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Introduction

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilization. The church consists of 24 sui iuris churches, including the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic Churches, which comprise almost 3,500 dioceses and eparchies located around the world. The pope, who is the bishop of Rome, is the chief pastor of the church. The bishopric of Rome, known as the Holy See, is the central governing authority of the church. The administrative body of the Holy See, the Roman Curia, has its principal offices in Vatican City, a small enclave of the Italian city of Rome, of which the pope is head of state.

The core beliefs of Catholicism are found in the Nicene Creed. The Catholic Church teaches that it is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church founded by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission, that its bishops are the successors of Christ's apostles, and that the pope is the successor to Saint Peter, upon whom primacy was conferred by Jesus Christ. It maintains that it practises the original Christian faith taught by the apostles, preserving the faith infallibly through scripture and sacred tradition as authentically interpreted through the magisterium of the church. The Roman Rite and others of the Latin Church, the Eastern Catholic liturgies, and institutes such as mendicant orders, enclosed monastic orders and third orders reflect a variety of theological and spiritual emphases in the church.

Of its seven sacraments, the Eucharist is the principal one, celebrated liturgically in the Mass. The church teaches that through consecration by a priest, the sacrificial bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. The Virgin Mary is venerated as the Perpetual Virgin, Mother of God, and Queen of Heaven; she is honoured in dogmas and devotions. Catholic social teaching emphasizes voluntary support for the sick, the poor, and the afflicted through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The Catholic Church operates tens of thousands of Catholic schools, universities and colleges, hospitals, and orphanages around the world, and is the largest non-government provider of education and health care in the world. Among its other social services are numerous charitable and humanitarian organizations. (Full article...)

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A view of Mission San Juan Capistrano in April 2005.
A view of Mission San Juan Capistrano in April 2005.

Mission San Juan Capistrano was founded on All Saints' Day November 1, 1776 by Spanish Catholics of the Franciscan Order. Named for a 15th-century theologian and "warrior priest" who resided in the Abruzzo region of Italy, San Juan Capistrano has the distinction of being home to the oldest building in California still in use, a chapel built in 1782; known alternately as "Serra's Chapel" and "Father Serra's Church," it is the only extant structure wherein it has been documented that the padre officiated over mass. One of the best known of the Alta California missions (and one of the few missions to have actually been founded twice — others being Mission San Gabriel Arcángel and Mission La Purísima Concepción) — the site was originally consecrated on October 30, 1775 by Father Fermín Lasuén, but was quickly abandoned due to unrest among the indigenous population in San Diego.
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Credit: Blieusong

The façade of Notre-Dame de Paris, showing the Portal of the Virgin, Portal of the Last Judgment and Portal of St-Anne.

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1722 facsimile of first page of Cotton manuscript of Asser's 'Life of King Alfred'

Asser (d. 908/909) was a Welsh monk from St. David's, Dyfed, who became Bishop of Sherborne in the 890s. In about 885 he was asked by Alfred the Great to leave St. David's and join the circle of learned men which Alfred was recruiting for his court. After spending a year at Caerwent due to an illness, he accepted. In 893 Asser wrote a biography of Alfred, called the Life of King Alfred. The manuscript survived to modern times in only one copy, which was part of the Cotton library. That copy was destroyed in a fire in 1731, but transcriptions that had been made earlier, allied with material from Asser's work that was included by other early writers, have enabled the work to be reconstructed. The biography is now the main source of information about Alfred's life, and provides far more information about Alfred than is known about any other early English ruler. Asser also assisted Alfred in his translation of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, and possibly with other works. Asser is sometimes cited as a source for the legend of Alfred having founded the University of Oxford, which is now known to be false. A short passage making this claim was interpolated by William Camden into his 1603 edition of Asser's Life. Doubts have also been raised periodically about whether the entire Life is a forgery, written by a slightly later writer, but it is now almost universally accepted as genuine.
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St Mary's Cathedral, Perth

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Portrat of Saint Ignatius by Peter Paul Rubens
Ignatius of Loyola SJ (Basque: Ignazio Loiolakoa; Spanish: Ignacio de Loyola; Latin: Ignatius de Loyola; born Íñigo López de Oñaz y Loyola; c. 23 October 1491 – 31 July 1556), venerated as Saint Ignatius of Loyola, was a Spanish Catholic priest and theologian, who, with six companions, founded the religious order of the Society of Jesus (The Jesuits), and became its first Superior General, in Paris in 1541. (Full article...)


Attributes: Eucharist, chasuble, book, cross
Patronage: Dioceses of San Sebastián and Bilbao, Biscay and Gipuzkoa; Basque Country; Military Ordinariate of the Philippines; Society of Jesus; Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil; Junín, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Archdiocese of Baltimore; and Antwerp, Belgium.
See also: Giustino de Jacobis

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Pope Boniface VIII
Pope Boniface VIII


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July
"The Precious Blood of Jesus
Image of artwork, 2015.
3 July 2023 –
Nicaraguan bishop Rolando José Álvarez Lagos, imprisoned in February for refusing exile to the United States with 222 political prisoners, is temporarily released but immediately rearrested, amidst conflicting reports and tensions between the Nicaraguan government and the Holy See. (AFP via The Manila Times)
20 May 2023 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
Pope Francis appoints Italian Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi as the Vatican's special envoy and peace envoy for the Russo-Ukrainian war. (Tagesschau)
13 May 2023 –
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meets with Pope Francis during a private audience in the Vatican. (BBC News)

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