BEIRUT (CNS) -- The first time a band of Islamic State militants "visited" the monks, they presented the monks with a kind of suggestion, in a nonthreatening manner: "Why don't you become a Muslim?"
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ROME (CNS) -- The papal vicar for Rome has asked every pastor in the diocese to form a "pastoral team" of about a dozen "courageous explorers" to help launch a new neighborhood missionary outreach. "Don't go looking for those who have shown they are prudent, measured and detail-oriented," Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, the papal vicar, wrote in a letter to pastors July 11.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis' plan for the reform of the Roman Curia will change the names of several offices and merge a few of them, but the biggest change it hopes to spark is one of attitude.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- "Every life is valuable, always," Pope Francis tweeted after offering prayers for Vincent Lambert, a 42-year-old French man who died July 11, nine days after doctors stopped providing him with nutrition and hydration.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Opening the Vatican tombs of a princess and a duchess July 11 in a search for the remains of a young Italian woman missing for more than 30 years, the Vatican found no human remains at all.
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Reims, France, Jul 11, 2019 CNA.- Vincent Lambert, a 42 year-old quadriplegic man, died in a French hospital Thursday morning, 9 days after doctors withdrew his food and water. “Vincent died at 8:24 this morning,” Lambert's nephew, Francois Lambert, told AFP News Agency.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Msgr. Massimo Palombella, a Salesian priest who has directed the Sistine Chapel Choir since 2010, has stepped down, the Vatican announced. "The Holy Father accepted the maestro's request to terminate his service," the Vatican press office said July 10 in a statement that made no mention of an investigation, announced one year ago, into the choir's financial and administrative operations.
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OTTAWA, Ontario (CNS) -- Two independent theaters have canceled screenings of the pro-life movie "Unplanned" after managers and owners received "serious threats," according to the Canadian distributor of the movie.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Holy See has waived the diplomatic immunity of a Vatican diplomat who has been under investigation by authorities in Paris for allegedly sexually assaulting a city official.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis named six superiors of women's religious orders, a consecrated laywoman and the superior of the De La Salle Christian Brothers to be full members of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Christians are called to follow the spirit of the beatitudes by comforting the poor and the oppressed, especially migrants and refugees who are rejected, exploited and left to die, Pope Francis said.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin to the Vatican July 4, and the two discussed the ongoing wars in Eastern Ukraine and in Syria, the Vatican said. Russia plays a major role in both conflicts.
Read moreVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- No quick "fixes" or organizational change will renew the Catholic Church in Germany, Pope Francis said; what is needed is a spiritual renewal and Gospel transparency. In a letter to "the pilgrim people of God in Germany," published by the Vatican June 29, the pope said efforts to eliminate tension solely by "being in order and in harmony" would ultimately "numb and domesticate the heart of our people and diminish and even silence the vital and evangelical strength the Spirit wants to give us."
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican City State tribunal has ordered the opening of two tombs in a small Vatican cemetery at the request of the family of Emanuela Orlandi, a young woman who disappeared in 1983.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In what Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople described as a "brave and bold" gesture, Pope Francis gave the patriarch a famous reliquary containing bone fragments believed to belong to St. Peter.
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ROME (CNS) -- After U.S. President Donald Trump became the first sitting president to set foot in North Korea, Pope Francis called his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a positive step toward world peace.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis will declare Blessed John Henry Newman, the 19th-century British cardinal, a saint Oct. 13. The British theologian will be canonized during a Mass at the Vatican along with a Swiss laywoman, an Indian nun, an Italian nun and a nun known as the "Mother Teresa of Brazil."
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In the light of "a worrying negative prejudice" against the Catholic Church, Pope Francis ordered the publication of a document affirming the absolute secrecy of everything said in confession and calling on priests to defend it at all costs, even at the cost of their lives.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- At the end of Mass on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, Pope Francis and Orthodox Archbishop Job of Telmessos walked down the stairs under the main altar in St. Peter's Basilica and prayed together at the apostle's tomb.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Blessing bands of wool that archbishops will wear around their shoulders, Pope Francis said, "It is a sign that the shepherds do not live for themselves but for the sheep." "It is a sign that, in order to possess life, we have to lose it, give it away," the pope said during his homily at Mass for the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul June 29.
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TORONTO (CNS) -- When bishops convene in Rome this fall to begin discussions about ordaining married men to serve as priests in remote, indigenous communities in the Amazon, bishops in northern Canada will be listening closely.
Read moreVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- "The unity of the church is always at risk" and has been throughout its history, but "its unity always has been stronger than its internal struggles and wars," said retired Pope Benedict XVI.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican has told bishops and priests in China that they must follow their own consciences in deciding whether to register with the government, and it urged Catholics in the country not to judge them for the choices they make.
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London, England, Jun 26, 2019 CNA.- In the face of an increasingly ‘eugenic’ mentality toward people with disabilities in Europe -- exemplified in the recent overturned forced abortion case -- a Catholic disability expert says parishes should be looking at how to further support people with disabilities and their families.
Read moreVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis and his international Council of Cardinals reviewed proposals and questions submitted to them about the draft of the apostolic constitution that would govern the Roman Curia, the Vatican's interim spokesman said.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis gave priests who minister to seafarers special permission to grant absolution for sins that usually would require the intervention of a bishop or the Vatican itself.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- U.S. bishops joined Pope Francis in expressing sadness after seeing photos of the lifeless bodies of a migrant father and his daughter who drowned near the U.S. border with Mexico.
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UNITED NATIONS (CNS) -- Many terrorist attacks and other violence against houses of worship, religious sites and faith communities around the world "are finally receiving the attention, condemnation and committed response they deserve," Archbishop Bernardito Auza said June 24 at the United Nations.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The archbishop of Havana said his predecessor, Cardinal Jaime Ortega Alamino, is in stable condition, but his health has weakened and taken a downturn in recent days. "We have received in this archdiocese countless calls and messages manifesting caring interest in the health of Cardinal Jaime Ortega," Havana Archbishop Juan Garcia Rodriguez wrote in a letter posted on Facebook June 24. Archbishop Garcia took over the archdiocese when the Vatican accepted Cardinal Ortega's resignation in 2016.
Read moreLONDON (CNS) -- English bishops welcomed a Court of Appeal ruling that a pregnant mentally disabled woman did not need to have an abortion. On June 24, the court overturned an earlier Court of Protection ruling that the Nigerian Catholic woman in her 20s, who cannot be named for legal reasons, must undergo the abortion because it was in her "best interests." The woman has the mental age of between 6 and 9 years and is about 22 weeks pregnant.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Millions of Catholics live their faith through their association with lay movements and Catholic groups, but some also have lost their faith when they were sexually abused in those groups and felt they had nowhere to turn.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke has resigned from the Dignitatis Humanae Institute, saying it has become "more and more identified with the political program" of Steve Bannon. In a letter posted on his Twitter feed, Cardinal Burke said June 25 he had urged the institute to return to its original purpose of promoting the respect of human dignity but "it has not done so," so he was terminating his relationship, including being the institute's honorary president. Eleven other cardinals make up the institute's advisory board and Bannon, former chief strategist at the White House, is a patron and member of the board of trustees.
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BEIRUT (CNS) -- Melkite Catholic bishops from around the world, gathering in Lebanon for their annual synod, called for reconciliation and peace in Syria. "In Syria, the war is almost over, but the horizon is unclear," the bishops said in a statement following the June 17-21 gathering, which was led by Melkite Catholic Patriarch Joseph Absi.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis has named a retired bishop to serve as apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Lyon, France, three months after refusing to accept the resignation of Cardinal Philippe Barbarin.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Announcing the themes for the next three World Youth Day celebrations, Pope Francis called on young men and women to meditate on the path of Christian life that God has called them to walk.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Every time a Catholic receives Communion, it should be like his or her first Communion, Pope Francis said. Marking the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ June 23, the pope spoke about the gift of the Eucharist during his midday Angelus address at the Vatican and at the Rome parish of Santa Maria Consolatrice, where he celebrated an evening Mass and led eucharistic Benediction after a Corpus Christi procession.
Read moreVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The members of the Vatican's women's soccer team decided not to play their first foreign match June 22 when a couple members of the opposing team lifted their shirts to reveal slogans protesting the Catholic Church's opposition to abortion.
Read moreMANCHESTER, England (CNS) -- An English church official "deliberately misled" a U.S. archdiocese into harboring a pedophile priest and helping him to escape justice for a quarter of a century, said a report from a child abuse inquiry.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Theology develops through dialogue, not an aggressive defense of doctrine that seeks to impose its beliefs on others, Pope Francis said. Like Charles de Foucauld and the slain Trappist monks of Tibhirine in Algeria, fidelity to the Gospel "implies a style of life and of proclamation without a spirit of conquest, without a desire to proselytize and without an aggressive intent to refute," the pope said June 21 in a speech at the Pontifical Theological Faculty of Southern Italy in Naples.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican recognizes how difficult it is for nations to manage the flow of migrants and refugees, but one thing is certain: "We must respond in a humane manner, a Christian manner, and we must try to help people, not harm them," said the Vatican foreign minister.
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TORONTO (CNS) -- Basilian Father Thomas Rosica has resigned as CEO of Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation, the latest chapter in a scandal that has embroiled him since February. Rosica, the founding CEO of the Canadian Catholic television network Salt and Light TV and a former Vatican media liaison, has faced allegations of plagiarizing the written work of several authors in his lectures, blog posts and newspaper articles dating back several years. He has admitted that he failed to properly credit sources in some of his writings and apologized for his mistakes.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- While the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the Amazon aims to highlight the damage wrought by climate change and exploitation, the possibility of ordaining married men to minister in remote areas of the rainforest continues to garner more attention.
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