The Pope’s line on tackling persecution allows others to be more assertive, writes John L. Allen Jr. That there’s a rising tide of anti-Christian persecution around the world in the early 21st Century is an empirical fact. Christians are hardly the only ones facing threats, of course, but because of their numbers and the zones…

Just days after the far-right French presidential candidate Marine le Pen said the Church “interferes in everything except what it should really be concerned with”, France’s bishops have issued reflections on the presidential election. The bishops’ reflections were published within hours of the announcement that Emmanuel Macron, founder of the centre-left En Marche! Movement and…

The Devil is behind the hatred driving the persecution of Christians around the world, Pope Francis has said. Speaking at a prayer service in Rome’s Basilica of St Bartholomew, which has been dedicated to the New Martyrs since 2000, the Pope reflected on the Gospel in which Jesus said, “If the world hates you, remember…

Iraqi Christians driven from the Nineven Plains by the so-called Islamic State are looking forward to moving home, with Church leaders having assembled a taskforce to spearhead a vast rebuilding programme. The Nineveh Reconstruction Committee, formed from bishops from the Syriac Catholic, Syriac Orthodox and Chaldean Catholic Churches, will oversee the planning and rebuilding of…

Venezuela’s bishops have described a Supreme Court decision to eliminate the country’s National Assembly as “morally unacceptable”. Saying Venezuela’s Catholics cannot remain “passive, frightened, or hopeless”, they have called for peaceful protests and civil disobedience to the government of President Nicholas Maduro. The abolition of the assembly, which opposition parties have dominated for over a…

Cardinal Raymond Burke once again has promised to “correct the situation” over what he believes to be confusion surrounding Pope Francis’ controversial 2016 document on marriage and the family, Amoris Laetitia. The American cardinal was speaking during a Q&A session after a presentation at Saint Raymond of Peñafort parish in Springfield, Virginia in the US.…

Pope Francis has approved the recognition of a miracle attributed to the intercession of two of the shepherd children who saw Our Lady of Fatima in 1917, thus paving the way for their canonisation. Pope Francis signed the decree for the causes of Blesseds Francisco and Jacinta Marto during a meeting March 23 with Cardinal…

While documentation regarding an alleged miracle attributed to the intercession of Blessed Oscar Romero is being studied at the Vatican, there is no date scheduled for his canonisation, the archbishop of San Salvador, El Salvador, said. “I must say, in all sincerity, that there is no date. And we understand it well because it involves…

The Church of the Philippines has rejected an invitation from the national police to become part of President Duterte’s murderous campaign against drug dealers. Following the call, issued by police chief General Ronald dela Rosa, the Filipino bishops’ conference insisted that it supports “whatever strategy there is, for as long as there’s no killing and…