The Holy Spirit will guide the conclave. Period. No doubt at all. But that doesn’t mean we can’t take a peek at the signs of the times. I believe some of the signs point toward Cardinal Dolan. John White wrote about this earlier tonight, but there’s more to the chatter than he touched on. The notion of a pope from the United States would have been laughable when Benedict was elec... More

“Along with traditional means such as witness of life, catechetics, personal contact, popular piety, the liturgy and similar celebrations, the use of media is now essential in evangelization and catechesis. Indeed, “the Church would feel guilty before the Lord if she did not utilize these powerful means that human skill is daily rendering more perfect”. The media of social commun... More

50,000 people from 57 different countries and five continents were recently asked whether or not they consider themselves religious, nonreligious, or are a convinced atheist. Of those respondents living in America, only 60% identified themselves as religious, a 13 percent decrease over the past seven years. Equally troubling is that the number of self identified atheists in America rose from 1 per... More

EDITOR’S NOTE: Emily Stimpson is a contributing editor to Our Sunday Visitor.  Please welcome her to the CV Blog. What’s so great about Rick Santorum? That’s a question lots of people have been asking as of late. And not without reason. After all, on the surface certain obvious qualities we’d love to have in a president are missing from Santorum: Executive leadership experience, a pr... More

Last week Pope Benedict, from his papal apartment at the Vatican, used an iPad to remotely “light” the largest Christmas tree in the world. The electric “tree” is located on the hillside of the Italian town of Gubbio: He also shared his three Christmas wishes: “Before lighting the tree”, he said, “I would like to express three wishes. This Christmas tree... More

The bishops of New York (including, presumably, Abp. Timothy Dolan) were in Rome this weekend for their ad limina visit with the pope. They represent the second of fifteen U.S. groups (of bishops) who will visit with the pope in the coming months. Here’s what the pope told the bishops of New York: “Despite attempts to still the Church’s voice in the public square, many people of good wi... More

Big news from over the weekend! Here is the text of the announcement (more to come): “It’s precisely to give new impetus to the mission of the whole Church to lead men out of the desert in which they often find themselves, to the place of life, of friendship with Christ, who gives us life in abundance. I would like to announce in this Eucharistic celebration I have decided to convene a &#... More

I had high expectations when I attended Archbishop Charles Chaput’s Installation Mass in Philadelphia last Thursday. I believe him to be the most important intellectual and pastoral voice among American bishops today. So imagine my delight when my high expectations were exceeded! Archbishop Chaput is frequently maligned by liberal Catholics for being too “political.” That was t... More

My EWTN appearance last night on Raymond Arroyo’s The World Over where we discussed same-sex marriage in New York, and lots of other Catholic news from this week: ... More

Did you ever think you’d see this? Today the Vatican published www.News.Va. To celebrate, Pope Benedict sent out his first tweet (which, as you can see, I happily re-tweeted): Even more of a treat – this unedited video (via Rome Reports) of Pope Benedict sitting down to view the new Vatican news portal on an iPad: What a cool pope. ...READ MORE... More