A Fatherly Figure, Swiss Initiative to Defund Abortion Gains, Shrines to Guadalupe, and much more!

The Best in Catholic Blogging

A Fatherly Figure - Robert Royal, Catholic World Report

For the Work of On-Going Personal Conversion (Part I) - Frank Weathers, Why I Am Catholic

Pope: Healthy Secularism in a Society is When Life & Family is Made Important - Giacomo Galeazzi, La Stampa/Vatican Insider

Swiss Initiative to Defund Abortion Gains 111,000 Signatures - Thaddeus Baklinski, LifeSiteNews.com

Los Angeles’s Shrines to the Virgen de Guadalupe - Esmeralda Bermudez, Los Angeles Times

Why So Many Atheists are on the CNN Belief Blog - Father Robert Barron, The Integrated Catholic Life™

The Great Scientology Implosion: Author Details Church on the Decline - Ruth Davis Konigsberg, Time Magazine

For the latest round-up on the best punditry in the Catholic blogosphere go to ThePulp.it.

Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki of Cologne attends a German Synodal Way assembly on March 9, 2023.

Four German Bishops Resist Push to Install Permanent ‘Synodal Council’

Given the Vatican’s repeated interventions against the German process, the bishops said they would instead look to the Synod of Bishops in Rome. Meanwhile, on Monday, German diocesan bishops approved the statutes for a synodal committee; and there are reports that the synodal committee will meet again in June.

Palestinian Christians celebrate Easter Sunday Mass at Holy Family Church in Gaza City on March 31, amid the ongoing battles Israel and the Hamas militant group.

People Explain ‘Why I Go to Mass’

‘Why go to Mass on Sundays? It is not enough to answer that it is a precept of the Church. … We Christians need to participate in Sunday Mass because only with the grace of Jesus, with his living presence in us and among us, can we put into practice his commandment, and thus be his credible witnesses.’ —Pope Francis