A senior Catholic aid worker said humanitarian conditions are deteriorating in eastern Ukraine and urged Western governments and Churches not to forget the continuing six-year conflict. “We thought we’d overcome war in Europe, but a whole growing generation here now knows only war – teenagers who look like teenagers everywhere, but will tell you how…
Jesuit Fr James Martin will deliver an invocation at the Democratic National Convention this week where former Vice President Joe Biden will accept his party’s formal nomination for president of the United States. Fr Martin, an editor-at-large at America Magazine and one of the most well-known American priests on social media, will also be joined by a rabbi and an…
Church bells and the Muslim call to prayer sounded on August 11 to mark a minute of silence for those who perished in the explosion devastating much of Beirut and its port a week earlier. The port, badly damaged by a deadly explosion of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, resumed partial operations. But the same…
Cardinal Maurice Piat of Port-Louis, Mauritius, has praised public responses to an oil spill that devastated the island’s coastline, as one prominent lay Catholic demanded “honest information” about the disaster. “Numerous families are afflicted by a pestilential and persistent odor – fishermen and all those living from the sea are suffering particularly, while ecological treasures…
Church leaders in Bangladesh have launched a campaign to plant 400,000 trees across the country to mark the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical Laudato Si’, the golden jubilee of the country’s independence and the birth centenary of the nation’s founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Bishops led by Cardinal Patrick D’Rozario of Dhaka Archdiocese inaugurated the…
Pope baptises conjoined twins separated by Vatican’s Bambino Gesu Hospital Two conjoined twins successfully separated in June by surgeons at the Vatican-owned Bambino Gesu Children’s Hospitalhave recently been baptised by Pope Francis. The Baptism of babies Ervina and Prefina at the Pope’s residence of Casa Santa Marta, was announced by Central African Republic politician, Antoinette Montaigne.…
After election in Belarus, Catholic leaders urge restraint, dialogue Catholic leaders have urged dialogue and restraint in Belarus amid violent street clashes following a contested presidential election on August 9. “The two sides clearly have to talk if this dangerous situation isn’t to deteriorate,” said Fr Yuri Sanko, spokesman for the Belarusian bishops’ conference. “Although…
Hospitals in the Lebanese capital are overwhelmed with those suffering injuries from a massive explosion in Beirut’s port, causing widespread damage to the city and rocking the tiny Mediterranean nation already devastated by the coronavirus and its worst financial crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war. “People won’t be able to rebuild their homes, businesses, livelihoods.…
Fr Christopher Heanue started his morning on July 27 by celebrating Mass at 5am…and then took off on a 100-mile bike ride. It wasn’t just any ride. Fr Heanue called his journey ‘100 Miles of Hope’, which was a fundraiser to help support his parish, Holy Child Jesus, in Richmond Hill, New York, in the…
Pope Francis has extended the authority of the Eastern Catholic patriarchs to their Faithful living in the countries of the Arabian Peninsula. The Pope’s decision sets aside instructions issued by St John Paul II in 2003 and Pope Benedict XVI in 2006 entrusting the pastoral care of all Catholics of any rite to the Latin-rite…