LOCAL NEWS

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.

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.”

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.

Some walks are easier than others. The walk into an abortion clinic is likely among the toughest.

It was standing room only as priests, religious, deacons and laity from throughout the Phoenix Diocese packed into Ss. Simon and Jude Cathedral for the this year’s Chrism Mass March 26.

With the Holy Spirit guiding them, Fr. Joseph Francis LePage, FHS, and his brother Franciscan Friars of the Holy Spirit are building and breathing life into the newly established Holy Spirit Newman Center at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix.

Fifty years ago, visionary people who valued college students got together and built the Newman Center.

Whether you join these groups physically or in spirit on Good Friday, keep in prayer all those who set foot inside abortion facilities, especially the unborn, and those in the homeless community who are innocently trapped.

In 2005, Mimi Condon saw an ad in The Catholic Sun recruiting foster parents.

Our pilgrimage is over. As I walked away from the bus and the 39 other pilgrims I had shared the past five days with, visiting religious, historical and cultural sites in Utah and northern Arizona, I felt a pang of disappointment.