Nearly 50 years ago, an Episcopal priest shocked his listeners during a Palm Sunday sermon at St. Mark’s Church in Van Nuys, Calif. On April 3, 1960, the Rev. Dennis Bennett announced he had received ...

Pope Francis arrives for an audience with faithful from the Italian dioceses of Bologna and Cesena in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican April 21. (CNS/Angelo Carconi, EPA) The sacrament of baptism isn ...

Within the Catholic calendar, we have entered a unique period of time that exists between Christmas and the beginning of Lent. There are many feast days that recognize important events leading up to ...

Parents who prefer not to baptize their children in the hopes that they will "understand and ask for baptism" as adults lack faith that the Holy Spirit will act in their child's life, Pope Francis ...

Francis urges faithful to look up the date of baptism and celebrate it as their "second birthday", the day of their “rebirth". To baptize children because with Baptism "the Holy Spirit enters that ...

FROM what we have already covered, we know John the Baptist baptised with water to identify and present Jesus to the audience. As we go along, we are seeing more people accepting the spirit and intent ...

A baptism in the Catholic Church. (Credit: Archdiocese of Montreal.) Listen This Sunday, as we continue to make our way through the season of Lent, the church gives us the biblical account of the ...

But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” — Matthew 3:14 It’s a good question: Why did Jesus Christ need to be baptized? That’s basically the question ...

1285 Baptism, the Eucharist, and the sacrament of Confirmation together constitute the "sacraments of Christian initiation," whose unity must be safeguarded. It must be explained to the faithful that ...