LOCAL NEWS

Catholic men from across Arizona came together for a day of inspirational messages and fellowship designed to strengthen them for living faithfully for God in the face of the world’s anti-Christian culture during the Diocese of Phoenix’s 15th Annual Catholic Men’s Conference.

Unmarried, alone and pregnant. Three words that together describe a daunting situation for any young woman, even more so for someone in her teen years. But where despair and uncertainty exist, the personnel at 1st Way Pregnancy Support Center see opportunity to share the love of Jesus while providing practical and physical guidance toward delivery of a new baby.

Women from across the Diocese were encouraged in their faith recently through a series of speakers and fellowship during the 11th annual Catholic Women’s Conference sponsored by Catholic Women of Phoenix.

Nuns are on the run, right on a mid-campus soccer field. Their brown habits flare behind them, sprinting after a soccer ball, when a student runs smack into strong Sister Kelly and crumbles to the turf.

Two Jesuit astronomers from the Vatican Observatory were part of recent discoveries: one finding a new member of the solar system and another finding evidence for a long-lost galaxy "eaten up" by the Milky Way.

According to the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH), the only federal agency whose sole mission focuses on preventing and ending homelessness, Arizona had an estimated 10,979 individuals experiencing homelessness on any given day in January 2020 – the last time for which figures are available.

Nearly 500 worshippers, a number of whom live with chronic physical and mental conditions gathered for the Diocese of Phoenix’s annual World Day of the Sick Mass of Healing and Reconciliation Saturday, Feb. 5; a week before the annual observance dedicated to prayer for the ill and infirm around the globe.

Imagining what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., might say if he were still alive today, Bishop Edward K. Braxton, bishop emeritus of the Diocese of Bellville, Illinois, spoke in the voice of the slain Civil Rights leader to address how racism continues to impact the Catholic Church, Christianity in general, and society as a whole during the Diocese of Phoenix’s annual Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Mass Jan. 17 at Ss. Simon and Jude Cathedral.

For Michelle Cervantez, having an abortion destroyed “everything.”

In a liturgy inviting "tongues as of fire" from the Holy Spirit to guide lawyers and government officials, it seemed oddly appropriate that the fire alarm inadvertently went off just before the Diocese of Phoenix's annual Red Mass began Jan. 11 at St. Mary's Basilica.