NEWS

SCOTTSDALE — Friends, family and dignitaries from around the diocese packed into St. Bernadette Church June 29 to witness Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted bestow the universal Church’s highest honor for the laity on one of the parish’s founding couples.

ORLANDO, Fla. (CNS) — Jesus took a few loaves and fishes and turned them into a feast for thousands, offering the Church an example of faith in action, Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston said in sending 3,500 delegates home from the “Convocation of Catholic Leaders: The Joy of the Gospel in America.”

It was a pivotal day for the "public association of the faithful."

OKLAHOMA CITY (CNS) — The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City has released a three-minute trailer to a forthcoming documentary on Fr. Stanley Rother, a U.S. priest who worked in Guatemala for 14 years until he was brutally murdered in 1981.

Mandatory evacuation notices included roughly 100 families who regularly attend Mass at St. Joseph Mission along AZ-69 in Mayer. That entire passageway between I-17 and SR-169 remains closed.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Christians are called to detach themselves from power, reject violence and sacrifice themselves for God and others out of love, Pope Francis said.

WASHINGTON (CNS) — In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court June 26 said a Lutheran preschool should not be excluded from a state grant program to refurbish its playground surface just because it is a religious entity.

Like the 10 wise virgins from Matthew's Gospel, each carried a lighted lamp. Together, they joined their voices in an antiphon, "I am espoused to him whom the angels serve."

With his ordination to the priesthood June 3, Fr. Athanasius Fornwalt, FHS, marked a major milestone for himself and his community: he was the first of the Franciscan Friars of the Holy Spirit to be ordained a priest.

The setting for the launch of Fr. Daniel Cruz’s public ministry was providentially the same as that of Jesus himself: a wedding.