Watching and waiting during Advent

One of the hidden gems here at Catholic News Service is our weekly “Word to Life” column on the Sunday Scriptures. As you prepare for Mass on this first Sunday of Advent or reflect on what you heard, here’s the column for this weekend by Jeff Hedglen:
(Isaiah 63:16b-17, 19b; 64:2-7; Psalm 80:2-3, 15-16, 18-19; 1 [...]

Making the Advent wreath ‘more than a nice decoration’

Timely column from The Catholic Spirit in St. Paul, Minn.:
This is the Advent I’m really going to do it. I promise. I’m really going to pray with the Advent wreath all four weeks.
No, really. I mean it.
I know the Advent wreath should be more than a nice decoration to have around the house during the [...]

Pope Benedict’s liturgical to-do list

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican recently updated its calendar of Pope Benedict’s liturgical celebrations through January 2009, and confirmed that, as in previous years, the 81-year-old pontiff will preside over a full slate of Christmas activities.
The pre-Christmas season begins when the pope celebrates evening prayer Nov. 29 in St. Peter’s Basilica on the vigil of the first Sunday [...]

More digital ink on the proposed Freedom of Choice Act

Lots of digital ink has been spilled this week over the Freedom of Choice Act, which was a major concern of the U.S. bishops at their fall general meeting earlier this month. Among those weighing in were CNS clients like the National Catholic Register (here and here) and the National Catholic Reporter (here), plus other [...]

Bioethics document coming in December

VATICAN CITY — A new Vatican instruction on bioethics, prepared by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is scheduled to be published Dec. 12, informed sources said Wednesday.
The document, under discussion for two years, is expected to examine ethical issues in biological research and health care that have emerged in recent years, including the cloning [...]

A tenor for the pope

VATICAN CITY — Vatican journalists will be treated Friday to an appearance by Placido Domingo, who’s showing up for a press conference to unveil a new CD of songs based on the poetry of Pope John Paul II.
One could hope that Vatican officials will dispense with the usual press hall format of lengthy speeches and [...]

Pope Benedict on capitalism

VATICAN CITY — This week’s CNS Vatican Letter focuses on some of Pope Benedict’s recent comments regarding the Gospel and social justice. As the world waits for the pope’s first social encyclical, it might be instructive to read what he wrote in a 1985 presentation to a Rome symposium, later published in Communio magazine. It’s been [...]

Even at the Vatican, it’s beginning to feel a bit like …

VATICAN CITY — Although shops in Italy will not haul out all of their Christmas decorations until Advent begins Nov. 30, the Vatican seems to be on the North American preparation schedule.
Vatican workers, equipped with hard hats and tool belts, already have spent a week putting up the burlap-covered scaffolding that will keep the Nativity [...]

‘Sludge’ documents major pollution spill little noticed outside Appalachia

While I have edited thousands of film, TV, video and Broadway reviews for CNS since I became media editor in 1992, I have not had to review a movie for publication since I was asked to review, of all things, “Animal House” for a quarterly film journal in my hometown of Detroit nearly 30 years [...]

Focolare Movement’s first university

ROME – With the official opening of its first university dedicated to multicultural dialogue, the Focolare Movement is hoping to help prepare young people for today’s challenges.
The Catholic renewal movement, founded by the late Chiara Lubich, will officially inaugurate the new Sophia University Institute for a Culture of Unity in Loppiano — a small town near [...]