Catholic Fire

The typical religious who professed perpetual vows in 2013 is a 37-year-old cradle Catholic who has three or more siblings and who regularly prayed the Rosary and took part in Eucharistic adoration before entering religious life, according to a survey released by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. 460 (56%) of the major superiors of US religious institutes responded to the survey, which was conducted by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA). These 460 superiors reported that 107 men and women professed perpetual vows in 2013. Of the 107, 11 newly-professed brothers and 69 newly-professed sisters responded to the survey. 87% of the institutes reported no professions of perpetual vows, while 3% report two or more newly-professed religious. Among the survey’s findings: 28% of newly-professed men and women religious came from families with five or more siblings; 19% have four siblings, 14% have three siblings, 24% have two siblings, 11% have on...

A young Chicago woman preparing to be a nun is running a road race seeking pledges to help her pay off $94,000 in student debt.

Check out Fr. Roderick's Worldwide Twitter Campaign for Vocations. The goal is to have several people praying for future priests on each day of the Year of the Priest.

WASHINGTON—“Callings,” an hour-long documentary on work as a vocation, will be released by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to NBC-TV stations and affiliates on Sunday, June 14. (Check local listings. Local broadcast is at the discretion of the station.) The program features major league first baseman Mike Sweeney, now of the Seattle Mariners, dancer Francie Huber, Catholic Charities social worker Rita Flynn, and seven others who point out that their work is more a calling than a job. A clip from the documentary can be found at http://www.usccb.org/video/ The Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri produced the program that explores how ten people see their life’s work as a response to a call outside oneself. Msgr. Ernest Fiedler, former rector of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Kansas City, points out how to recognize a special call – to marriage, to the religious life, to priesthood, to medicine, to law. “I think with a believing, happy, w...

St. John Bosco was born in Piedmont of a peasant family, and was brought up by his widowed mother. He became a priest, and his particular concern was for the young. He settled in Turin, where, as in so many cities in the 19th century, the industrial revolution was bringing enormous movements of population and consequent social problems, especially for the young men who came there to work. John Bosco devoted himself to the care of the young, first of all by means of evening classes, to which hundreds came, and then by setting up a boarding-house for apprentices, and then workshops for their training and education. Despite many difficulties, caused both by the anti-clerical civil authorities and by the opposition of some senior people within the Church, his enterprise grew, and by 1868 over 800 boys and young men were under his care. To ensure the continuation of his work, he founded a congregation, which he named after St Francis de Sales (a saint for whom he had great admiration), and ...

Franciscans, founded in Palermo, Italy 1972. A renewal of the Capuchin charism, of contemplative prayer, radical joyful poverty, penance and evangelical preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Living in poverty on the outskirts of Corleone and Naples, Italy and on the outskirts of Palermo, Sicily. Their main Friary is in Corleone, Sicily. (They also have missions in Columbia and Africa). MotherHouse (Write in Italian, French, Spanish or simple English) to: Frati Minori Rinnovati Eremo san Bernardo 90034 Corleone, Italy (Sicily ) ~ Via Catholiques .