The Mexican bishops’ conference has called for calm and reflection after well-armed members of a drug cartel descended on the city of Culiacan and forced Mexican security forces to release the son of convicted cartel kingpin Joaquin Guzman Loera, known as ‘El Chapo’. In a statement, a day after the violence in Culiacan, capital of…
Humanitarian concerns are growing as people caught in the crosshairs of the Turkish incursion into northeastern Syria try to flee for safety, and groups are scrambling to aid them. “There are big concerns about what is going on in northeastern Syria with the Turkish military aerial assaults and ground operations,” Fr Emanuel Youkhana said by…
“Nones”, those who profess no religious affiliation, are now the largest subgroup in American society, their numbers having grown in the past decade while the percentage of Catholics in the US slipped over the past 10 years. In a Pew Research Centre ‘religious landscape’ report issued last week, nones have jumped from 17% of the…
Morocco’s king has pardoned a journalist, her fiance and the medical team who last month were found guilty of procuring and performing an abortion. The country’s penal code bars abortion except in cases when the mother’s life is endangered. Mohammed VI’s pardon was granted on October 16. Hajar Raissouni, 28, had been sentenced last month…
Catholic teachers in Ghana have joined the bishops’ conference and Muslim organisations in urging the government to withdraw a sex education program from the national school curriculum. The “unlimited scope and span” of the comprehensive program, launched this year by the government and UNESCO, “would create room for anything to be introduced…by interested groups or…
Vocation crisis caused by lack of holiness not celibacy – bishop A bishop in Brazil who is a member of the Amazon synod has said he believes a major obstacle to increasing priestly vocations in the region is a lack of personal holiness among the ordained, rather than the discipline of celibacy. Bishop Wellington de Queiroz…
Bishops applaud research which highlights risks of euthanasia among disabled Leaders in the US Conference of Catholic Bishops applauded the National Council on Disability for its recent research on the risks of assisted suicide for people with disabilities. “Every suicide is a human tragedy, regardless of the age, incapacity, or social/economic status of the individual,”…
The persecution of Catholics in mainland China is increasing after prominent Catholic figures in Hong Kong continue to speak out against the communist regime, according to reports. The reports from Bitter Winter, a magazine covering religious liberty and human rights in China, come alongside allegations that the Chinese government has ignored requests to tolerate Catholic…
Less than two weeks before the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon is scheduled to begin at the Vatican, the Brazilian bishops’ Indigenous Missionary Council reported that the number of indigenous land invasions and indigenous murdered in Brazil in 2018 soared. The report, released last week, said the number of indigenous people murdered grew by…
A Catholic bishop in the Philippines has called for a strong response from the government to fight poliovirus, following an announcement last month from health officials that the once-eradicated disease has made a reappearance. “It is very sad that there is a re-emergence of polio after having eliminated it for many years,” Bishop Broderick Pabillo,…