The Catholic Sun

When Omar Gómez thinks about what it was that drew him to becoming Catholic, he smiles. “I feel like God was using my girlfriend as an instrument so that I would turn to the path toward God.” That was four years ago when life looked different for Gómez. He was born into a nominally Catholic family in California that later relocated to Arizona. “My parents were Catholics, but they didn’t go to church,” Gómez explained. He was never baptized, and the family did not attend Mass. When he was just 16 years old, Gómez’s mother died, leaving him and his seven sisters. His father died a few years later, and just like that, Gómez found himself faced with the heavy responsibilities of family life. 

In “From Atari to the altar,” the second video of a four-part series on getting to know Bishop-elect Peter Dai Bui, the bishop-elect shares how a video game console played an integral role in his vocation to the priesthood.  Growing up in New Orleans, he and two of his brothers would often go to a friend’s house to play Atari video games after school. That’s when Bishop-elect Bui made a pact with God: he would sneak out every morning before school to attend daily Mass if God gave him and his brothers an Atari gaming console for Christmas. 

In 1858, Our Lady appeared more than a dozen times to Bernadette Soubirous, a humble 14-year-old girl from a poor family in Lourdes, France. The holy waters that sprang forth during one of these encounters, and the stone grotto where they took place, have become the site of 72 approved miraculous healings and continue to draw millions of visitors annually who are in search of physical and spiritual healing.  But not all who desire to make the pilgrimage are able to travel to France.   That’s where Our Lady of Lourdes Hospitality North American Volunteers come in. 

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...