WASHINGTON — Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington dedicated the Blessed John Paul II Seminary on Oct. 22, the feast day of the Pope who died in 2005.

During the dedication Mass in the seminary chapel, which contains relics of the late Holy Father and artifacts from the local Church’s rich legacy, Cardinal Wuerl expressed joy at the opening of the new house of formation.

Witnesses at the intimate dedication ceremony included two previous Washington archbishops and the 20 seminarians now in residence in the simple, home-like facility, which can accommodate about 30 men. They will complete pre-theology studies at the nearby Catholic University of America, and CUA’s president, John Garvey,...READ MORE

Anita Caspary, the former superior of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Sisters who led 315 sisters out of religious life in 1970, died Oct. 5 at the age of 95.

Caspary’s influence lives on, however, for she was the first modern sister to publicly challenge the Church hierarchy and the Vatican about the nature of religious life. She, in fact, pioneered a trend prevalent in women’s religious orders today: “birthing” new forms of religious life.

Obituary writers have been lavish in praising Caspary’s accomplishments, but many of those obituaries simply repeat misinformation and propaganda and fail to probe the actual events that have had a profound and lasting impact on religious life.

The...READ MORE

Sean Finnegan would like to move on. After directing his award-winning documentary Out of the Darkness, featuring stories of people who escaped from the prison-like world of pornography, his production company, Anteroom Pictures, is ready for something more uplifting — maybe an account of the interior life of St. Thomas More.

“More started out with a Christological spirituality,” Finnegan said in a phone interview, “Not a simple devotion to the Blessed Virgin or to novenas. But when death was coming, he started to rely more on what our grannies relied on” — the solid, simple, time-tested devotions that the Church knows we need. “We need to hold onto these things, so when you’re faced with...READ MORE

Quid Est Veritas? (poem) - J.B. Toner, Dappled Things

Discovering God in Silence - Sr. Mary Clare OCD, Integrated Catholic Life™

Hope vs. Presumption - Fr. Ryan Erlenbush, VirtuousPla.net

Our Lady of Rugby Helped France to Rugby World Cup Final - Dylan Parry, A Reluctant Sinner

Blessed Marianne Cope: Have You Heard of Her? - Kathy Schiffer, Seasons of Grace

The Difference Respect for Human Dignity Makes - Marlon De La Torre, Catholic Lane

Reciting the Law, Standing on One Foot - Msgr. Charles Pope, Archdiocese of Washington

Abp. Naumann (Archd. KC) on Bp. Finn (D. KC-St. Joseph) & Kansas City Star - Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, WDTPRS?

Defending Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City - Jane S....READ MORE

ROME—Blessed John Paul II was remembered with celebrations all over Rome on Oct. 22, his first feast day since his May 1 beatification earlier this year.

Among other events in Rome, the day was celebrated with a pilgrimage from one papal basilica to another.

Cardinal Angelo Comastri, head priest of St. Peter’s Basilica, started off the pilgrimage in St. Peter’s Square in the early afternoon. It concluded four hours later with a prayer vigil at the Basilica of St. John Lateran. The Diocese of Rome’s vicar, Cardinal Agostino Vallini, then celebrated Mass.

The blessed’s personal secretary, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisc of Krakow, Poland, celebrated Mass at St. Peter’s earlier in the day with...READ MORE

This originally appeared in our Oct. 23-Nov. 5 print issue.

We go to certain people to ask for a favor or for help in some difficulty.

Same goes for the spiritual side.

All Saints’ Day on Nov. 1 should help us realize that we have unlimited help available from scores of saints.

The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments tells us in its Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy that saints and blesseds are our “intercessors and friends,” and some are “patrons of professions, of particular circumstances, like in childbirth (St. Anne) or death (St. Joseph) or in obtaining specific graces. In other words, some saints have one or more specialties — like St....READ MORE

The intense quasi-spiritual reaction to the death of Steve Jobs, who was characterized in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed as “The Secular Prophet,” and the Obama administration’s increasingly bold challenge to the religious freedom of Catholic institutions reflect a powerful current of secularism moving within American culture. In these past weeks, we have witnessed secularism in both beguiling and thuggish forms, reflecting an inner contradiction its supporters would prefer to ignore.

Jobs — baptized Christian and a practicing Buddhist — was no self-professed enemy of religion. But his extraordinary success as an entrepreneur who innovatively wedded function with form in personal...READ MORE

Seven years ago, the Italian politician Rocco Buttiglione was forced to withdraw his nomination as the European Union’s new commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security because of his Catholic views on homosexuality and women.

Today he is vice president of Italy’s lower house and patron of the Dignitatis Humanae Institute, a Rome-based think tank that aims to support Catholic politicians to speak out in defense of Christian values. The institute’s guiding principle is the truth that man is created in the image and likeness of God.

Buttiglione, a philosophy lecturer and friend of the late Blessed Pope John Paul II, gave this interview from his Rome offices in September.

You are patron of a...READ MORE