Retired Pope Benedict XVI, acknowledging his role in helping the Church come to terms with the clerical sexual abuse crisis, wrote an article outlining his thoughts about what must be done now. Seeing the crisis as rooted in the “egregious event” of the cultural and sexual revolution in the Western world in the 1960s and…
Category: World Report
New Archbishop promises to serve with love and truth
Archbishop Wilton Gregory, set to become the new head of the Archdiocese of Washington, promised to serve with truth, love and tenderness in a region where he acknowledged “unrest and anger”, after the downfall of former Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and the Church’s current sex abuse scandal. “I want to offer you hope. I will…
Texas bans prison chaplains from execution chambers
The state of Texas has banned all prison chaplains from its execution chamber, following a Supreme Court decision that halted the execution of a Buddhist man who was denied the presence of his chaplain. Patrick Murphy had been scheduled to die last Thursday. Mr Murphy requested access to a Buddhist minister a month before his…
New Brunei laws punish sodomy and blasphemy with death penalty
Brunei has implemented a sharia penal code that punishes such crimes as adultery, sodomy, rape and blasphemy of Muhammad with the death penalty. “Brunei Darussalam has always been practising a dual legal system, one that is based on the Syariah Law and the other on Common Law,” Brunei’s prime minister’s office said at the end of…
Sharp decline in Australian Catholic population
Australia’s Catholic population fell by 2.7% between 2011 and 2016, but Catholics are more likely to have a higher education, according to an analysis of census data by the National Centre for Pastoral Research. Analysing statistics from the country’s 2016 census, the centre reported on April 4 in its ‘Social Profile of the Catholic Community…
Vatican Roundup
Pope Francis to celebrate Holy Thursday with prisoners Pope Francis will celebrate the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper with prisoners in Velletri, about 36 miles south of Rome. The Pope will celebrate the Mass and the foot-washing ritual at the Velletri Correctional Facility on April 18, the Vatican announced last week. The late-afternoon visit will include a meeting with prisoners,…
Devil targets those who succumb to negativity, warns Pope
Sometimes Christians seem to prefer complaining and being unhappy in life, but that makes them a perfect target for the devil, Pope Francis has said in a morning homily. “Desolation is from the serpent”, who tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden and who “always bites” when a person sinks in despair, the pope said…
Archbishop wins defamation suit after being called ‘Peruvian Juan Barros’
Lucien Chauvin A Peruvian archbishop has won a defamation suit against a local journalist in a long-running case involving alleged cover-up in an abuse scandal. A court in Piura, on the northern coast, ruled late on April 8 in favour of Archbishop Jose Eguren Anselmi of Piura in the suit against journalist Pedro Salinas.…
Bishops say no-fault divorce in U.K. undermines marriage from outset
The introduction of “no-fault” divorces in the United Kingdom will undermine marriages from the outset, the Catholic bishops of England and Wales have said. In the first major overhaul of U.K. divorce law for 50 years, the British government announced on April 9 that it would allow couples to split up simply by filing a…
Pray with courage, Pope says in morning homily
Christians must be courageous when praying to God and not simply repeat prayers “like a parrot”, Pope Francis has said. “In common parlance, people use an expression that I really like when they have a goal: ‘I put it all on the line’. In intercessory prayers, this also applies: ‘I put it all on the…