Catholic leaders applauded a presidential order requiring education ministry officials to return to churches all of the schools that religious denominations surrendered to the government five decades ago. President Uhuru Kenyatta said he had given government officials one week for the restoration of the schools’ ownership to churches, to return the land they occupy and…
New guidelines on the question of clerical sexual abuse were discussed and presented during the general assembly of Italy’s bishops, with the creation of a National Advisory Centre to aid bishops and the promises to make a “more radical evangelical choice” in terms of prevention. “Woe to whoever touches children,” said Italian Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti,…
The president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops said he was leaving the bishops’ autumn general assembly more hopeful than when the meeting began. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston said in remarks closing the assembly that his hope was primarily grounded in Christ as well as realising that the body of bishops was on…
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,…