One of the most enduring images I have of my visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City in 1999 is the proliferation of religious goods booths selling every conceivable souvenir or item of devotion which one must pass in order to reach the shrine itself I remember being troubled
To qualify as a Hollywood blockbuster, historical epics have to have several things: an anachronistically modern hero, a ruthless villain, a contrived love story, cataclysmic battle scenes and, of course, beheadings. But historical epics also have to have something else: a Big Idea, typically an idi
Nobody wants to suffer Every living being cringes from pain It is almost as if we have within us a driving force to run away from it And then we come across readings like today rsquo s that admonish us ldquo to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice rdquo They seem to call us to act against
Today’s readings indicate that the religious leader is appointed by God and is accountable to God. They take their positions and responsibilities seriously, because the people of God deserve the best that they have to offer.
In August 1917 Pope Benedict XV proposed terms of peace to the nations engaged in the First World War. Though so close in content and formulation to Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points of January 1918 that Benedict’s most recent biographer, John F. Pollard, charges the Calvinist and notorio
Pope Benedict XVI Addresses Communion by Divorced and RemarriedDuring a meeting on July 25 with about 140 priests, religious and deacons from the Valle d’Aosta region of Italy, where he was vacationing, Pope Benedict XVI engaged in a wide-ranging discourse. Divorced and civilly remarried Catho