Feast date: Jan 23

St. Marianne Cope was born in western Germany in 1838. She entered religious life in Syracuse, N.Y. in 1862. She served as a teacher and principal in several schools in the state and established two of the first hospitals in the central New York area: St. Elizabeth Hospital in Utica and St. Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse.

In 1883, Mother Marianne’s community was the only one of fifty to respond positively to an emissary from Hawaii who requested Catholic sisters to provide health care on the Hawaiian Islands, especially to those with leprosy.

Over the next five years, St. Marianne set up a system of long-term education and care for her patients.

She ministered to patients at Kalaupapa on the island of Molokai. Her time of service overlapped with the last years of St. Damien of Molokai, a priest who served victims of Hansen’s disease and himself died of leprosy.

St. Marianne promised her sisters that none of them would ever contract the disease. To this day, no sister has. Her care earned her the affectionate title “beloved mother of the outcasts.”

She died in 1918 and was beatified on May 14, 2005 and canonized on October 21, 2012, both by Pope Benedict XVI.

"At a time when little could be done for those suffering from this terrible disease, Marianne Cope showed the highest love, courage and enthusiasm," Pope Benedict XVI said in his homily during the Mass for her canonization. "She is a shining and energetic example of the best of the tradition of Catholic nursing sisters and of the spirit of her beloved Saint Francis."

A mob of 20 men attacked a Protestant pastor in the eastern Indian state of Odisha (map) and forced him to eat cow dung and bow before a Hindu temple.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India condemned the attack and demanded “immediate action against the perpetrators and justice for the victim.”

Odisha, then known as Orissa, was the site of a 2008 anti-Christian pogrom in which an estimated 100 Christians were murdered, and 50,000 fled their homes.

Veteran Vatican journalist John Allen passed away from cancer yesterday at the age of 61.

Allen worked for the National Catholic Report from 1997 to 2014, when he founded Crux. American author George Weigel described Allen as “the best Anglophone Vaticanista in the business during the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.”

Allen was also the author of several books.

A survey conducted by the Vatican Lay Employees Association found widespread dissatisfaction, with nearly 76% stating that merit and initiative are not rewarded, and over 56% reporting “injustices or humiliating behavior from superiors.”

250 of the Vatican’s employees, who number over 4,000, took part in the survey.

Msgr. Marco Sprizzi, president of the Labor Office of the Apostolic See, responded:

Technically, it is a survey conducted on a very small sample, since it involves less than 5% of employees. In any case, we take all voices seriously, even if it were the voice of just one employee who complained of a lack of attention, dialogue, or respect for the rules.

At the conclusion of a four-day visit to the Holy Land, 13 prelates from Europe and the United States issued a statement highlighting the suffering of Christians there.

The prelates of the Holy Land Coordination said the Palestinian Christians in the West Bank “told us of their suffering: endless attacks from extremist settlers, uprooting of their olive trees, the seizure of their land and intimidatory acts that make their daily life unbearable, driving many into mass emigration.”

“As Christians, it is our calling and duty to give a voice to the voiceless, and to bear witness to their dignity, so that the world may know their suffering and be moved to advocate for justice and compassion,” the prelates added. “The people of the Holy Land cry out for our help and prayers; they long for an end to their suffering. Stand with them.”

Bible sales in the UK reached £6.3m ($8.52 million) in 2025, up 134% since 2019.

“We’ve seen an increase in people coming to the Bible from scratch,” said the retail sales director of a bookstore near Westminster Abbey. “They have no Christian background whatsoever. They have no grounding from their parents or from their school ... It’s definitely younger people who are seeking some sort of spirituality.”

Over 5,000 people attended the National Prayer Vigil for Life last evening at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.

Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska, preached, “I firmly believe that 50 years from now when my generation will have gone to God, your grandchildren will ask you: ‘Is it true, that when you were my age, they put children to death in the womb?’”

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