Until Next Year …

This is our last issue of 2007. We skip the last issue in December each year. Our next issue will be dated Jan. 6, and it will sum up the biggest stories of the past year.

This issue also focuses on vocations — and that’s appropriate for a Christmas issue. We are accustomed to hearing that the greatest Christmas gift of all is that God gave his only Son to be our savior. That’s true, and it follows that the greatest gift we can give back to God is to offer our own lives (or a son’s or daughter’s) to his service.

This Christmas, we at the Register have much to be grateful for. Even as we prepare this issue to go to press, the mail has come in and I have heard our chief operating officer, Brendan McCaffery, exclaiming at the generosity of readers who have donated to our annual fund drive. We know that Register readers are very active in many apostolic projects in the Church, and we greatly appreciate your sacrifice in also helping us.

Our prayer this Christmas will be for you to experience the joy and peace of Christ personally. And remember us in your prayers, too.

Thank you for all you do for the Church. Merry Christmas and God bless!

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