Enjoying extra day of leap year? Thank Pope Gregory XIII

Every four years we get an extra day thanks in part to Julius Caesar and Pope Gregory XIII. The day compensates for the fact that it takes the earth takes 365.2425 days to circle the sun instead of the cut-and-dried 365. Julius Caesar, with the help of his team of astronomers back in 46 B.C., came up with a calendar [...]

Details emerge about last summer’s attack on WYD Madrid website

VATICAN CITY — Reporters covering World Youth Day in Madrid last August and pilgrims attending the event knew the organization’s website was having trouble with hackers, but the seriousness of the attack and the ideology behind it are making news this week. Just hours after the pope arrived in Madrid Aug. 18 for the event, [...]

Rome’s ‘Master of the Sacred Palace’

By Robert Duncan Catholic News Service ROME — Last year I produced a profile of Dominican Father Wojciech Giertych, theologian of the papal household, for the Dominican Province of St. Joseph. As theologian of the papal household, he is the official editor of all drafts of texts and speeches presented to the pope for him [...]

Top movies, family films for 2011. Are your Oscar favorites here?

Editor’s Note: As you prepare for this Sunday’s Academy Awards telecast, take a look at John Mulderig’s choices, reprinted below, for 2011′s top movies. And at the end you’ll find a bonus listing of the year’s top 10 family films. By John Mulderig Catholic News Service NEW YORK (CNS) — In late 1965, the three-decade-old National [...]

A big day for lovers of Latin

Few know that today is the 50th anniversary of the promulgation of Pope John XXIII’s apostolic constitution “Veterum Sapientia” on the promotion of the study of Latin. Watch the video below posted today by our Rome bureau on how one group of American students there is trying to keep the language alive. When we asked this morning [...]

Canonization Mass in October will bring seven new saints

VATICAN CITY — Like Pope Paul VI and Blessed John Paul II often did, Pope Benedict XVI will mark World Mission Sunday in October by creating new saints. In the United States and Canada, many people are aware that the saints to be proclaimed Oct. 21 at the Vatican include Blessed Marianne Cope of Molokai [...]

Pope, new cardinals concelebrate Mass

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI and the 22 new cardinals he created yesterday concelebrated Mass this morning in St. Peter’s Basilica. The pope used Bernini’s sculpture of the Chair of St. Peter to illustrate his homily since the Mass marked the feast of the Chair of St. Peter, a liturgical solemnity that highlights Jesus [...]

Pope creates 22 new cardinals, calls them to love, service

VATICAN CITY — The Catholic Church officially has 22 new cardinals, including three from the United States and Canada: Cardinals Timothy M. Dolan of New York; Edwin F. O’Brien, grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem and former archbishop of Baltimore, Md.; and Thomas C. Collins of Toronto. Pope Benedict [...]

Video: Cardinals-to-be on their role

We spoke this week with the three North American prelates who will become cardinals tomorrow. You can read CNS Rome bureau chief Francis X. Rocca story here and/or watch the video below.

Just between us

Nearly a week before the start of this year’s Catholic Social Ministry Gathering, I got a phone call from Father Sinclair Oubre, head of the Catholic Labor Network, one of the gathering’s many co-sponsors that holds a “wrap-around” meeting the day before the formal kickoff. The discussion topics at the Catholic Labor Network meeting, he told [...]