Poznan, Poland, Oct 22, 2019 / 04:07 pm (CNA).- The Polish Bishops’ Conference has asked Pope Francis to name St. John Paul II a patron of Europe and doctor of the Church.

Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki of Poznan, president of the Polish Bishops Conference, sent the request to the pope on Oct. 22 - the feast day of John Paul II.

Warsaw, Poland, Oct 22, 2019 / 11:22 am (CNA).- Venerable Stefan Wyszyński, Archbishop of Gniezno and Warsaw from 1948 to 1981, will be beatified in Warsaw June 7, 2020, the city's archbishop announced Monday.

“We have to put the main emphasis on his spirituality, because we know a lot more about Cardinal Wyszyński as a statesman and someone who defended man, the Church, and his homeland,” Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz of Warsaw said Oct. 21.

Rome, Italy, Oct 22, 2019 / 03:30 am (CNA).- The writings of newly-canonized St. John Henry Newman offer important reflections for contemporary society on freedom of conscience and the duty to search for truth, said a leading figure in international religious freedom.

“Newman prefigured the Church’s 1965 Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis Humanae,” said Thomas Farr, president of the Religious Freedom Institute.

On October 13, 2019, in St. Peter’s Square, at a Mass with over 50,000 attendees, Pope Francis declared Sister Dulce Lopes Pontes, Mariam Thresia Chiramel Mankidiyan, Cardinal John Henry Newman, Margurite Bays, and Giuseppina Vannini saints.

However, it almost always seems like this holiday stirs up a desire within our society to celebrate death and all things scary. Zombies, mummies, blood, vampires... ghosts and demons?! It’s almost like they are trying to scare us to death (hehe, puns).

A huge step toward loving yourself is embracing the love that is freely given to you at this precise point in time. Because you are, at this very moment, so good and so loved. Yes, right now!

I write these words in the Rome airport, on my way to England, where I will deliver a paper on St. John Henry Newman and evangelization. I’m still basking in the glow of the splendid Mass of canonization yesterday, presided over by Pope Francis and attended by tens of thousands of bishops, priests, and faithful from all over the world. [...]

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Jesus says “ask and you shall receive.”  He encourages us to ask boldly and persistently through the story of the unjust judge and the persistent widow.  But if we don’t listen in prayer, we won’t know what to ask for.  Here are tips for using the inspired prayers called Psalms as guides to praying effectively. The Mass readings for the [...]

The post Sunday Reflection—Ask and You Shall Receive appeared first on Integrated Catholic Life™.

“Allow the Word of God to help you fall in love with God and change your life.” I was blessed to study Scripture under Dr. Scott Hahn at Franciscan University of Steubenville and doubly blessed to work for him at the same time. In those years, I devoured everything I could to learn more about the Word of God – [...]

The post Praying the Word of God appeared first on Integrated Catholic Life™.

I write these words in the Rome airport, on my way to England, where I will deliver a paper on St. John Henry Newman and evangelization. I’m still basking in the glow of the splendid Mass of canonization yesterday, presided over by Pope Francis and attended by tens of thousands of bishops, priests, and faithful from all over the world. [...]

The post John Henry Newman in Full appeared first on Integrated Catholic Life™.

Jesus says “ask and you shall receive.”  He encourages us to ask boldly and persistently through the story of the unjust judge and the persistent widow.  But if we don’t listen in prayer, we won’t know what to ask for.  Here are tips for using the inspired prayers called Psalms as guides to praying effectively. The Mass readings for the [...]

The post Sunday Reflection—Ask and You Shall Receive appeared first on Integrated Catholic Life™.

“Allow the Word of God to help you fall in love with God and change your life.” I was blessed to study Scripture under Dr. Scott Hahn at Franciscan University of Steubenville and doubly blessed to work for him at the same time. In those years, I devoured everything I could to learn more about the Word of God – [...]

The post Praying the Word of God appeared first on Integrated Catholic Life™.

According to Aristotle, if we know about the greatest good, then we will have a target at which to aim. And if we miss the mark, at least we will know where to aim in the future. But not everyone knows about the greatest good, so some people will aim at a lesser good and hit a lower target, which is what Taylor Swift has done on her latest album, Lover. Musically speaking, and in terms of its production, Lover is a great success, as Swift and her favorite collaborator Jack Antonoff seem to have absolutely no trouble making an iconic pop record; but in terms of lyrical content, her aim is off. Swift’s favorite number is 13, so let’s start there, on the thirteenth track of the album with a song entitled, “False God.” Swift’s false god is romantic love, which in itself is a good, but it is not…

When I was finishing my graduate studies in theology, I imagined that I would spend my days as a theologian in an office surrounded by leather-bound books pouring over the translation of a particular Scripture passage, or I’d be in a classroom scrawling on a dusty chalkboard some phrase in Classical Hebrew script, or I’d be lecturing in a hall about the historical-critical method’s place in the rich history of biblical hermeneutics. It’s funny now, I think I imagined myself as a feminist theologian version of Indiana Jones. I never thought that I would spend an inordinate amount of my adult life repeating the same phrase over and over and over again: “Get in your car seat!” Most of the time, it was followed with an affectionate “Please?” Sometimes it was followed with an equally affectionate “Or else.” Nevertheless, I found myself repeating this phrase multiple times a day to…

St. Luke is known as a fellow worker with St. Paul, an evangelist (the author of the Gospel that bears his name and the Acts of the Apostles) and a physician. For iconographers, St. Luke is revered as the first (according to tradition) to write an icon of the Blessed Mother. In iconography, the verb “to write” is used rather than “to paint,” as an icon is considered visual theology. Now, to my knowledge, there is no known or authenticated icon that can be directly traced back to the hand of St. Luke, but I for one have no problem with considering this tradition a possibility. Luke was obviously a well-educated and gifted man with many skills and abilities. In the first few verses of his Gospel Luke establishes that his sources were some of the very people who were “eyewitnesses and ministers of the word.” Luke is the only…

I will always be grateful to Saint John Paul II for his influence on my life and his leadership of the Church. After I experienced a conversion (or reversion, as I was brought up Catholic) as a college student, the Pope became important in my life. I began reading his encyclicals, apostolic letters, and talks. […]

Saint James warns us that we should be slow to speak and quick to listen. The Imitationof Christ asserts that few have ever regretted refraining from speaking. On the other hand, many regret having opened their mouths when they should have kept them shut. Still more, Jesus warns us that every word that comes forth from our mouth we […]

Moments after Pope John Paul II’s death on April 2, 2005, the chant “Santo subito! Santo subito!” [“Sainthood now!”] begins from the sad, but somehow exhilarated, crowd in St. Peter’s Square. Through all the events that are part of burying a pope, it continues. Through all this, in the south of France, Sr. Marie Simon-Pierre’s […]