By Woodeene Koenig-Bricker
(OSV News) – “When we let the world know that there is more to the holiday than presents and decorations, we fulfill our mission as Christians to evangelize the world.”

Imagine expecting a new baby. For months, you prepare to welcome this addition, but in the last month, the preparations really step up. You make sure that the crib is clean, the diapers are in place, the car seat is installed, and family and friends are ready to meet the new baby.

That sense of joyful preparation combined with anticipation is the attitude we bring to Advent as we await the arrival of Christ the Lord. Christmas is the high point, but using the days leading up to Dec. 25 to prepare both spiritually and materially is what Advent is all about!

What sets Advent apart from the usual secular preparations for Christmas is the spiritual dimension: Advent is a time of both prayer and penance. As Catholics, we are called to exercise a more disciplined approach to our spiritual lives during the four weeks of Advent and to pay special attention to our words and deeds as we wait patiently for the coming of Christ.

Waiting is a challenge, but instead of just counting down the days, we are called to use Advent as a time to deepen our relationship with God. Keep things simple: Read a Psalm as a bedtime prayer, go to confession, pray the rosary (especially on the special Marian feasts of the Immaculate Conception (Dec. 8) and Our Lady of Guadalupe (Dec. 12)), spend some time in Eucharistic adoration, or go to daily Mass.

You could also say the traditional St. Andrews novena – 25 days of prayer for a holy Christmas, beginning on the feast of St. Andrew, Nov. 30. If you have children, make a “good deed” crèche: Put a slip of paper, acting as a piece of straw, in the manger each time you do a good deed so that the bed will be filled with “holy softness” for the Christ Child.

Some of the major signs of the season are decorations and lights, especially those on the outside of the house. As you decorate your house, think about how lights are more than just pretty objects. Lights, especially candles, have been used for centuries at Christmas time as a symbol of the star that showed the shepherds and wise men where to find the Christ Child. Your lights can serve as a witness to the “light of the world” that is both coming and has already arrived.

Each household develops their own traditions about when to put up a tree, stockings and other decorations. Some people like to do a little bit over the weeks; others prefer to make decorating a major part of Christmas Eve. (And in case you feel as if putting up decorations early is somehow improper, the Vatican puts up its Christmas scene, consisting of trees and a crèche, in very early December!)

St. Francis of Assisi is credited with creating the first nativity scene. Invest in having a crèche of your own. Some people put theirs under the tree, others make a special scene on a table. Some families make the crèche into an ongoing tradition by adding a new figure each year.

Many families have special foods that they serve only at Christmas. As you prepare these treats, use the time to recall – and pray for – all those family members who have gone before us in death.

You might want to begin building some new and flavorful traditions. One idea from the Anglican tradition is to begin your holiday baking on the last Sunday before Advent. This Sunday is called “Stir-up Sunday” because traditional fruit cakes were mixed on this day and left to “mellow” until Christmas. The name comes from the collect prayer from the day’s liturgy: “Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people.” Put a new twist on the tradition by making and freezing batches of cookie dough to be baked later in the month.

Advent is a time of hope and light. It is a time when we reaffirm that “nothing is impossible with God,” not even a virgin bringing forth a child. This Advent, find hope as you recommit yourself to spiritual renewal. This Advent, look for the Light in everything you do, from shopping for presents, to mailing cards, to making special food, to decorating the house.

This Advent, prepare your home and your heart for the coming of Emmanuel, God-with-Us, Jesus Christ.

(Woodeene Koenig-Bricker writes from Oregon.)

By Michael Kelly
DUBLIN (OSV News) – The sainthood cause of an Irish nun killed in an earthquake in Ecuador in 2016 is to open early next year, it has been revealed.

Derry-born Sister Clare Crockett was a promising actress with little interest in religion when she went on a Holy Week retreat in Spain in 2000 that changed her life.

The then 18-year-old self-confessed “wild child” felt a profound call to religious life, and entered the convent of the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother.

Following her death in the 2016 Ecuador earthquake, stories soon began to spread of her holiness of life and devoted pastoral service. Her grave in her native Derry soon became a place of pilgrimage, and devotion to her intercession has grown. She has been credited with bringing many young people back to the practice of their Catholic faith.

Father Gerard Mongan, parish priest of her native parish of St. Columba’s in Derry’s working-class Bogside neighborhood, told OSV News that “news of the opening of Sister Clare’s cause for canonization has been received with great joy and anticipation in Derry.”

Father Mongan confirmed to OSV News that the cause for Sister Clare will open in Madrid Jan. 12. From this point she will be declared a servant of God and the intensive scrutiny of her life and ministry will continue with both a postulator and vice postulator appointed to present the case to the Vatican.

Father Mongan said he hopes that the news will help devotion to Sister Clare to spread far and wide. “She already has a huge following of devotees who are inspired by her remarkable conversion story.

“The people of Derry and beyond are overwhelmed by the possibility that one day, they will have their own saint. In particular, she has been an inspiration to many young people who have been inspired by her life, especially her infectious joy.

“She has already brought countless people back to the practice of their faith. We all look forward to the official opening of her cause when she will become (a) servant of God. Exciting times ahead!” Father Mongan said.

Sister Clare was born in Derry, Northern Ireland, in 1982 at the height of the sectarian conflict known as The Troubles, in which over 3,000 people lost their lives.

Her home town is featured in the popular comedy series “Derry Girls,” which follows the antics of teenagers in the city.

Shortly after her death her religious congregation, the Home of the Mother, released a film charting her life. “All of Nothing” documents the last 15 years of her life and includes interviews with her family, childhood friends and the sisters from the Home of the Mother order. The film now has more than 2.5 million views on YouTube.

In 2020, the order published the first full-length biography of the religious sister.
“Sister Clare Crockett: Alone with Christ Alone” is written by Sister Kristen Gardner, who was also responsible for the documentary.

The book is based on Sister Clare’s notebooks of spiritual writings, discovered after her death. In one passage she recalls the experience that brought her to rediscover her faith on Good Friday in 2000.
“I do not know how to explain exactly what happened. I did not see the choirs of angels or a white dove come down from the ceiling and descend on me, but I had the certainty that the Lord was on the Cross, for me,” she recalled.

“And along with that conviction, I felt a great sorrow, similar to what I had experienced when I was little and prayed the Stations of the Cross. When I returned to my pew, I already had imprinted in me something that was not there before. I had to do something for him Who had given his life for me,” she wrote.

It was the start of a journey of conversion and healing that led to her – despite protests from her family and acting manager – joining the sisters and taking her first vows in 2006.

Her first assignment was in the community at Belmonte, in Cuenca, Spain, in a residence for girls that come from families in difficulty. “Her zeal for souls, especially those of the youth, was immense,” the sisters wrote in her online biography.

Soon after she was sent to the new community that was about to be opened in Jacksonville, Florida, in October 2006. The sisters began pastoral work at Assumption Parish and School.

Father Frederick Parke, who died Oct. 18, 2021, remembered Sister Clare as one beaming with enthusiasm and joy.

“The children picked up on the enthusiasm that she had for the Eucharist. She overflowed with enthusiasm for the Lord. Once you had been with her, you knew you had to pick up that same enthusiasm. It was so catchy.”

Michael Kelly writes for OSV News from Dublin, Ireland.

By Kate Scanlon
(OSV News) – A federal judge in Texas on Nov. 7 struck down a Biden administration program to protect from deportation and provide a path to U.S. citizenship for hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants living in the country who are married to U.S. citizens.

The program, known as “Keeping Families Together,” which sought to allow undocumented spouses and stepchildren of U.S. citizens to apply for a green card without first having to leave the country, was challenged by 16 Republican-led states that filed a lawsuit after applications were made available in August. At that time, a judge put the program on hold.

“Sadly, this court decision will likely end the program, as Trump will terminate it upon taking office,” J. Kevin Appleby, senior fellow for policy at the Center for Migration Studies of New York and the former director of migration policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told OSV News.

“Instead, his administration will start targeting the exact same families for deportation, separating U.S. citizen children from their parents,” Appleby said. “Hopefully, Catholic advocates, including the U.S. bishops, will not pull their punches in opposing Trump’s mass deportation and anti-asylum plans. History will mark how the church in the U.S. defends the rights of migrants in the years ahead.”

Under the terms of the program, applicants must have resided in the U.S. for 10 or more years and be legally married to a U.S. citizen. Those approved by the Department of Homeland Security would have been permitted to remain in the U.S. for a three-year period to apply for permanent residency.
In June, the White House had said the program would benefit “approximately half a million spouses of U.S. citizens, and approximately 50,000 noncitizen children under the age of 21 whose parent is married to a U.S. citizen.”
But Judge J. Campbell Barker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, who previously temporarily blocked the program, struck it down Nov. 7, arguing the administration exceeded its authority in creating the program.

The program would have been unlikely to remain in place once President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.

Andrew Bailey, the attorney general of Missouri, one of the states that joined the lawsuit challenging the program, said in a post on X (formerly Twitter), “The court just granted our request to throw out the Biden-Harris administration’s illegal parole-in-place program allowing illegal aliens to remain in our country after they have crossed the border. A huge win for the rule of law.”

FWD.us, an immigration and criminal justice reform advocacy group, said in a post on X it is “deeply disappointed” by the ruling, arguing the program represented “a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of American families in desperate need of protection from being separated by our failed immigration system.”

Previously, Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas, who serves as chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration, praised the Biden administration rule at the time. He noted a similar program had been available to military service members and their families for several years.
In a June 18 statement, Bishop Seitz said, “We’ve seen the positive impacts such programs can have, not only for beneficiaries themselves but for the families, employers, and communities that rely on them,” adding that the new program was “sure to yield similar benefits.”

The Catholic Church’s magisterium outlines the church’s moral parameters on immigration. The Catechism of the Catholic Church instructs, “The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin.”

At the same time, the church has also made clear human laws are also subject to divine limits. St. John Paul II’s 1993 encyclical “Veritatis Splendor” (“Splendor of Truth”) and 1995 encyclical “Evangelium Vitae” (“The Gospel of Life”) — both quote the Second Vatican Council’s teaching in “Gaudium et Spes,” the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, which names “deportation” among various specific acts “offensive to human dignity” that “are a disgrace, and so long as they infect human civilization they contaminate those who inflict them more than those who suffer injustice, and they are a negation of the honor due to the Creator.”

Back in June, Bishop Seitz emphasized that “legislators have a moral and patriotic duty to improve our legal immigration system, including the opportunities available for family reunification and preservation.”
“A society is only as strong as its families, and family unity is a fundamental right,” he said. “For the good of the country, Congress must find a way to overcome partisan divisions and enact immigration reform that includes an earned legalization program for longtime undocumented residents.”

(Kate Scanlon is a national reporter for OSV News covering Washington. Follow her on X (formerly known as Twitter) @kgscanlon.)

By Michael R. Heinlein
(OSV News) – We are greatly blessed by the contributions of Black Catholics in the church in the United States, particularly their illuminating legacy of holiness. The struggles and pain faced by the African American community are succinctly captured in the lives of these six Black Catholics now being considered for canonization. In them we can find the greatest of human characteristics, truly men and women for our times.

– Venerable Pierre Toussaint (1766–1853)
Born a slave in Haiti, Toussaint came to New York as property of a French Haitian family, who later freed him in 1807. Establishing himself as a successful hairdresser, Toussaint earned a sizable salary, which he put to use for the good of others, beginning with the purchase of his sister’s freedom as well as that of his future wife, Juliette. Together the Toussaints spent their lives in service to the poor and needy. When urged to retire and enjoy his remaining years, Toussaint is quoted as saying, “I have enough for myself, but if I stop working, I have not enough for others.”

Toussaint’s great charity and works of mercy were fueled by an abiding faith. A daily Mass attendee for more than 60 years, Toussaint lived as he worshiped. Not embittered by the hardships he endured because of his race and his Catholic faith, the model layman gave of himself to others. Toussaint and his wife adopted his niece, took in orphans and funded orphanages, operated a credit bureau, established hostels for priests and refugees, and generously supported the church and other institutions. Toussaint attended to the sick and suffering, too, even strangers whom he helped nurse to health.

Toussaint died June 30, 1853. In 1990, his remains were moved to a niche in the bishop’s crypt at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City – a rather poetic postscript to the life of a man whose race once prohibited him from entering the city’s Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He was declared venerable in 1996.

– Venerable Mother Henriette Delille (1812–1862)
Born out of wedlock to a Frenchman and a free woman of color, Henriette Delille spent all her life in and around New Orleans’ French Quarter. A cultured young woman of high society, Delille was expected, like her mother and the women of her family, to form a liaison relationship with an eligible white man. After receiving the sacrament of confirmation, however, Delille clearly became a woman committed to the Lord. Her guiding motto, written in a prayer book, captures what defined her heart and spurred her vocation: “I believe in God. I hope in God. I love. I want to live and die for God.”

Prevailing racist attitudes, even within the church, made Delille’s pursuit of a religious vocation painful and difficult, and two congregations denied her admittance. Undeterred by the rejection, Delille persevered to establish a religious congregation herself in 1836. Using inheritance from her mother, Delille began what became known as the Sisters of the Holy Family with the aim to serve the poor, sick and elderly, and to teach the faith to both slave and free children.

Delille’s generosity and love was known to everyone who knew her. She was a mother to all she encountered, and sacramental records show she even served as godmother and marriage witness to many. She died Nov. 16, 1862, at age 49. An obituary summed up her calling: “For the love of Jesus Christ she had become the humble and devout servant of the slaves.” Delille’s cause for canonization opened in 1988, and she was declared venerable in 2010.

– Venerable Father Augustus Tolton (1854–1897)
Augustus Tolton, born the son of slaves on April 1, 1854, was the first Black individual from the United States to be ordained a priest. But his path to priesthood was not easy.

After a harrowing escape from their Missouri home, Tolton’s family settled in freedom in Quincy, Illinois, where the pastor accepted him into the parish school despite much opposition from parishioners. Later, as Tolton began to pursue a priestly vocation, seminaries across the United States rejected his applications out of prejudice.

With heroic determination, Tolton pressed on toward his calling. He was accepted to a seminary in Rome and was ordained there in 1886. Though Tolton expected to serve as a missionary in Africa, he soon found out that he was destined for service back in the United States. “America has been called the most enlightened nation; we will see if it deserves that honor,” said Cardinal Giovanni Simeoni, prefect of the Holy See’s Congregation for Propagation of the Faith, which oversaw Tolton’s seminary. “If America has never seen a black priest, it has to see one now.”
Upon his return to Quincy, Father Tolton was met with racial prejudice by laity and clergy alike. An authority even told him not to allow white people to attend his parish. A priest of great humility and obedience, Tolton was invited to minister in Chicago in 1889, and left Quincy thinking he had been a failure there.

In Chicago, Tolton was indefatigable in his efforts to serve a growing Black Catholic community and established St. Monica Church for Black Catholics. Returning from a retreat by train, Tolton collapsed on a Chicago street amid record heat and died July 9, 1897, at the young age of forty-three, and his body was returned to Quincy for burial. Tolton’s cause for canonization was opened in 2010, and he was declared venerable in 2019.

– Venerable Mother Mary Lange (c. 1784–1882)
Few details are known about the early life of Elizabeth Lange. Likely born in Santiago de Cuba, she emigrated to the United States with a heart ready for service. Known to be of African descent, Lange once described herself as “French to my soul.”
God’s providence eventually led Lange to Baltimore, where there was a sizable group of French-speaking Catholics who fled Haiti at the time of their revolution. At that time, no free education existed for Black children in Maryland. There, Lange operated a free school out of her home. Financial difficulties eventually forced its closure.

Lange was drawn into further teaching by Sulpician Father James Joubert, who also encouraged her and a few companions to consecrate their lives and work to God as professed religious women. With Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange as the first superior, the Oblate Sisters of Providence were established in 1829 – the first successful congregation for Black women in the United States. With Lange’s pioneering vision and holy example, the Oblate sisters persevered through great difficulties and offered their lives in service to all in need – especially to pupils, orphans, widows, the sick and those in spiritual need.

With a humble heart, Lange accepted whatever tasks lay before her. In her final years she patiently endured many hardships. Yet, Lange consistently persevered trusting in God’s provident hand. She died Feb. 3, 1882, and her cause for canonization formally was opened in 1991.

– Servant of God Julia Greeley (c. 1840–1918)
Born into slavery in Hannibal, Missouri, Julia Greeley gained her freedom after the Emancipation Proclamation. Her years as a slave left a permanent mark: a drooping eye, received as the result of a beating. After moving to Colorado in 1879, Greeley fell in love with the Catholic faith. She converted the following year and immediately immersed herself in the devotional and sacramental life of the church. She attended daily Mass, was devout and pious, and took up intense fasting. When questioned about regularly eating no breakfast, Greeley would respond, “My Communion is my breakfast.”

Greeley found great joy in her love for the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which she saw as the source for her many charitable and service-oriented ministries. She was known to spread the devotion, even using it as a tool to evangelize Denver’s firemen. From her heart flowed the love of Christ’s heart.

Greeley took on a life of poverty, living in union with the poor of Denver. Taking on odd jobs like cooking and cleaning, she used her meager salary to finance a ministry to the poor while suffering from painful arthritis. She could not write, read or count, but wearing her trademark floppy hat Greeley could show Christ’s love. She dragged a red wagon filled with goods to distribute to the poor, and, at times, she even begged for them. Many of those she helped were among the nearly 1,000 mourners who attended the funeral after her death on June 7, 1918. Her canonization cause was opened in 2016.

– Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman (1937–1990)
Born in Mississippi on Dec. 29, 1937, Bertha Bowman converted to Catholicism at the age of nine. Missionary priests and sisters began a Catholic school in her hometown to provide a better education for Black children, and it did not discriminate. The Gospel-filled joyfulness of those missionaries attracted the young Bowman to the faith. This same joyfulness became a hallmark trait of hers later on. Bowman was so attracted to their way of life that at fifteen she went on a hunger strike to get her parents’ permission to enter as an aspirant with her teachers’ order, the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Life in the convent did not protect her from racial prejudice, but she won people over with her joyful, outgoing demeanor and love for Christ and the church. The daughter of a doctor and a teacher, Sister Thea, her name given upon taking religious vows, was intellectually gifted. She earned a doctorate in English at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and subsequently served in a variety of teaching roles.

After she, as an only child, returned home to take care of her parents in 1978, Sister Thea served as director for intercultural affairs in the Diocese of Jackson. She dedicated herself to overcoming divisions in the church and society in the wake of the Second Vatican Council and the racial strife of the 1960s. As a writer, teacher, musician and evangelist, Sister Thea preached the Gospel to clergy and laity alike, promoting ecclesial and cultural harmony and reconciliation as a tireless spokeswoman for the Black Catholic experience. Pledging to “live until I die,” Sister Thea remained wholeheartedly committed to her ministry while battling breast cancer for several years. She died March 30, 1990, and her cause for canonization was opened in 2018.

(Michael R. Heinlein is editor of “Black Catholics on the Road to Sainthood” and author of “Glorifying Christ: The Life of Cardinal Francis E. George, OMI.”)

By Peter Jesserer Smith
BALTIMORE (OSV News) – The U.S. bishops’ annual fall assembly in Baltimore saw the shepherds of the Catholic Church in this country make intentional steps toward integrating their work with the synodal missionary style called for by the global church’s recently concluded Synod on Synodality.

At the outset of the Nov. 11-14 plenary assembly, Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, delivered a homily in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary – “the mother church of the synodal activity of the hierarchy in this country” – where he called upon the bishops to beg for wisdom “because we recognize that we are servants of the truth and charged to find ways to help those entrusted to our care.”

At the opening public session, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the papal ambassador to the U.S., told the bishops that Pope Francis’ recent encyclical “Dilexit Nos,” on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, is a call to “return to the heart” of Jesus – and key to understanding the church’s call to synodal evangelization, Eucharistic revival and the upcoming Jubilee 2025.

“The deeper we go into his heart, the more strengthened we will be to proclaim the Good News together,” he said Nov. 12.

Over the course of the assembly’s Nov. 12 and 13 public sessions, the bishops voted to approve a new “mission directive” for 2025-2028, which commits USCCB committees and staff to prioritize in their work “evangelizing those who are religiously unaffiliated or disaffiliated from the Church, with special focus on young adults and the youth.”

Regarding the global synod that concluded in October, a majority of the U.S. bishops in a voice vote Nov. 12 called for the USCCB’s Committee on Priorities and Plans to discern developing a task force to help the conference and dioceses implement the final synod document approved by Pope Francis.

Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas, who has led the USCCB’s involvement in the synod process, briefed the bishops on the synod’s October meeting. He said that more theological work needs to be done alongside efforts to develop a synodal missionary culture among Catholics.

“If it doesn’t reach the parishes, it hardly reaches the people of God,” he noted.

The bishops also decided to go ahead with drafting a new document on lay ecclesial ministry in the U.S., that would take into account what Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, chair of the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth, called “the experience of co-responsibility in the church, the evolving nature of parish and diocesan workplaces, and above all the call to greater synodality.”

They also approved a final draft of “The Order of Crowning an Image of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” Spanish texts for the Liturgy of the Hours, and the revised New American Bible for use in liturgy.

The conference also saw exemplars of American holiness promoted. The bishops affirmed two new causes brought to them for consultation: Benedictine Sister Annella Zervas of Moorhead, Minnesota, and Gertrude Agnes Barber, a laywoman from Erie, Pennsylvania.

Auxiliary Bishop Roy E. Campbell of Washington, president of the National Black Catholic Congress, who presented on the NBCC’s 2023 congress and resulting pastoral action plan, called on the bishops to promote the canonization causes of Black Catholics known collectively as the “Holy Six” – Venerable Mother Mary Lange; Venerable Father Augustus Tolton; Venerable Mother Henriette DeLille; Venerable Pierre Toussaint; Servant of God Julia Greeley; and Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman.

Bishop Stepan Sus, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church’s Pastoral and Migration Department, received a standing ovation from the bishops after sharing with them Ukraine’s plight under Russian occupation and thanking the U.S. church for its continued solidarity.

“As a church we cannot change all realities of the world,” he said. “But we can be next to those people who suffer and wipe their tears.”

Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens of Crookston, Minnesota, and board chair of the National Eucharistic Congress Inc., discussed the NEC’s next steps after the overwhelmingly positive feedback from the 2024 national Eucharistic pilgrimages and congress, saying the organization would support dioceses in their own events, “especially helping to form and send Eucharistic missionaries.”

The bishops also discussed how to mark the 10th anniversary of the release of “Laudato Si’,” Pope Francis’ encyclical on integral ecology. Ukrainian Catholic Archbishop Borys A. Gudziak of Philadelphia, chair of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, suggested the encyclical could be “integrated into our core mission of evangelization,” and that bringing back fasting practices, such as regularly abstaining from eating meat on Fridays, “would be good for the soul and for the planet.”

The bishops also heard a presentation offered by the committees on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth; Pro-Life Activities; and Catholic Education in relation to implementing the Vatican declaration on human dignity, “Dignitas Infinita,” released in April.

The looming potential of President-elect Donald Trump implementing his campaign promise to enact mass deportations also shaped the bishops’ conversation. Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration, encouraged his brother bishops and their priests to speak loudly and unified on the issue of migration, especially in light of recent rhetoric from public figures, saying the lay faithful have a “real hunger … for leadership from their priests and bishops alike on this issue.”

The conference also passed an operating budget for 2025 with no increase in diocesan assessment.
They elected bishops to several USCCB leadership positions. Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis was voted in as treasurer-elect and chairman-elect of the budget committee. Auxiliary Bishop Michael G. Woost of Cleveland was elected chairman-elect for the Committee on Divine Worship; Archbishop Shelton J. Fabre of Louisville, Kentucky, was elected chairman-elect of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development; and Bishop Edward J. Burns was elected as head of the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth; and Bishop Brendan J. Cahill of Victoria, Texas, was elected chairman-elect of the Committee on Migration. The prelates assume their positions at the conclusion of the bishops’ 2025 fall assembly.

The bishops also confirmed two bishops to the board of directors of Catholic Relief Services, the international relief agency of the Catholic Church in the U.S.: Bishop Donald J. Hying of Madison, Wisconsin, and Auxiliary Bishop Evelio Menjivar-Ayala of Washington.

The USCCB concluded its annual plenary assembly Nov. 14 in executive session, but released a statement of pastoral concern that day of “firm solidarity with our immigrant brothers and sisters who live and labor in these United States.” It stated, “Together, we must speak out on behalf of the ‘huddled masses yearning to breathe free’ and ask our government to provide fair and humane treatment for our beloved immigrant brothers and sisters.”

(Peter Jesserer Smith is the national news and features editor for OSV News.)

The Christmas season is a time anticipated not only by children, but by everyone. In a time when the cold winter permeates much of the United States, the warmth of celebrating as a family fills homes with the aromas of seasonal dishes and their hearts with joy.

Celebrations come one after another since the beginning of the Advent season. And many Hispanic families and parish communities live this time of preparation for the birth of Jesus with different traditions, always united in faith.

One of the traditions from Latin America is the Día de las Velitas (Day of the Little Candles), celebrated by Colombians Dec. 7 as a prelude to the commemoration of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, which the Catholic world celebrates Dec. 8. Many communities in the U.S. and the world join the Dec. 12 celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe, one of the liturgical feasts that summons large communities of devotees of the Patroness of the Americas — with the largest pilgrimage being to her basilica in Mexico.

Among other traditions are the Novena de Aguinaldos, held Dec. 16-24 in countries such as Ecuador, Venezuela and Colombia, as well as the traditional posadas celebrated in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and other Latin American countries. This tradition commemorates Joseph and Mary traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem and looking for a place where the Son of God would be born.

(Marietha Góngora V. writes for OSV News from Bogotá, Colombia)

By Katie Yoder
(OSV News) – A new podcast about the rosary promises to deepen listeners’ love of the Marian devotion and draw them closer to Jesus and his mother, Mary, in the new year.

“I hope people fall in love,” Father Mark-Mary Ames, a Franciscan Friar of the Renewal, the host of “The Rosary in a Year” podcast, said during a virtual press conference Oct. 28. “I hope our listeners and those who make this journey with us … fall in love with the rosary because they experience it as … a privileged door for encounter with Our Lord and Our Lady.”

The free podcast by Ascension, a Catholic multimedia network, begins Jan. 1, 2025, and continues through the year with a new episode released daily. Listeners can tune in on platforms including the Ascension App, Spotify and Apple Podcasts, for the episodes that run 10 to 15 minutes long. Each one will feature guidance and instruction, a prayer prompt and prayers of the rosary.
Father Mark-Mary, director of communications and director of priestly studies for the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, said he hopes the podcast meets people where they are, from those who pray the rosary regularly to those who are beginners.

“I believe that our journey for ‘The Rosary in a Year’ is going to be learning how to – and actually being accompanied in – praying with the truths of our faith,” he said during the virtual event.

The podcast will walk with listeners through six phases of deepening prayer by starting small and gradually growing over time. It promises to help people of faith learn how to build a daily prayer habit, form relationships with Jesus and Mary, discover the biblical foundations of the rosary, realize Mary’s influence in one’s own life and meditate with sacred art, the writings of the saints and Scripture.

Listeners can follow along with the podcast by signing up online for a free prayer plan at Ascension’s website, ascensionpress.com. Other related resources are available there too, including “The Rosary in a Year Prayer Guide,” a free parish kit and a package of 50 “How to Pray a Better Rosary” booklets. Ascension also offers rosaries inspired by the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal and their devotion to their patroness, Our Lady of Guadalupe. A new “The Rosary in a Year” YouTube channel will provide video content.

The podcast is the fourth of Ascension’s popular “In a Year” podcasts, following “The Bible in a Year,” its sister podcast in Spanish, “La Biblia en un Año,” and “The Catechism in a Year.”

Father Mike Schmitz, host of “The Bible in a Year” and “The Catechism in a Year” podcasts, will appear on bonus episodes with Father Mark-Mary.

This latest podcast comes after Father Mark-Mary did a video for Ascension in 2021 about learning to pray the rosary in a year. He has spoken about the rosary for Ascension before, including in a 2019 pray-along rosary video that went viral with more than 5 million views.

At the virtual press conference, Father Mark-Mary revealed that he struggled with the rosary as a teenager and hoped that this podcast serves as the resource he wishes he had as a young man. Pointing to St. John Paul’s II apostolic letter on the rosary, which kicked off the “Year of the Rosary” from October 2002 to October 2003, he shared how the rosary has impacted him personally.

At the end of the year, in October 2003, Father Mark-Mary was in his first semester of college and had stopped attending Mass for the first time, he said in response to a question by OSV News. Then, out of nowhere, he found himself speaking with a young woman at a dorm party who identified as an atheist.
“I said like, ‘How can you not believe?’” he remembered. “I started to defend the faith and all of a sudden like all of the lights went on. It’s like, I believe and it needs to affect my whole life.”

“The timing of it – it just can’t be coincidental,” he said of the event, adding that he believes that the grace of his own conversion came from all of the prayers said during the rosary year.

Today, he said, he prays the rosary every day and wears a rosary as a part of his habit.

For those who want a preview of Father Mark-Mary’s podcast, a bonus introduction episode is available.
“In a difficult world and a difficult time where it’s so easy for us to turn our attention towards everything going wrong, brothers and sisters, here is the response,” Father Mark-Mary says toward the end of that episode. “Let’s go to the Lord, let’s pray, let’s focus on him, let’s focus on the great mysteries of our salvation, let’s turn back to Our Lady, let’s remember that we have a mother who loves us, who is also powerful, who is queen of heaven and earth.”

(Katie Yoder is a contributing editor for Our Sunday Visitor magazine.)