VATICAN CORNER continued… Today the Order of the Knights of Malta have only “obedience” as a vow. As of the 1990s officers are no longer drawn solely from Europe’s nobility. Their motto has always been “Defense of the (Catholic) faith and assistance to the poor.”...

VATICAN CORNER Residents of Rome awoke Saturday February 4, 2017 to find dozens of posters on the walls of their city showing a scowling Pope Francis. The posters read “Ah Francis, you’ve taken over congregations, removed priests, decapitated the Order of Malta and...

VATICAN CORNER A van departs every morning from Castel Gandolfo, the Vatican’s lakeside palace and farm, 12 miles south of Rome. At the Castel there are terraced vegetable gardens producing everything from artichokes and bell peppers to carrots and zucchini. A herd of...

VATICAN CORNER On January 4, 2017, McDonalds’s restaurants opened a franchise just steps away from the gleaming white marble dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, angering Catholic Cardinals and local business owners. The new restaurant is in a popular tourist area just...

VATICAN CORNER On March 13, 2017 Pope Francis will be beginning his fifth year as Pope and entering it with good health. The Jubilee of Mercy was a very active year for him and 2017 is promising to be active as well. So far as Pope he has made 17 foreign trips and...

VATICAN CORNER The newborn  children of Vatican employees were  baptized by Pope Francis on Sunday  January 8, 2017 in the Sistine Chapel  during the annual Mass celebrating the  Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist.  During the Christmas season, this Mass is  one of...

VATICAN CORNER In 1508 Pope Julius II invited the Italian painter Raphael, a student of Leonardo da Vinci, to Rome and commissioned him to paint religious frescos in the Vatican Palace. He found several artists already at work on different rooms, many painting over...

VATICAN CORNER A calendar is like a chain that emerges out of the waters of oblivion and holds the ship of history to its moorings. Beneath the surface of the waters, there must have been sunk some kind of an anchor. -- P.W. Wilson. There are six principal calendars...

VATICAN CORNER The Christmas tree and Nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square this year, while very beautiful, also highlight social issues such as care for the environment, inspiration for the sick, and the plight of migrants. The 82 ft. high spruce tree came from the...

VATICAN CORNER Since July, 2016, a white and blue-striped RV style van marked with a Vatican City license plate and coat of arms has been running around Rome bringing free medical care to the poor. The RV was converted into a mobile medical unit and donated by the...

VATICAN CORNER On September 19, 2016, four prominent cardinals wrote a letter to Pope Francis and to Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, citing conflicting interpretations of the Apostolic Exhortation on Love in the...

VATICAN CORNER Pope Francis formally ended the Jubilee Year of Mercy by saying a prayer thanking God for the gift of the Jubilee year and then pulling the tall gilded Holy Doors to the Basilica closed. Workers immediately removed the door handles and then later...