Anyone looking for suggestions for inspiring reading during the Easter Triduum will not be disappointed by Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia’s article on the cause for beatification of Father Felix Varela titled “A Wind of Holiness from Cuba and the United States: The Faith of Father Varela…
Category: Advancing the Kingdom
The Faith of Father Varela and His Path to Sainthood
By Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia President of the Pontifical Council for the Family Postulator of the Cause for Beatification of Father Varela “Gusting winds of holiness throughout the Americas” On May 2, 2015, Pope Francis celebrated a Mass at the North American College in Rome…
Bundle of sticks
In recent years, there has been horrific violence in Muslim majority countries perpetrated by Muslim extremists in the name of Allah. Earlier this year scores of Muslim scholars and religious leaders from 120 countries convened in Morocco to issue the Marrakesh Declaration (http://marrakeshdeclaration.org/marrakesh-declaration.html) In essence…
Build to Stay
“I have decided to consecrate the rest of my life to this. All that I have done in 47 years of priesthood … will not be as important as what I am doing now. Here I am building a living church in which every stone…
….is it the olive?
Although spoken a half a century ago, it is a reply that still echoes in my memory. Indeed, it is one I appreciate more fully with each passing year. Three college mates and I were engaged in a tennis match at my parents’ home on…
Escaping the mosh pit
Isn’t it curious that in our world of instantaneous communication so many of us feel ‘unrooted.’ Could it be that the dizzying volume and array of distractions that invade our daily lives elicit in us a reaction so necessarily defensive and indiscriminate that we respond…
A frenzy of omnipotence with no boundaries
“The weakening of the family finds one of its causes in a culture that more and more promotes extreme individualism. The strengthening of individual freedoms – something that of course we can be proud of – becomes a negative if it has no limits, because…
The Vocation of Family
The following are remarks delivered by Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia in Taiwan recently at the 20th Asia Pacific Congress on Faith, Life and Family organized by Human Life International (HLI). I want my message today to help you communicate the Gospel of the Family and of…
Dumbing Down
Where are the prophets? Where are those voices in the wilderness to challenge the pressures of complacency? Who will proclaim the unpopular? Who dares state that our much touted comfort and security mask an ennui that now has triumphed? When a vibrant community nourished by…
Feeding the shepherds
According to statistics provided by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), in the United States there were 19,620 Catholic parishes and 52,124 priests (diocesan and religious) in 1990. In 2014 the numbers had dropped to 17,483 parishes and 38,275 priests. Regardless of…