Seven Coptic Christians were killed and 12 more injured in Egypt when a bus traveling to a desert monastery south of Cairo was ambushed by Islamic militants. The bus was traveling to St Samuel the Confessor monastery on November 2, when a number of attackers approached the vehicle from nearby dirt roads and opened fire.…
France’s Catholic bishops have published a report on measures to combat sexual abuse by clergy, listing data on criminal charges and efforts by a new anti-abuse commission. “The journey to zero tolerance has begun in a firm and visible way,” Bishop Luc Crepy of Le Puy-en-Velay, head of the French Church’s permanent commission for fighting…
The High Court in India’s Jharkhand state has rejected the latest bail plea of a Missionaries of Charity nun accused of selling babies from a congregation-run home for unwed mothers. Sr Concilia was arrested on July 4 at Nirmal Hriday, the home she managed for unmarried mothers in the state capital Ranchi. She was initially remanded in…
Poland’s bishops marked their country’s centenary of independence by warning freedom could be lost again if Poles abandon their Catholic Faith. In a pastoral letter for the November 11 centenary, the bishops said love of homeland was a divine command and was expressed through “daily civic honesty, readiness to serve and dedication to the common…
The International Astronomical Union has voted in favor of a recommendation to rename the Hubble law the Hubble-Lemaître law, to acknowledge the contributions of the Belgian priest and astronomer Georges Lemaître to the scientific theory of the expansion of the universe. “To honour the intellectual integrity and the supremely significant discovery by Georges Lemaître, the…
All Souls day is time to remember and hope – Pope The Mass for the feast of All Souls is “realistic, concrete” in calling Catholics to remember the people and events of their past, to consider how they live today and to hope for eternal life with God and their loved ones who preceded them, Pope Francis said. Celebrating an outdoor Mass on November 2,…
Courtney Grogan Pope Francis spoke of the need for creative entrepreneurship in the face of “scandalous poverty” today, stressing the importance of generosity with one’s possessions. “If there is hunger on earth, it is not because food is missing!” the Pontiff said in St Peter’s Square. “What is lacking is a free and far-sighted…
Many Catholics would be unaware of the process of a synod, let alone the details of the recently published final document of the synod on youth – but it heralds big changes in Ireland’s Church. Irish Catholics are set to become much better acquainted with synods and synodality, and not just as a distant process…
The 2016 game Pokémon Go has been downloaded worldwide 800 million times, but a new Catholic version of the game is hoping to persuade potential players to put down the Poké Balls and pick up the prayers. ‘Follow JC Go!’ is a Christian take on the mobile game, but instead of catching Japanese monsters, players…
The membership of the International Astronomical Union has voted to recommend that the name of a Belgian Catholic priest be added to the astronomical law explaining the expansion of the universe, or ‘Big Bang’. Using an electronic voting system, the IAU passed a resolution to recommend renaming the ‘Hubble law’ as the Hubble-Lemaître Law. The law…
Chai Brady
Colm Fitzpatrick