VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In the age of instant communications and fake news, journalists -- like everyone else -- need to recover the practice of going out and verifying information before they share it, Pope Francis said.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A young priest ordained only six months ago was among the casualties of an explosion at a parish center in Madrid. The Archdiocese of Madrid confirmed Jan. 21 that Father Ruben Perez Ayala, a priest at the Church of Our Lady of La Paloma, died in the early hours of the morning due to internal hemorrhaging he suffered after the blast.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Both Pope Francis and retired Pope Benedict XVI have received the first dose of the vaccine against COVID-19 after the Vatican started vaccinating its employees and residents Jan. 13.
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MONTERREY, Mexico (CNS) -- Facebook removed a video commentary from Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iñiguez of Guadalajara, saying it spread false information about COVID-19. Semanario Arquidiocesano Guadalajara -- an information service operated by the Archdiocese of Guadalajara -- posted a screenshot from the video on its Facebook page Jan. 13, along with the text, "Cardinal Juan Sandoval denounced the imposition of a new world order, hours later his video was censored." It also posted the video on its regular website, along with a story on its removal.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis said that the coronavirus lockdown made him feel imprisoned but ultimately led him to find different ways to carry out his ministry. In an interview with Italy's Canale 5 broadcast Jan. 10, the pope was asked how his daily routine changed once COVID-19 restrictions prevented public events at the Vatican.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis' personal doctor died Jan. 9 of complications caused by COVID-19. Fabrizio Soccorsi, 78, had been admitted to Rome's Gemelli hospital Dec. 26 because of cancer, according to the Italian Catholic agency SIR, Jan. 9.
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Canadian churches faced new restrictions as public health officials tried to contain a post-holiday surge of COVID-19. Churches and all places of worship are once again closing in the province of Quebec in an effort to stop the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. This decision is part of a new series of containment measures announced by Premier Francois Legault Jan. 6.
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SYDNEY (CNS) -- People inside and outside the church are calling on authorities to get to the bottom of mystery funds transferred from the Vatican to Australia. As Australia's bishops are considering requesting information from the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, a source close to the Vatican told The Catholic Weekly, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Sydney, that it was "completely implausible" that $2.3 billion Australian dollars (US$1.8 billion) in Vatican funds transferred to Australia from Rome between 2014 and 2020 were legitimate.
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ROME (CNS) -- Of the more than 76,000 people known to have died of COVID-19 in Italy the past 11 months, more than 200 were priests, according to the Catholic newspaper, Avvenire. Already four priests have died since the start of 2021, the newspaper said Jan. 6, adding that the cumulative toll amounts to about one death every one and a half days since the pandemic began.
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CNA Staff, Jan 5, 2021 CNA.- The number of babies with Down syndrome who were born in Europe fell by half between 2011 and 2015— confirming the fears of pro-life campaigners in the UK, who have long argued that increased prenatal testing for Down syndrome has led many women to abort their children.
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CNA Staff, Jan 5, 2021 CNA.- The Scottish Catholic bishops have protested the closing of churches as part of Scotland’s newest coronavirus lockdown. Scotland’s government announced the latest closure Jan. 4. The month-long lockdown will close churches to public Mass from Jan. 8 to Feb. 1. Funerals and marriages can take place with a limited number of attendees.
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In times of doubt and suffering, Christians must not focus on their problems, but instead lift up their eyes to God, who leads them toward the hopeful promise of great things to come, Pope Francis said on the feast of the Epiphany.
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BEIRUT (CNS) -- Fares Melki's first introduction to his great-uncle was when he asked his grandfather about the picture framed above his grandfather's bed. That was around 60 years ago, when Melki was 10.
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MANCHESTER, England (CNS) -- An English cardinal spoke of his relief that churches in England will not close during a third national lockdown. Churches in Scotland, however, must close as part of measures introduced Jan. 5 to contain the spread of a highly infectious new variant of COVID-19, leading the bishops there to denounce the measure as "arbitrary and unfair."
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Pilgrims who embark on the long journey of the Camino to Santiago de Compostela remind others of the spiritual journey all Christians make through life toward heaven, Pope Francis said. In a letter marking the opening of the Holy Door at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, the pope said that just like countless pilgrims who embark on the famed Camino toward the tomb of St. James the Great each year, Christians are "a pilgrim people" who do not travel toward "a utopic ideal but rather a concrete goal."
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The choral cries of newborn babies will not fill the Sistine Chapel in 2021 because the COVID-19 pandemic has forced Pope Francis to cancel his annual celebration of infant baptisms on the feast of the Baptism of the Lord.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Whether or not they raised a glass of bubbly as the new year made its debut, many people around the world were convinced that 2021 had to be better than 2020 was. Pope Francis, leading the recitation of the Angelus Jan. 3, had a simple-sounding idea for how to make that happen.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican will begin offering COVID-19 vaccinations in mid-January, giving priority to its health care workers, security personnel, employees who deal with the public and older residents, employees and retirees.
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Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dec 31, 2020 CNA.- In a post published on Wednesday, December 30, just hours after abortion was legalized by the Argentinian Senate, one of the international branches of Planned Parenthood, the International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region (IPPFWHR), boasted about having financed a large operation in the South American country to push to legalize abortion.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- As the Catholic Church celebrated World Peace Day Jan. 1, Pope Francis offered prayers for the people of war-torn Yemen, especially the nation's children left without education and often without food by years of civil war.
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The notable absence of Pope Francis at the final liturgical celebration of 2020 in St. Peter's Basilica capped off a difficult year for the Vatican and for the world. Yet Pope Francis, in remarks read by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, urged people to find meaning in the pandemic.
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Pope Francis will not preside over the traditional end-of-the-year prayer service nor the New Year's Mass in St. Peter's Basilica due to "painful sciatica," the Vatican said. In a statement published Dec. 31, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said that instead, Cardinal Giovanni Batista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, will preside over the evening prayer and the singing of the "Te Deum" to thank God for the year that is ending.
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MEXICO CITY (CNS) -- Argentina has legalized abortion during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy, despite strong Catholic opposition and polls showing deep divisions on the issue. The Senate approved the bill 38-29 Dec. 30 after a 12-hour debate as supporters with green handkerchiefs and opponents with blue handkerchiefs awaited the decision in the streets during the small hours of the morning. President Alberto Fernández presented legislation in November -- it was quickly approved in the lower house -- and has promised to sign it into law.
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BERLIN (CNS) -- In a wide-ranging interview, the head of the German bishops' conference called for far-reaching changes to the Catholic Church and criticized the Vatican's treatment of the church in his country.
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DUBLIN (CNS) -- Pope Francis has chosen Bishop Dermot Farrell of Ossory as Archbishop Diarmuid Martin's successor in Dublin. The appointment is one of the most significant in the Irish church, involving oversight of the largest and most secular Irish diocese with up to 1 million Catholics.
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A new law that removes financial assets from the control of the Vatican Secretariat of State is a step forward on the path of financial reform, said Bishop Nunzio Galantino, president of Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See.
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BEIRUT (CNS) -- Amid suffering and despair, further darkened by the coronavirus pandemic, Catholic patriarchs of the Middle East urged their faithful at Christmastime to hold on to hope. And in Iraq, Christmas was celebrated as a national holiday for the first time; the Iraqi parliament established the holiday in mid-December on the heels of the announcement of Pope Francis' visit, scheduled for March.
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MINSK, Belarus (CNS) -- After almost four months in exile, Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz of Minsk returned to his people and his cathedral in time to celebrate Christmas. Just after crossing the border from Poland into Belarus Dec. 24, he said he stopped the car, got out, knelt, "thanked God for returning and kissed the ground."
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Even though the baptisms the pope celebrates most years in the Sistine Chapel are better known, the most important place to be baptized in Rome for the past nearly 1,600 years has been the baptistery of St. John Lateran.
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Pope Francis approved a new set of laws that formally transfer the management of all bank accounts and financial investments belonging to the Vatican Secretariat of State. Issued "motu proprio," on the pope's own accord, and published Dec. 28, the pope's decree orders the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See, also known as APSA, to manage the accounts. APSA handles the Vatican's investment portfolio and real estate holdings.
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As the fifth anniversary of his apostolic exhortation "Amoris Laetitia" approaches, Pope Francis announced that the Catholic Church will dedicate more than a year to focusing on the family and conjugal love.
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