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Listen to Bishop Olmsted's annual Christmas message to the people of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix. People in the Phoenix area will hear...

I’ve been blessed to write for The Catholic Sun since 2002, and last year, I was asked to write for a small community newspaper. Many of my articles have had a Christian focus to them and recently, I approached the owner of the publication about establishing a special section in the paper devoted to local churches (something newspapers used to do once upon a time.)

“What came to be through Him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” This quote from the beginning of the Gospel of John points us to the reality of Christ as the light of the world.

The love of a father for his children and his wife is captured in a four-letter word: with. We see this in the life of St. Joseph, the foster father of Jesus. Even though he is mentioned a number of times in the Gospel accounts of Matthew and Luke, no words of his are recorded. What mattered was that Joseph was there, present to Mary and Jesus, always ready to listen and to encourage, to protect and to provide.

My teen niece called me last week to tell me her dad — my brother — was getting on her nerves. What teenager hasn’t said that, right?

Desde su niñez, Catalina dedicó su alma y corazón, su mente creativa y firme determinación, para servir aquellos que estaban hambrientos y privados de sus derechos.

When I pointed out in a homily that not all saints are officially canonized, a woman said to me after Mass, “That may be true, but the great saints get to wear a crown in heaven, like St. Paul in today’s epistle!” It got me to thinking: Are there trophies for us in heaven, blue ribbons as eternal accessories?

NEW YORK (CNS) — A long time ago, in a world that now seems far, far away — to wit, Earth in spring 1977 — George Lucas wowed audiences with the original “Star Wars” film.

Unless you lived under a cabbage leaf for the past 30 years or so, you already know that the Mother Angelica (1923-2016) of this book’s title was the founder of the Eternal Word Television Network. As such, she became the first Catholic media personality to garner the attention of the public in anywhere near the numbers racked up by the late, much-admired Archbishop Fulton Sheen in the mid-20th century.

During this Advent-Christmas Season, we remember Ebenezer Scrooge, the famous protagonist of Charles Dickens’ master literary work, “A Christmas Carol.”