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...

VATICAN CORNER Before the U.S. presidential election, a fake news website - WTOE 5 NEWS falsely reported that Pope Francis had endorsed Republican candidate Donald Trump. That website is a fantasy news site where most of its articles are satire or pure fabrication....

VATICAN CORNER Staircases bind spaces together. They come in many forms: single run, switchback, L-shaped, curved, triangular, spiral and double spiral. The double spiral or double-helix consisting of two intertwined spirals is one of the most remarkable types, and...

VATICAN CORNER It is not often that a pope travels to Sweden, a country with just 113,000 Catholics, fewer than could fill St. Peter’s Square. The last pope to visit Sweden was Pope John Paul II during his 1989 tour of the Scandinavian countries.  Sweden is in the...

VATICAN CORNER Continued …Bramante, the original architect of the New Saint Peter’s Basilica, designed 4 piers to support the enormous weight of the domed roof. At the construction site, an artist from Florence named Michelangelo, observed that construction workers...

VATICAN CORNER Saint Peter’s Basilica is the largest church in the world at 163,180 sq. ft., and with a maximum capacity of 60,000 people. During the years 319 to 349 AD, the first Christian Emperor of Rome – Constantine built the first Saint Peter’s Basilica over the...