Joe Ruff

3 weeks ago | thecatholicspirit.com | Joe Ruff

Named for Karol Wojtyla — better known to the world as St. John Paul II — the camp experience is immersion in both adventure and the Catholic faith for middle and high schoolers. “We don’t rock climb during the day and then talk about Jesus at night. We do catechesis through rock climbing. We do catechesis through white water rafting, through the hiking.

3 weeks ago | thecatholicspirit.com | Joe Ruff

“It shook me and kept me away from church,” said Capistrant, who was raised Catholic along with his six siblings. “To me, it was like God was taking him away from me. And I couldn’t understand why. My mom was great; she talked to me. But I was a boy, what could I talk about?”As years passed, Capistrant tried several times at various churches to return to Mass.

1 month ago | thecatholicspirit.com | Joe Ruff

Every year, during a novena in preparation for the feast, it invites people to submit prayer intentions on its website. The sanctuary, which receives some 140,000 pilgrims every year, kicked it up a notch in the Jubilee Year and joined forces with the Catholic smartphone application Hozana ahead of the feast day. During the novena that preceded the March 19 feast, 110,000 people submitted prayer intentions to St. Joseph just in a few days over the Hozana app.

1 month ago | thecatholicspirit.com | Joe Ruff |Josh McGovern

Anna Gallagher, executive director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, also known as CLINIC, said in a March 17 statement the group “is deeply alarmed by the misuse of this obscure law to strip immigrants suspected of gang activity of due process.”The legislation was first enacted in 1798 amid fears immigrants — particularly Irish Catholics — would side with France in a potential conflict with the U.S., a majority Protestant nation.

1 month ago | thecatholicspirit.com | Joe Ruff |Josh McGovern

A 2005 convert to Catholicism who lives in northern Alabama, McCue learned more about the shroud and soon developed her own exhibit, showing it at schools and churches in her area. In January 2024, she purchased a large exhibit from Othonia –– an international organization that produced the display McCue first saw in Jerusalem. Associated with the Institute of Science and Faith at Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum university in Rome, Othonia’s mission is educating people about the shroud.