Junno Arocho Esteves Critics of an agreement signed between the Vatican and the Chinese government must be patient and not quick to judge a deal that is meant to protect religious freedom, the Vatican Secretary of State has said. After addressing a symposium on religious freedom on April 3, Cardinal Pietro Parolin told journalists…
Junno Arocho Esteves In confession, the privacy of one’s conscience before God, also known as the internal forum, must always be protected and not be used to influence decisions outside the confessional, Pope Francis said. Departing from his prepared text in a speech to priests and seminarians attending an annual conference on the internal forum…
Dale Gavlak Jordan’s King Abdullah II urged greater co-operation to take on serious challenges worldwide as he was awarded a top Catholic peace prize by the Conventual Franciscans of the Sacred Convent of Assisi in central Italy. The annual award, known as the Lamp of Peace, recognises King Abdullah’s promotion of peace in the…
A Chilean appeals court has ruled in favour of three survivors of abuse by former priest Fernando Karadima and ordered the Catholic Church to pay damages. In a decision announced yesterday, the court ordered the Church to pay 100 million pesos (€4,594,271) for “moral damages” to each of the survivors: Juan Carlos Cruz, Jose Andres…
Hannah Brockhaus The ‘daily bread’ asked of God in the ‘Our Father’ is for everyone, and Christians will be judged by how well they shared their gifts with those in need, Pope Francis said yesterday. “Let’s get this in our heads: food is not private property, but providence to be shared with the grace…
I was born in 1945 at the end of World War II. As I grew up, I heard about the Holocaust. Descriptions of the greatest crime in history disturbed me deeply during my teenage and college years. I was ordained a priest in 1971. At that time, I suspected that references to the Devil were…
An Irish charity has hit out at new figures which show that the number of people experiencing homelessness in Ireland is on a record-breaking rise with over 10,000 suffering from the epidemic. Official statistics from the Department of Housing, released yesterday, show that there is now a combined total of 10,264 people homeless and living…
Letter from Rome Elise Harris By the time he died at the age of 50, Greek Catholic Bishop Vasile Aftenie was crippled, maimed and, according to accounts of those who knew him, out of his mind due to torture endured while imprisoned by Romania’s communist regime. When he finally succumbed in 1950, Bishop Aftenie…
The patronage and ethos of Ireland’s schools should be determined at a local level by parents and communities, Minister for European Affairs Helen McEntee has said. While paying tribute to the Church and to the role of Church teachings in educating generations of Irish people, Ms McEntee stressed that not all children had positive experiences…
Nearly two million people marched on Saturday last in Pope Francis’s native land of Argentina in pro-life demonstrations dedicated to defending the life of the unborn, and offering solutions to mothers in crisis pregnancies. The rally was organised by Argentina’s March for Life, a lay-led organisation. Although Catholic bishops, evangelical pastors, and Jewish and Islamic…