Editor’s note: Meghan’s story will be featured on Teresa Tomeo’s Catholic Connections on EWTN radio Aug. 15 at 9am. Stories of Faith: Meghan’s Miracle airs on EWTN Aug. 15 at 3 and 6pm. All times Eastern.

Meghan Salter is 8 years old. She can’t eat or even breathe on her own. She cannot speak. But without saying a word, she’s brought thousands of people back to prayer and fasting and souls to Jesus Christ.

“It’s a very powerful and beautiful story of faith,” explains Audrey Sommers, who produced Stories of Faith: Meghan’s Miracle, which airs on EWTN Aug. 15 at 3 and 6pm (Eastern). “Meghan brings people to the faith and she brings people to prayer.”

People in Michigan saw Meghan’s story...READ MORE

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (EWTN News/CNA) — Christians shouldn’t be afraid to call upon the name of Jesus Christ for help at all stages of their lives, Pope Benedict XVI said in his Sunday Angelus address on Aug. 14.

“Dear friends, we too are called to grow in faith, to reach out and to receive freely the gift of God, to trust in Jesus, and cry out, ‘Give us the faith; help us find our way,’” the Pope told pilgrims gathered at his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, 15 miles south of Rome.

Pope Benedict said that this trust in Christ was personified in the Gospel reading in which a pagan Canaanite woman, despite not being Jewish, beseeched Jesus to cure her daughter who was possessed by a...READ MORE

I have been in Spain for two weeks helping to lead a group of 53 pilgrims from St. Mary’s Parish, the Catholic chaplaincy at Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, Mich. I am not assigned there, but I am a friend of their head chaplain, Jesuit Father Will Prospero, who has been planning this trip for three years — ever since returning from World Youth Day in Sydney. On the eve of the trip, he found himself seriously ill and asked me to take over.

I am a veteran of the last four World Youth Days — Rome, Toronto, Cologne and Sydney, and so consider myself somewhat of an expert, and certainly a big supporter of these most amazing weeks, where the Catholic faith takes to the streets of...READ MORE

For Father John Harvey, apostolates were a dynamic reality, a work that the Holy Spirit inspired the Servant of God Cardinal Terence Cooke to establish and that the Holy Spirit alone could sustain.

Father Harvey saw his own service as cooperation with the work of the Holy Spirit, service of God in his immeasurable and ceaseless love of his children who suffer with same-sex attraction. What direction for the future can we discover in the manner with which Father Harvey gave his life for his brothers and sisters in the Courage and EnCourage apostolates?

First of all, the future must continue to develop the profoundly spiritual nature of the Courage apostolate, not reducing it to a method...READ MORE

If you were chosen to have Pope Benedict XVI as your confessor during World Youth Day, how would you prepare?

Benedict will become the first Pope to hear confessions at the triennial gathering of young people from around the world.

This year’s celebration, in Madrid, Spain, is dedicated to Blessed Pope John Paul II, who began the tradition of World Youth Day in 1985. The Polish pontiff, who was beatified this spring, has been called the “Great Mercy Pope” for his promotion of the Divine Mercy devotion. Reconciliation is the sacrament of God’s great mercy. Blessed John Paul for many years heard confessions in St. Peter’s Basilica during Holy Week. He was said to have frequented the sacrament...READ MORE

Here we are: days away from the start of World Youth Day 2011! Bags are packed, and thousands of people are on the move to Madrid.

I am one of those extremely blessed young people who get to make this faith-filled trip. This will be my first time attending WYD, and I am extremely excited to be going.  It is one of those goals that have been on my list of “Cool Things to Do” for a long time.

Why do so many young people want to make a trip like this? Upon reflecting on why World Youth Day is such an intriguing event, here are some of my thoughts:

Pope Benedict: We recognize that he is the one appointed by Christ to lead the Church, and we have deep respect for his leadership. The...READ MORE

In some school districts in America, some lucky high-school students in language classes have gotten to go on trips abroad — French student to Paris; Spanish students to Madrid; Italian students to Rome.

Next week, a group of 25 students from the New York-Connecticut area will be practicing their newfound language at World Youth Day in Madrid. And according to those involved, the hundreds of thousands of young people they will encounter from around the world will have no problem understanding.

Spanish? No. Their language is music — the traditional music of the Church, sung in the Church’s mother tongue: Latin.

The Norwalk, Conn.-based St. Mary’s Student Schola is ready and eager to head...READ MORE

World Youth Day App - News.va/Vatican Radio

. . . WYD 2011: ‘Important Energy in the Church’ . . .

. . . WYD and Pope Benedict’s Vision of a “New Evangelization” . . .

. . . Abp. Chaput: Recalling a WYD ’93 Moment of Grace . . .

Technology and the Mass of the Future - Ship of St. Peter

Catholic Bookstores Working Hard to Compete Online - Liz O’Connor, Catholic News Service

Fr. Busa, the Jesuit Who Invented the Hypertext - Andrea Tornielli, La Stampa/Vatican Insider

Catholic New Media Awards for this Year have Opened Voting! - Fr. Zuhlsdorf, WDTPRS?

Storytelling: a Dying Art? Talking with Screenwriter Barbara Nicolosi - Nick Muzekari, Patheos

Bishop Warns of the...READ MORE