Your Catholic Travel Resource
Until now if you wanted non-stop travel to Istanbul from the U.S. you had to depart from Chicago, New York, Washington DC and Los Angeles. You can now add Houston to that list. Turkish Airways began non-stop Houston to Istanbul in April 2013. They were voted best European airline by Skytrax.
It is about a 12 hour flight going East, a bit longer coming back. As of now they have three flights a week but we expect that to grow.
August 9th a memorial Mass was held at Saint Paul’s Cathedral in Birmingham, Alabama for Father James Coyle who was murdered on August 11, 1921 . For those who have forgotten….or perhaps never knew….anti-Catholicism, encouraged by the Ku Klux Klan, was rampant in the United States throughout much of the deep south at that time. Father Coyle, a native of Ireland, came to the U.S. and eventually was assigned to the parish in Birmingham.
The daughter of a local Methodist pastor, E.R. Stephenson, converted to the Catholic faith, a fact that enraged her father. When it became known that Father Coyle had secretly married her daughter to a Puerto Rican immigrant, Stephenson approached Father Coyle at the rectory and shot him three times in view of everyone.
The ensuing trial was a sham and Stephenson was acquitted.
The encouraging part of this story is the fact that On February 22, 2012, Bishop William H. Willimon of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church presided over a service of reconciliation and forgiveness at Highlands United Methodist Church in Birmingham.
Father Coyle is buried at Elmwood Cemetery in Birmingham, a ten-foot high Celtic cross marking his resting place. Plans are underway to re-inter his body near the Cathedral of St. Paul in downtown Birmingham.
To learn more about this courageous priest click here (source for this article).
Traveling when pregnant is usually just fine, but here is a story that has not worked out well and the family is asking for your prayers. The couple and their newborn, who needs serious medical care, are still stranded in Shanghai. So far they are caught between a diplomatic tug of war and we ask you to pray for them. The mother and father are from New Zealand and were en-route home when the baby was born in China during a stop-over just a few hours from home.
You can read the details in the article, but what is not mentioned is the fact that most of the Chinese doctors just wanted her to abort the baby since it was going to be born with health problems (this is China, so of course abortion is nothing to them, just another means of birth control). Fortunately she had one doctor who was on her side, and was able to deliver the baby. but they need modern pre-natal care that will be available to them in New Zealand and is not available in China. Our prayers are with them and we hope you will join us as we invoke the intercession of Saint Philomena.
And also we want to caution anyone who is pregnant to avoid layovers that include countries that might be hostile to the unborn. Certainly China is up there near the top of the list, although there are quite a few others as well.
We are hoping to hear from the New Zealand authorities about their progress in helping their citizens.
Held in Birmingham, Alabama at the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex on August 17 & 18th. This event is free and open to all. For details click here.
August 10, 1945 was the date that the second atomic bomb was dropped on Japan. The first, Hiroshima, was two days earlier. It was felt that just one bomb would not be enough to convince the fanatical Japanese military to surrender, since they might assume this was a one-time event and the U.S. military did not have the capability to repeat it. That thinking came to an end on August 10th, and although some of the Japanese leadership still wanted to fight to the death, the emperor Hirohito intervened and announced the unconditional surrender. Of course much debate raged over the use of the atomic bomb, but there is no doubt that thousands….and probably hundreds of thousands…of lives, both Japanese and American, were saved by avoiding a land invasion of Japan.
Nagasaki was famous long before that date as the heartland of Catholicism in Japan. It was here that 26 Jesuit priests were martyred in 1597. Today a museum stands here in memory of those martyrs and is fascinating look at the early efforts to evangelize among the Japanese. To learn more about the 26 Martyrs Museum in Nagasaki click here.
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That is the question often asked by Catholics who are going on a cruise. The answer depends upon which cruise line you are using and when you are going. Only two cruise lines promise a priest on every cruise: Holland America and Costa Cruises. Some others do offer a priest on select cruises, mainly Christmas, Easter and re-positioning cruises. For a complete list of cruise lines that have a priest on board click here.
My first inclination when looking for a cruise with a priest aboard is: “this is great, a priest all to myself for the entire cruise”. But equally important, maybe more, is that a priest onboard helps to provide for the spiritual needs of the crew members. Often from predominantly Catholic countries such as the Philippines, crew members spend months at sea without the opportunity to attend Mass, go to confession, or receive spiritual guidance.
If you find a cruise that you love, but the cruise line does not offer a priest on board, then we encourage you to consider taking a priest along with you. Often times you find a group of friends who want to cruise together and you can all chip in a bit, pay for the priest’s cabin and not only have the benefit of Mass daily but also be doing a good deed for the priest who probably could use a bit of relaxation himself.
And finally, make your preferences known to the cruise line. There are probably 25% of cruisers who are Catholic. If enough people let the cruise line know that having a priest on board would impact their decision on which line to choose, it can make a difference.
So if you had a priest on board be sure to write the home office and thank them. If you did not, be sure to indicate that you would have preferred to have a priest on board and that may enter your buying decision next time around. You will no doubt get some sort of form letter or email in return, but you can bet if they get enough of these they will start to pay attention.
Photos courtesy of Apostleship of the Sea.
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For many, he was the only Pope they knew. For others, his youthful vigor and willingness to reach out to all people and, indeed, travel the world to evangelize was something they had not seen before. His love for young people is evidenced in the success of World Youth Day, which he began and became a world-wide success. As one of the longest reigning Popes, it is sometimes easy to forget how young and active he was when he first took office. Too often the images we see are of his later years when physical limitations took their toll while his mind remained as sharp and resolute as ever.
With the prospect of Sainthood drawing near, his name will be in the news once again. But even before that event we have evidence of the great love and admiration for him in the many shrines dedicated to him throughout the world.
One of the most significant is the Shrine of Blessed John Paul II in Washington, DC. After having some tough times getting started it was sold to the Knights of Columbus in 2012 and with their financial and organizational might we expect it will become one of the most visited shrines in the world.
Other shrines may have garnered less publicity but have an interesting story nonetheless. An example would be the simple shrine in Bataan, the Philippines. It was here that Pope John Paul II came in 1981 to celebrate Mass in a remote refugee camp populated with an estimated 400,000 Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians (known as “the boat people”) who had fled here for safety in the late 1970’s. Many of these people were not Christian and did not even know who he was, but the message of hope buoyed their spirits. This is a small shrine and we are not aware of a website for the shrine.
Of course, as expected, there is a shrine to him in his native Poland in the city of Krakow. The new John Paul II Cultural Center in Krakow has just been completed and is still being staffed. Since the next World Youth Day in 2016 will be in Krakow this is sure to be one of the main attractions.
Is there a Shrine to Pope John Paul II we haven’t mentioned? Please let us know and we will add it or you can post it here yourself.
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Gradually over the last few weeks the damage caused by the floods has been fixed and things are basically back to normal at the Shrine. This is welcome news for the thousands of pilgrims who visit the site every day.
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Tuesday, August 6, 2013 is the Feast of the Transfiguration celebrated throughout the Universal Church. In addition to attending Mass in your local parish, you can view Mass live from the Church of the Transfiguration at Mount Tabor in the Holy Land in observance of the Feast of the Transfiguration.
Broadcast will be August 6th at 10:30 a.m. local time (07:30 GMT) using the link above and also on the following media:
Tv2000 (Italian language)
Popolar Tv Murcia (Spanish language)
Maria Vision (Spanish language)
Tele Lumiere (Arabic)
KTO France (French)
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Opening ceremonies will begin on Tuesday August 6, 2013 with Holy Mass celebrated by Archbishop Gustavo Garcia Siller, M.Sp.S., of San Antonio along with 11 Cardinals, over 90 Archbishops and Bishops, along with scores of priests.
Mass will be broadcast live at 9:30 a.m. Central U.S. time (14:30 GMT) on EWTN (TV, radio and shortwave); Catholic TV and Canada’s Salt+Light TV.
The stations mentioned above will also have live coverage of the Opening Session on Tuesday at 2:30 p.m Central U.S. time (17:30 GMT) and States Dinner at 8:30 p.m. Central U.S. time (01:30 GMT) The keynote speaker in the evening will be Cardinal Sean O’Malley, O.F.M. Cap. You can also follow the events on Twitter: #KofCSA13
For those Knights attending the convention, we hope they will take advantage of the many Catholic sites in the city. Named after Saint Anthony, it was founded in 1731, and is one of the oldest cities in the U.S. The San Fernando Cathedral is the oldest continually-operating Cathedral in the country. Along the famous river walk you find a statue of Saint Anthony given to the city by the government of Spain.
For more about the Catholic sites of San Antonio click here.