The Catholic Sun

While the Diocese of Phoenix routinely gets prominent Catholic speakers and religious men and women, having a cardinal come for a visit is an uncommon occurrence.

As a child in a poor French family in the Hautes-Pyrenees town of Lourdes, Bernadette suffered both asthma and cholera.

She briefly led a Catholic school in Glendale and supported a library on the Fort McDowell Indian Reservation. She also served as a teacher and a servant of the poor in Cincinnati, Chicago, Kenya and Alaska.

For the first time, Catholic Charities is bringing to MANA (Marines, Army, Navy, Air Force) House a chapel and will staff the site with a chaplain. It will be available for worship and prayer involving all faiths, not just Catholics.

At her canonization in 2012, Pope Benedict XVI prayed, “St. Kateri, protectress of Canada and the first Native American saint, we entrust to you the renewal of the faith in the First Nations and in all of North America!”

WASHINGTON (CNS) — The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said he is grateful to  Pope Francis for “his powerful, straightforward words” in “Gaudete et Exsultate (Rejoice and Be Glad),” his apostolic exhortation on “the call to holiness in today’s world.”

According to the revised New American Bible, the Annunciation, when the archangel St. Gabriel tells Mary she has been chosen to be the mother of God, the Son, is the exact moment of the Incarnation.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — God calls all Christians to be saints — not plastic statues of saints, but real people who make time for prayer and who show loving care for others in the simplest gestures, Pope Francis said in his new document on holiness.

ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay (CNS) — In rural Paraguay in 2002, a newborn who spent 20 minutes without signs of life after the umbilical cord was cut was declared dead after attempts to revive him failed. A nurse at the scene then prayed for the intercession of “Chiquitunga” and the baby came back to life.

QUEBEC CITY (CNS) — “Really?” Cardinal Gerald Lacroix, archbishop of Quebec, recalls the reaction of people when they learned that the Anglican bishop of Quebec was living with him in the Episcopal Palace.