Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta decided to reject plans for rules to regulate religious worship following consultations with religious leaders, the secretary general of the Kenyan Episcopal Conference has said. Religious Societies Rules 2015, which Kenya’s bishops had believed defied constitutional guarantees of religious freedom and the separation of Church and State, will not now be…
Vatican joins international call to help Syria The Vatican has joined international appeals to raise funds for emergency and long-term assistance to victims of the Syrian crisis. Speaking at the Syria Donors’ Conference in London, Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, Vatican secretary for relations with states, said the Church would continue to help the region through its fundraising efforts. In his address,…
Rescuers search for survivors after a building collapsed during a magnitude-6.4 earthquake in Tainan, Taiwan. Pope Francis sent condolences following the quake that hit as the island prepared to celebrate Chinese New Year. Photo: Paul Yang
A local Catholic agency intends to stand by the US city of Flint, Michigan during its public health crisis, the organisation’s president and CEO has said. Vicky Schultz, of the Flint-headquartered Catholic Charities of Shiawassee and Genesee Counties, says the city developed water problems when it stopped purchasing treated Lake Huron water, instead sourcing water…
Europe’s leading human rights body has called ISIS atrocities “genocide”. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has passed a resolution by 117 votes to 1, which included the statement “States should act on the presumption that Da’ish (ISIS) commits genocide”. The resolution “Foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq” condemned recent terrorist acts in…
We should be prepared to share the Eucharist with “surprising others”, Philippine Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle told participants at the 51st International Eucharistic Congress. “In the meal hosted by the Lord, persons recognise a close neighbour, a fellow sinner, a sister, a brother with a place at the table,” he said at the congress in…
Francis answers questions from children around the world “What did God do before the world was made?” is one of 30 questions from children around the world the Pope tackles in a book to be published on March 1. Dear Pope Francis, published by Loyola Press, and illustrated with drawings by children aged 6-13, was first proposed to the Pontiff by Fr…
Fr Bernard Healy Cebu congress hears that the Eucharist offers something to all cultures, writes Fr Bernard Healy As I leave Cebu after the 51st Eucharistic Congress, I realise that that it was the catechesis given by the irrepressible Cardinal Luis Tagle of Manila that best reflected my experience as an Irish pilgrim here in…
Dear Editor, I am so fed up of hearing people say the Catholic Church needs to get their hands off ‘our schools’, as if the Church has stolen the schools in some sinister way. The Church owns the schools because it built them, or to be more precise the Catholics of the parish built them…
We need to nurture our psychological health as we would our physical health, to overcome problems and build a sense of joy, writes Dr Keith Gaynor In the 10 years I have been a psychologist, I have met hundreds of people in the course of my work. Many have struggled with extraordinary psychological and emotional…