More than 100 homes – including a church-run home for disabled war veterans – were forcibly demolished earlier this month by state officials in southern Vietnam. People living in the dwellings, most of whom are Catholic, said they were given little or no warning about the demolitions in Loc Hu’ng near Ho Chi Minh City.…
Although the week-long retreat for US Catholic bishops emphasised quiet reflection, several bishops spoke out on social media during the retreat and after it wrapped up last week with positive reactions and to give shoutouts to the retreat leader, Capuchin Fr Raniero Cantalamessa, who has preached to Popes and top officials of the Roman Curia…
Oxford University is standing by an emeritus law professor after more than 400 people have signed a petition last week calling for his removal from the university. Petition organisers say the professor holds discriminatory views about homosexuality and transgenderism. “John Finnis, Professor at Oxford’s Law Faculty, has a long record of extremely discriminatory views against…
The bishops of Venezuela have said that Nicolas Maduro’s swearing in for a second term as president is illegitimate. “The claim to be initiating a new presidential term of office on January 10, 2019 is illegitimate in its origin and opens the door to the nonrecognition of the government, since it lacks democratic support in…
Trip to Romania confirmed for summer The Vatican has confirmed that Pope Francis will travel to Romania to the cities of Bucharest, Iaşi and Blaj, and to a Marian shrine in eastern Transylvania, from May 31 to June 2 and will include a stop at a Marian shrine located in the Șumuleu Ciuc neighbourhood of the city of Miercurea Ciuc,…
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s electoral commission (CENI) has accused the country’s Catholic Church of “preparing an insurrection” after it said it knew who had won the country’s presidential elections and called on the authorities to publish the true results. Fr Donatien Nshole, secretary-general of the DRC’s bishops’ conference (CENCO), said on January 3 that…
German Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising has called for change in long-standing Church tradition as the German bishops’ conference prepares for a workshop debate to “review” the issue of celibacy for priests. In his homily at New Year’s Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady in Munich, Cardinal Marx said the Church must,…
A Nigerian priest who was kidnapped and held ransom on Christmas Eve recalled his experience at Mass last week, saying prayer is what saved him. Fr Cajetan Apeh, a recently ordained priest assigned to St Theresa’s Parish in Anam, was kidnapped along with the church’s pastor on December 24. The two priests were ambushed while…
A former head of the Philippines’ Catholic bishop’s conference has called on people to ignore President Rodrigo Duterte’s repeated rants against the Church. In his New Year message, Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan said those who call God stupid and teach that it is useless to go to Church are “anti-Christ”. “Do not listen to…
Vatican news paper publishes articles on women equality Too often in the Catholic Church, “the sacrifices of women are used only to reinforce the power of those who already have it,” the editor of the Vatican newspaper’s monthly section on women in the Church has written. In the ‘Woman-Church-World’ supplement to L’Osservatore Romano published last week, editor Lucetta Scaraffia wrote: “A…