Rome (CNA) -- Cardinal Seán O'Malley urged religious leaders to be vigilant in preventing child sexual abuse and supporting survivors in healing at a virtual conference organized by Harvard University in partnership with the Vatican and other religious groups this week.
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Vilnius, Lithuania (CNA) -- Among Catholic devotions, the Divine Mercy message is well-known: the iconic image of Christ, with rays of red and white pouring from his heart; St. Faustina, called the "Apostle of Divine Mercy;" and the Basilica of Divine Mercy in Krakow, Poland.
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OXFORD, England (CNS) -- A French cardinal has been definitively cleared of charges of failing to report sexual abuse by clergy and has been indemnified from further lawsuits. The Court of Cassation -- one of four courts of last resort in France, with jurisdiction over all civil and criminal matters -- ruled April 14. Eight victims of a former priest had appealed after Cardinal Philippe Barbarin was acquitted for failing to report the abuse.
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A novel fundraising approach to restore one of the most iconic monuments in the world, Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, enables donors to have a piece of history. On April 15, Friends of Notre-Dame de Paris unveiled an interactive website -- restorenotredame.org -- that allows people to donate by adopting or sponsoring pieces of precious art and artifacts that were damaged in a 2019 fire. Donors can engage with the objects of their choosing and select which they'd like to help restore, whether it is a painting or statue. Funds can also go toward the cathedral's restoration as a whole if the person prefers.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Without prayer, everything crumbles and any initiatives for church reform will just be proposals by some group and not the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Pope Francis said. "Everything in the church originates in prayer and everything grows thanks to prayer," the pope said April 14 during his weekly general audience.
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ROME (CNS) -- To help foster a wider discussion on work that still must be done to safeguard minors and vulnerable people in the Catholic Church, a canon law journal published a series of talks by experts regarding accountability, transparency and confidentiality in the handling of abuse allegations.
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Italian authorities issued an arrest warrant for Gianluigi Torzi, an Italian broker who served as the middleman in the Vatican's majority stake purchase of a property in London's posh Chelsea district.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Increasing vocations to the priesthood, improving the way laypeople and priests work together and ensuring that service, not power, motivates the request for ordination are all possible outcomes of a major symposium being planned by the Vatican in February 2022.
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MANCHESTER, England (CNS) -- The former chaplain to Queen Elizabeth II remembers Prince Philip as a man so deeply interested in God that he often would arrange conversations with Jewish and Muslim scholars, then put himself into the role of the Christian theologian.
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MANCHESTER, England (CNS) -- Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster led Catholics of England and Wales in mourning the death of Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II. The president of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales issued a statement April 9, soon after the queen announced "with deep sorrow" that her husband of 73 years had died at the age of 99.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- As religious leaders, scholars, experts and abuse survivors come together online to participate in a three-day international symposium on faith, healing and prevention, Pope Francis sent a message as part of a series of opening remarks for the event.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Faith is a gift that is never imposed on anyone but must be accepted with an open heart, Pope Francis wrote to young people. "If you think about it, it is very beautiful and very respectful of our freedom," the pope wrote to young people in the preface to a new book. Faith "is a gift that must be desired."
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis celebrated a private Mass on Holy Thursday with Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the former prefect of the Congregation for Saints' Causes who was forced to resign amid an investigation into suspected financial malfeasance.
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CNA Staff, Mar 31, 2021 CNA.- Christians will celebrate Easter at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre this year after the storied church remained closed last Easter due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, presided over Palm Sunday Mass on March 28 at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre with a small group in the church and more than 2,000 people participating in an outdoor Palm Sunday procession.
Read moreLAGOS, Nigeria (CNS) -- Father Ferdinand Fanen Ngugban and six others died of gunshot wounds after armed gunmen invaded the grounds of St. Paul Parish in Ayetwar March 30, said the Diocese of Katsina-Ala.
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HAMBURG, Germany (CNS) -- Pope Francis has granted Hamburg Archbishop Stefan Hesse a leave of absence from his duties, the Hamburg Archdiocese announced March 29. The archbishop recently offered his resignation after a report on the handling of clergy sex abuse cases in the Cologne Archdiocese, where he served as director of personnel and vicar general.
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Rome Newsroom, Mar 29, 2021 CNA.- The Franciscan friars taking care of the Holy Land sites have asked Catholics for prayers and financial support as they continue to feel the loss of pilgrimages during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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QARAQOSH, Iraq (CNS) -- Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan, visiting from the patriarchate in Beirut, led about 20,000 Christians through the streets of Qaraqosh Palm Sunday, March 28.
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OXFORD, England (CNS) -- The secretary-general of the Russian bishops' conference said new legal regulations will give state officials extra powers to intervene in church life and revive communist-era restrictions.
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MAKASSAR, Indonesia (CNS) -- A suicide bomb attack on a Catholic cathedral compound shattered the calm of Palm Sunday Mass, leaving two bombers dead and at least 20 people wounded. A destroyed motorbike and the body parts of a man and a woman were found after the bombers attacked the main gate of Sacred Heart of Jesus Cathedral around 10:30 a.m. March 28, reported ucanews.com.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Signaling further reforms of the Vatican City State penal code, particularly when it comes to financial crimes, Pope Francis said the laws must reflect "the equality of all members of the church" by doing away with "privileges that go back in time and are no longer in keeping with the responsibility of each for building up of the church."
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ROME (CNS) -- Spain, a bastion of Christianity in Europe for centuries, finds itself in a crisis of faith as the influence of Catholicism continues to decline. According to a 2019 survey conducted by the website Statista, 61% of Spaniards identified themselves as Catholic, compared to 70% in 2011. Furthermore, of those Catholics, over 60% said they do not attend any religious services.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis has named Juan Carlos Cruz, a survivor of sexual abuse by a notorious Chilean priest, to be a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. Cruz, James Hamilton and José Andrés Murillo, all victims of then-Father Fernando Karadima, met with Pope Francis in 2018, several weeks after the pope wrote a letter in which he said he had been mistaken in his initial assessment of the situation in Chile and asking forgiveness of the survivors and others he offended.
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JERUSALEM (CNS) -- During this year of COVID-19 lockdowns and lack of international pilgrimages, the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land has had to adjust its funding priorities and trim its budgeting, and difficult though that has been, Father Ramzi Sidawi fears the worst is still to come.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis condemned the way the Mafia is exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic by taking advantage of those in dire economic circumstances. Marking Italy's national day of remembrance for victims of the Mafia March 21, the pope accused members of organized crime groups of "enriching themselves through corruption," and he urged Christians to renew their commitment against the Mafia and related groups.
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HAMBURG, Germany (CNS) -- Hamburg Archbishop Stefan Hesse has offered his resignation to Pope Francis in the wake of a report on the Cologne Archdiocese's handling of abuse cases. "In order to avert damage to the office of the archbishop as well as the Hamburg Archdiocese, I am offering Pope Francis my resignation from office and am asking him to immediately release me from my duties," Archbishop Hesse said in a statement broadcast live on the internet March 18, the day the report was released.
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BEIRUT (CNS) -- Political leaders had "very nice words" during Pope Francis' early March trip to Iraq, but now Christians pray "that those words, those declarations, will be applied on the daily level, on the ground," said Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Religious and priestly life must be filled with the simple joy of caring every day for what really matters -- faithful friendship with God and one another, Pope Francis said. "I pray that you will experience this same joy, dear brothers and sisters who have generously made God the dream of your lives, serving him in your brothers and sisters through a fidelity that is a powerful testimony in an age of ephemeral choices and emotions that bring no lasting joy," he wrote in his message for the 2021 World Day of Prayer for Vocations. The day will be celebrated April 25 at the Vatican and in many dioceses around the world.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Less than a month after he recognized the "heroic virtues" of three Italian women religious who died caring for Ebola patients in Congo, Pope Francis did the same for three others who also contracted the disease and died in 1995.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Like St. Joseph who had other plans for his life, but lovingly embraced his role as Jesus' foster father, a priest assigned to a new parish cannot impose his own ways on that community, Pope Francis said.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- While the Catholic Church cannot bless unions that are not sacramental marriages, the church will always welcome and accompany everyone, no matter their situation in life, said the prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life.
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ROME (CNS) -- Spain's parliament passed a law that legalizes euthanasia in the country. The controversial law was passed March 18 with 198 votes in favor, 142 against and two abstentions. According to COPE, the radio network owned by the Spanish bishops' conference, the law will be effective in three months.
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