The Carl J. Peter lecture is given every year in memory of Fr. Carl J. Peter of the Archdiocese of Omaha. He was a professor at the Catholic University of America and was a noted theologian, teacher and preacher. To honor his memory, the Peter family established the Fr. Carl J. Peter Chair of Homiletics at the Pontifical North American College. The purpose of the program is to prepare future priests as preachers for the Church in the United States. The Chair also offers an annual lecture to promote the art of preaching and to remember Fr. Carl J. Peter.

The Most Rev. Timothy P. Broglio, Archbishop of the Military Services, USA, celebrated the Mass and instituted the new lectors. Handing the book of Sacred Scriptures to each seminarian, he said, “Take this book of holy Scripture and be faithful in handing on the Word of God, so that it may grow strong in the hearts of His People.”

Hearing the Gospel of John recount John the Baptist pointing to Jesus as the Lamb of God, Archbishop Broglio preached, “The Christian vocation is always one of pointing to the Word of God and guiding others to follow Him… It is an invitation to intimacy with the Lord.”

The institution as lector is one of the ministries seminarians receive as they proceed towards diaconal and priestly ordination. As the rite indicates, a lector is charged with proclaiming the Word of God in the liturgical assembly, instructing children and adults in the faith, and preparing them to receive the Sacraments worthily.

Congratulations to all those newly installed to the ministry of lector. Photos can be viewed here.

• Cardinal-elect Dolan’s Statement
• Cardinal-elect O’Brien’s Statement

The Consistory, at which the Holy Father will formally appoint the Cardinal-designates to the College of Cardinals, will take place on February 18 at St Peter’s Basilica. At the ceremony, the Holy Father will present the Cardinal-designates with their rings, zuchetti, and birette. Afterwards, there will be a reception at the North American College for the newly created American Cardinals, followed by a general reception that evening for all the newly created Cardinals at the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican. The following day there will be a Mass of Thanksgiving with the Holy Father and the newly appointed Cardinals at St Peter’s Basilica.

The new appointments will raise the total number of Cardinals to 214, with around half of that number being from Europe. At present, the United States has 17 Cardinals, 10 of whom are retired.

The North American College congratulates Cardinals-elect O’Brien and Dolan.

Ad Multos Annos!

The Pontifical North American College accepts seminary candidates from the United States, Canada, and Australia. This year under the leadership of Msgr. James Checchio, the College campus on the Janiculum Hill boasts the largest enrollment in recent memory.

One of the blessings of an international house of study is to be able to encounter the different local experiences of the same Roman Catholic Church. United by love for the Holy Father and a common language, we learn what it means to be a part of a universal Church.

By nationality, the College has 239 Americans, 10 Australians, and 3 Canadians among the seminarians and student priests.

The academic programs at the Pontifical Universities (Gregorian, Angelicum, and Santa Croce) finish a general theology degree (S.T.B.) in three years of study. After this, students pursue a specialized degree (S.T.L. or S.T.M.A.). This generally takes two years but can be completed in one to three years of additional studies.

By academic class, the College has 2 student priests in their sixth year of theological studies, 18 student priests in their fifth year of theological studies, 45 in their fourth year of theological studies, 56 in their third year of theological studies, 59 in their second year of theological studies, 69 students in their first year of theological studies, and 3 students on pastoral year internships in their home dioceses.

Representation of Canadian Dioceses
Diocese of Pembroke

Representation of Australian Dioceses
Archdiocese of Canberra-Goulburn
Archdiocese of Melbourne
Archdiocese of Perth
Archdiocese of Sydney
Diocese of Wagga Wagga

Student Representation of American Dioceses by State

Two seminarians of the College community assisted at St. Peter’s Basilica for Midnight Mass with Pope Benedict XVI. Rev. Mr. Benjamin Ross (’12) of the Diocese of Gary and Rev. Mr. Daniel Weiske (’12) of the Diocese of Duluth served as deacons. What a blessing to to represent the Church in America and to be a part of the beautiful and prayerful ceremony!


Here are the Pope’s words from that Mass: (Courtesy of the Vatican Website)

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

The reading from Saint Paul’s Letter to Titus that we have just heard begins solemnly with the word “apparuit”, which then comes back again in the reading at the Dawn Mass: apparuit – “there has appeared”. This is a programmatic word, by which the Church seeks to express synthetically the essence of Christmas. Formerly, people had spoken of God and formed human images of him in all sorts of different ways. God himself had spoken in many and various ways to mankind (cf. Heb 1:1 – Mass during the Day). But now something new has happened: he has appeared. He has revealed himself. He has emerged from the inaccessible light in which he dwells. He himself has come into our midst. This was the great joy of Christmas for the early Church: God has appeared. No longer is he merely an idea, no longer do we have to form a picture of him on the basis of mere words. He has “appeared”. But now we ask: how has he appeared? Who is he in reality? The reading at the Dawn Mass goes on to say: “the kindness and love of God our Saviour for mankind were revealed” (Tit 3:4). For the people of pre-Christian times, whose response to the terrors and contradictions of the world was to fear that God himself might not be good either, that he too might well be cruel and arbitrary, this was a real “epiphany”, the great light that has appeared to us: God is pure goodness. Today too, people who are no longer able to recognize God through faith are asking whether the ultimate power that underpins and sustains the world is truly good, or whether evil is just as powerful and primordial as the good and the beautiful which we encounter in radiant moments in our world. “The kindness and love of God our Saviour for mankind were revealed”: this is the new, consoling certainty that is granted to us at Christmas.

In all three Christmas Masses, the liturgy quotes a passage from the Prophet Isaiah, which describes the epiphany that took place at Christmas in greater detail: “A child is born for us, a son given to us and dominion is laid on his shoulders; and this is the name they give him: Wonder-Counsellor, Mighty-God, Eternal-Father, Prince-of-Peace. Wide is his dominion in a peace that has no end” (Is 9:5f.). Whether the prophet had a particular child in mind, born during his own period of history, we do not know. But it seems impossible. This is the only text in the Old Testament in which it is said of a child, of a human being: his name will be Mighty-God, Eternal-Father. We are presented with a vision that extends far beyond the historical moment into the mysterious, into the future. A child, in all its weakness, is Mighty God. A child, in all its neediness and dependence, is Eternal Father. And his peace “has no end”. The prophet had previously described the child as “a great light” and had said of the peace he would usher in that the rod of the oppressor, the footgear of battle, every cloak rolled in blood would be burned (Is 9:1, 3-4).

God has appeared – as a child. It is in this guise that he pits himself against all violence and brings a message that is peace. At this hour, when the world is continually threatened by violence in so many places and in so many different ways, when over and over again there are oppressors’ rods and bloodstained cloaks, we cry out to the Lord: O mighty God, you have appeared as a child and you have revealed yourself to us as the One who loves us, the One through whom love will triumph. And you have shown us that we must be peacemakers with you. We love your childish estate, your powerlessness, but we suffer from the continuing presence of violence in the world, and so we also ask you: manifest your power, O God. In this time of ours, in this world of ours, cause the oppressors’ rods, the cloaks rolled in blood and the footgear of battle to be burned, so that your peace may triumph in this world of ours.

Christmas is an epiphany – the appearing of God and of his great light in a child that is born for us. Born in a stable in Bethlehem, not in the palaces of kings. In 1223, when Saint Francis of Assisi celebrated Christmas in Greccio with an ox and an ass and a manger full of hay, a new dimension of the mystery of Christmas came to light. Saint Francis of Assisi called Christmas “the feast of feasts” – above all other feasts – and he celebrated it with “unutterable devotion” (2 Celano 199; Fonti Francescane, 787). He kissed images of the Christ-child with great devotion and he stammered tender words such as children say, so Thomas of Celano tells us (ibid.). For the early Church, the feast of feasts was Easter: in the Resurrection Christ had flung open the doors of death and in so doing had radically changed the world: he had made a place for man in God himself. Now, Francis neither changed nor intended to change this objective order of precedence among the feasts, the inner structure of the faith centred on the Paschal Mystery. And yet through him and the character of his faith, something new took place: Francis discovered Jesus’ humanity in an entirely new depth. This human existence of God became most visible to him at the moment when God’s Son, born of the Virgin Mary, was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. The Resurrection presupposes the Incarnation. For God’s Son to take the form of a child, a truly human child, made a profound impression on the heart of the Saint of Assisi, transforming faith into love. “The kindness and love of God our Saviour for mankind were revealed” – this phrase of Saint Paul now acquired an entirely new depth. In the child born in the stable at Bethlehem, we can as it were touch and caress God. And so the liturgical year acquired a second focus in a feast that is above all a feast of the heart.

This has nothing to do with sentimentality. It is right here, in this new experience of the reality of Jesus’ humanity that the great mystery of faith is revealed. Francis loved the child Jesus, because for him it was in this childish estate that God’s humility shone forth. God became poor. His Son was born in the poverty of the stable. In the child Jesus, God made himself dependent, in need of human love, he put himself in the position of asking for human love – our love. Today Christmas has become a commercial celebration, whose bright lights hide the mystery of God’s humility, which in turn calls us to humility and simplicity. Let us ask the Lord to help us see through the superficial glitter of this season, and to discover behind it the child in the stable in Bethlehem, so as to find true joy and true light.

Francis arranged for Mass to be celebrated on the manger that stood between the ox and the ass (cf. 1 Celano 85; Fonti 469). Later, an altar was built over this manger, so that where animals had once fed on hay, men could now receive the flesh of the spotless lamb Jesus Christ, for the salvation of soul and body, as Thomas of Celano tells us (cf. 1 Celano 87; Fonti 471). Francis himself, as a deacon, had sung the Christmas Gospel on the holy night in Greccio with resounding voice. Through the friars’ radiant Christmas singing, the whole celebration seemed to be a great outburst of joy (1 Celano 85.86; Fonti 469, 470). It was the encounter with God’s humility that caused this joy – his goodness creates the true feast.

Today, anyone wishing to enter the Church of Jesus’ Nativity in Bethlehem will find that the doorway five and a half metres high, through which emperors and caliphs used to enter the building, is now largely walled up. Only a low opening of one and a half metres has remained. The intention was probably to provide the church with better protection from attack, but above all to prevent people from entering God’s house on horseback. Anyone wishing to enter the place of Jesus’ birth has to bend down. It seems to me that a deeper truth is revealed here, which should touch our hearts on this holy night: if we want to find the God who appeared as a child, then we must dismount from the high horse of our “enlightened” reason. We must set aside our false certainties, our intellectual pride, which prevents us from recognizing God’s closeness. We must follow the interior path of Saint Francis – the path leading to that ultimate outward and inward simplicity which enables the heart to see. We must bend down, spiritually we must as it were go on foot, in order to pass through the portal of faith and encounter the God who is so different from our prejudices and opinions – the God who conceals himself in the humility of a newborn baby. In this spirit let us celebrate the liturgy of the holy night, let us strip away our fixation on what is material, on what can be measured and grasped. Let us allow ourselves to be made simple by the God who reveals himself to the simple of heart. And let us also pray especially at this hour for all who have to celebrate Christmas in poverty, in suffering, as migrants, that a ray of God’s kindness may shine upon them, that they – and we – may be touched by the kindness that God chose to bring into the world through the birth of his Son in a stable. Amen.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Pray for Us!

It is a special day at the college because since 1846, the Immaculate Conception has been the official Patroness of the United States. The house Mass was celebrated by Cardinal Justin Rigali with many visiting bishops. The meal following Mass was attended by cardinals, bishops, political dignitaries and many friends of the college. We are happy to be able to honor our Mother and thank the Lord for his many blessings. We trust that the Immaculate Conception, the sole boast of our race, is continuously interceding on our behalf to her beloved son.

The Thanksgiving festivities are not limited to a single day. Here in Rome, Thanksgiving becomes a weekend event. It begins with ”hallway breakfasts” on Thanksgiving morning. It is an opportunity to eat choice breakfast foods as well as enjoy the fraternity of a smaller community than the whole house. The festivities continue later that day when the entire house attends Mass. This year, his Eminence Francis Cardinal George celebrated Mass and Archbishop Timothy Dolan delivered the homily. After Mass, everyone gathers for a multiple-course meal, a true Thanksgiving feast. The large refectory is transformed into a sampling of the cultural flavors of the entire country. Men from the same states eat together at tables which have been decorated with hallmarks of their state, including flags, pictures, and memorabilia. The meal finished with pumpkin pie and some entertainment from the 5^th year priests, who served the tables throughout the meal. The house settled down after the meal, beginning what is cherished weekend of activities.

This year the house said farewell to Msgr. Bill Lyons, one of the Spiritual Directors at the College. On Friday, we celebrated a rather solemn time in the midst of a festive weekend.  On this occasion, the students and staff expressed their gratitude to God for the gift of Msgr. Lyons.  He impacted us greatly, and he will be missed. We continue to pray that Msgr. Lyons rest in peace.

On Saturday, according to local tradition, the community gathered for some entertainment as the New Men and Old Men hosted variety shows for the house. It’s always a good time, both showcasing the talents of the men here and making light of some familiar experiences around the house.

The final festivities of the weekend celebrations came on Sunday when the New Men and Old Men faced off in flag football, after both teams had been been practicing for a number of weeks.  In this annual “Spaghetti Bowl”, the Old Men have a long history of winning.  However, this year the New Man class has over 70 classmates to choose from, and they sought to give the Old Men a scare.  After a great start, the New Men were slowly overtaken and the game ended: New Men 18 – Old Men 40. The day ended with a strong sense of the unity amongst the men as well as fraternal good will.

In gratitude for all that the Lord has done, we proudly celebrate Thanksgiving.  It is truly a time where  the best of American tradition and the Catholic faith can be lived out together.

Msgr. William J. Lyons

Msgr. William J. Lyons, 81, a priest of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, who had served faithfully as a spiritual director for the North American College since 2003, passed away on Monday November 21, 2011. He passed away as a private Mass was concluding in his room, receiving viaticum. As the 81 year old man we loved so much succumbed to death after battling cancer, his priestly heart of 55 years shone brightly, witnessing and revealing the profound love of the heart of Jesus Christ the Good Shepherd.

He was born in Boston and moved to St. Louis at age 12. After ordination he was named assistant pastor of St. Roch Parish in the West End of St. Louis while he continued post-graduate studies at St. Louis University. He began teaching in 1956 at Blessed Sacrament School in North St. Louis and in 1957 at Bishop DuBourg High School in South St. Louis, where he taught for 10 years. He was named a part-time assistant pastor of St. Raphael the Archangel Parish in the St. Louis Hills neighborhood of South St. Louis in 1959. He served as coordinator of student retreats for the Archdiocesan Education Office from 1960 to 1967.

In 1967, Msgr. Lyons was named director of the Newman Center at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where he would remain until 1994 when he was appointed full time to the faculty of Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in Shrewsbury and to reside at the Catholic Student Center at Washington University in St. Louis. He had been on the staff half-time at Kenrick Seminary and Cardinal Glennon College since 1966.

Director of campus ministry for the Archdiocese of St. Louis from 1982 to 1994, he once referred to the Newman apostolate as a “loving, searching, worshipping, enabling presence” of the Catholic Church on the college campus; he said that it had an objective to present a Christian witness and to offer moral and religious guidance to any student.

Msgr. Lyons had been involved in a number of other ministries, including the Archdiocese of St. Louis Adult Sodality Union and the Archdiocese of St. Louis Commission for Radio and Television.

In 1988, he was named director of the pre-theology program at Kenrick. He was assigned as a spiritual director to the North American College in Rome in 2003. He loved his days at this College so much. According to his wishes, he has been interred in the Mausoleum of the Pontifical North American College in Campo Verano in Rome.

Courtesy: Archdiocese of St. Louis