The Philippines’ bishops’ conference has announced it will dedicate 2019 as the ‘Year of the Youth’. The year-long celebration which will start on the first Sunday of Advent on December 2, will carry the theme ‘Filipino Youth in Mission: Beloved, Gifted, Empowered’. Its observance, which the bishops described as part of the “nine-year journey for New…
Vatican opens doors to Russian ‘spiritual’ masterpieces for show In an example of the “diplomacy of art”, the Vatican has inaugurated a landmark exhibit of “spiritual” masterpieces from Moscow’s famed Tretyakov Gallery and other Russian state galleries. Some of the pieces, particularly a number of precious icons, have never been shown before outside of their home galleries, Barbara Jatta, director of the Vatican…
Hannah Brockhaus People need the mercy of God and the healing of the Holy Spirit to root out the sin in their lives – they cannot do it on their own, Pope Francis said at the general audience today. “It is useless to think of being able to correct oneself without the gift of…
Following Monday’s shock announcement that the Vatican has requested the US Catholic Bishops to delay voting on new standards for bishop accountability, survivors of sexual abuse and bishop accountability activists decried the move as “totally unacceptable”. Terence McKiernan, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, called the move a “pre-emptive strike” by the Vatican against US bishops as they…
Politicians must act to assist workers as technology continues to transform jobs across Europe, said a committee of the European Union bishops’ commission. Work is sustainable only “if it does not harm or destroy the livelihood of others and if it uses generously and equitably the gifts of creation”, said the social affairs commission of…
The new umbrella group, Suma de Actores Sociales (SUMAS), is calling Mexican citizens to stand up against efforts by president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador to legalise abortion, euthanasia and marijuana. SUMAS was launched in Mexico City and unites 700 organisations around the country. Juan Dabdoub Giacoman, a founding member, said the new group seeks “to…
Catholic bishops have urged help for half a million Congolese deported from neighbouring Angola under a crackdown on informal diamond mining. The bishops said they were alarmed by news of human rights violations by Angolan security forces and said the expulsion of “successive waves” threatened peace along the two countries’ 1,300-mile border. “Thousands of children,…
A well-known cardinal from China, Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, flew to Rome to hand Pope Francis a seven-page letter appealing for him to pay attention to the crisis facing his country’s underground Church. The former bishop of Hong Kong said underground clerics have cried to him since the Vatican-China deal on the appointment of bishops.…
Pope recognises martyrdom of Christian Brother Pope Francis has recognised the martyrdom of De La Salle Christian Brother James Miller, who was born in Wisconsin and was shot to death in Guatemala in 1982. The recognition of the martyrdom of Bro. James, or Bro. Santiago as he also was known, clears the way for his beatification; the date and location…
Inés San Martín Amidst a growing global concern over the Church’s handling of abuse cases and cover-up, Pope Francis has appointed the Vatican’s former top prosecutor on cases of clerical sexual abuse, Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna, back in his former office, though the prelate will continue heading the Church in Malta. The decision to…