Paris, France, Nov 15, 2019 CNA.- Tensions are reportedly running high between French authorities overseeing the rebuilding of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, as they create plans to rebuild the church damaged by fire earlier this year.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A new Pew Research Center survey issued Nov. 15 gauges the influence religion has on Americans' lives and the hold Catholicism and other Christian religions has on their adherents.
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LIMA, Peru (CNS) -- Chile's bishops called for national dialogue and an end to the violence that has wracked the country for the past month. Their pleas to end the violent protests came in two messages after demonstrators sacked the Assumption of Mary Parish in Santiago, the Chilean capital, Nov. 8, burning pews and statues. Other parishes also were attacked, including one in the southern city of Valparaiso.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Following through on a proposal made at the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon, Pope Francis said there are plans to include a definition of ecological sins in the church's official teaching.
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BROCKTON -- Firefighter Peter Reardon played bagpipes on the stage as students, teachers, and parents entered the Cardinal Spellman High School auditorium on Nov. 8. Greeters handed out programs, bracelets, and prayer cards with pictures of community members' relatives who are veterans. The stage was framed with banners, one on top saying "Freedom is never free," and two on the sides saying, "We stand as one."
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BRAINTREE -- Planning for the archdiocese's annual trip to participate in the 2020 March for Life in Washington, D.C. is already well underway. This year, the Archdiocese of Boston is offering two options, called "tracks," for people who want to participate in the Witness to Life Pilgrimage to attend the march.
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WEST ROXBURY -- Every year the students of St. Theresa of Avila School in West Roxbury have a parade in their Halloween costumes. But this year, they took the parade to a new destination: Deutsches Altenheim, a senior living community located near the school.
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BOSTON -- On Nov. 4, 16 corporate teams gathered at State Street's One Lincoln Street office to raise money for the Inner-City Scholarship Fund (ICSF) through the sixth Annual Corporate Trivia Challenge. The hosting sponsor, State Street Corporation, has supported the work of the ICSF for nearly 30 years and has been the lead sponsor of this event for five years. Through sponsorships and live fundraising at the event, $40,000 was raised to provide scholarships to at-risk young people.
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BOSTON -- The Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Boston's Board of Trustees Nov. 7 announced the appointment of Catholic Charities Board Chair Kevin M. MacKenzie as interim president upon President and Chief Executive officer Deborah Kincade Rambo's Nov. 30 retirement. MacKenzie has served Catholic Charities as chair of the board since January of 2019 and a member of the board since 2013.
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Last Friday, All Saints Day, I was very happy to visit St. Francis Chapel in the Prudential Center to celebrate a Mass to mark the 50th anniversary of the chapel's founding by Cardinal Richard Cushing. (As I often quip, I could spend my whole life celebrating 50th anniversaries of initiatives that Cardinal Cushing started!)
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Pope Francis "seeks to shape a practical ecclesiology -- a church capable of shaping the world," Father J. Bryan Hehir told an audience at Georgetown University in Washington Nov. 12.
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BALTIMORE (CNS) -- The executive director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, known as CLINIC, told U.S. Catholic bishops Nov. 13 that the government is violating international and U.S. law when it denies asylum-seekers at the border entry into the U.S.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis tapped a Spanish Jesuit priest with a background in economics to head the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy. The Vatican announced Nov.14 that the pope named Jesuit Father Juan Antonio Guerrero, general counselor for the Society of Jesus, to lead the office, which had been headed by Australian Cardinal George Pell.
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BALTIMORE (CNS) -- One year after the U.S. bishops approved their pastoral letter against racism, the document is hardly just sitting on a shelf but is the basis for listening sessions in dioceses around the country and is an educational tool for individuals, schools and parishes, the bishops were told Nov. 13.
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TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (CNS) -- Nearly 100 people were bathed in light as they gathered for a prayer vigil at Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in Terre Haute, not far from the Federal Correctional Complex. Despite the lights and bright glow, the tone was heavy and somber. They were gathered to pray for the federal death-row inmates and all those affected by their pending executions scheduled for December and January at the prison.
Read moreVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- While digital technologies have led to advancements in communication and education, they also have led to the exploitation of children on the internet, Pope Francis said. The "spread of images of abuse or the exploitation of minors is increasing exponentially, involving ever more serious and violent forms of abuse and ever younger children," the pope told participants at a two-day conference sponsored by the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The theme of Pope Francis' visit to Thailand is focused on mission, but in the Asian country where Catholics are a tiny minority, that mission is less about proclamation and more about witness, service and dialogue.
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BALTIMORE (CNS) -- An experimental program to address chronic homelessness is guiding people into permanent housing while saving millions of dollars in health care costs, the president of Catholic Charities USA told the U.S. bishops.
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NORWALK, Conn. (CNS) -- In an effort to rebuild and heal the Catholic Church in the wake of the sex abuse crisis, women and lay leaders have taken a more central role in the process of bringing families back to Mass.
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BALTIMORE (CNS) -- A third-party reporting system to field sexual misconduct allegations against bishops could be in place by the end of February, an official of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops told the bishops during their fall general assembly in Baltimore.
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BALTIMORE (CNS) -- The U.S. bishops, aware of the growing numbers of Catholics in the country who are of Hispanic origin, voted to write a new pastoral plan for Latino Catholics that would be produced sometime between 2021 and 2024.
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BALTIMORE (CNS) -- After an attorney threatened to file a lawsuit alleging he abused a child decades ago when he was a priest in New Jersey, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn, New York, issued a statement Nov. 13 denying the accusation and said he "will vigorously defend" himself against the claim.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis warned that violence against Jewish people, which reached a state of horror during World War II, is on the rise again. During his weekly general audience Nov. 13, the pope reflected on the lives of Priscilla and Aquila, a first-century married couple who accompanied St. Paul in his ministry and were among the Jews expelled from Rome by Claudius Caesar.
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SYDNEY (CNS) -- The High Court of Australia has decided to give Cardinal George Pell, 78, a final chance to argue against his conviction on five counts of child sexual abuse. High Court Justices Michelle Gordon and James Edelman announced Nov. 13 that they referred the cardinal's appeal application to the full, seven-member court. The unusual move means the full court will decide whether to hear the appeal and, if it does, will proceed to hear arguments about why the conviction should be overturned or upheld.
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BALTIMORE (CNS) -- It's a population that almost every bishop in the United States comes into contact with: 700,000 young adults brought into the country as children without documents. So, it was natural that on the day the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on an important case involving them, even as they were conducting regular business during the fall meeting of the U.S. Conference Catholic Bishops in Baltimore Nov. 11-13, some bishops were monitoring the situation before the U.S. Supreme Court.
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BALTIMORE (CNS) -- In a high-stakes issue before the Supreme Court Nov. 12, it was not clear how the justices will ultimately resolve the fate of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA.
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BALTIMORE (CNS) -- Current issues of the day and references to the teachings of Pope Francis can be found throughout the materials approved by the U.S. bishops to supplement their existing document on Catholic participation in public life.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The U.S. bishops voted to approve close to 300 new hymn texts for the Liturgy of the Hours. The Nov. 12 vote was 205-5 with two abstentions. The proposal needed two-thirds of the Latin-rite bishops to vote yes, or 164 votes. They must now receive confirmation from the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments.
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BALTIMORE (CNS) -- The U.S. bishops Nov. 12 adopted the sixth edition of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Program of Priestly Formation for U.S. dioceses and religious orders. The vote on the document, popularly known among the bishops as "the PPF," was 226-4, with three abstentions. It needed two-thirds of the bishops, or 179 votes to ensure passage. Before it can be implemented, it must first receive a "recognitio," or approval, from the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy.
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BALTIMORE (CNS) -- Auxiliary Bishop Robert E. Barron of Los Angeles did not just bemoan the fact many young people are leaving the Catholic Church. He said church leaders need to make it a priority to bring them back.
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BALTIMORE (CNS) -- Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles was elected to a three-year term as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops during the bishops' fall general assembly in Baltimore.
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BALTIMORE (CNS) -- It will come as no surprise to anyone who has followed Los Angeles Archbishop Jose H. Gomez that immigration reform is at the top of his priority list as the newly elected president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
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MEXICO CITY (CNS) -- Bolivia's bishops called for calm after the country's president resigned suddenly in the face of swelling street protests over accusations of electoral fraud. They also insisted the departure of President Evo Morales "is not a coup," even though the military had urged him to step aside.
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BALTIMORE (CNS) -- The U.S. bishops heard Nov. 11 of plans to revise the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' existing Program of Priestly Formation for U.S. dioceses. The revision was introduced by Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, chairman of the bishops' Committee for Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations, on the first day of their Nov. 11-13 fall general assembly in Baltimore.
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BALTIMORE (CNS) -- In his final address as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston told his fellow bishops that it has been "an honor to serve you, even in the difficult times."
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BALTIMORE (CNS) -- The bishop's ministry and mission, and how he forges communion, was the message in Archbishop Christophe Pierre's address to the U.S. bishops Nov. 11 in Baltimore. The "ad limina" reports submitted to the Vatican in advance of U.S. bishops' meetings with Pope Francis and curial officials -- indeed, a handful of bishops were already in Rome for these visits -- "provide a clear picture of how the church in the United States is carrying out its mission," said Archbishop Pierre, the Vatican's nuncio to the United States.
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LOS ANGELES (CNS) -- The "failures" of the nation's leaders in Washington to make "comprehensive reforms to immigration policy "cut across party lines, said Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles. These failures date back to 1986, he said, which was the last time Congress passed immigration reform.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Giving the Ratzinger prize to a philosopher from Canada and a Scripture scholar from Burkina Faso, Pope Francis said they demonstrate that "in the variety of cultures, diverse across time and space, one can and should always seek the way to God and the encounter with Christ."
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BALTIMORE (CNS) -- During their Nov. 11-13 meeting in Baltimore, the U.S. bishops elected new officers and discussed challenges in the church and the nation. They spoke of their renewed efforts to help immigrants, youth and young adults, pregnant women and the poor as well their steps to combat gun violence and racism.
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BALTIMORE (CNS) -- In a brief presentation Nov. 11 to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Boston's Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley told the bishops gathered in Baltimore the Vatican may publish what it knows about the ascent to power of now-disgraced former U.S. Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick by Christmas, or perhaps the New Year.
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