England’s Queen Elizabeth II has reigned for fifty-nine years. During her lifetime, she has seen eleven U.S. presidents come and go. Queen Elizabeth got along especially well with President Reagan.

The cathedrals of Chartres, Paris, Cologne, Florence, Siena and Toledo open their doors each day to thousands of pilgrims and tourists alike. They come to look, to gaze and to stand in wonder at these majestic marvels of architecture.

From April 6th until May 29, 1453, the Ottomans, under the command of Sultan Mehmed II, laid siege to Constantinople. The city fell. The great Byzantine Empire collapsed. So ended the last vestige of the Roman Empire.

For the past seven years, columnist, media spokesperson and journalist Ruth Houston has put out a list of the top 10 celebrity infidelities. In the past few years, her task of naming the top ten has become increasingly more difficult. Politicians, sports icons, corporate executives and other public figures are now routinely exposed in the media for their extra-marital affairs.

Some videotaped it. Others photographed it. Bloggers commented on it. Portuguese newspapers reported it. On May 14, 2011, Diario de Noticias and Correio de Manha both carried stories about what happened at Fatima, Portugal on the previous day.

Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader responsible for the attacks against our nation on September 11, 2001, is dead. The planes that crashed into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field left nearly 3,000 people dead. Now, ten years later, the mastermind of that murderous plot is himself dead.

On April 8, 2005, the millions of people who attended the funeral of Pope John Paul II cried out “Santo Subito.” Six years later on May 1, 2011, the Pope who canonized more saints than any other Pope in modern history, was officially listed in their ranks as Blessed by Pope Benedict XVI.

The New Testament contains two traditions of the words that Jesus spoke when he instituted the Eucharist. The older tradition is found in St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. Writing within one generation of the Last Supper itself, Paul clearly states in 1 Cor 11:23-26 that he is passing on to others what he himself has received.

On October 17, 2006, the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments sent a letter concerning the words of consecration used at the present time in the liturgy. Specifically, he said two things.

After the Sign of the Cross at the beginning of Mass, the priest may choose to greet the people with the simple and familiar greeting “The Lord be with you.” He uses this same greeting before the reading of the gospel, at the beginning of the Preface and before the final blessing.

When the priest greets the people at the beginning of Mass with these words, he is using the last words of St. Paul’s second letter to the Church of Corinth. Since St. Paul refers to God the Father, simply as “God,” this blessing is clearly Trinitarian. It expresses the Church’s belief in one God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Americans meeting each other on the street will typically begin their encounter with a friendly “hello,” a word probably derived from a German word used to hail a ferryman. But, in other language groups, different greetings are used. Italians greet each other cheerfully with “ciao.” Both Jews and Arabs greet one another with “peace.” Albanians say “long life.”

At the end of last year, as Christians celebrated the birth of the Prince of Peace, they faced persecution and violence. Between Christmas Eve to December 27, 38 Christians died in attacks across Nigeria. In the northern town of Maiduguri, armed men dragged a Baptist pastor out of his home and shot him.

(Part 3 of 3). From Bartolomeo and Botticelli in the 15th century to Dore, Delacroix and Chenavard in more recent times, artists have delighted to portray on canvas Dante’s Inferno. Dante vividly describes his travels with the Roman poet Virgil into the underworld.

Meatless Fridays, Latin Mass on Sunday, long confession lines on Saturday afternoons and religious in habits were once so much a part of Catholic culture everywhere. Some Catholics still observe Friday abstinence. Others attend the Latin Mass. Catholics do frequent the Sacrament of Reconciliation in Advent and Lent and even on days other than Saturdays.

Today, without an awareness of the ethical dimension of their work, professionals in medicine risk limiting themselves to the scientific and technological aspects of their work. Once this happens, “health care professionals can be strongly tempted … to become manipulators of life, or even agents of death. In the face of this temptation their responsibility today is greatly increased.

(Part 2 of 3). All four of the world’s major religions--Hinduism and Buddhism, Christianity and Islam--teach that there is a judgment at the end of life. Immediately following death, each person receives the just recompense for his or her life. Catholics call this “the particular judgment.”

(Part 1 of 3). Twenty nine years after painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo painted his famous Last Judgment on the chapel’s western wall. The spirit of the latter work differs significantly from that of the former. Gone was the optimism.

This past November, the American Atheists organization provoked a debate. But not without merit. As soon as the Christians began their Advent services in church and their Christmas shopping in the malls, some atheists attacked the very fact that Jesus was born.