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The Vatican health service began vaccinating employees, residents and retirees with the COVID-19 vaccine January 13, 2021, in a makeshift clinic set up in the atrium of the Vatican audience hall. Pope Francis and retired Pope Benedict XVI both received the first dose. Photo: CNS/Vatican Media

Popes Francis, Benedict receive their first doses of COVID-19 vaccine

VATICAN CITY – Both Pope Francis and retired Pope Benedict XVI have received the first dose of the vaccine against COVID-19 after the Vatican started vaccinating its employees and residents January 13.

A lector delivers a reading during Mass at a church in Ronkonkoma, New York, August 20, 2014. Pope Francis ordered a change to the Code of Canon Law so that women may be formally instituted as lectors and acolytes. Photo: CNS/Gregory A. Shemitz

Pope amends canon law so women can be installed as lectors, acolytes

VATICAN CITY – Recognizing “the gifts of each baptized person” — women and men — Pope Francis ordered a change to canon law and liturgical norms so that women could be formally installed as lectors and acolytes.

Worshippers wearing protective masks receive ashes during Ash Wednesday Mass in Manila, Philippines, Feburary 26, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, the Vatican has issued a note on how priests can distribute ashes on Ash Wednesday while taking precautions to avoid spreading COVID-19. Photo: CNS/Eloisa Lopez, Reuters

For Ash Wednesday, Vatican asks priests to ‘sprinkle’ ashes on heads

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments asked priests to take special anti-COVID-19 precautions this year when distributing ashes on Ash Wednesday, February 17, including sprinkling ashes on the top of people’s heads rather than using them to make a cross on people’s foreheads.

Dianne DuSault, a member of Our Lady of Fatima Parish in Seattle, prepares chicken enchilada casserole for homeless people being served at Catholic Community Services shelters this winter. Photo: Courtesy Dianne DuSault

With overflow shelters on hold, parishes provide meals for the homeless

SEATTLE – On a recent Tuesday, Dianne DuSault and her daughter Tracy Craft teamed up to make chicken enchilada casserole for men staying at a shelter operated by Catholic Community Services of Western Washington.

Archdiocese settles three abuse cases from 1960s, ’70s and ’80s

SEATTLE – The Archdiocese of Seattle has reached settlements totaling just over $2 million in three separate cases involving allegations of sexual abuse against four priests of the archdiocese.

Obituaries - January 7, 2021

A security officer gestures after supporters of President Donald Trump breached security defenses at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C, on January 6. That evening, Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, condemned the violence and prayed for safety. Photo: CNS/Mike Theiler, Reuters

U.S. bishops’ president condemns violence at U.S. Capitol, prays for safety

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The president of the U.S. bishops’ conference has joined “people of good will” in condemning the violence at that erupted at the U.S. Capitol January 6 that interrupted a session of Congress to certify the 2020 presidential election.

Churches stand on the hill in Jordan behind the Franciscan Chapel of St. John The Baptist at Qasr al-Yahud, on the West Bank of the Jordan River in December 2020. The bullet-marked chapel was returned to the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land in October after being closed by the Israelis in 1967 as a closed military zone with mine fields. Photo: CNS/Debbie Hill

With land mines gone, Mass to be celebrated at West Bank baptismal site

QASR AL-YAHUD, West Bank – For the first time in 54 years, a Mass will be celebrated January 10, the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, at St. John the Baptist Chapel on the banks of the Jordan River.

Pope Francis’s Angelus January 1 address for the feast of Mary, Mother of God, and World Peace Day focused on God’s call for each person to make a contribution to peace at home, at work and among nations. Photo: CNS/Vatican Media

God gives everyone the task of being peacemakers, pope says

VATICAN CITY — As the Catholic Church celebrated World Peace Day January 1, Pope Francis offered prayers for the people of war-torn Yemen, especially the nation’s children left without education and often without food by years of civil war.

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, leads a New Year’s Eve evening prayer and the singing of the “Te Deum” to thank God for the year that is ending. Pope Francis, 84, did not preside over the December 31 celebration in St. Peter’s Basilica or morning Mass on January 1 due to “painful sciatica,” but later on January 1 he recited the Angelus from the library of the Apostolic Palace. Photo: CNS/Vatican Media

In new year, share the blessing of your time, pope writes

VATICAN CITY – At the beginning of a year people hope will mark the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, Pope Francis urged them to create a “culture of care,” including by sharing the gift of their time with others.

Obituaries - December 17, 2020

Farmer Tomislav Suknaic touches his horse in front of his destroyed home in the village of Majske Poljane, Croatia, on December 30 following a magnitude 6.4 earthquake the previous day. Pope Francis offered condolences and prayers for the victims of the quake in central Croatia that killed at least seven people and injured dozens. Photo: CNS/Antonio Bronic, Reuters

Pope prays for victims of earthquake in Croatia

Pope Francis offered condolences and prayers for the victims of an earthquake that rocked central Croatia.

As part of their Christmas tradition, Will and Amy Buttarazzi, parishioners at St. Joseph Church in Cockeysville, Maryland, and their children will bless their home for the year ahead with holy oil, frankincense and myrrh on the Feast of the Epiphany. Photo: CNS /Kevin J. Parks, Catholic Review

Tradition of Epiphany door blessing with chalk is symbol of hope in 2021

BALTIMORE – The ancient Christian tradition of marking doorways with blessed chalk on the feast of the Epiphany will carry new meaning for many Catholics in 2021.

Jenny Rodriguez is a member of the rosary-making group at St. Teresa of Calcutta Parish in Woodinville. Rodriguez and her daughters have made some 300 rosaries since the pandemic began, and the group has made about 8,000 rosaries since starting in 2011. Photo: Courtesy Jenny Rodriguez

Woodinville parishioners make rosaries for missionaries

WOODINVILLE – Using plastic beads and string, more than a dozen women at St. Teresa of Calcutta Parish are working to spread the devotion of the rosary around the world.

Daniele Belladonna works on the restoration of mosaics from the 5th century in the historic vestibule of the baptistery at the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome December 9. Vatican restorers are tackling one of the oldest mosaics in Christianity, dated to around 450 AD. Photo: CNS/Paul Haring

Come to the water: Mosaicists bring renewal to Rome’s first baptistery

VATICAN CITY – Even though the baptisms the pope celebrates most years in the Sistine Chapel are better known, the most important place to be baptized in Rome for the past nearly 1,600 years has been the baptistery of St. John Lateran.

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