News - July 2018 RSS Feed

An estimated 25.5 million people travel to the city of St. Francis each year and for the last 20, an unmeasured number of them have made their way to the national shrine bearing his name.

AJO, Ariz. – In the Sonoran Desert northeast of Ajo, temperatures can soar to mid-90s in late spring and above 100 degrees in the summer.

Can your laundry room become a sacred space that helps you feel closer to God? You bet, according to the presenters of a workshop at St. Dominic Parish July 17 aimed at helping Catholics convert “places of frustration into places of solace.”

Christian Clifford’s miles to go on the California Mission Trail are growing fewer by the day and every step is a prayer. Christian and I spoke via email.

On the fourth day of its 111th Novena to Good St. Anne, St. Anne of the Sunset Parish held a morning Mass followed by a solemn procession that paused at the corners of the square block the parish occupies to pray for the sick at the nearby University of San Francisco Medical Center, the homeless in Golden Gate Park and the families that live in the surrounding neighborhood of 850 Judah St.

WASHINGTON – Fifty years ago, Josephite Father William Norvel thought it was time for black priests to come together.

WASHINGTON – Editorials in national Catholic publications have taken the U.S. Catholic Church to task for its failure to root out all forms of clergy sexual abuse in the light of allegations made by former seminarians against Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, retired archbishop of Washington.

When the Apostle John was organizing his Gospel, he writes that he will not be telling us everything that Christ did, but rather “these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30).

He’s a loser! You’re a loser! Among all the hurtful slurs we mindlessly utter this particular one is perhaps the most hurtful and damaging. It needs to be forbidden in our public discourse and stricken from our vocabulary.

When the great Tom Wolfe died on May 14 – he of the white suits, the spats, and the prose style as exuberant as his wardrobe – I, like millions of others, remembered the many moments of pleasure I had gotten from his work.

The editor’s note under Richard Morasci’s letter (“Priesthood and gender,” Letters, July 12) on the exclusion of women from the priesthood suggests that the Catholic “faithful” must unquestioningly accept the church’s teaching reserving the priesthood to males. Quotes from cardinals and popes, however, should not dissuade the faithful from employing their God-given intellect.

COALVILLE, England – Cistercian monks have opened the first Trappist brewery in England and are selling thousands of bottles of beer every day.

VATICAN CITY – He’s on Twitter and all over Facebook; a U.S. producer is shooting a documentary about his life, and a renowned British actor is writing a play about him. And yet still not many people know who Jesuit Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is.

WASHINGTON – Fifty years ago, an encyclical was released affirming a long-held teaching of the Catholic Church, yet it became one of the most controversial encyclicals in recent church history.

“Humanae Vitae” was major news in the months after Pope Paul VI issued the encyclical on July 25, 1968. Here is a glimpse of coverage in The Monitor, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of San Francisco at the time.

WASHINGTON – Pope Francis has appointed Bishop Oscar Cantu of Las Cruces, New Mexico, to be coadjutor bishop of San Jose.

Monterey Bishop Richard J. Garcia, a San Francisco native and the fourth bishop of Monterey, died July 11, the diocese announced. He was diagnosed just three months ago with the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and experienced a very rapid decline in health.

VATICAN CITY – While everyone has a role and responsibility to help safeguard the planet, all governments must uphold commitments agreed upon in the Paris Accord on reducing climate change, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis and Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria, patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church, right, release doves as they stand with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople outside the Basilica of St. Nicholas in Bari, Italy, July 7.

Rick DelVecchio, editor and general manager of Catholic San Francisco, was recognized as Editor of the Year by the Catholic Press Association at its annual Catholic Media Conference in Green Bay, Wisconsin, June 12-15.