New York City, N.Y., Mar 21, 2017 / 12:39 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Catholic convert who founded the Society of the Atonement, Father Paul Wattson, S.A., could be one step closer to recognition as a saint.
“Father Paul started a small week of prayer on the top of a mountain in Garrison, and now it’s a worldwide movement,” Father Brian Terry, S.A., the minister general for the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement, told the Catholic New York newspaper.
Fr. Wattson helped launch the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which is now an international event held in January.
The Archdiocese of New York concluded an 18-month investigation into his cause for canonization on March 9. Fr. Wattson’s writings, along with writings about him, were collected together, boxed and wrapped and sealed with Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s seal.
With the archdiocese’s investigation finished, the materials will now be reviewed by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. This could determine whether he can proceed to beatification and even canonization.
Fr. Terry briefly spoke with Pope Francis about Fr. Wattson in November. He said he gave the pontiff a prayer card, and the Pope “really seemed sincerely interested.”
“He said a saint of unity, a saint of healing, a saint of charity, that is something that is important,” the priest recounted.
Fr. Terry said that Fr. Wattson’s message has been absorbed locally in New York. He hopes that message can go worldwide.
Fr. Wattson was born in 1863 and was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1886. He co-founded the Franciscan Society of the Atonement with Episcopal Sister Lurana White in Garrison, N.Y. The society consisted of both friars and sisters who wanted to promote Christian unity. Though it was originally Episcopal, the society became Catholic when Fr. Wattson converted in 1909. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1910.
He passed away in 1940 at the age of 77.
Cardinal Dolan said the progress in Fr. Wattson’s cause was “an affirmation from above.” He voiced gratitude to God and to those who worked on the priest’s cause.
The U.S. bishops approved his cause for canonization in November 2014 and the cause formally opened in September 2015 at the New York Catholic Center.
Msgr. Douglas Mathers, pastor of St. John the Evangelist-Our Lady of Peace parish in Manhattan, served as the archdiocese’s episcopal delegate for the cause. He said there is no time limit on the process.
“Realistically, it’s the work of God; what God wants is going to happen,” he said.
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Ascension’s “Set Free” Lenten program with Father Josh Johnson promises to guide listeners this Lent through daily reflections on overcoming the seven deadly sins in our lives. / Credit: Ascension
CNA Staff, Mar 2, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).
As Lent begins on March 5, we are reminded of the opportunity to grow in faith as we journey in the desert with Jesus for 40 days. Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are the three areas in which we are called to focus throughout the Lenten season as we prepare to celebrate the resurrection of Christ on Easter.
Here are five resources to help you grow in your faith this Lent:
‘Set Free’ with Father Josh Johnson on Ascension
Exclusively on the Ascension app, “Set Free” by Father Josh Johnson promises to guide listeners through daily reflections on overcoming the seven deadly sins in our lives. The reflections are designed to help participants know what the seven deadly sins are and how they appear in our lives. The program will outline specific fasts to use to combat each one of these sins and show you how to pray with Scripture and surrender yourself to God. The reflections end with a powerful, step-by-step examination of conscience with the goal of helping you experience more deeply the sacrament of confession.
The “Set Free” program is based on Johnson’s book “Pocket Guide to Overcoming the Seven Deadly Sins.” In an interview with CNA, Johnson, vocations director for the Diocese of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, explained that the idea for the book first came from feeling the need to help his brother priests with penances for people in confession.
“I think as a priest we have a responsibility to not only absolve them from their sins but to help them to identify what’s at the root of their sins and as a spiritual father to give them practical and biblical remedies that can help them to combat against those vices that they might be struggling with,” he said.
After praying further about his idea, he realized that it could be helpful for all of the laity in order to help them overcome their struggles with sin.
“I wanted to have a book for the laity … who want to experience freedom and to be able to go deeper into an understanding of what are the seven deadly sins, how are they operative, how might they be masked, what might precede me falling into them, and then what are some ways that I can pray and fast and some wisdom I can gain from Church Fathers, the catechism, and the Bible to fight against these vices,” Johnson shared.
Johnson has three hopes for those who take part in the Lenten program: First, “that people fall more in love with Scripture and rely on Scripture for everything”; second, for “people to have a better capacity to examine their conscience prior to going to confession to really be able to discern deeper vices”; and lastly that they have “an experience of God’s love and mercy in the midst of our ongoing struggles.”
CNA’s full interview with Johnson about the program can be viewed here:
Hallow’s Lent Pray40 Challenge: ‘The Way’
Hallow will be taking listeners on a journey to grow closer to Christ this Lent through “Pray40: The Way.” Jonathahn Roumie, Mark Wahlberg, Chris Pratt, Father Mike Schmitz, Sister Miriam James Heidland, and Cardinal Robert Sarah will help listeners dive deeper into the writing of St. Josemaría Escrivá, author of “The Way.”
Listeners will meditate on the lives of those who followed Christ’s way, including the life of Servant of God Takashi Nagai, a Japanese physician who survived the atomic bombing in 1945 and had a powerful conversion as shared in his biography “A Song for Nagasaki.”
Roumie will take participants through reflections and prayers on “The Way” and “A Song for Nagasaki.” Wahlberg and Pratt will lead listeners in fasting challenges and Scripture readings encouraging the faithful to give their hearts fully to Christ. Heidland will guide listeners through imaginative prayer; Schmitz will give Sunday homilies; and Sarah will offer guidance for silent meditation.
“Our Lenten challenge is always our biggest challenge of the year and it’s an honor to get to pray with so many incredible voices and our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world,” CEO and co-founder of Hallow Alex Jones told CNA.
Hallow’s “Pray40: The Way” Lenten Challenge featuring Chris Pratt, Father Mike Schmitz, Jonathan Roumie, Sister Miriam James Heidland, Cardinal Robert Sarah, Mark Wahlberg, and more. Credit: Hallow
Word on Fire online Lent retreat
Father Boniface Hicks, OSB, will be conducting Word on Fire’s first-ever Lenten retreat.
The seven-part online retreat will provide an opportunity for participants to deepen their prayer lives and intimacy with Christ by focusing on the interior life.
Hicks, a renowned spiritual director and author, will guide participants in reflections each week focusing on different topics in order to grow closer to the heart of Jesus. Some topics include slowing down and returning to the heart, loving Jesus like St. Thérèse of Lisieux did, receiving Christ’s love and mercy, and more.
Blessed Is She ‘Under the Olive Tree’ devotional
In “Under the Olive Tree,” author Olivia Spears guides readers to the Mount of Olives to console the heart of Jesus in his sufferings and be consoled in our sufferings as well.
Each week offers meditations on Jesus’ agony in the garden, praying the Psalms, and diving more deeply into Jesus’ sacrificial love.
Readers will also be invited to contemplate Jesus’ love in Eucharistic adoration.
Lenten books
If you’re looking for powerful reads for the Lenten season, there are several to choose from:
“Remember Your Death: Momento Mori Lenten Devotional” by Sister Theresa Aletheia Noble, FSP, is Lenten devotional that helps readers meditate on their own mortality and the gift of salvation in preparation for Easter.
“Lenten Journey with Mother Mary” by Father Edward Looney takes readers through the journey of Lent alongside the Blessed Virgin Mary in order to view Lent and Easter in a completely new way.
The offices of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Farragutful, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
CNA Staff, Feb 21, 2025 / 17:05 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis appointed Father Gregg Caggianel… […]
Raleigh, N.C., Aug 26, 2019 / 07:25 pm (CNA).- The Supreme Court of North Carolina is set to hear the case of six death row inmates who say a repealed state law should still allow them to be resentenced to life without parole, since they were able to successfully demonstrate that racial bias was a factor in their death sentences.
The court is scheduled to hear arguments Monday and Tuesday in the cases of four death row inmates who briefly were resentenced to life without parole when state legislators approved the Racial Justice Act in 2009, the AP reports.
Under the Racial Justice Act, four inmates had used statistics to prove that their race was a “significant factor” in their trials, thus leading to a judge converting their sentences to life without parole.
Legislators repealed the Act in 2013, and the four inmates were sent back to death row without a new hearing.
North Carolina’s Supreme Court justices also will hear from attorneys for two other death row prisoners whose Racial Justice Act claims were not decided before the law was repealed, the AP says.
More than 130 inmates brought claims under the Act when it was law, but these four were the only cases adjudicated successfully and then mooted, Slate reported.
A statistical study conducted by Michigan State University’s College of Law found that prosecutors struck qualified black jurors in North Carolina at far higher rates than white jurors, AP reported.
North Carolina currently has 142 people on death row, 63% of whom are non-white in a state that is 29% non-white, the AP reports.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the death penalty is today “inadmissable,” because “there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes,” and “more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.”
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