The Catholic Sun

More than 800 Catholic school students, teachers, staff members and chaperones gathered Wednesday (Jan. 28) in downtown Phoenix for the annual Catholic Schools Week Mass and rally. The celebration coincides with National Catholic Schools Week, the annual, nationwide celebration of Catholic education in the United States. 

The last days of January are collectively known as Catholic Schools Week across the nation's 5,800 Catholic elementary and high school campuses that span...

These are the words God the Father spoke over Jesus during His baptism in the Jordan River. But it isn’t just a nice phrase or a happy sentiment that was shared during a historical event 2,000 years ago. These words hold immense significance in each and every one of our lives, pointing toward our deepest identity as beloved sons and daughters. The Lord loves to reveal Himself and deeper realities through images and stories, and when we take a closer look at the account of Jesus’ baptism in Matthew 3:13-17, there are three wonderful details that help us understand the magnificence of what took place during our own baptism.

In “Boat of No Smiles,” the first video of a four-part series on getting to know Bishop-elect Peter Dai Bui, the bishop-elect shares his family’s personal story of fleeing Vietnam in 1975 in his father’s fishing boat. After Vietnam was divided in 1957, there was a significant refugee movement of nearly 1 million people due to the communist rule and fear of political and religious persecution. Escaping in the middle of the night amid darkness, the family — Bishop-elect Bui, his parents and his nine siblings at the time — took a five-day boat trip to Bangkok where they stayed in a refugee camp before eventually flying to Houston, Texas, and finally landing in New Orleans where they made their home. Bishop-elect Bui was 5 years old. The boat journey included an encounter with pirates and the birth of a child on the boat.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- People of faith and goodwill need to take time to acknowledge the needs and suffering of those around them and be moved by love and compassion to offer others concrete help, Pope Leo XIV said. "To love one's neighbor -- whom Jesus identifies as anyone who has need of us -- is within everyone's reach," he wrote in his message for the 34th World Day of the Sick, observed by the church Feb. 11, the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., reminded us that there is no “faking our life in Christ,” said Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory, archbishop...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Every level of Church leadership must strengthen and improve its ability to listen to everyone, especially to victims of sexual...

When I entered the Catholic Church in my 30s, I was very much a spiritual infant — cradling a real baby in my arms and holding a preschooler by the hand.  My conversion followed reasonable research, a bit of drama and a lot of prayer, but it left me with the realization of how little I actually knew. I had embraced the sacraments with open arms and found myself at the beginning of a lifelong journey of transformation. I wasn’t just learning about the Catholic faith; I was being called to holiness, which would take more than a moment. It wasn’t a one-time decision, but a daily, sometimes hourly, call to surrender. All I could do was ask God to grant me the grace to grow, change and become the kind of mother who could pass this treasure on to her children.

Camaraderie and the sound of wood being sanded and drilled into headboards filled the air Saturday morning (Jan. 10) as over 100 Knights of Columbus volunteers and Sleep in Heavenly Peace (SHP) team leaders gathered to build 150 beds for children in need. Before the event, Bishop John Dolan visited the workshop near Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix for a tour and blessed the facility and those gathered. He also tried his hand at branding multiple headboards with the SHP logo.  

David Portugal remembers the first time he met Esmeralda Avila and Delila Baca. The two young women were teens when they first started attending the religious education classes he was teaching.  Portugal, director of evangelization at St. John Vianney Parish in Goodyear, Ariz., has worked at the parish for more than 20 years. He’s seen young people cycle through the community over the years, many of them transformed by an encounter with Christ in the Eucharist. Often, that encounter then propels them into service in the Church.  That was certainly the case with Avila and Baca, who have worked alongside Portugal at St. John Vianney serving in youth ministry and religious education.