When I conduct leadership seminars, one exercise I sometimes use is to ask what the participants think are the three important things for a leader to do when he/she assumes an office of leadership.
In his first public Mass as the new head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis signaled a striking liturgical difference with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI by facing the people, not turning his back, which the retired Pontiff had done in a controversial attempt to bring back the Latin Mass banished by Vatican II.
Twenty-one years ago, on June 12, 1993, Pope John Paul II ordained two Filipino priests, Fr. Stephen Simangan and Fr. Gregory Gaston, in Seville, Spain. The two priests consider their ordination by the pope himself the turning point of their lives.
The Vatican celebrated the 50th anniversary on Thursday of a Council that changed the face of Catholicism, as it tries to rekindle the religious fervour of the time amid rising secularism.
We attended the Catholic Mass Media Awards in 1981 where my mom was to receive an award. It was a small private ceremony at Radio Veritas in Quezon City.
Italian clothing giant Benetton said Wednesday that it was pulling a photo montage of the pope kissing a leading imam that was part of a new global ad campaign and that had outraged the Vatican.
"Dear Pope Francis," 10-year-old Mohammed begins, "Will the world be again as it was in the past?"
Nobody knows what the measurements of the next pope will be so Gammarelli -- tailors to the papacy since the 18th century -- have produced vestments in small, medium and large just in case.
When news of the new Pope broke out in the early morning of Thursday, it was greeted with much joy and hope.
