The planned destruction of the families, languages, cultures and traditions of the Indigenous communities of Canada through the residential school system was “genocide,” Pope Francis has said. Asked by an Indigenous reporter why he did not use the word genocide while in Canada, the Pope said, “I didn’t use the word because it did not…
Pope Francis said all the speeches he has prepared for his trip to Canada “begin and end” with asking forgiveness. In an early July interview, he acknowledged the “cruel way” the Catholic Church collaborated with the Canadian government in “colonisation” by uprooting Indigenous children from their families, cultures and spiritualities and forcing them to attend…
On the eve of the World Meeting of Families and with a view toward the beatification September 4 of Pope John Paul I, attention turned to his initial openness to softening Catholic teaching on contraception and his later support for the teaching of St Paul VI. The editorial director of Vatican News, Andrea Tornielli, and the…
Pope Francis gave the editors of 10 Jesuit magazines a glimpse into how he makes decisions, background on one of his more controversial comments about the war in Ukraine and insight into what he sees as the refusal of some bishops to accept the teaching of the Second Vatican Council. Meeting in May with the…
For many people in Rome, Pope Francis’ decision to schedule a consistory to create new cardinals in August was more surprising than the men he chose to receive the red hat. Traditionally, Rome empties of everyone but tourists in sweltering August. And Pope Francis’ choices for inclusion in the College of Cardinals are, by now,…
The leaders of religious orders around the world are taking very seriously not only preparations for the Synod of Bishops assembly in 2023, but the whole idea of making the Church more ‘synodal’ – a place where everyone is called to prayer, discernment and responsibility for the Church and its mission. More than 500 leaders…
The Vatican has hosted many massive and moving canonisation ceremonies over the centuries, but a rite held in 1622 continues to be commemorated by devotees and studied by scholars. At a ceremony in St Peter’s Basilica on March 12, 1622, Pope Gregory XV formally recognised the holiness of Sts Teresa of Avila, Ignatius of Loyola,…
For more than 130 years, popes have considered work, the treatment of workers and the creation of jobs to be a religious and moral issue. And while Pope Francis has not written an encyclical dedicated to labour like Pope Leo XIII did in 1891 and St John Paul II did in 1981, he has ensured…
Pope Francis, his liturgy office and his communications team made very deliberate decisions over the past year with the goal of letting people experience how close the Pope was to them in their isolation and suffering. And people – tens of thousands of them – responded, praying with him and for him. As the Vatican…
Francis has opened up a new ministry while restating the Church’s teaching that only men can be ordained priests, writes Cindy Wooden Recognising “the gifts of each baptised person” – women and men – Pope Francis has ordered a change to Canon Law and liturgical norms so that women could be formally installed as lectors…