Wuerzburg (KNA): Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, the former secretary to Pope Benedict XVI, has said he is still suffering from the loss of his superior and companion one year ago. “The memory of the anniversary of his death awakens sadness, pain and melancholy in me,” Gaenswein told the catholic weekly newspaper Die Tagespost. Gaenswein said he did…
The Vatican City State criminal court sentenced Cardinal Angelo Becciu to five years and six months in prison on two counts of embezzlement and one of aggravated fraud but found him not guilty of abuse of office or witness tampering. The 75-year-old cardinal’s attorney, Fabio Veglione, told reporters his client would appeal. The three-judge panel…
Cardinal Grzegorz Rys of Lodz, chairman of the Committee for Dialogue with Judaism of the Polish bishops’ conference, strongly condemned the incident in which a far-right Polish lawmaker used a fire extinguisher to put out Hanukkah candles in the Sejm, the country’s parliament. “In connection with the incident in the Sejm committed by Mr MP…
A new gene-editing therapy called Casgevy, which is designed to help treat patients suffering from sickle cell disease, has been endorsed by the US-based National Catholic Bioethics Center and its president, Dr Joseph Meaney. Casgevy is a new gene therapy developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals that uses CRISPR, a genome-editing technology, to modify a patient’s blood…
Letter From Rome H.L. Mencken once famously quipped that love is like war, in that it’s easy to begin but very hard to stop. Had Mencken plied his journalistic trade in the internet age, he might well have added rumours to that list, which are notoriously easy these days to put into circulation and virtually…
Eduardo Campos Lima With an unprecedented rise in 2023 in the number of immigrants crossing Central America in an effort to reach the United States and Canada, the bishops of the region are urging local governments to establish adequate programs to deal with them and to ensure their safety. The migration crisis was the main…
Christoph Arens (KNA) In the end, the Vatican budged after all. Many German catholics had not expected its decision, announced shortly before Christmas, to allow the blessing of homosexual and remarried couples. Some reform minded catholics called it a Christmas present. For Irme Stetter-Karp, president of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), the decision…
Paris (KNA): A cockerel is once again watching over Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. At the weekend, the archbishop of Paris, Laurent Ulrich, blessed the figure, French media reported. The golden cockerel filled with relics was then placed on the 96-metre-high spire above the nave of the church. A cockerel, the heraldic animal of the French…
Jerusalem (KNA): Representatives of almost all Christian churches have prayed for an end to the war and for hope at an ecumenical prayer for peace in Jerusalem. High-ranking representatives of the Catholic, Armenian, Coptic, Anglican and Protestant Churches attended the service on Wednesday evening. In hymns and intercessions, the Christians prayed for God’s help for…
A year from the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral in the heart of the French capital, the cross is again overlooking Paris from the top of the newly installed wooden spire. On December 8, 2024, the most famous cathedral in the world will welcome the Faithful again. The French president said he will extend…
Ruadhán Jones
John L. Allen Jr.