Today’s Catholic must-reads: 12/01/11

Purgatory is “an interior fire purifying the soul“, Benedict XVI said at today’s general audience dedicated to St Catherine of Genoa (video).

The cardinal-members of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints have reportedly approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of John Paul II, paving the way for his beatification.

Vatican Archbishop Dominique Mamberti held an urgent meeting with the Egyptian ambassador to the Holy See last night after Cairo strongly criticised the Pope’s “state of the world” address.

Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver has paid tribute to the Catholic judge killed in the Arizona shooting.

The Latin Patriarch has called for closer ties between Catholics and Orthodox Christians in an address to the Orthodox community of Jerusalem (full text).

And Our Sunday Visitor and the National Catholic Register interview Abby Johnson, author of Unplanned and former abortion clinic director.