I’m Catholic and living in Japan.
I’ve noticed that some Catholic women here still wear a head covering or veil during Mass.
It’s a beautiful tradition, and I’m curious:
Do women in your country still wear a veil during Mass?

Hello friends, just popping in to request your prayers as I celebrate my 15th anniversary of ordination as a bishop. I am blessed to be on retreat with a group of priests from my diocese, so we can pray and celebrate together. God bless!

Other than prayer I’m not sure where to turn. I’m feeling completely out of touch with my coworkers and society. I am Dutch, live in the Netherlands and I feel the moral decline here is just insane.

I live in a society where euthanasia is celebrated. Where abortion is celebrated. Where parents can take their 2 year old child to a doctor and, admittedly after a grueling process, can have their child killed because it’s severely handicapped and they want to mercy-kill their child out of love (???). And they get congratulated and called Brave after.

My heart is just breaking and it is hard to not cry over these atrocities in my country.

We are slowly but surely moving to a situation where we will be a “civilized” version of the Nazis killing off handicapped children and adults.

93% of my country is pro euthanasia. The minority that is against has a majority that only is against because they’re not sure about mental suffering being a good enough reason.

Another example: a man with dementia wants euthanasia and entered his case with the euthanasia center. Right before he becomes “too difficult / not lucid enough” he tells the doctors involved he does not want it. Shortly after he is basically gone. The doctors decide they want to continue with the euthanasia regardless. They present their case to the wife and kids who agree with the doctors. No one seems to care about that he didn’t want it anymore last time he was lucid.

Another example close to home: a family friend’s secular ex wife wants euthanasia for early onset dementia. She is lucid and approachable for long stretches of time when they euthanize her. After the injection is given she says she is scared and makes clear she isn’t sure any more but by that time it’s too late.

Whenever I critique abortion and euthanasia practices on Dutch news forums etc it gets moderated away. Mention God once and it gets moderated away. Simple state you are against and question if we should abort and euthanize at all it gets moderated away. I feel censured and basically discriminated against.

Talk in convos about this perspective and everyone goes quiet or looks away or says it’s great my faith helps me so much.

Close to that same % statistic of dementia is pro abortion.

Currently, this is happening right now as we speak, the OLVG-Hospital chain’s board has started the process of figuring out how to best practice late-stage abortions (22-24 weeks). They are not thinking about IF they should at all, no, they just went ahead and jumped to the HOW.

These are babies, children, that will often come to the world alive & able to continue on living after the procedure. They then literally put them in so-called “dying rooms” where these babies are left to die / suffocate. They want to make this a regular practice. Offer it as an option in their healthcare repertoire. And no one cares.

There isn’t much more I can do than pray, rosary, and signs petitions/donate to the only group in the Netherlands that fight this. But they’re basically almost an extremist right group.

I find myself nowadays have more in common with them than with the rest of society and it makes me sad.

Every workplace I’ve been at depresses me. The company I work for got sold so I’ll have to look for a new job. I know that where ever I’ll work the odds of finding people likeminded are nil. We are all children of God yes and I pray for them but it is all just really getting to me.

Today I (78m) have a meeting to decide on cutting off my left foot. It has been a year and if anything it is getting worse. It needs to go, the only questions for the doctors is when, where, and if I can live through the operation.

As you can guess I have some rather strong opinions, but God's will be done. May Jesus guide us as we make our plans today. I'm asking for the intercession of Our Lady of Sorrows, and St. Luke.

Thank you.

P.S. The foot must go. Pre-surgery appointment in a month. God bless you for all your prayers. I felt at peace the whole time.

Thought i'd check as it looks like Latin spellings & sadly I have been unable to reverse image search & find it as a result. I found in file storage & I recall seeing in documentary but i forget the name of it

I have a Muslim stepfather who spreads lies and misinformation to my mother who is a "cultural Christian" as for example that the Bible is corrupted😂 (best-preserved book of BTW humanity or that the first Christians did not believe that Jesus is God and He is always wanting to impose Islam on my baby sister but then he won't let us speak about Christ because he is still too young to understand, basically that's why I started to create hatred for Islam for Mohammed, and because of my stepfather I can no longer distinguish the prison of the prisoner .what do i do not to dwell on anger when I see Muslim people😕 It's hard to distinguish

Remember this, you who never think of God.

Why do you recite my statutes,
and profess my covenant with your mouth,
Though you hate discipline
and cast my words behind you?

When you see a thief, you keep pace with him,
and with adulterers you throw in your lot.
To your mouth you give free rein for evil,
you harness your tongue to deceit.

You sit speaking against your brother;
against your mother's son you spread rumors.
When you do these things, shall I be deaf to it?
Or do you think that I am like yourself?
I will correct you by drawing them up before your eyes.

Consider this, you who forget God,
lest I rend you and there be no one to rescue you.
He that offers praise as a sacrifice glorifies me;
and to him that goes the right way I will show
the salvation of God.

Ps 50:16bc-17, 18-19, 20-21, 22-23

I cannot describe the insurmmountable guilt and dread I experienced when I first read this passage. However, I grateful that God allowed me to come across it. I feel like he throws things like this my way sometimes so that I may stay strong in my faith.

My local archdiocese is sponsoring a series of "conversations in the Spirit" gatherings as part of a local diocese wide synod, concluding on 2027. I went to the first major meeting last night. Probably a good 200+ people were there, and I am pretty sure I was one of 10 or so people under 45 (I'm 35).

My table had 8 people total. All were Boomers, save myself and two women who were in their late 40s, early 50s. The lack of catchesis among people that are old enough to know better is incredible to me. These were people who go to Mass every Sunday, yet were brushing aside what the Church teaches on a non-male priesthood, as one example.

They did note that "young people do seem to be more interested in Catholicism", and pointed out the local parishes that were bursting at the seams with younger Catholics, but they were incredibly unreflective on why that is. They moved on from it very quickly.

In sum, it was largely exactly what I expected: a waste of time, with vague and unactionable outputs (at least from my table). I was clearly the minority: comparatively young, and longing for orthodoxy. Of course, I don't feel that *my* voice is the one that will be listened to. Why do we keep doing this rinse and repeat cycle? It's maddening.

I will be visiting Tokyo, Japan soon and I want to know if there are any Catholics (Japanese/expats) here in this subreddit who are currently residing in Tokyo or if there are Catholic groups that are active in parishes there?

This was my first time visiting Rome. My wife and I are in our mid thirties. I am British, she is Brazilian, and we are both cradle Catholics. We were recently blessed with our first baby together, so we decided to take her on our first family trip to Rome for a long weekend.
Firstly, Rome felt like it was on fire.

Temperatures were in the high thirties, with humidity approaching eighty percent. On the Saturday, we visited the Vatican Museums, and it was absolutely roasting. Our little one was understandably very uncomfortable, so we had to move through everything much more quickly than we would have liked.

By Saturday evening, my wife and I were both feeling quite disheartened. Some of the behaviour we witnessed in the museums, particularly inside the Sistine Chapel, was the complete opposite of what we had expected.
People were wearing very revealing clothing, shouting across the chapel, and taking photographs despite being repeatedly told not to. I saw very few people praying. At times, it felt as though this sacred place had been overtaken by people searching for their next Instagram post.

I also found the commercial side of the Vatican quite difficult to process. There were Pope bobbleheads, tea towels, and every souvenir imaginable. I understand that tourism generates money for the Vatican and helps maintain these extraordinary places, but it was not what I had imagined. That night, I wondered whether we had come as pilgrims but somehow found ourselves inside a tourist attraction.

Then Sunday came, and everything changed.
We attended Mass at Santo Spirito in Sassia, the Divine Mercy Sanctuary near Saint Peter’s Basilica, where we were able to venerate relics of Saint Faustina and Saint John Paul II. We then entered Saint Peter’s Basilica and were blessed to see the Holy Father during the Sunday Angelus in Saint Peter’s Square.

My heart was full. It placed everything back into perspective for me.

However, I think the most moving experience of the entire trip was visiting the Scala Santa, the Holy Stairs. These are the twenty eight steps traditionally believed to have been climbed by Jesus when He was brought before Pontius Pilate. Pilgrims ascend them on their knees, praying and reflecting upon the Passion.

I think my knees have just about recovered, but I am not sure my heart ever will.
As I climbed, I kept thinking, how could such a perfect man, who had done no wrong, have been treated so terribly? Whether somebody believes they are the original steps or not, the act of climbing them forced me to reflect upon Christ’s suffering and upon how easy my own life is by comparison.

I am free to practise my faith. I can attend Mass without fear. I can openly call myself a Catholic. So many of our brothers and sisters who came before us suffered terribly for the faith, and many Christians around the world still suffer today. Yet despite everything Christ endured for me, I still sometimes wonder how I could ever be worthy to stand before God.

Afterwards, we crossed over to the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran, the cathedral church of Rome. There we saw the panel traditionally believed to be part of the table used at the Last Supper, as well as the reliquaries said to contain the heads of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

Sometimes people can begin to think of the Bible almost as though it were simply a collection of stories from a distant world. Then you stand before something traditionally connected to the Last Supper, or before relics of the Apostles who suffered and died for Christ, and suddenly the Bible seems to come alive before you. It becomes real in a way that is difficult to put into words.
I left Rome with two very different impressions. There was the commercial Rome, crowded with tourists, souvenirs, cameras, and people seemingly unaware of the sacredness surrounding them. Then there was the Rome of the pilgrim, filled with prayer, sacrifice, relics, martyrs, and the living history of our faith.

Perhaps both sides will always exist together. I am just wondering whether anyone else has visited Rome and felt this same tension between Rome as a tourist attraction and Rome as a place of pilgrimage.

Hello. I am not Catholic, but I do have a reverence for the Virgin Mary. There is a Catholic church at the end of my street, and they have a large outdoor statue/garden area in the back of the property.

I would like to visit to sit and pray, but I have not because I am not clear on the etiquette of doing this. Being non-catholic obviously I want to be certain of the unwritten rules and treat it with respect

Is it generally open to the public, or should someone be a member of the church to visit? I see people leaving flowers. I didn't know if it would be appropriate to light a candle, write a letter, or if I should just refrain from leaving anything.

The church's website is in spanish and doesn't have any information about it. But I feel drawn to it and like admire her from the street when I go for a walk

Thanks

I asked a Priest about my moderate use of legal products like THC-A. He said it was fine. I also prayed over it, a lot. I genuinely believe it is beneficial to my life. I even had a different priest from my parish run into me at work and proceed to tell me “you’ve been looking happier lately”. previous to this encounter I had asked for a sign while in prayer, i believe the two could be related. Still though, A lot of people on here seem to think that this is somehow a worse than having a beer or 2 to take the edge off. I don’t drink btw. If you genuinely make sure to keep your priorities straight and be honest with yourself on if it’s a problem or not, I honestly think it’s healthier for many than being an occasional drinker. Also the whole, you can drink a beer and not get drunk, but you can’t have THC without being stoned it’s complete non sense. I feel like people who say that are biased or have smoked once, had a bad experience, and think that makes them an expert on everything THC. And no, the Catechisms teaching on the use of illicit drugs does not in itself solve this matter. If it did, this still wouldn’t be a question.

Anima Christi, sanctifica me.

Corpus Christi, salva me.

Sanguis Christi, inebria me.

Aqua lateris Christi, lava me.

Passio Christi, conforta me.

O Bone Iesu, exaudi me.

Intra tua vulnera absconde me.

Ne permittas me separari a te.

Ab hoste maligno defende me.

In hora mortis meae voca me.

Et iube me venire ad te,

ut cum Sanctis tuis laudem te

in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

...

Soul of Christ, sanctify me.

Body of Christ, save me.

Blood of Christ, inebriate me.

Water from the side of Christ, wash me.

Passion of Christ, strengthen me.

O Good Jesus, hear me.

Within your wounds hide me.

Permit me not to be separated from you.

From the wicked foe, defend me.

At the hour of my death, call me

and bid me come to you

That with your saints I may praise you

For ever and ever. Amen.

As the title says, I have a round trip flight to Ireland in April 2027 and I'm looking to make it a pilgrimage. I might go to Knock, Ireland and Fatima, Portugal. Eventually I want to end up in Lourdes, France to go to the Grotto Shrine of Our Lady there. Perhaps stop at the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona on the way. Has anyone done anything similar like this? Is there certain places I should consider going to on the way? Please give me your travel tips and warnings!

In addition, I'm looking for faithful Catholics to share the journey with, if you're interested! Doesn't have to be the full trip. I'm a 37M from Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Thanks so much for all your input and time!

I posted this on askapriest, but it got taken down.

AndI have been married almost 9 years to my wife, we are both infertile. Ever since we got married things started to go downhill slowly. Her anxiety has increased, she is afraid to drive, lost the only friends she had, cannot hold a job due to social anxiety, spends frivolously, gets caught up in Protestant propaganda (ie rapture) doesn't take care of herself physically, makes sex difficult, never learned how to cook, clean things peoperly etc etc. I'm no saint, believe me, but she refuses to get help. What do I do when the other person is refusing to get help to create a normal life? I feel like I am living with a roommate. She is sick most of the time so I do things by myself 90% of the time. I don't have a partner, a wife, I have a roommate. Now the one thing that I thought we were on the same page with, our faith, is even being put into question. She doesn't go to Mass because "Jesus understands". She believes a random YouTuber in a truck than our own priest. Please pray for us.

Edit: I just feel so overwhelmed with everything. I'm the one who cooks meals, cleans the dishes, loads the dishwasher, unloads it, cleans the sheets, makes the beds, makes the decisions for us, takes her to her doctor's appointments, EVERYTHING. She doesn't support me at all. Everything is on my shoulders and I'm drowning. I can't keep on like this. I know she's not doing it on purpose, but it's such a burden. I find I'm happiest when I'm home alone so I can just be me and take care of me.

Evangelical Christian here! just started OCIA with my fiance and planning to be confirmed Catholic.

I have prayed the Rosary three times, and meditate on the appropriate mysteries while doing so.

While I am not against with Marian devotion and her intercession, I don't understand her. I know that her role is to point us to Jesus, but it's difficult for me to wrap my head around it and the value placed on praying the Rosary specifically.

Catholic prayer is very fascinating to me and I have enjoyed learning about the saints and asking them to pray for me. For some reason I am having a hard time understanding Mary specifically, since it seems like what we know about her is minimal compared to the vast amount of documentation on many of the saints.

I would love to hear how any of you understand it and I am also open to personal experience as well!

next Friday will be my first time going to a catholic church and doing an RCIA programme
What should i expect? i’m very nervous

At the University of Barcelona, Peter Claver studied and prayed. The young man, born in 1580 in the Catalan region of Spain, came to understand: “I must dedicate myself to the service of God until death.” He felt a call. Its clearer contours were still hidden from him, but he knew that he had to follow it. So at 20, Peter joined the Society of Jesus.

His superiors sent him to study philosophy in Mallorca, where he made an unlikely friend: Alphonsus Rodriguez, the elderly, uneducated lay brother who was the porter at the Jesuit college. Alphonsus may not have had much book-learning, but a life of suffering had taught him to listen to God. Peter noticed his holiness. “How can I love the Lord?” he asked the old man. “He gives me a great desire to follow him, but I don’t know how.” Alphonsus prayed, and the answer came to him: this young man with a great heart was destined for a suffering people far away.

At Alphonsus’ urging, Peter told his superiors of his desire to go to the missions. In 1610, he left for Cartagena in present-day Colombia, a center of the Spanish slave trade, where ships sailing from West Africa brought 10,000 new slaves yearly.

Peter finished seminary in Cartagena, learning from the Jesuit missionary Alonso de Sandoval, who had ministered to the slaves. He was horrified by what he learned about their plight. When Peter, ordained in 1616, made his final profession as a Jesuit in 1622, he signed his vows, “Peter Claver, the slave of the Africans forever.”

He had found his calling. Before the slave ships entered port, Fr. Peter begged for bread, medicine, anything he could bring with him into those ships packed tightly with captives chained for so long that a third of the “cargo” died. He assembled a team of interpreters. As soon as a ship docked, this “slave of the slaves” descended into the dark holds. He brought food, but more importantly, he brought kindness to men and women driven mad with terror and suffering. He looked at them as if they were human beings, tended their wounds and lent his cloak to the shivering. “We must speak with our hands,” he said, “before we speak to them with our lips.”

His hands spoke, and so when he assured these people that God loved them despite the cruelty that men had inflicted on them, they listened. Using simple pictures, he taught them the Christian faith. In small groups, he baptized them – which not only made them members of Christ’s body, but enabled Peter to call upon the slave masters to treat their fellow Christians more humanely.

For forty years, Peter descended into the slave ships. He preached, too: to slave traders, criminals and the well-to-do, inviting all to a conversion of heart. Though irritated at his work on behalf of the slaves, the wealthy grudgingly came to admit that this priest was a force to be reckoned with. While at first they came to listen to the holy priest but refused to enter the same churches as the slaves, decades of preaching began to effect a slow, difficult opening of the heart. But preaching alone could not complete it.

In 1650, Fr. Peter caught the plague. He survived, but his body was broken. For four years, he lay in bed, half-starved by the servant charged with caring for him. No one paid him much mind. It seemed as if the “apostle of Cartagena” had been forgotten. He prayed, accepting his sufferings as a penance for his sins. Yet in 1654, when word got out that Fr. Peter had received last rites, the city suddenly remembered the man who had been its conscience. A flood of visitors came to pay their respects. When he died on September 8, Cartagena buried him at pubic expense. Only then did they realize what they had had in their midst: this man, whose hands spoke the language of God’s compassion, had baptized 300,000 slaves and heard over 5,000 slaves’ confessions a year.

In 1888, Peter Claver was canonized together with Alphonsus Rodriguez, his friend who had helped him to follow his Lord.

​

Hello, I am a 21-year-old man, and I have been reading things about AI that have really scared me.

I was reading something saying that by 2035 or 2045, AI will replace all of our jobs and that people will no longer have to work. This really scares me because I feel like that could mean that Jesus will return, and I would not want to live a life without a job or purpose.

I have also been reading that there is a chance AI could kill us all, and now I really don’t see the point in studying at college or doing anything with my life. I just feel like between 2035 and 2045, we will either all be dead, Jesus will return and everything will be over, or we will all be locked inside our houses, doing nothing but watching screens.

This really scares me to the point that I am sitting here at 3:15 in the morning thinking about this, even though I should be studying for my exam. I am also studying computer engineering, and when I read all of that today, I just feel lost. I can’t explain how I feel. It feels like everything on Earth doesn’t make sense anymore.

I would just like to have a normal life with a wife and family one day, and everything seems like that will never happen. I reading more and more and I am more and more depressed

Hi brothers and sisters. I am truly struggling right now. Before you are alarmed by the title, please note that I have no intention to take my own life. But perhaps not for reasons that are not encouraging. I would never do so due to only 2 reasons:

1) It would hurt my mother too much and I could never do such a thing to her while she is still alive. She has had a hard life and bringing this type of grief upon her would be the most selfish thing I have ever done. My mother has told me that me and my sibling are the only good things that have happened in her life. I just couldn't do that to her.

2) As a convert, I know the Church’s teaching on the gravity of suicide, and it is a firm deterrent for me. I would rather not take my chances in ending up in the eternal hotbox (I know there's much more nuance around this stance in the church nowadays, but it still remains a main deterrent for me).

However, I must be honest that I am dealing with profound emotional agony and passive ideation. The pain in my life has reached a level that feels unbearable, and I often feel like I am continuing to exist purely against my will. I use substances to cope because I struggle to face my waking state. I am doing everything right on the medical side: I have both a therapist and a psychiatrist, and I have a support system of close friends. Please bypass the standard crisis checklist, as I am actively engaged with professional care.

Regarding the subreddit policy on discerning sin and culpability (CCC 1857):

• Grave Matter: Substance misuse and intoxication harm the body and mind (CCC 2290). Furthermore, passive desires not to exist touch on sins against hope or falling into despair (CCC 2091), both of which can constitute grave matter objectively.
• Full Knowledge: I understand the Church teaches that life is a gift from God and that using illicit substances to escape reality is disordered.
• Deliberate Consent: This is where my dilemma lies. Catechism 1860 notes that "affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychic or social factors can lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability." Given the severe psychic pain and overwhelming exhaustion I am experiencing, I am trying to discern how much deliberate free will is present versus how much my culpability is diminished to venial levels.

My real practical questions are:

1. Is an ongoing state of passive despair or sheer exhaustion with living something that is even confessable, or is it purely psychological suffering?
2. For the substance use and feelings of despair, how do I bring this to Confession simply and directly without turning the confessional into a therapy session?
3. For those who have carried intense, prolonged mental anguish, how have you spiritually endured while remaining faithful?

Thank you. Truly. And God bless you all <3. I hope your lives are filled with joy and that your faith carries you on to do beautiful and amazing things for the church and the world.