Letter from Rome   US President Donald Trump spent most of last week desperately trying to spin his controversial summit with Vladimir Putin [pictured below] as a breakthrough, despite widespread impressions of near-total capitulation on the question of Russian interference in the 2016 election. “The Summit with Russia was a great success, except with the…

New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan [pictured], has called for prayers that “the change in the US Supreme Court will move our nation closer to the day when every human being is protected in law and welcomed in life.” Noting the lobbying that began by pro abortion groups as soon as Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy…

A Catholic priest was shot dead on Friday, July 20 in the Cameroons. Fr Alexander Nougi Sob was parish priest of Bomaka, a district of Buea, the capital of the English-speaking region of South-West Cameroon. He was also a former Catholic Education Secretary there. According to the Journal du Cameroun, Fr Sob was hit by…

Catholic dioceses in China are being required to show how they will reduce foreign influences and adopt a more Chinese ideological and theological identity. The aim is to do this through a five-year plan running until 2022. A strategy was agreed at a May 17 meeting of the Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in…

A seven-foot-tall bronze statue of the Virgin Mary in a Catholic church in New Mexico appears to be weeping  a substance with the chemical makeup of olive oil treated with perfume.  The ‘weeping’ began on Pentecost Sunday on May 20, when parishioners at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Hobbs noticed that there appeared to be tears…

Pope accepts
 resignation
 of 
accused
 Honduran 
bishop Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Juan José Pineda, auxiliary bishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, following a Vatican investigation into accusations of financial mismanagement and sexual misconduct against seminarians. The bishop, 57, has long been the subject of accusations of financial misdealings, as well as rumours that he offered support to a male companion…

Pope Francis has chosen four cardinals from countries where young people are facing special challenges to preside over sessions of the Synod of Bishops in October. The Vatican announced on July 14 the Pope’s appointment of the presidents-delegate: Cardinals Louis Sako of Baghdad, the Chaldean patriarch; Desire Tsarahazana of Toamasina, Madagascar; Charles Bo of Yangon,…

The Australian state of Victoria has said a recommendation by the royal commission that it pass a law requiring priests to break the confessional seal to report cases of child sex abuse requires further consideration. Victoria attorney general Martin Pakula said on July 11 that the government needs to further consider 24 of the 317…

Indian officials are seeking to freeze bank accounts of the Missionaries of Charity, founded by St Mother Teresa of Kolkata, following the arrest of a nun on child trafficking charges in Jharkhand state. State police Chief D.K. Pandey wrote to the federal home secretary last week urging the freeze to facilitate an investigation into whether there…