Harrison Butker and Cardinal Raymond Burke after Butker broke the Kansas City Chiefs s field-goal record in week of the 2022-2023 season. / Austin QuickBoston, Mass., Mar 5, 2023 / 04:00 am (CNA).Super Bowl-winning Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker is a champion on the field and in the spiritual life, where he says he wants nothing less than to become a saint. "If we want to be saints, we have to die to ourselves," Butker told CNA in an interview Wednesday. During his team s stunning Feb. 12 Super Bowl victory against the Philadelphia Eagles, players were slipping all over the field, leading many to change their cleats during the competition. Butker experienced a slip himself, but of a different sort.Butker s scapular made a timely appearance as it slipped out of his jersey while more than 100 million fans across the globe watched him line up for a 27-yard field goal attempt with 11 seconds left on the clock in a tie game. "I think that was o
Pope Francis waves to the crowd in St. Peter's Square on March 5, 2023, during his Sunday Angelus reflection. / Vatican MediaWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 5, 2023 / 08:20 am (CNA).During his Sunday morning Angelus address, Pope Francis urged the faithful to reflect on the miracle of the Transfiguration and to see the same beauty in the faces of the people we interact with every day. In the March 5 address, the pope discussed the "beauty" shown in Sunday s Gospel reading of Matthew 17:1-9. In this passage, Peter and James and his brother John witness Christ "transfigured before them" with his face shining "like the sun" and his clothes "dazzling white" as he conversed with Moses and Elijah on the top of a mountain. Pope Francis said that we must "see the same beauty on the faces of the people who walk beside us every day," such as family, friends, and colleagues. "How many luminous faces, how many smiles, how ma
null / Vatican MediaDenver, Colo., Mar 3, 2023 / 13:25 pm (CNA).The decline in the number of priests, seminarians, and new vocations to the priesthood in the United States appears to be more pronounced in parishes where priests serve more parishioners, according to a report commissioned by the organization Vocation Ministry.Vocation Ministry aims to train and encourage priests, educators, and the Catholic laity to support and expand vocations programs in parishes and schools. It has held over 135 workshops in more than 50 dioceses.The study found that there are fewer new vocations in large dioceses where priests do not have a chance to get to know their parishioners and encourage budding vocations. The report s authors point out that their findings should be taken into account when considering merging Catholic parishes.Aging clergy aren t being replaced The organization s newly released 40-page report, "Creating a Culture of Vocations," provides an analysis of vocations trend
Father Antoine Macaire Christian Noah escaped from his kidnappers in Haiti, February 2023. / Credit: Father Fausto Cruz Rosa, Superior Major of the Antilles Delegation of the Claretian MissionariesACI Prensa Staff, Mar 3, 2023 / 12:45 pm (CNA).Father Antoine Macaire Christian Noah, a Claretian priest from Cameroon, escaped unharmed from a crime gang that had kidnapped him in Haiti last month and has been taken to another country for his safety. On March 2, Father Fausto Cruz Rosa, major superior of the Antilles Delegation of the Claretian Missionaries, told ACI Prensa, CNA s Spanish-language news partner, that Macaire "was kidnapped [and] held in isolation for 10 days in an abandoned house on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince," the Haitian capital."On the 10th day, when [the kidnappers] had left, he was able to escape. The criminals went out frequently at night and left him locked up in one of the houses that gangs usually take over in Haiti," he explained.Macair