On January 10, 2019, the new novitiate class for 2019 was initiated at Villa Carmelitas in Lurin, Peru. There are three members from El Salvador: José Manuel Santos Alvarado, Juan Esteban Rodríguez Benítez, and Miguel Ángel Guerra Martínez; and two members from Peru: Eduardo Antonio Diaz Espinoza and Franz Johnathan Leyva Bardalez. On Friday morning, January 11, Fr. William J. Harry, O. Carm., the Prior Provincial, received the professions of the two members of the novitiate class ...

Under the theme of Mary’s assent, “I am the servant of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38), more than 200,000 pilgrims flocked to Panama City, Panama. Pilgrims represented many Latin American countries from Mexico to Argentina. The level of energy was sky high, especially when Pope Francis arrived in the country. The days leading up to the pontiff’s arrival were booked with singers, bands, commentators, religious vocation ...

Archangela was born Eleanora Girlani sometime during 1460. Her noble family lived in Trino, the Duchy of Savoy, which was part of the Holy Roman Empire. From here earliest days, Eleanora expressed a desire to enter religious life. Her education by the Benedictines led her to join their community. According to a story the horse she was riding on to the Benedictine monastery refused to take her there. A more likely reason was the closeness ...

Peter Thomas was born into a very poor family (his father, a farm head, was a serf) in southern Périgord around 1305 (thought to be today’s Lebreil, a section of Salles-de-Belves, about forty kilometers to the southwest of Sarlat (Dordogne), a traditional center of devotion to the saint). Upon the death of his brother, Peter Thomas, left his parents and his younger sister while still a young man so as to lighten the burdens on his ...