Healer, Preacher, Dominican, Saint

St. Vincent Ferrer, whose feast the Church celebrates on April 5, was born in Valencia, Spain, in 1350. He entered the Dominican order when he was 17, and before long became an adviser to the King of Aragon and of the Avignon pope, with whom he sided — in good faith, but erroneously — during a papal schism. To heal the schism, he traveled across Spain, France, Switzerland and Italy, preaching penance, working miracles and converting tens of thousands. When he realized that the Avignon party was not in the right, he turned his efforts toward bringing them into obedience to the legitimate Pope. Thanks in large measure to the power of his preaching and the miracles associated with his prayers, his authority was instrumental at the Council of Constance in 1414. — from The Book of Saints (Morehouse, 1989)

Maya Hawke as American writer Flannery O'Connor in the 2024 film "Wildcat."

Jessica Hooten Wilson on 'Wildcats' /Father Dave Pivonka on Title IX (May 4)

Flannery O’Connor shares the big screen with some of her most memorable short story characters in the new indy film ‘Wildcat’. O’Connor scholar Jessica Hooten Wilson gives her take on the film and what animates the Catholic 20th century writer’s prophetic imagination.Then FUS University President Father David Pivonka explains why Franciscan University of Steubenville has pushed back against the Biden administrations’ new interpretation of Title IX, which redefines sex discrimination to include a student’s self- asserted ‘gender identity’.