St. Clement Catholic Parish

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.

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.”

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.

null / Credit: New Africa/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Dec 14, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).

It’s that time of year again!

With Christmas quickly approaching, you may still be looking for the perfect gift for people on your shopping list. We’ve compiled a list of Catholic businesses that sell unique gifts for anyone you’re shopping for this holiday season.

Abundantly Yours

Rosaries make a perfect gift for a loved one on your shopping list. Abundantly Yours has a wide range of beautiful, handmade rosaries for men, women, and children. With different themed rosaries dedicated to a variety of saints — including St. Thérèse of Lisieux, St. Padre Pio, St. John Paul II, and St. Teresa of Calcutta — you’re bound to find the perfect one for whomever you’re shopping for.

Stella & Tide

Jewelry is always a great option for any woman you’re shopping for this Christmas. Stella & Tide provides beautiful, dainty Catholic jewelry with the hope of reminding the wearer to always turn to Christ in any difficulties she might encounter. The shop has everything from necklaces to earrings to bracelets and rings. 

The Catholic Woodworker

For any man you might be shopping for, The Catholic Woodworker specializes in beautifully crafted, masculine products including rosaries, pocket rosaries, crucifixes, home altars, and more. The Italian-made wall crucifix features the medal of St. Benedict and has a beautiful metal frame and dark wood inlay.

Be a Heart

If you’re shopping for children on your list, Be A Heart has a wide variety of Catholic-inspired toys including wooden puzzles, dolls, books, and more. A fun stocking-stuffer idea are the Jesus heals bandages, which include five different designs and remind little ones that Jesus heals all, even those scrapes and scratches.

Holy Pals

Looking for a gift the whole family can enjoy? Holy Pals offers matching family Christmas pajamas, even for your furry family members! Holy Pals aims to design products that give children the opportunity to draw near to Christ and to help parents teach their children about the faith. Their Christmas PJs come in a variety of designs including Prince of Peace, Away in a Manger, O Holy Night, and more, and range in sizes from newborn to adult XXL. They even have matching pet bandanas!

Gather and Pray

The Catholic Planner from Gather and Pray is a great gift for anyone who loves being organized, writing to-do lists, and keeping track of busy schedules. This planner also serves as a liturgical planner with feasts days and holy days of obligation included as well as pages on how to do an examination of conscience, how to pray the rosary, a list of novenas with start and end dates, and daily meditations.

EWTN Religious Catalogue

The EWTN Religious Catalogue also offers a plethora of Catholic goods that would make great gifts. The Holy Family holy water font is a particularly beautiful gift featuring the Holy Family sculpted in great detail and has a deep basin for holy water. (Note: EWTN is CNA’s parent company.)

A pro-abortion activist displays abortion pills as she counter-protests during a pro-life rally on March 25, 2023, in New York City. / Credit: Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 13, 2024 / 18:40 pm (CNA).

President-elect Donald Trump vowed he would not use his executive authority to restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone in an interview published by Time magazine on Dec. 12.

When asked by Time whether he was “committed to making sure that the [Food and Drug Administration (FDA)] does not strip their ability to access abortion pills,” Trump said “that would be my commitment — yeah, it’s always been my commitment.”

The FDA first approved mifepristone to be used in chemical abortions in 2000. Under current law, the drug is approved to abort an unborn child up to 10 weeks’ gestation, at which point the child has a fetal heartbeat, early brain activity, and partially developed eyes, lips, and nostrils.

Mifepristone kills the child by blocking the hormone progesterone, which cuts off the child’s supply of oxygen and nutrients. A second pill, misoprostol, is taken between 24 to 48 hours after mifepristone to induce contractions meant to expel the child’s body from the mother, essentially inducing labor.

Chemical abortions account for about half of the abortions in the United States every year.

Before Trump committed to maintaining access to the abortion pill, the president-elect went back and forth with the Time reporter, stating that the issue is complex “because you have other people that, you know, they feel strongly both ways, really strongly both ways, and those are the things that are dividing up the country.”

The pledge is a blow to pro-life activists who had urged Trump to use the FDA’s power to enforce a Comstock Act prohibition on the delivery of “obscene” and “vile” products through the mail — which includes the delivery of anything designed to produce an abortion. 

Trump, who moderated his position on abortion during the 2024 presidential election, has said the states should determine their own policies on abortion. He said during the campaign that he would not sign a national abortion ban if elected.

Alternatively, Trump has praised the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and allow states to restrict abortion and has vowed to free pro-life activists who have been imprisoned for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. He has also said he would consider a ban on federal funding for pro-abortion groups internationally and has vowed to protect religious freedom.

Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Superior, which has programs for the disabled, elderly, and impoverished, argued caring for those in need is part of its religious mission. / Credit: Catholic Charities Bureau

CNA Staff, Dec 13, 2024 / 18:20 pm (CNA).

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a case brought by Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Superior in Wisconsin after the Wisconsin Supreme Court in March ruled the agency ineligible for a religious tax exemption because Catholic Charities’ service to the poor and those in need was not “typical” religious activity. 

The Catholic Charities agency, which operates under the purview of the Diocese of Superior and has programs for the disabled, elderly, and impoverished, has argued that caring for those in need is part of its religious mission as a Catholic organization.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court had in March, however, ruled 4-3 that Catholic Charities’ activities are not “typical” religious activities because Catholic Charities serves and employs non-Catholics, does not “attempt to imbue program participants with the Catholic faith,” and that its services to the poor and those in need could also be provided by secular organizations. 

As a result of the ruling, Catholic Charities remains mandated to pay into Wisconsin’s unemployment system, which it has paid into ever since Wisconsin’s tax exemption for organizations “operated primarily for religious purposes” was introduced in 1972.

In August, Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Superior appealed the Wisconsin ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court will now decide whether a state violates the First Amendment’s religion clauses by denying a religious organization an otherwise available tax exemption because the organization does not meet the state’s criteria for religious behavior. 

An amicus brief filed by the Wisconsin Catholic Conference (WCC) explained that the Church views service to the poor as a religious activity because it is a core tenet of the faith and a command from Christ, distinguishing this command from simple philanthropy and explaining that Christian charity is about “looking at others through the very eyes of Jesus” and “seeing Jesus in the face of the poor.” 

The Catholic Church sees this duty as “inherently religious” because it expresses love for Christ, each other, and those they help, the WCC said. Quoting Pope Benedict XVI in Deus Caritas Est, the WCC stated that the Church “cannot neglect the service of charity any more than she can neglect the sacraments and the Word.”

“Catholic Charities Bureau is on the front lines bringing love, healing, and hope to the most vulnerable members of our community,” said Bishop James Powers, bishop of the Diocese of Superior, in a Friday statement. 

“We pray the court recognizes that this work of improving the human condition is our answer to Christ’s call to serve those in need.”

Becket, the public-interest law firm representing the Catholic Charities agency, said the state of Wisconsin is “trying to make sure no good deed goes unpunished.”

“Penalizing Catholic Charities for serving Catholics and non-Catholics alike is ridiculous and wrong,” said Eric Rassbach, vice president and senior counsel at Becket. 

“We are confident the Supreme Court will reject the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s absurd ruling.” 

null / Credit: Djavan Rodriguez|Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 13, 2024 / 17:45 pm (CNA).

Cardinal Blase Cupich of the Archdiocese of Chicago in a letter published this week in the archdiocesan newspaper urged Catholics to stand while receiving holy Communion and not make gestures that draw attention to oneself.

In the letter, published in the Chicago Catholic, Cupich said “the norm established by [the] Holy See for the universal Church and approved by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is for the faithful to process together as an expression of their coming forward as the body of Christ and to receive holy Communion standing.”

The cardinal goes on to state that “nothing should be done to impede any of these processions” and that “disrupting this moment only diminishes this powerful symbolic expression, by which the faithful in processing together express their faith that they are called to become the very Body of Christ they receive.”

“Certainly reverence can and should be expressed by bowing before the reception of holy Communion, but no one should engage in a gesture that calls attention to oneself or disrupts the flow of the procession,” he added. “That would be contrary to the norms and tradition of the Church, which all the faithful are urged to respect and observe.”

The letter does not directly state what specific gestures draw “attention to oneself.” CNA reached out to the archdiocese to request clarification but did not receive a response by the time of publication. 

Although the guidelines issued by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) state that receiving Communion while standing is the norm, a person cannot be denied Communion because he or she is kneeling. 

“The norm for reception of holy Communion in the dioceses of the United States is standing. Communicants should not be denied holy Communion because they kneel,” according to the General Instruction of the Roman Missal. “Rather, such instances should be addressed pastorally, by providing the faithful with proper catechesis on the reasons for this norm.”

The matter is also addressed in the 2004 Vatican document Redemptionis Sacramentum, which was issued by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments under St. John Paul II’s papacy.

The Vatican document states that Catholics “should receive Communion kneeling or standing” and that it is “not licit to deny holy Communion” based on whether a person “wishes to receive the Eucharist kneeling or standing.”

In his letter, Cupich wrote that “we all have benefited from the renewal of the Church ushered in by the Second Vatican Council.” 

“By recognizing this relationship between how we worship and what we believe, the bishops at the council made clear that the renewal of the liturgy in the life of the Church is central to the mission of proclaiming the Gospel,” the cardinal added. “It would be a mistake to reduce the renewal to a mere updating of our liturgy to fit the times we live in, as if it were a kind of liturgical facelift. We need the restoration of the liturgy because it gives us the capacity to proclaim Christ to the world.”

“The law of praying establishes the law of believing is our tradition,” Cupich wrote. “When the bishops took up the task of restoring the liturgy six decades ago, they reminded us that this ancient principle enjoys a privileged place in the Church’s tradition. It should continue to guide us in every age.”

For centuries before the Second Vatican Council, which concluded in 1965, the norm within the Latin rite was to receive Communion on the tongue while kneeling. The council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, promulgated in 1963, did not make any changes to this norm.

Rather, in response to bishops permitting Communion in the hand while standing, the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship issued the document Memoriale Domini in 1969 to permit the practice in some circumstances but emphasized that bishops must “avoid any risk of lack of respect or of false opinions with regard to the blessed Eucharist and to avoid any other ill effects that may follow” when allowing Communion in the hand.

Pilgrims attend Mass celebrated by Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Basilica Dec. 12, 2022, to mark the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas and the unborn. / Credit: Vatican Media

CNA Staff, Dec 13, 2024 / 17:15 pm (CNA).

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco is launching a project to increase devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe in response to Pope Francis’ call to prepare and pray as the 500th anniversary of the Guadalupe apparition approaches.

Cordileone told EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo on “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo” of his goal of “informing people of this call of Pope Francis,” which he said is “largely unknown” to English-speaking Catholics.

To that end, the archbishop is promoting Project Guadalupe 2031, an initiative to help families enthrone Our Lady of Guadalupe in their homes. Through a new “Mass of the Americas,” which will be celebrated across the country, he also hopes to encourage a devotion to Our Lady.

Cordileone is also drawing attention to a nine-year intercontinental novena, called for by Pope Francis in 2022, that anticipates the fifth centennial of the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 2031.

“We want to promote awareness of this and invite people into this novena to instill greater devotion to Our Lady because she’s the one who always leads us to the encounter with her son,” Cordileone told Arroyo. 

“We’ve planned celebrations of the Mass of the Americas that I commissioned six years ago to bring the popular music Mexican people sing to honor Our Lady of Guadalupe into the sacred music tradition of the Church,” Cordileone said. 

Composed by Frank La Rocca, Mass of the Americas is a liturgy of unity with Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, patroness of the United States, and Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of Mexico and all the Americas.

Cordileone recalled an archdiocesan celebration as the spark for the idea. 

“This all was born from six years ago: Dec. 8 was on a Saturday, and we had an archdiocesan-wide celebration of Our Lady Guadalupe on the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception,” Cordileone recalled. 

“So I thought, we all love Our Lady no matter which side of the border we live on, what language we speak, what culture we come from,” the archbishop said. “So we need to look to Our Lady as the mother who unites us all into one family of God.” 

“It’s a Mass of unity,” Cordileone explained, noting that celebrations of the special Mass will be celebrated in different venues across the U.S. The culmination of this will be a celebration of the Mass on the memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary on Oct. 7, 2025, at the Basílica de Santa María de Guadalupe (Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe) in Tepeyac outside of Mexico City. 

The shrine was built at the site of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s appearance to St. Juan Diego in 1531, which led to the conversion of several millions of Aztecs. The shrine is home to the famous miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. 

The Mass of the Americas will be sung by a festival choir, featuring hundreds of singers from across the United States and led by Richard Carrillo of the University of Nebraska. Carrillo, 41, first conducted the Mass of the Americas as part of his doctoral dissertation for Miami’s prestigious Frost School of Music.

Carrillo shared about the importance of Our Lady in his life in an interview with the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner. 

Carrillo, who is of mixed Indigenous and Mexican ancestry, recalls his grandmother singing “La Guadalupana” to him when he was a young boy. 

“When I first heard the lullaby my grandmother sang to me raised into sacred music for the Mass of the Americas, I was so moved I wept,” Carrillo said. “I know Mimi continues to pray for me, with the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, from heaven.”

Carrillo credits Our Lady for his own Catholic faith. 

“It’s hard to not find her responsible for my faith and the strong faith of my family that preceded me for generations,” Carrillo said. “I have deep roots in both Mexican Indigenous and Hispanic backgrounds. It was Our Lady of Guadalupe’s original apparition that first brought my ancient ancestors to their faith — and a faith that has been passed down for nearly 500 years to this present day.” 

The festival choir will be open to people of a variety of skill levels, with the more challenging parts sung by a smaller chamber choir.  

“One of the beauties of the Mass of the Americas is that it is accessible for average singers,” Carrillo said. “If someone just loves to sing, they will be able to sing the majority of the Mass of the Americas in Mexico, and if someone is a more trained singer (has a degree in music or is a professional musician) they may be asked if they would be willing to learn two additional songs.” 

The choir itself will contribute to the ideal of unity, drawing on hundreds of voices from the Americas.

“But my hope is that we can truly put together a true cross-section of musicians from all parts of the country, from the big cathedrals and the small parish choirs to even singular cantors from smaller churches, to represent the United States in this historic celebration of the 500th anniversary of Our Lady of Guadalupe,” Carrillo said.

Anticipating the 500th anniversary of Guadalupe

In preparation for the anniversary, the Benedict XVI Institute is inviting families to enthrone an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in their homes.

The goal? One hundred thousand “home enthronements” in the next three years.

The Benedict XVI Institute’s Project Guadalupe 2031 will offer free materials for families who wish to have an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in their homes, including instructions for devotion.

The institute has commissioned a new painting by San Francisco artist Bernadette Carstensen as well as a new “Litany for Our Lady of Guadalupe and the American Saints” by the institute’s poet-in-residence James Matthew Wilson. 

“This is another part of our effort to raise awareness of the nine-year novena to enthrone that image of Our Lady of Guadalupe because that is the pivotal moment of introducing Christ into this hemisphere, and we are all a part of it,” Cordileone said.  

Cordileone shared the inspiration for this, noting that Our Lady “brought her son” to the Americas through the apparition. 

“She brought him here to us, so she’s our connection to her son,” the archbishop said. “So we enthrone her in our homes as a reminder of what she has done for us in giving birth to her son, and she continues to give birth to her son for us to lead us into that saving encounter with him.”

Michael P. Warsaw, chairman and CEO of EWTN Global Catholic Network, presents the 2024 Mother Angelica Award to Curtis and Michaelann Martin, co-founders of the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, on Dec. 12, 2024. / EWTN

CNA Staff, Dec 13, 2024 / 13:50 pm (CNA).

EWTN Global Catholic Network presented the 2024 Mother Angelica Award to Curtis and Michaelann Martin, co-founders of the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS), an organization recognized as one of the most influential forces for Catholic evangelization in the United States today.

EWTN Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Michael Warsaw presented the award to the Martins during a televised ceremony Dec. 12, the 44th anniversary of the founding of the network. (Note: EWTN is CNA’s parent company.)

The Mother Angelica Award honors people who, like the foundress of EWTN, have been witnesses to God’s providence in all they have done in service to the Church and who, by their lives and service, have advanced the cause of the new evangelization.

“Curtis and Michaelann Martin are true witnesses to God’s providence in the way they have faithfully responded to his call,” Warsaw said. “Their passion for the new evangelization, especially in reaching young people on college campuses, is a testament to the enduring power of God’s grace in their lives.” 

“Just as Mother Angelica dedicated her life to bringing souls closer to Christ, the Martins have done the same, and in doing so, they have transformed countless lives.”

Curtis Martin actually announced FOCUS’ founding in 1997 on an episode of “Mother Angelica Live.” Since its founding with just two missionaries at a single campus, FOCUS has since reshaped Catholic campus ministry on more than 200 U.S. and international college campuses.

The apostolate forms and sends young adult missionaries to run campus ministry on college campuses. More than 50,000 FOCUS alumni currently serve in parishes and communities across the world, and more than 1,000 people have entered seminary or religious life after a FOCUS encounter. 

FOCUS also organizes the annual young adult conference “SEEK,” which brought 24,000 attendees to this year’s conference in St. Louis. The next SEEK conferences will take place from Jan. 1–5, 2025, in Salt Lake City and Jan. 2–5, 2025, in Washington, D.C.

Michaelann Martin called the award “a humbling honor for both of us” but noted that “this is not about us.” 

“We are grateful to Mother Angelica for her example of faith and courage, and to EWTN for continuing her work of evangelization,” she said. “But this is not about us. It is about the countless missionaries who have given their lives to this work and the students whose lives are being transformed by the Gospel.”

Previous winners of the Mother Angelica Award include the Archbishop Emeritus of Philadelphia Charles J. Chaput, OFMCap, and former New Orleans Saints wide receiver and football coach Danny Abramowicz. 

The full award ceremony, including tributes from those whose lives have been touched by the Martins, will re-air Dec. 14 at 3 p.m. ET as well as be available for viewing on demand at www.ondemand.ewtn.com.

Father Augustus Taylor. / Credit: Diocese of Steubenville

CNA Staff, Dec 13, 2024 / 13:20 pm (CNA).

Father Gus Taylor, a U.S. priest who was key in several prominent 20th-century Black Catholic initiatives, passed away last month at 85. 

Taylor died in Los Angeles from unspecified causes on Nov. 5, the Black Catholic Messenger reported on Thursday. His funeral was scheduled for Friday afternoon at Holy Name of Jesus Church in Jefferson Park. 

Born in 1940 in Lexington, Kentucky, Taylor attended Catholic schools in Cincinnati, according to a biography at the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus. He graduated from the Athenaeum of Ohio and was ordained in Steubenville, Ohio, on Dec. 10, 1966, becoming the first Black priest ordained for that diocese. 

In 1969 he had a hand in laying the groundwork for the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University of Louisiana, having reportedly sketched out a vision of the program on a paper napkin at a restaurant.

That program allows Black Catholic leaders to “share Black Catholic viewpoints among ourselves and with the hierarchy, pastors, and religious women and men ministering in African American communities.” 

In 1969 Taylor founded “what was reportedly the nation’s first Office of Black Catholic Ministries, in the Diocese of Pittsburgh,” according to the Messenger. That office was also used by nearby dioceses including Steubenville and Wheeling. 

Among the parishes at which he served were St. Brigid-St. Benedict the Moor Church in Pittsburgh and St. Brigid Catholic Church in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. 

In his retirement, he was listed on the leadership council of the Los Angeles-based Empowerment Congress, which seeks to promote “active participation in public life, community service, and the political process to promote social justice locally and globally, while employing empathy, ethics, values, and a sense of social responsibility.”

Taylor was the eldest of seven children, including a surviving brother Father David Taylor, a priest who has served for more than 40 years in the Diocese of Pittsburgh.