Vatican City, Apr 18, 2018 CNA/EWTN News.- The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has reportedly rejected a plan approved by the German bishops' conference to publish guidelines permitting non-Catholic spouses of Catholics to receive the Eucharist in some limited circumstances.
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DUBLIN (CNS) -- Pro-life activists have launched a campaign urging citizens to vote no in a forthcoming referendum to remove the Eighth Amendment to the Irish Constitution. That amendment provides legal protection for unborn children "with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother."
Read moreHONG KONG (CNS) -- Catholics in China's Henan province have been warned that venues will be closed if they do not adhere to the revised regulations on religious affairs. Ucanews.com reported that a clampdown on religious freedom has intensified in the province in recent months, with crosses removed from churches, minors banned from entering churches, church-run kindergartens closed and children expelled from Mass.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Naming a child is an important task for parents, because it gives children a sense of identity and belonging to their family and to God, Pope Francis said. "Without a name, we remain unknown, without rights and duties. God calls each one of us by name, loving us individually in the concreteness of our history," the pope said April 18 during his weekly general audience.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- When Pope Francis insisted that the lives of the unborn and of the poor are "equally sacred," he was not trying to shift the focus of Catholics from fighting abortion to fighting poverty, he was trying to show they are part of the same battle, said Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Begging Pope Francis to help his son, Alfie, Tom Evans met with the pontiff, pleading for "asylum" in Italy so his seriously ill son may receive care and not be euthanized in England.
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The Catholic Church in Iceland is speaking out against a popular proposed law that could land Jewish and Muslim parents in prison for up to six years for circumcising their infant boys. "If this bill goes through, it would mean regular persecution of Jewish people," Father Jakob Rolland, chancellor of the Diocese of Reykjavik, told Catholic News Service. "That brings us back to 1933, when Hitler took power in Germany. And we know how it ended."
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PAISLEY, Scotland (CNS) -- A Scottish bishop has criticized the BBC for making a film that describes the Eucharist as smelling "like hate." The video, produced by BBC Scotland, a publicly funded "public service broadcaster," seeks to show how people who experience same-sex attraction continue to be made to feel outcast and ostracized in 2018.
Read moreVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Meeting with a top Muslim leader in Saudi Arabia, the Vatican's chief interreligious dialogue official called for the equal treatment of people of all religions, saying discrimination and double standards based on religious affiliation only increase Islamophobia and Christianophobia.
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Liverpool, England, Apr 14, 2018 CNA/EWTN News.- Amid a tense battle over medical care for gravely ill toddler Alfie Evans, hundreds of protestors crowded outside Alder Hey Children's Hospital this week in support of the child and his parents.
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Buenos Aires, Argentina, Apr 12, 2018 CNA.- Before discovering their vocations, Fr. Javier Olivera and Sister Marie de la Sagesse were engaged and planning their wedding. God had other plans. Speaking to ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish language sister agency, Fr. Olivera said that they both grew up in Catholic families and that “our parents knew each other when they were young.” They saw each other frequently when they were children.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Retired Pope Benedict XVI had a "peaceful and familial" 91st birthday April 16, celebrating with his 94-year-old brother, Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, who was visiting from Germany, the Vatican said.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis met with members of the preparatory council for the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon region, which will take place in Rome in October 2019. Meeting in Rome April 12-13, the presynod council worked with Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary-general of the Synod of Bishops, to finalize the preparatory document and related questionnaire for the special assembly next year.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Highlighting the plight of a seriously ill toddler in Great Britain and a severely brain-damaged man in France, Pope Francis called for greater respect for every patient's life and dignity.
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ROME (CNS) -- After circling a massive, crumbling public housing complex on the outskirts of Rome, Pope Francis had an emotional encounter with the neighborhood's children. Question-and-answer sessions with youngsters are a standard part of Pope Francis' parish visits. And, at St. Paul of the Cross parish April 15, there were the usual questions like, "How did you feel when you were elected pope?"
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SANTIAGO, Chile (CNS) -- Victims of clergy sexual abuse welcomed Pope Francis' letter in which he apologized for underestimating the seriousness of the crisis in Chile. James Hamilton, Jose Andres Murillo and Juan Carlos Cruz, victims of Father Fernando Karadima, released a statement April 11 saying they appreciated the pope's letter and were "evaluating the possibilities" for meeting with the pope.
Read moreVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Christian freedom is being free from worldly ambition, fashion and passion and being open to God's will, Pope Francis said. The world today "is a bit schizoid, schizophrenic, right? It shouts, 'Freedom, freedom, freedom!' but it is more slave, slave, slave," he said in his homily April 13 at morning Mass in the Domus Sanctae Marthae.
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Vatican City, Apr 11, 2018 CNA.- The Pontifical Commission for Latin America has proposed that Pope Francis convoke a synod on the role of women in the life and mission of the Church. The proposal is contained in a 15-paragraph statement approved by the Pontifical Commission for Latin America’s plenary assembly one month ago, and published April 11 in L’Osservatore Romano.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Catholic Church in Latin America must recognize and appreciate the role of women and end the practice of using them solely as submissive laborers in the parish, said members of a pontifical commission.
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ROME (CNS) -- Today's women religious belong to "a long line of courageous women" whose faith in God and love for humanity led them to put their lives at risk, said Sister Patricia Murray, an Irish member of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- As a sign that God's mercy cannot be limited, Pope Francis has recommissioned his special army of priests charged with bringing that divine mercy to everyone. Originally instituted in 2016 for the Year of Mercy, the "missionaries of mercy" were invited to return to Rome April 8-11 to share their experiences and to be reaffirmed in the ministry of mercy.
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Vatican City, Apr 11, 2018 CNA.- The new president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts is a well-respected canon law expert, with pastoral, scholarly, and curial experience. On April 7, Archbishop Filippo Iannone was appointed president of the Vatican dicastery charged with overseeing the interpretation of canon law and providing canonical guidance to other Vatican offices. Iannone, only 60, has served in the dicastery as an adjunct secretary since Nov. 11, 2017.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In a letter to the bishops of Chile, Pope Francis apologized for underestimating the seriousness of the sexual abuse crisis in the country following a recent investigation into allegations concerning Bishop Juan Barros of Osorno.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Priests must give hope to men and women seeking forgiveness, encouraging them in their struggle away from the slippery slope of sin, Pope Francis said. Being merciful in the confessional helps penitents return to God without fear, even if they repeatedly stumble or slip on a path that "is filled with stones and banana peels," the pope told 550 priests he designated as "missionaries of mercy."
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For the first time in 500 years, Lutherans in Sweden are welcoming Catholics to celebrate Masses in Lund cathedral. The historic cathedral, formerly the site of bitter religious feuding, has become a site of interfaith friendship since Pope Francis held a service there in 2016.
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ARU, Congo (CNS) -- A Catholic priest was shot dead in Congo shortly after celebrating Mass. U.N. radio in Congo reported April 9 that Father Etienne Nsengiunva, a priest in Kitchanga, was shot at point-blank range April 8.
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ROME (CNS) -- While the pope has the fullness of authority and power in the Catholic Church, he can exercise that authority only in obedience to Christ, and if he does not, it is up to the Catholic faithful to object, said U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Naturally in a document on the Christian call to holiness, Pope Francis cited a heavenly host of saints -- including some whose sainthood causes are ongoing and some who probably will never be canonized.
Read moreVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Here is a selection of quotations from "Gaudete et Exsultate" ("Rejoice and Be Glad"), Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation on holiness: -- "I like to contemplate the holiness present in the patience of God's people: in those parents who raise their children with immense love, in those men and women who work hard to support their families, in the sick, in elderly religious who never lose their smile."
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- God calls all Christians to be saints -- not plastic statues of saints, but real people who make time for prayer and who show loving care for others in the simplest gestures, Pope Francis said in his new document on holiness.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis' new document, "Gaudete et Exsultate," shows that holiness is not an impossible task nor is it something to be pursued far removed from today's world, said the papal vicar for the Diocese of Rome.
Read moreVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The path to holiness does not involve wrestling with some abstract boogeyman, but involves a "constant struggle against the devil, the prince of evil," Pope Francis said. In his new apostolic exhortation, "Gaudete et Exsultate" ("Rejoice and Be Glad"), released by the Vatican April 9, the pope urged Christians not to think of the devil as an intangible construct but rather "a personal being who assails us."
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Catholic Church wants to listen to young people and know where they are coming from, but young Catholics must be ready to listen to Jesus and discover where he wants to lead them, Pope Francis said.
Read moreVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis condemned the use of chemical weapons after a deadly attack killed dozens of innocent men, women and children in Syria. "There is no good and bad war, and nothing, nothing can justify the use of such instruments of extermination against defenseless people and populations," the pope said April 8 before concluding Divine Mercy Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Square.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Feeling ashamed of one's sins does not mean wallowing in guilt, rather it is the gateway all men and women can use to experience firsthand God's tender mercy and forgiveness, Pope Francis said.
Read moreVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- After months of investigation, Vatican police arrested Msgr. Carlo Alberto Capella, a former staff member at the Vatican nunciature in Washington, on charges related to the possession and distribution of child pornography.
Read moreVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis asked that all efforts be made to accompany a seriously ill toddler in Great Britain whose parents are fighting a legal battle to keep him on life-support. "It is my sincere hope that everything necessary may be done in order to continue compassionately accompanying little Alfie Evans, and that the deep suffering of his parents may be heard. I am praying for Alfie, for his family and for all who are involved," the pope tweeted in English and six other languages late April 4.
Read moreVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- "Rejoice and Be Glad," Pope Francis' new apostolic exhortation on "the call to holiness in the modern world," will be released April 9, the Vatican announced. The document, called "Gaudete et Exsultate" in Latin, will be presented at a Vatican news conference by Archbishop Angelo De Donatis, the papal vicar for the Diocese of Rome.
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Washington D.C., Apr 4, 2018 CNA/EWTN News.- “The #MeToo movement, emotional wreckage, sexual disease and date rape are the realities we’ve inherited from the sexual revolution. Paul VI would not be surprised,” said Archbishop Charles Chaput in a speech Wednesday.
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Vatican City, Apr 4, 2018 CNA/EWTN News.- At the end of Pope Francis’ visit to Armenia in June 2016, the pope was given a small statue of St. Gregory of Narek, a gift from Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan.
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BEIJING (CNS) -- In a rare move, a top Chinese official answered journalists' questions about a new white paper on religious freedom and the ongoing talks between his government and the Vatican. Chen Zongrong, former deputy director of China's Religious Affairs Bureau, said he did not agree that preventing the Vatican from having full control of bishop appointments would hinder freedom of religion, reported ucanews.com. The Religious Affairs Bureau is being subsumed by the Communist Party's United Front Work Department.
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VIENNA (CNS) -- Few people would suspect that the order of Capuchin monks, famous for their humble imitation of St. Francis, are special guardians entrusted with the duty of caring for Austria's imperial crypt.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The final words at Mass -- "Go in peace" -- are an invitation to Christians to proclaim God's blessings through their lives, not an opportunity to go outside and speak ill of others, Pope Francis said.
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SYDNEY (CNS) -- In March, as Anna Corry lay dying, she sent out a request to speak publicly about her opposition to euthanasia. The 50-year-old former nursing educator had endured an aggressive type of breast cancer since her diagnosis in January 2016. This January, she and her husband, Martin, a paramedic, and their sons Michael, 17, Dominic, 14, and Andrew, 11, received the news that although chemotherapy had shrunk the 10-cm tumor near her heart, the cancer had spread through her body.
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ROME (CNS) -- Friends and fans called him a "gentle giant," a faithful "prayer warrior" and a Clark Kent whose superman power was helping people grow in holiness and faith. "I believe I truly knew a saint," one friend wrote.
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MEXICO CITY (CNS) -- A caravan of Central American migrants traveling through Mexico was stopped after its push to the U.S. border set off a barrage of criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump. The caravan of more than 1,000 migrants was winding its way through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southern Oaxaca state April 2 when the Mexican government announced it would move to break up the mass movement of people through the country.
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QUETTA, Pakistan (CNS) -- Four members of a Catholic family were killed in a militant attack in southern Pakistan a day after the minority community celebrated Easter. Ucanews.com reported the deadly gun attack took place April 2 in Quetta, the capital of restive Balochistan province.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of a dignified life for all men and women regardless of color or creed continues to live on in the teachings of one his most influential admirers, Pope Francis, a Vatican representative said.
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ROME (CNS) -- The Villanova men's basketball team claimed its second national championship in three years April 2 with a 79-62 win over Michigan, and I was an ocean away from 99 percent of my fellow Wildcats.
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Dublin, Ireland, Apr 2, 2018 CNA/EWTN News.- A priest whose father was executed following Ireland’s 1916 Easter Rising has died at the age of 104, after a lifetime of mission work. Father Joseph Mallin, S.J., passed away early Easter Sunday at a Jesuit community house in Hong Kong, where he had served as a missionary since 1948, RTE News reports. He was the last surviving child of the leaders of the uprising that led to Irish independence.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- While millions of tourists throw a coin over their shoulder into Rome's Trevi Fountain hoping to return to Rome one day, the money scooped out of the fountain each week offers more concrete hope to the city's poor.
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DUBLIN (CNS) -- April 10 marks the 20th anniversary of the historic Good Friday Agreement, which brought peace to Northern Ireland. The peace deal effectively brought an end to "The Troubles," which had cast a sectarian shadow over Northern Ireland for three decades and resulted in the deaths of more than 3,500, the majority of whom were civilians.
Read moreBEIRUT (CNS) -- In Easter messages, Catholic patriarchs of the Middle East evoked the hope of the Resurrection. "Today's world needs the resurrection of hearts," said Lebanese Cardinal Bechara Rai, patriarch of Maronite Catholics. He called for a rekindling of love and compassion.
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LOLOTIQUE, El Salvador (CNS) -- On Easter, as thousands of Salvadorans from around the country packed into the rural town of Lolotique, Catholic Church officials laid to rest a 36-year-old priest violently killed during Holy Week -- the latest victim of an unending wave of violence that plagues the country.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Easter is a feast that calls Christians to gather together, make a commitment to dialogue and to work for the common good, Pope Francis said. In Italy and in other countries, Easter Monday is a day for relaxed family gatherings and picnics because "after having celebrated Easter, one feels a need to gather again with loved ones and friends to celebrate," the pope said April 2, before reciting the "Regina Coeli" prayer at noon with visitors in St. Peter's Square.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In his Easter appeal for peace throughout the world, Pope Francis made special mention of the ongoing "carnage" in Syria and the recent violence along Israel's border with the Gaza Strip, violence the pope said had not spared "the defenseless."
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Vatican City, Apr 1, 2018 CNA/EWTN News.- During his Urbi et Orbi Easter blessing, Pope Francis said Jesus' death and resurrection provide hope to a world marred by conflict, proving that modern tragedies such as war and violence won't have the final say.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Easter makes it clear that in the life of Jesus, but also in the lives of modern men and women, "death, solitude and fear" do not have the last word, Pope Francis said before giving his Easter blessing.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Truly celebrating Easter means allowing Jesus to triumph over personal fears and give life to hope, creativity and care for others, Pope Francis said. Easter is "an invitation to break out of our routines and to renew our lives, our decisions and our existence," the pope said during the Easter Vigil March 31 in St. Peter's Basilica.
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Rome, Italy, Mar 30, 2018 CNA/EWTN News.- For American seminarians at the Pontifical North American college in Rome, Holy Week liturgies take on new life and dimension, as the history of ancient traditions comes alive through the city’s remembrance of Christ's Passion and death.
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ROME (CNS) -- Leading a prayer to God for the grace to feel ashamed and repentant for so many sins in the world, Pope Francis highlighted the hope that always comes from Jesus. There is hope "because your church, holy and made up of sinners, continues even today, in spite of attempts to discredit it, to be a light that illuminates, encourages, comforts and witnesses your unlimited love for humanity, a model of altruism, an ark of salvation and a source of certainty and truth," the pope said.
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Vatican City, Mar 29, 2018 CNA/EWTN News.- On Thursday the Holy See stated that a reported interview between Pope Francis and an Italian journalist, which claims the Pope denied the existence of hell, should not be considered an accurate depiction of Francis’ words, but the author’s own “reconstruction.”
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Celebrating Palm Sunday Mass with thousands of young people, Pope Francis urged them to continue singing and shouting "hosanna" in the world, proclaiming the lordship of Jesus and following his example of outreach to the poor and suffering.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Reminding bishops, pastors and Catholics around the world that all Latin-rite Catholics should celebrate the feast of Mary, Mother of the Church on the Monday after Pentecost this year, Cardinal Robert Sarah said the celebration should take precedence over any other possible liturgy that day.
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UNITED NATIONS (CNS) -- Aborting a child with a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome is a gross violation of human rights and anti-discriminatory commitments, and can be considered genocide, according to speakers at a March 20 panel at the United Nations.
Read moreVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- After disagreement over funding a $25-million-grant request from the Vatican was leaked to the press, the leadership of the U.S.-based Papal Foundation has called for a period of reflection and "a re-evaluation of its mission, its approach to grant giving and its relationship with the Holy See."
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ROME (CNS) -- Before washing the feet of 12 prisoners, Pope Francis told them and hundreds of inmates to remember that Jesus constantly stands before them with love, ready to cleanse their sins and forgive them.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- If Jesus and his truth are to become truly present in today's world, priests must do what Jesus did and be "street preachers," going out to encounter and accompany sinners with tenderness and compassion, Pope Francis told the world's priests.
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Vatican City, Mar 29, 2018 CNA/EWTN News.- At his annual Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday, Pope Francis said that a good priest is one who is close to his flock and who makes Jesus’ presence felt in people’s lives – as more than an abstract idea.
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LOURDES, France (CNS) -- More than a hundred French bishops have signed a statement opposing their country's drift toward legal euthanasia. At the end of meeting at the Marian shrine of Lourdes, 118 bishops -- the overwhelming majority of the French bishops' conference -- declared that euthanasia would damage the sense of fraternity that held their society together.
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WARSAW, Poland (CNS) -- The president of the Polish bishops' conference cautioned Polish and Hungarian political leaders against fostering nationalism and xenophobia as both countries face European Union sanctions over their alleged authoritarian direction.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Though they may go to church and say they are people of faith, the corrupt and "mafioso" have absolutely nothing Christian about them, Pope Francis said. "They call themselves Christian, but they carry death in their souls and bring death to others," the pope said during his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square March 28.
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Fuzhou, China, Mar 27, 2018 CNA/EWTN News.- Police have detained a Catholic bishop at the center of controversy over a possible agreement between the Vatican and China. Bishop Vincent Guo Xijin of Mindong in China’s Fujian province is a 59-year-old underground bishop, loyal to the Holy See.
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Carcassonne, France, Mar 26, 2018 CNA/EWTN News.- Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia has penned a column for Holy Week highlighting the sacrifice of French policeman Arnaud Beltrame, comparing his death to save a stranger to the sacrifice Christ made on Good Friday.
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Vatican City, Mar 26, 2018 CNA/EWTN News.- On Monday, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Bishop John McAreavey of Dromore, Ireland, who had asked to step down earlier this month following media claims that he mishandled an abuse report in the early ‘90s.
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MANILA, Philippines (CNS) -- There will be no Holy Week observance this year in Marawi almost a year after extremist gunmen occupied the southern Philippine city. The Catholic cathedral remains closed. It was desecrated and burned at the height of the five-month conflict that ended in October.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis joined leaders praising a French police officer who "gave his life out of a desire to protect people" during a terrorist attack. Lt. Col. Arnaud Beltrame, 44, had convinced the gunman, identified as Redouane Lakdim, to allow him to take the place of a woman Lakdim was holding hostage March 23 in a grocery store in Trebes, a small town in southern France.
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SANTA TECLA, El Salvador (CNS) -- Leonor Chacon remembers every emotion she felt March 24, 1980, as if it were yesterday. It started, she recalls, with the happiness that always accompanied the expectation that Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador would be coming to eat with her family in the small city of Santa Tecla, just west of the Salvadoran capital.
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HONG KONG (CNS) -- China's ruling Communist Party has further stepped up control over all religions, dissolving its long-standing State Administration for Religious Affairs bureau and handing its functions to the party's United Front Work Department.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- If Catholic morality in the past seemed so obsessed with preventing sexual sin that it ignored sins of injustice, today "we have gone to the opposite extreme," seemingly concerned only with how people treat others, not with how they treat the gift of their bodies, the papal preacher said.
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LIMA, Peru (CNS) -- Peru's bishops called for Peruvians to work together to root out corruption in the wake of the resignation of the country's president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, amid accusations of corruption.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Dialogue and respectful understanding are the prerequisites for social harmony and world peace, Hong Kong Cardinal John Tong Hon told a symposium on Christianity and China. "If we see only our own reasons and insist on our own experience as the norm, thereby denying the basis of other people's experience, then disagreement, quarrels and even wars will be inevitable," between individuals, communities, nations and religions, he said.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis seems to be fixated on the wounds of Christ. And he has suggested that other Catholics might want to be as well. He has offered meditations on Jesus' pierced hands, feet and side throughout his pontificate, but since January, his references in impromptu speeches and homilies have been so frequent that it seems to be a major focus of his own prayer life.
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Vatican City, Mar 22, 2018 CNA.- The story of Benedict XVI’s letter and the communication issues it raised, dubbed “Lettergate,” has led to the resignation of a curial prefect, among other things.
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