Catholic Church

By Jennifer Gregory Miller, Catholic Culture - I have been searching for a long time for books written for older children about the Liturgical Year. There are many books written for adults on how to celebrate in the family for the Liturgical Year, and younger children’s picture books that relate stories about the different aspects of the seasons. But for the older elementary up to high school age (9-18), there aren’t many books written. I have loved the books by Inos Biffi and illustrated by Franco Vignazia, but copies are getting harder to find.

By Robert Royal, The Catholic Thing - Several voices – mostly close to Pope Francis and the organizers of the Synod on Synodality – declared the assembly, before the fact, the most significant event in the life of the Catholic Church since Vatican II... Then again, several of the officially selected speakers suggested, as one of them put it, “When we reach the consensus that the Church is constitutively synodal, we will have to rethink the whole Church, all the institutions, the whole life of the Church in a synodal sense.”

By Hannah Brockhaus, CNA, Catholic World Report - Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, the synod’s relator general, said at a press briefing Oct. 28... “To have this freedom and openness will change the Church,” he said, “and I’m sure the Church will find answers, but perhaps not the exact answer this group or that group wants to have, but answers [with which] most people could feel well and listened to.”

By Casey Chalk, Crisis Magazine - Not that any of those descriptions are true. My first (and thus far only) spiritual director was a career Navy pilot and U.S. Naval Academy graduate before he donned the collar. The parochial vicar at my last parish in Virginia, a man of impeccable integrity, served in the U.S. Air Force. During multiple tours in Afghanistan, I had the honor of getting to know about a half-dozen chaplains, Catholic and Protestant, who were not only good men but had endured great hardship and seen just as much combat as many of the enlisted men to whom they ministered.