Stratton-on-the-Fosse, England, Oct 19, 2017 CNA.- A new BBC series will depict the daily life of Benedictine monks in a few UK monasteries, taking camera crews to capture a lifestyle normally hidden from the public’s eye.
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MONTREAL (CNS) -- A few years ago, lawyer Dominique Boisvert left Montreal looking for a quieter place. He moved to Scotstown, population just over 500. For this father of the voluntary simplicity movement in Quebec, the time had come to slow down the pace and lighten commitments.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis' recent statement that the death penalty is incompatible with the Gospel focused less on a government's role in protecting its people and more on the need to defend the sacredness and dignity of every human life.
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Santiago, Chile, Oct 19, 2017 CNA/EWTN News.- Cardinal Giuseppe Versaldi, Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, proposed last week five keys for pastoral education “to respond in depth to the current challenges of society.”
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Benin City, Nigeria, Oct 18, 2017 CNA/EWTN News.- Fr. Maurizio Pallù, an Italian missionary who was kidnapped in southern Nigeria last week, was freed Tuesday. He was freed late in the evening of Oct. 17, according to authorities, and is doing well.
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WARSAW, Poland (CNS) -- The Catholic bishop responsible for eastern Ukraine has backed calls for the deployment of international peacekeepers and praised "pressure from below" to end the nearly four-year war.
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Vatican City, Oct 17, 2017 CNA/EWTN News.- Among the most lasting aspects of a Pope’s leadership is his appointment of bishops. To understand a Pope, it’s important to understand how he makes decisions about episcopal leadership.
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Vatican City, Oct 17, 2017 CNA/EWTN News.- Archbishop Georg Ganswein, the personal secretary of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, has rejected reports that the former pontiff is nearing death. Rumors of Benedict XVI being close to death circulated on social media following a quote attributed to Ganswein, which reads, “Pope Benedict is like a candle that fades slowly. He is serene, at peace with God, with himself and the world. He can no longer walk without help and can no longer celebrate Mass.”
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Christians can find hope even at the hour of death, which faith teaches is not a closed door but a wide-open passage to a new life with Christ, Pope Francis said. While all men and women are "small and helpless in front of the mystery of death," Jesus' victory over death assures Christians of the joy of the resurrection, the pope said Oct. 18 during his weekly general audience.
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JERUSALEM (CNS) -- Franciscans serving in the Holy Land have had an impact on Christian pilgrims, said Franciscan Father Michael Perry, minister general of the order. "The Franciscans' care for pilgrims, their attention to detail, their efforts to demonstrate the love of God, the mercy of God through different religious services and ... how they welcome people in hospitality houses, these become elements that people themselves, Christians and others, take back to (their) countries," said Father Perry.
Read moreVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Italian Father Maurizio Pallu, who was kidnapped by several gunmen in Nigeria and held captive for nearly a week, was freed Oct. 17. Father Pallu, a 63-year-old missionary affiliated with the Neocatechumenal Way, and a group of pilgrims were on their way to Mass in Benin City Oct. 12 when they were ambushed.
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RUTENG, Indonesia (CNS) -- The Vatican has asked Indonesian Bishop Hubertus Leteng, who recently resigned over allegations of theft and having an affair, to return the church funds he is accused of stealing.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Franciscans assisting the Christian minority and caring for the churches and shrines in the Holy Land are "ambassadors" of all the people of God, Pope Francis said. Marking the 800th anniversary of the order's presence at the places where Jesus was born, lived and died, the pope sent a letter to the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, an administratively autonomous province of the Franciscan order.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Replying to questions and giving interviews are a "pastoral risk" Pope Francis said he is prepared to take, because it is the best way to know and respond to people's real concerns.
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UNITED NATIONS (CNS) -- Genuine intercultural and interreligious dialogue is based on personal, practical encounters that acknowledge and respect the deeply held beliefs of others, according to speakers at an Oct. 13 United Nations panel.
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Abuja, Nigeria, Oct 16, 2017 ACI Prensa.- An Italian Catholic priest, who is a member of the Neocatechumenal Way, was kidnapped on Thursday by armed men in Benin City, Nigeria, according to media reports.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Addressing the challenges of evangelization in one of the world's most remote areas and the connection between faith and environmental concern, Pope Francis announced a special gathering of the Synod of Bishops to focus on the Amazon region.
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Kochi, India, Oct 14, 2017 CNA/EWTN News.- Both Hindu and Catholic schoolchildren in India claim to have witnessed an apparition of Christ and several appearances of the Virgin Mary accompanied by the scent of jasmine, the gift of contrition, and the healing of a girl’s ear problem.
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Vatican City, Oct 15, 2017 CNA/EWTN News.- Vatican City announced Saturday the conclusion of the corruption trial of the former president and treasurer of the Vatican-owned Bambino Gesù hospital in Rome.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The church's newest saints represent a diverse group of people who offer encouragement and hope to Christians today through their example, a Brazilian bishop said. Saints like the "Martyrs of Natal," Brazil, offer a "new opportunity, hope and a renewal of faith" that can bring peace to a world battered by injustice, war and violence, Archbishop Jaime Vieira Rocha of Natal told journalists Oct. 13 during a press briefing.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Canadian authorities did not request the extradition of a Vatican diplomat who has been charged by police in Canada of accessing, possessing and distributing child pornography, a Vatican spokesman said.
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JERUSALEM (CNS) -- On his first pilgrimage to the Holy Land just at the outbreak of the intifada, Franciscan Father Wladyslaw Brzezinski was awed by the quiet contemplation with which a fellow friar was able to pray under a sprawling sabra cactus in the courtyard of the Church of the Visitation.
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LIVERPOOL, England (CNS) -- A Nigerian bishop said the Catholic Church in his country is beginning to lose its public influence partly because of the decline of religious faith in the West. Bishop Matthew Kukah of Sokoto accused European and American politicians and diplomats of publicly "pandering" to Islam at the expense of Christianity.
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Vatican City, Oct 11, 2017 CNA/EWTN News.- In an Oct. 11 speech to members of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, Francis said the topic of the death penalty should have “a more adequate and coherent space” in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- No matter how much suffering Christians face in the world, God never forgets those who trust in and serve him, Pope Francis told leaders of Eastern Catholic churches. The courage to "knock at the door" of God's heart and "the courage of faith (are) needed when you pray -- to have faith that the Lord is listening," the pope told patriarchs, metropolitans, bishops, priests and lay members of the Eastern churches during his homily in Rome's St. Mary Major.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- As the church marks the 25th anniversary of the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, promoting it as a means of teaching the truth about faith remains a challenge and a priority.
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The death penalty, no matter how it is carried out, "is, in itself, contrary to the Gospel," Pope Francis said. Marking the 25th anniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church at the Vatican Oct. 11, Pope Francis said the catechism's discussion of the death penalty, already formally amended by St. John Paul II, needs to be even more explicitly against capital punishment.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis' @Pontifex Twitter accounts reached more than 40 million followers just a few months before the fifth anniversary of when Pope Benedict XVI launched the initiative.
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Paris, France, Oct 10, 2017 ACI Prensa.- Patrick Canac was baptized, but like so many others, drifted away from the Church over time. In recent months, however, the successful French businessman has had a change of heart, returning to the Catholic Church and even making a large donation for the construction of a new seminary in Avignon, France.
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Rome, Italy, Oct 9, 2017 CNA/EWTN News.- At the close of a Rome conference on child protection online, a leading expert in the field said that while the statistics are well-known, he was surprised by the lack of awareness about the problem.
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MADRID (CNS) -- A Spanish cardinal defended his country's unity as a "moral good" and condemned "sedition and fraud" by secessionists, as politicians in Catalonia prepared to debate independence at an Oct. 10 regional parliamentary session.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The top leaders of the Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference and chair of the church's Truth, Justice and Healing Council met with Vatican officials to discuss issues emerging from national investigations into the abuse of minors.
Read moreVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Catholic Church's Code of Canon Law is an instrument that must serve the church's pastoral mission of bringing God's mercy to all and leading them to salvation, Pope Francis said.
Read moreROME (CNS) -- The Legionaries of Christ pledged its ongoing commitment to renewal and reform as it released information about a former rector who has publicly acknowledged being the father of two children.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Migration called on the federal government to work with the Myanmar government and the international community to solve the crisis affecting the persecuted Rohingya people.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Acknowledging how often the Catholic Church failed to protect children from sexual abuse, Pope Francis pledged "to work strenuously and with foresight for the protection of minors and their dignity," including online.
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ROME (CNS) -- Two giants in the digital world presented some key ways they are trying to keep up with the vast scale and increasing sophistication of the abuse and exploitation of minors online. Representatives from Facebook -- the largest social media site in the world -- and Microsoft -- the world's biggest software company -- called for increased cooperation among businesses, governments and law enforcement to develop, share and utilize digital tools to prevent and stop abuse and bring perpetrators to justice.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- While societies must find a way to overcome the subjugation of women, pretending there are no differences between men and women or even using technology to change a person's sex is not the answer, Pope Francis said.
Read moreROME (CNS) -- With the enormous scale and devastating effects of child exploitation and abuse online, including exposure to pornography, the world must act to protect children at all costs, speakers at a world congress said.
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Vatican City, Oct 3, 2017 CNA/EWTN News.- In the keynote speech at a conference on protecting children in the digital world, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said child safety is one of the most urgent issues of modern times, and stressed that children on the global “peripheries” shouldn't be forgotten.
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ROME (CNS) -- Child abuse is not only a crime, it is sacrilege, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, said at a world congress promoting the protection of children online. "The church has become increasingly aware of the harm experienced by victims, of their suffering and of the need to listen to them," he told an international assembly of more than 100 top experts and leaders in government, law enforcement, nonprofit organizations and technology, who are working in child protection.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Obedient to his father, Jesus was patient with his sinning, fearful disciples throughout his lonely journey toward the cross, Pope Francis said. When Jesus set out to go to Jerusalem, he knew he would face humiliation, suffering and death there, as his disciples would each fall away and not accompany him, the pope said Oct. 3 during morning Mass at Domus Sanctae Marthae.
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Rome, Italy, Oct 3, 2017 CNA/EWTN News.- Despite the challenges of secularization, a Dutch cardinal encouraged Catholics from his country and from all parts of the world to be a “creative minority” in society.
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Rome, Italy, Oct 3, 2017 ACI Prensa.- Three years ago, there were 73 nuns with the Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine of Siena living in Kurdistan. Since the Islamic State captured the Plain of Nineveh in 2014, one-third of them have died.
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Vatican City, Oct 2, 2017 CNA/EWTN News.- The September 19 re-establishment of the Pontifical John Paul II Theological Institute for Science on the Family and Marriage is a good object lesson in the modus operandi of Pope Francis. It offers observers some helpful lessons about the Roman Pontiff’s leadership style.
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Barcelona, Spain, Oct 2, 2017 CNA/EWTN News.- Catholic leaders voiced pleas for peace after a Catalonian regional referendum vote on secession from Spain drew a strong police reaction. “The situation of violence we have experienced today in Catalonia is deplorable,” Cardinal Juan Omella of Barcelona said Oct. 2. “We need to find a peaceful and democratic solution to our situation. Let us entrust this situation to the God of peace.”
Read moreBELFAST, Northern Ireland (CNS) -- Marriage ministry needs to be done by married couples because priests have "no credibility in this area," Cardinal Kevin Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, told a church gathering.
Read moreROME (CNS) -- The recall of a Vatican diplomat suspected by U.S. authorities of having a connection with child pornography reflects normal international protocol, but the suspect must be put on trial and receive punishment if found guilty, said a key organizer of a world congress on child protection.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis has named U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke a member of the Apostolic Signature, the church's supreme court, which the cardinal headed as prefect from 2008 to 2014. Members of the Apostolic Signature serve as judges in the cases, which mainly involve appeals of lower-court decisions or of administrative decisions by other offices of the Holy See.
Read moreVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- An arrest warrant has been issued in Canada for Msgr. Carlo Capella, the Vatican diplomat recalled from service in Washington in late August, who already was the subject of a Vatican criminal investigation involving child pornography.
Read moreVatican City, Sep 29, 2017 CNA/EWTN News.- With social platforms increasingly targeting so-called “fake news,” Pope Francis has decided to weigh-in, dedicating his message for the 2018 World Day of Social Communications to eliminating the spread of false information and providing the truth.
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DUBLIN (CNS) -- Catholic families in a cross-community housing project in Belfast, Northern Ireland, have been forced to leave their homes after a sectarian threat, thought to be from Protestant paramilitaries.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Seeing, understanding and engaging with people's real lives does not "bastardize" theology, rather it is what is needed to guide people toward God, Pope Francis told Jesuits in Colombia.
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OTTAWA, Ontario (CNS) -- To celebrate Canada's 150th birthday and to mark the 70th anniversary of its consecration to Mary, Canada's three cardinals led the nation's bishops in a ceremony Sept. 26 to re-consecrate the nation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Christ calls believers to welcome migrants and refugees "with arms wide open, ready to give a sincere, affectionate, enveloping embrace," Pope Francis said, launching the "Share the Journey" campaign of Catholic charities around the world.
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CORNWALL, Ontario (CNS) -- Cardinal Marc Ouellet denounced the "alarmist" and "unfaithful" interpretations of the Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation on the family, "Amoris Laetitia." The Canadian cardinal, who serves as the Vatican's prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, told Canadian bishops the document does not signal "changes to doctrine or to sacramental discipline," but represents a pastoral approach that takes into consideration "the good of the person," according to his or her circumstances.
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Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, Sep 26, 2017 CNA/EWTN News.- A young Catholic diocese in the southern highlands of Papua New Guinea has a vibrant and growing faith, one which the people have embraced as their own, showing the universality of the Church, a local bishop says.
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JERUSALEM (CNS) -- Christians in the Holy Land, including Catholic leaders, have expressed frustration with lack of legal action against cases of desecration and vandalism of sacred places. Even as the Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land issued a statement condemning the Sept. 20 desecration and vandalism of a Catholic shrine in Israel, some people criticized the statement's "weak language" and asked, "How long will we be tolerant?"
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FULDA, Germany (CNS) -- The president of the German bishops' conference urged "verbal disarmament" after Sept. 24 elections brought a far-right party into the Bundestag, or parliament, for the first time since World War II.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The great simplicity of life embraced by Trappist monks and nuns and their attentive practice of long periods of absolute silence are gifts the world needs today, Pope Francis said.
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Vatican City, Sep 24, 2017 CNA/EWTN News.- The Vatican has issued a response to allegations made by former auditor general Libero Milone, who, three months after mysteriously stepping down in the middle of a five-year mandate, has said he was “threatened” into resignation by an “old guard” opposed to his work.
Read moreVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Several dozen priests, scholars and writers have published what they described as a "filial correction" of some of Pope Francis' teachings about marriage -- particularly about access to the sacraments for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The first person to serve as the Vatican's independent auditor said he was forced to resign after opponents of Pope Francis' financial reforms mounted a campaign against him. But the Vatican press office responded Sept. 24, saying Libero Milone, "going outside his competencies, illegally hired an external company to undertake investigative activities about the private lives of representatives of the Holy See."
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- In the aftermath of two earthquakes in the span of two weeks in Mexico church-based relief agencies have been on the ground providing food, shelter and repairs. The magnitude 7.1 quake that hit near Mexico City Sept. 19 killed more than 230 people and injured more than 2,000 in the crumbling wreckage. The earthquake was just on the heels of the magnitude 8.1 earthquake Sept. 7 off the coast of south-eastern Mexico that killed at least 90 people and destroyed thousands of homes.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors believe they have done important work over the past three years, but, because there is so much more to be done, they presented Pope Francis with a list of suggestions, including changing the way confidentiality is imposed during church investigations of child sexual abuse.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis has endorsed an approach of "zero tolerance" toward all members of the church guilty of sexually abusing minors or vulnerable adults. Having listened to abuse survivors and having made what he described as a mistake in approving a more lenient set of sanctions against an Italian priest abuser, the pope said he has decided whoever has been proven guilty of abuse has no right to an appeal, and he will never grant a papal pardon.
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MEXICO CITY (CNS) -- A Catholic bishop and a Caritas worker in Mexico said the situation was extremely serious after the Sept. 19 earthquake, and much aid would be needed. "The situation is complicated, because the first earthquake (Sept. 7) had already affected thousands of people in Chiapas and Oaxaca," Alberto Arciniega, head of communications for Caritas Mexico, told Catholic News Service Sept. 20. "The church is continuing to assist those dioceses, but with what happened yesterday, the emergency situation is being re-evaluated to get a more exact assessment of the aid that is needed."
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HONG KONG (CNS) -- Church officials fear that newly revised religious affairs regulations released by the Chinese government, supposedly aimed at protecting national security, will be used to further suppress religious activities.
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