Actors from the film trilogies The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit have backed a campaign to turn the former home of Catholic author J.R.R. Tolkien into an educational centre. Project Northmoor is seeking to raise nearly €5.4 million to purchase the house where Tolkien wrote his most famous novels. As of December 4,…
People gathered in Trier’s cathedral the evening of December 1 to pray for the victims of a lone attacker who ploughed his SUV into Christmas shoppers, killing five people and seriously injuring about a dozen others. A 9-week-old baby and her father were among those who died; the mother and the family’s 18-month-old were among…
Pope establishes Worldwide Prayer Network as Vatican entity The Vatican announced December 3 that Pope Francis has established the Worldwide Prayer Network Foundation as an entity with canonical and Vatican juridical identity. Formerly known as the “Apostleship of Prayer,” the Worldwide Prayer Network works “to coordinate and animate the vast spiritual movement, always very dear…
Pope Francis created 13 new cardinals last Saturday, urging them to remain vigilant lest they lose sight of their goal of the cross and resurrection. “All of us love Jesus, all of us want to follow him, yet we must always be vigilant to remain on the road,” Pope Francis said at the consistory .…
The US Supreme Court said that New York state restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic are a violation of the First Amendment’s protection of free religious exercise. After the ruling the Bishop of Brooklyn, whose diocese was a plaintiff in the suit, said that religious worship should be considered an essential during the coronavirus pandemic. “It…
On the same day that Pope Francis approved the beatification of 127 Catholics killed in Spain in hatred of the faith in the 20th Century, a hashtag calling for Catholic priests to be burned was trending on Twitter in Spain. Twitter permitted the hashtag #FuegoAlClero, meaning ‘Burn the Clergy’, to trend online in Spain November 24,…
The French bishops’ conference announced last Friday that it would submit another appeal to the Council of State, calling a proposed 30-person limit on public Masses during Advent “unacceptable.” In a statement issued November 27, the bishops said that they “have a duty to ensure the freedom of worship in our country” and therefore would…
Cardinal Vincent Nichols urged the UK government to reconsider a proposed cut to its foreign aid budget. In a letter to MPs released November 26, the president of the bishops’ conference of England and Wales expressed concern at the proposed cut in overseas aid from 0.7% of gross national income to 0.5%. “In today’s figures…
Pope thanks Argentinian women’s network for pro-life commitment Responding to a letter sent by the women’s network Mujeres de las Villas, the Pope offers his “sincere thanks” for their work. Since 2018, the network has been fighting for the protection of the unborn, especially in the working-class neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires. In particular, the signatories…
China claims papal critique over Uyghurs has ‘no factual basis at all’ Following Pope Francis’ mention in passing of the Uyghurs as persecuted in a new book, the Chinese foreign ministry said the claim is groundless. “I think often of persecuted peoples: the Rohingya, the poor Uighurs, the Yazidi – what ISIS did to them…