.

In an unprecedented break from tradition, Pope Francis did not hold his usual in-flight press conference with journalists on the return journey to Rome. He did, however, thank the press corps for its presence and commented on Corsica being a land “of children,” stating: “I was happy to see a people that makes children: This is the future.”

The pope will celebrate his 88th birthday on Dec. 17.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Pope Francis meets with members of the Filipino community at the Vatican's Consistory Hall on Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Dec 16, 2024 / 09:30 am (CNA).

Pope Francis welcomed members of a Filipino community living in Spain to the Vatican on Monday, reminding them that they have a home in every country where the Catholic Church is present.

“It is a great joy for me to welcome you to the house of St. Peter, to the home of the Church,” the pope shared with the Filipino delegation. “You have wanted to call your mission in Madrid: ‘Tahanan,’ a beautiful word that we can translate as ‘home.’”

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the parish of Immaculate Conception and St. Lorenzo Ruiz in Barcelona, Spain, the Holy Father told his listeners: “It is true that the Church wherever we go is a warm and welcoming home for us, and today Peter’s house is that home for you. Welcome!”

The Immaculate Conception and St. Lorenzo Ruiz Parish was established in 1999 to serve Filipino Catholics living and working in Barcelona. It is a personal parish connected to the Philippine Diocese of Imus.

Acknowledging the difficulties many migrants face when settling in new countries, the Holy Father told members of the Filipino diaspora living in Spain that Our Lady is close to them and not indifferent to their many needs and concerns.

“It is on these thorns that our Blessed Mother presents herself to us, so that we do not lose hope and are able to face problems, trusting in her protection and shelter,” the pope shared with the Barcelona parish representatives.

Turning to the example of St. Lorenzo Ruiz — patron saint of Filipino migrants, youth, and altar servers — the Holy Father said the saint represents a beautiful “integration of cultures” who is also an inspiring role model of faith and mission.

“His family, like that of Cardinal [Luis Antonio] Tagle, had Chinese and Filipino ancestry and, together with the Spanish who gave him faith, they created an excellent mix,” the pope said. 

“Finally, upon reaching the land that should have welcomed him, God asked him to bear witness to his faith with the greatest proof of love, giving his life,” he added.

Toward the conclusion of the private audience held in the Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father also expressed his particular regard for Tagle, prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization.

Tagle is also a member of several Vatican dicasteries including the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, and Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

“Let us imitate [Ruiz and Tagle],” the Holy Father said. “Both had to leave their land, but both did so embracing Jesus. Trusting in him, both faced difficulties without ever losing hope and both are examples of a life dedicated to serving God in their brothers.”

“In this way we will be able to build our ‘tahanan,’ that welcoming and warm home that, like a mother, must be our Church. May the Child God bless you and the Holy Virgin keep you always,” he said.

The cover image for the podcast “A Christmas Carol: An Audio Advent Calendar,” produced by The Merry Beggars. / Credit: The Merry Beggars

CNA Staff, Dec 16, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).

An immersive Catholic-produced audio adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic Christmas novel is climbing the podcast charts this Advent. 

“A Christmas Carol: An Audio Advent Calendar” was produced by The Merry Beggars, a Catholic entertainment company founded in 2019 — and now part of Relevant Radio — that aims to create highly-produced, uplifting audio that families can listen to together. 

The 25-part series, which features short episodes released one day at a time throughout Advent, is available for free on The Merry Beggars’ website as well as on any podcast app. The website also includes resources for teachers and parents such as coloring pages and an activity book. 

Though not brand new — the audio drama debuted in 2021 and is being rereleased for a fourth year this Advent — the program has seen particular success this year, surpassing 1 million downloads and peaking for a time at No. 1 on Apple Podcasts’ Fiction charts. 

Peter Atkinson, founder and executive producer of The Merry Beggars, told CNA that the idea for the audio production came from a book he and his siblings read when he was a child that split the story of “A Christmas Carol” into 25 small sections for Advent. Atkinson said he found himself returning to the beloved story year after year as an adult. 

“I honestly find it really hard to listen to ‘A Christmas Carol’ without crying. Because to me, the story touches on the depths of the human heart,” Atkinson said.

Atkinson said the story of “A Christmas Carol” is one of “redemption and conversion” that showcases how a person can be brought out of selfishness and hatred into a generous and joyful existence. 

The story contrasts the miserly Ebeneezer Scrooge, who is driven by fear and a need to grasp on to money, safety, and security, with the generous Fezziwig, who is a successful businessman and yet “has detachment from created things, from money,” because he lavishly spends what he has on his family, friends, employees, and the poor. 

“I think the beauty of spending on hospitality, on welcoming other people, on seeing Christ in others … whether it’s in your home, whether it’s at your company, wherever you are … I think it speaks to the depths of the human heart,” Atkinson said. 

The production, which features professional voice actors and an immersive soundscape, differs from most other adaptations of Dickens’ novel because it “preserves Charles Dickens’ voice in the story,” making him the narrator and thus “a character in the story,” Atkinson said. 

The production of the audio drama took only two weeks to complete in 2021, but the recording process was challenging, involving creative solutions like makeshift soundproofing and last-minute casting changes. Despite the whirlwind, the program saw success as soon as it debuted, reaching No. 3 on the Fiction charts in past years. 

Atkinson said the program’s particular success this year is likely due to word-of-mouth among Catholic families. He said he hopes other families will check out the episodes and enjoy the timeless story about “serving and loving our neighbor.”

“My hope is that the audiences listening to this production will be filled with the same joy and hope and beauty that I experience every time that I’ve listened to it. There’s something about the story of ‘A Christmas Carol’ that makes you want to listen to it every single year,” he said.

Advent wreath St. Catherine's Church in Bethlehem / Credit: Marinella Bandini

National Catholic Register, Dec 16, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).

“O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel!”

This favored Christmas carol is no carol at all. It’s a hymn for the season of Advent — the liturgical season that is about so much more than simply preparing for Christmas. 

During these short four weeks, the Church has historically focused on Our Lord Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of all prophecy and human yearning as she anticipates not only the celebration of his incarnation at Christmas but also as she waits in hope for his glorious return at the end of time.

The verses of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” are taken from seven ancient antiphons that the Church has used in her evening prayer liturgy since well before the ninth century. Every year, from Dec. 17 to Dec. 23, the Church’s liturgy enters a more intense and proximate preparation for Christ’s coming at Christmas. This shift is noticeable in the readings at Mass during these days but also in the Church’s Liturgy of the Hours, specifically at evening prayer. Every evening during that week, the Church prays one of what have become known as the great “O Antiphons” before reciting Our Lady’s “Magnificat” canticle.

The O Antiphons invoke Our Lord using imagery taken from the Old Testament: “O Wisdom From on High”; “O Lord of the House of Israel”; “O Root of Jesse’s Stem”; “O Key of David”; “O Radiant Dawn”; “O King of the Nations”; and “O Emmanuel.” To these biblical images are added various pleas such as: “Come to teach us the path of knowledge!”; “Come to save us without delay!”; and “Come and free the prisoners of darkness!”

Each of these O Antiphons is a beautiful prayer in itself, but each also demonstrates exactly how the Church has come to understand Christ’s relationship to the promises and images of God so prevalent in the Old Testament.

“O Wisdom From on High!”

Isaiah prophesied that a shoot would sprout from the stump of Jesse. One of Jesse’s heirs would be a messianic figure and redeemer for Israel.

“The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: a spirit of wisdom and of understanding” (Is 11:1-2). Because Isaiah’s prophecies look forward so expectantly to the redemption of Israel and the whole world in the great promises of God, he is particularly the prophet of the season of Advent.

Christ, however, is more than the Anointed One. St. Paul told the Church in Corinth that “Christ [is] the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:24). Christ is the Wisdom that the Book of Proverbs speaks of as God’s artisan and delight (Proverbs 8). The Eternally Begotten Son is always the delight of the Father and the Artisan through whom all things were made.

Perhaps a more poignant instance of a powerful Old Testament image of the divine is the Dec. 18 antiphon: “O Lord of the House of Israel, giver of the Law to Moses on Sinai.” The events recounted in the Book of Exodus are magnificently tremendous, from the burning bush to the parting of the Red Sea to the giving of the Law to Moses at a Mount Sinai covered in thunder and lightning.

The Church Fathers routinely noted Christ’s presence in God’s various manifestations to the Israelites. St. Justin Martyr recalled: “The same One, who is both angel and God, and Lord and man, and who appeared in human form to Abraham and Isaac, [also] appeared in a flame of fire from the bush and conversed with Moses.”

St. Gregory of Nyssa comments on the events of the desert — the clouds, the thunder, and the tabernacle of God’s presence — “Taking a hint from what has been said by Paul, who partially uncovered the mystery of these things, we say that Moses was earlier instructed by a type in the mystery of the tabernacle which encompasses the universe.” This tabernacle, Christ the Son of God, he continues, “is in a way both unfashioned and fashioned, uncreated in preexistence but created in having received this material composition.”

The preexisting Eternal Son of God who is the perfect image of God is also the presence of God in the flaming bush, on Mount Sinai and perfectly in his incarnation.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the Latin version of this antiphon begins with “O Adonai,” borrowing the Hebrew word God-fearing Jews speak when reading the Torah to avoid speaking the proper name of God himself — it is the name Lord, the name St. Paul tells the Philippians was bestowed on Christ because he did not deem equality with God something to be grasped, but rather emptied himself unto death (cf. Philippians 2:6-11). Jesus Christ is Adonai. He is Kyrios. He is the Lord.

Finally, other O Antiphons identify Christ as the fulfillment of Israel’s greatness and human longing. He is the Oriens, the dawn that Isaiah promised would rise upon God’s chosen people (Isaiah 60:1-2). He is also the Root of Jesse. So he is not only the fulfillment but the beginning of the Israelite lineage.

He is the Creator and the One through whom David’s lineage came to be. So Christ is both the beginning and end of the promise to David. He is the Alpha and Omega. He is the One the Old Testament predicts will rule as king of all the nations.

The O Antiphons are much more than simple refrains to be chanted before Our Lady’s Magnifcat or to serve as verses in an Advent hymn. They reveal the mysteries of Christ already being revealed in the power and glory of God in the Old Testament.

St. Thomas Aquinas was right to insist that many of the great prophets of Israel had real and explicit prophetic knowledge of Jesus and his mysteries even though they lived hundreds of years before the Incarnation. “Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day,” Jesus himself once preached. “He saw it, and he was glad” (Jn 8:56). Christ is active in Israel. He is in the Old Testament.

These great antiphons remind us that there is so much more to Advent than preparing for Christmas. They remind us that Christ is the focal point of salvation history, and, in fact, of all world history, because he is Emmanuel — “God with us.”

The wisdom of God is exactly such that the Lord creates us to be in relationship with him in order to bring light not only to our lives but to the world. Every year the Church gives us these four weeks so that we might remember in an intense way what we should be living every day: in preparation, anticipation, and joyful hope that the Lord will come to us and save us.

O Emmanuel, Our King and Giver of Law: Come to save us, Lord Our God!

This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA's sister news partner, and has been adapted by CNA.

Pope Francis presides over Mass on Gaudete Sunday on the island of Corsica, Sunday, Dec. 15, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA

Ajaccio, France, Dec 15, 2024 / 13:00 pm (CNA).

Two days before his 88th birthday, Pope Francis received a warm welcome on the Mediterranean island of Corsica for a one-day visit to the city of Ajaccio, the capital of the French island region.

During the Dec. 15 trip, the pontiff encouraged the island’s Catholic majority to continue to foster its traditional piety as secular culture grows in Europe — and to use their devotion as fuel to serve others in charity.

The papal visit touched the peripheries of France, where a strongly Catholic population is steeped in Corsican traditions, including songs, both sacred and secular, linked to confraternities.

These religious associations, which have a long history in Corsican culture, continue to pass down the custom of singing. The hymns are usually sung a capella and in Latin.

Traditional Corsican hymns were featured throughout Pope Francis’ visit, especially at his Mass with an estimated 7,000 Catholics at Place d’Austerlitz, a park built as a memorial to Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, who was born in Ajaccio. Authorities estimate another 8,000 people were following the Mass on jumbo screens around the city.

In his homily for the third Sunday of Advent, Pope Francis said too much time thinking about ourselves and our own needs is why “we lose the spirit of joy.”

Distress, disappointment, and sadness are widespread spiritual ills, he noted, especially where consumerism is prominent.

“If we live only for ourselves, we will never find happiness,” the pope said, pointing to the recitation of the rosary and the spiritual and corporal works of mercy of the confraternities as an example of how to cultivate faith.

The Mass in a mix of French and Corsican took place as the sun set over Ajaccio, ending by candlelight with purple skies behind the hills bordering the port city.

“May the Gospel of Jesus Christ help you to have hearts open to the world: Your traditions are a richness to be cherished and cultivated, but never in order to isolate yourselves; indeed they are always for encounter and sharing,” Pope Francis said in his closing message of thanks to the community.

Pope Francis is the first pope to visit Corsica, which is situated west of the mainland of Italy and north of the Italian island of Sardinia, the nearest land mass.

According to the latest Vatican statistics, the Diocese of Ajaccio, the Mediterranean island’s only diocese, has nearly 344,000 inhabitants, about 85% of whom are Catholic.

Approximately 400 people, many of them members of confraternities, were in the auditorium hall for Pope Francis’ first meeting of the day, the closing speech of a conference on popular piety in the Mediterranean region.

While extolling the French system of “läicité” and the “constructive citizenship” of Christians, Pope Francis underlined that “faith may not be reduced to a private affair, restricted to the sanctuary of the individual’s conscience.”

Francis warned against pitting Christian and secular culture against one another and praised the “beauty and importance of popular piety” in an increasingly faithless Europe.

After leaving the conference center, Pope Francis stopped along the road to pray and light a candle at a statue of the “Madunuccia,” or “little Madonna,” kept in a niche of a building.

The patroness of Ajaccio, honored under the title of Our Lady of Mercy, protected the city from plague in 1656, a day the city marks with grand festivities every year on March 18.

Pope Francis greeted enthusiastic locals lining the streets of Ajaccio as he traveled in an open-air popemobile to the 16th-century Our Lady of the Assumption Cathedral, just steps from the sea in the city’s historic center.

Inside the Baroque cathedral, Francis prayed the Angelus with French bishops, priests, deacons, seminarians, and religious.

Addressing the island’s clerics and religious before the traditional Marian prayer, the pope emphasized the need for those whose lives are devoted to service to also spend time in “care for themselves” — including daily time for prayer, Mass, solitude, heartfelt exchanges with a person of trust, and a healthy hobby.

He also encouraged the priests, bishops, and religious to find the most efficacious routes for evangelization today.

“Do not be afraid of changing, of reassessing the old methods, of renewing the language of faith and realizing that the mission is not a question of human strategies but above all a question of faith, of passion for the Gospel and God’s kingdom,” the pontiff said.

After a day surrounded by the warmth of the people of Corsica, Pope Francis concluded his trip with a brief one-on-one meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron before returning to Rome.

St. Benedict Church in Baltimore, Maryland (left) and St. Benedict Church in Richmond, Virginia. / Credit: St. Benedict Church; Daniel Payne/CNA

Richmond, Va., Dec 15, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Catholics who have spent time in both Baltimore and Richmond, Virginia, may be unaware that two near-identical parishes exist in both cities, both built by the same architect-priest and both offering an ideal of what their designer called a “quiet, recollected, prayerful, somber, sanctified” atmosphere of peace and worship. 

St. Benedict Church in Baltimore and St. Benedict Church in Richmond were both constructed by Father Michael McInerney, OSB, a monk at Belmont Abbey in North Carolina who lived from 1877–1963. 

By the time of his death at age 85, McInerney had designed and built more than 200 churches as well as numerous hospitals, convents, and other works. Among his more notable creations was Sacred Heart College in Belmont, North Carolina, as well as works at his alma mater Belmont College. He is interred at Belmont Abbey. 

Though the priest’s works range in style and scope from Gothic to Art Deco, the two churches in Baltimore and Richmond are strikingly similar. Both were dedicated within just a few years of each other — the Richmond parish in 1929 and the Baltimore parish in 1933 — and both have remained active for nearly a century. 

Baltimore: ‘A spectacular house of worship’

In his history of the parish, local author John Potyraj describes the Baltimore St. Benedict’s as a “church built with nickels,” with the parish having “squirreled away a considerable amount” of money in the early 20th century prior to the building’s construction. 

A school, a rectory, a convent, and a “social center” rounded out what became a considerable Catholic campus in Baltimore’s Mill Hill neighborhood. 

Potyraj noted that McInerney regularly “scaled the scaffold” during construction of the parish “to inspect the masons’ work and provide instruction” and that the priest was “uncompromising” in ensuring that his architectural vision was carried out. 

The interior of the church offers “ample provision of natural light” within a “monastic atmosphere,” presenting modest ornamentation that does not “distract from the main purpose of the design” as a house of worship. 

Among the structure’s more striking features is a towering crucified Christ on the building’s face, one that overlooks the front portion of the property and which is embellished by a rose window. 

Also notable are the parish’s carved columns of polished pink granite, providing “the primary support of this spectacular house of worship” that symbolize the “pillars of the divine Church.”

The Baltimore St. Benedict’s was an active parish for nearly a century, though last year the Archdiocese of Baltimore discontinued all Masses and sacramental activity there after its pastor was removed following a scandal over sex abuse accusations and hush money.

On its website the parish says it continues to operate as St. Benedict Neighborhood Center. Its “Benedict’s Pantry” remains an active food pantry that regularly feeds hundreds of people. 

Ministry member Charlene Sola told CNA that the community has “started a new chapter” and is “excited about the future.” 

Though the parish is no longer an active Catholic church, the impressive, reverent building designed by McInerney still stands, giving testament to what parishioners at the building’s 50th anniversary described as a “home” where “the Father will hear us best of all and bless our prayers.” 

Richmond: ‘Ut in omnibus glorificetur Deus’

About 150 miles to the south, St. Benedict Church in Richmond is still an active parish — and visitors from the Baltimore church could be forgiven for thinking they’d stepped into their own parish. 

The roots of the Richmond church date to 1911 when monks from Belmont Abbey opened up a boys high school — Benedictine College Preparatory — and an attached parish in what is now the city’s Museum District. 

An elementary school soon followed, while in 1922 a group of Benedictine nuns opened up the all-girls St. Gertrude High School just a few hundred feet away. 

The two prep schools have since moved out to Goochland County and are united under a single institution, the Benedictine Schools of Richmond. Yet the parish started by the monks over a century ago still remains, guided by the Benedictine motto “Ut in omnibus glorificetur Deus,” or “that in all things God may be glorified.”

The church, dedicated in 1929 just several weeks before the catastrophic stock market crash that year, bears many of the hallmarks of McInerney’s style and shares many features with its Baltimore cousin. 

Among them is a large rose window on the front facade; though missing the towering figure of Christ crucified, the rose window itself is strikingly similar, including minor statuary flanking its bottom edge.

The carved pink granite columns are also nearly identical to their Baltimore counterparts, including their being topped with liturgical symbols as they run the length of the nave. 

Also of striking similarity are the two reredos — decorative backings — of the respective altars. Both are of unmistakable resemblance, though the Richmond reredos has been embellished with a marble bas-relief of the Twelve Apostles, while the Baltimore church retains a more simplified blind arcade of brick arches. 

The Baltimore parish, meanwhile, boasts a towering high altar, while the Richmond church displays a shorter and narrower arch stretching over the tabernacle. 

Father Gilbert Sunghera, who previously served as an associate professor in the school of architecture at the University of Detroit Mercy, told CNA that duplicate parishes are “not that common but [it] has happened.”

“I am about to work on a school chapel in Akron that has a twin in Toledo,” he said. “And Detroit had a number of fairly simple churches that were all similar and called Gumbelton Barns after [former Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton], done at a time when churches needed to open quickly.”

Writing on the construction of Catholic churches, McInerney said years ago that a Catholic building “should present an exterior, simple, strong, reserved, dignified, and bearing upon its front, some symbol of its sacredness as a temple of the Almighty.”

The interior, meanwhile, “should possess a religious atmosphere, breathing the Spirit of God: quiet, recollected, prayerful, somber, sanctified, filled with peace and benediction in the presence of the Lord in his holy tabernacle.”

“It should be reverently awe inspiring,” he wrote, ”another place of Calvary where Jesus is lifted up before the eyes of the multitude and, again and again, made a victim of sacrifice for the sins of the world.”

The interior of the Milk Grotto in Bethlehem. In the background, the most well-known depiction of Our Lady of the Milk. According to a Christian tradition dating back to the sixth century, the Virgin Mary was nursing the baby Jesus here, and when, in haste to flee to Egypt, she took him off her breast, a drop of milk fell to the ground, turning the stone completely white. / Credit: Marinella Bandini

Bethlehem, Dec 15, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Just a short walk from the Grotto of the Nativity in the Holy Land is the only white-stone grotto in the entire area of Bethlehem. Commonly known as the “Milk Grotto,” its color and name are tied to a legend going back to the sixth century.

According to the story, the Holy Family found refuge in the grotto during the “slaughter of the innocents” recounted in the second chapter of Matthew’s Gospel. While there, an angel appeared to Joseph and told him to flee to Egypt. The legend recounts that the Virgin Mary was nursing the Baby Jesus at that moment and when, in haste to depart, she took him off her breast, a drop of milk fell to the ground, turning the stone completely white.

Since 1872, a sanctuary belonging to the Custody of the Holy Land has stood above the grotto (most recently renovated in 2006), but as early as the 12th century, records mention the existence of a “Church of Rest” and the “Milk Grotto.”

Since the sixth century, relics from the Milk Grotto have been known in Europe and the East. These consist of powdered rock from the grotto, considered miraculous, distributed in small pouches — a practice that continues to this day. In 1250, Perdicca of Ephesus wrote that this powder helps mothers produce milk when they have none.

For this reason, the grotto has long been a favored pilgrimage site for women and families seeking the blessing of a child or facing challenges with pregnancy and nursing. Not only Christian women but also many Muslim women, who regard Mary as a model of feminine virtue, make pilgrimages here.

Little miracles of the grotto

“Just a drop was enough to change the color of the rock, and this drop continues to change people’s lives,” said Father Luis Enrique Segovia, guardian of the Franciscan convent in Bethlehem who, for the past eight years, has also served among the friars at the Milk Grotto. 

“Many people come here, even from afar, seeking a miracle, and in an instant, everything changes,” he said.

Reaching the sanctuary of the Milk Grotto “is coming to a place of hope, a place of life,” Segovia said. “People come to ask for the gift of motherhood and fatherhood, the gift of life. It’s not just about [consuming] the powder. Here, the Virgin Mary can generate life; she can transform the lives of women and families.”

Thousands of letters have arrived at the sanctuary, testifying to graces received. These testimonies now completely cover the walls of the friars’ small office. The letters are often accompanied by photos of children whose births are attributed to the intercession of Our Lady of the Milk Grotto. 

“Some return on pilgrimage and bring the child,” Segovia explained. “A few years ago, we even celebrated a baptism.”

Among the pilgrims in the summer of 2019 were Federica Crippa and her husband, Giacomo, a young couple suffering the loss of two children due to miscarriage in the early months of pregnancy. “We had so many questions,” Federica told CNA. “Why had God given us two children who didn’t even have the chance to be born?”

When they arrived in Bethlehem, Federica was pregnant for the third time. “When I noticed some spotting, I panicked,” she recounted. “The friend hosting us suggested we visit the Milk Grotto.”

The couple prayed for their baby’s life. “Our lives are deeply shaped by faith,” Federica said. “The Milk Grotto was the right place at that moment.”

Upon returning to Italy, Federica’s gynecologist prescribed complete bed rest, confirming a partial placental abruption that had, however, stabilized. The couple continued to entrust themselves to Our Lady of the Milk Grotto and in February 2020 their son Giovanni was born. Two years later, he was joined by a little brother. 

“We like to think that Giovanni’s birth is connected to the Milk Grotto. If we hadn’t been there, I don’t know what would have happened,” Federica reflected.

Prayers answered

Among the devotees of the Milk Grotto is another friar of the Custody of the Holy Land, Father Giuseppe Gaffurini. His devotion began many years before he arrived in the Holy Land. 

“I was living in Rome and had an image of a sculpture depicting the flight into Egypt, with a prayer behind it,” he told CNA. “I used it when people asked me to pray for the gift of children. When I came to the Holy Land for a [month’s] sabbatical, a nun directed me to the Milk Grotto. What a surprise when I saw that sculpture there.”

Since then, Gaffurini has been directing all couples who ask him to pray for children to the Milk Grotto. And he never returns to Italy without bringing back some pouches of the grotto’s powder.

“All the gifts God gave to Mary, she shares with us. This is the theological reason why this devotion can be considered legitimate and not magic or superstition,” he emphasized. “We turn to Mary and say: ‘You there enjoyed the joys of motherhood, share this joy with us.’ This is part of the Christian faith.”

Gaffurini has witnessed little miracles connected to the grotto within his own family. He told CNA that his nephew and his nephew’s partner greatly desired a child, but none was coming so at a family lunch, the friar gave them a pouch with the Milk Grotto’s powder.

Francesca Carleschi, the partner of Gaffurini’s nephew, shared the rest of the story with CNA. 

“It was Dec. 8, 2022. In January, I would have had an appointment for medically assisted procreation. Father Giuseppe told me the story of the Milk Grotto and gave me the powder. I come from a Christian family, and I thought it could be an extra help,” Carleschi explained. 

Every day, she drank a glass of water with a pinch of the powder and recited the prayer given to her to go with it. 

“At the end of January, I canceled my appointment for medically assisted procreation because I was pregnant.” Nine months later, Giulio was born.

When she tells the story, she can hardly believe it, yet it really happened to her.

“Surely, many factors played in our favor, but having this possibility [of the powder], this help from above, calmed me. It gave me a confidence that I perhaps hadn’t had before in the possibility that our desire could come true,” she said.

This past Oct. 11, Carleschi and her partner asked Gaffurini to baptize their child, and on that occasion, they also got married.

“We thought we needed to give something back for what had been given to us, or rather, add one more piece — for our son, but also for us as a couple: to marry, and do it in church, to ask the help of someone greater even in this step.”

“Children are gifts from God, all of them. The fact that, in some cases, this gift is accompanied by difficulty reminds us that all children are gifts from God,” Gaffurini said.

Lee Edwards received the VOC Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom, at the opening of the Victims of Communism Museum in June 2022. This medal is the highest honor from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, which he co-founded in 1994. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Spalding

CNA Staff, Dec 14, 2024 / 14:37 pm (CNA).

Author and Catholic convert Lee Edwards, one of the foremost historians of the conservative movement in America, died Thursday. He was 92. 

Edwards co-founded the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington, D.C., authorized by Congress in 1993 and completed in 2007.

He was a distinguished fellow of conservative thought at the Heritage Foundation for about 25 years before retiring about a year ago. 

He also wrote 25 books. Among them are well-known histories of American conservatives and conservatism — and lesser-known works, including “John Paul II in Our Nation’s Capital,” the Archdiocese of Washington’s official account of the pope’s visit in October 1979. 

“He was an optimist, very much upbeat. He believed God had a plan for each of us,” his daughter, author and political scientist Elizabeth Spalding, told CNA.

Anti-communism 

The turning point in his life’s work came in 1956 when he was taking graduate classes at the Sorbonne in Paris when Hungarians, including students about his age, briefly overthrew the communist government there. 

“And for those almost two weeks, my dad thought, ‘This is it. This is it. We’re going to beat communism,’” Spalding told CNA. 

Then the Soviet Red Army invaded Hungary, crushed the revolt, and restored communist rule. The United States and its Western allies did nothing. 

“My father said, ‘Right then, I swore I would spend the rest of my life trying to defeat communism and help those fighting for their freedom,’” Spalding said. 

Edwards helped found Young Americans for Freedom in 1960 and edited its magazine, New Guard. He later served as an aide to the Republican presidential nominee in 1964, U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater. 

In 1967, Edwards wrote a political biography of Ronald Reagan during his first term as governor of California, through which he got to spend time with Reagan and his wife Nancy. Edwards became familiar with a code term Reagan used with some of his aides — “the D.P.,” which meant “the Divine Plan.” 

Edwards updated the book after Reagan became president. It came out not long after Reagan was shot and seriously wounded in March 1981. For that edition, the publisher put a yellow border on the cover saying it was “complete through the assassination attempt,” which mortified Edwards. 

Still, Edwards got to meet Reagan in the Oval Office, and he presented Reagan with the updated version of the book. 

“President Reagan puts down the book,” Spalding told CNA, “and then looks over at Dad and says ‘Well, Lee, I’m sorry I messed up your ending.’” 

Man of the right 

Freedom and conservatism were at the center of Edwards’ outlook. 

“Mine has been a life in pursuit of liberty,” he wrote in his 2017 autobiography “Just Right.” 

Edwards wrote biographies of Reagan, Goldwater, Edwin Meese, and William F. Buckley Jr. as well as books about conservatism. 

In his 50s, Edwards earned a doctorate in political science from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., with a dissertation on the origins of the Cold War. He later taught there as an adjunct professor. 

In 2017, he told an interviewer that he was about to teach a course on the 1960s, during which he planned to present what he called “both sides of the picture” — meaning not just the civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam movement, which students often hear about, but also what he referred to as “the rise of the right” — including Goldwater and Reagan. 

Conversion 

Edwards was born Dec. 1, 1932, in Chicago but grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland. 

He was raised a Methodist. His father, a political reporter for the Chicago Tribune, was a lapsed Catholic, though he later returned to the Church. 

In college Edwards stopped going to services because he realized he didn’t believe in the resurrection of Jesus. 

But in his mid-20s, he decided he needed religion to center his life, he said, after spending a mostly fruitless time in Paris drinking too much beer and chasing too many girls. 

“For the first time in my life, I admitted that I needed someone, something, other than myself to give purpose and meaning to my life: in short, I needed God,” he wrote in an article in Crisis Magazine in January 1994. 

When he got home he tried several Protestant churches. Then one day he went to Mass at St. Peter’s on Capitol Hill. 

“I said, ‘Oh, this is something different,’” he told The Arlington Catholic Herald for a December 2017 profile. 

A Redemptorist priest at the Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C., gave him religious instruction and eventually started getting on him to join the Church. Edwards hesitated, coming up with various objections and uncertainties before finally agreeing. 

The delay led to an unusual date to become a Catholic — not Easter time, which is the most common time to enter the Church, but Saturday, Dec. 13, 1958 — St. Lucy’s feast day. Yesterday was the 66th anniversary of his being received into the Church.

Edwards later wrote that when he knelt at the Communion rail to receive Communion for the first time, next to him on one side “was a young Black boy in his dark blue Sunday suit and on the other an elderly white woman in a worn cloth coat and hat.” 

“Dad always said part of what he loved was the universality of the Catholic Church,” Spalding told CNA. “Everyone goes up to Jesus.”

Our Lady 

While he was working at the Heritage Foundation he was a common sight at the midday Mass at St. Joseph’s Church on Capitol Hill. 

Spalding told CNA that many people have contacted her during the past day or two to say they felt inspired by how he witnessed to his faith. 

“It’s something he didn’t talk about all the time,” she said. “It’s something he lived.” 

Edwards was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in June. As he neared the end, his daughter said, she and her father discussed what his death day might be. 

Edwards died a little before 8 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 12, the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. 

That shouldn’t have surprised the family, his daughter told CNA. To try to keep warm during his declining days he used a polyester lap blanket with a mostly black background and a colorful image of — Our Lady of Guadalupe. 

Edwards’ wife of 57 years, Anne, who assisted him in all of his writings, died in November 2022. Their gravestone, designed by the sculptor of the statue in the Victims of Communism Memorial, features an image of St. John Paul II holding a crozier and the words “Be not afraid.” 

He leaves behind two daughters and 11 grandchildren. 

A funeral Mass is set for 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 19, at St. Rita Catholic Church in Alexandria, Virginia.