Two new alternatives to burial and cremation fail to comply with the Catholic Church’s teaching on respect for the bodies of the dead, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine said. In a March 23 statement, the committee said it had evaluated human composting and alkaline hydrolysis, and concluded that both “fail to…
Malawi is still reeling from the consequences of Cyclone Freddy that hit the southeastern African country on March 12. The storm system caused flooding and mudslides that have resulted in the deaths of about 500 people, according to Malawi’s Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DODMA) earlier this month. More than 490,000 people have been displaced…
A synod of German bishops overwhelmingly approved Church blessings of same-sex unions and unions between divorced and remarried Catholics, but the move has faced harsh criticism from some members of the Catholic hierarchy who have accused the German bishops of abandoning the Faith. German Cardinal Gerhard Müller and American Cardinal Raymond Burke rebuked the German…
Actor Rainn Wilson, best known for his role as Dwight in the hit TV series The Office, recently took to Twitter to criticise Hollywood’s “anti-Christian bias”. Wilson’s tweet responded to a depiction of a cannibalistic Christian preacher in a new episode of HBO’s popular zombie series The Last of Us, starring Pedro Pascal. “I do…
Pope Francis has said that gender ideology is “one of the most dangerous ideological colonisations” today. In an interview with journalist Elisabetta Piqué for the Argentine daily newspaper La Nación, Pope Francis explained the reasoning behind his strong statement. “Gender ideology, today, is one of the most dangerous ideological colonisations,” Francis said in the interview…
The German Synodal Way has voted to adopt “implementation texts” related to same-sex blessings, lay preaching during Mass, and a request for Pope Francis to re-examine the discipline of priestly celibacy in the Latin-rite Catholic Church. The votes took place during the first two days of the fifth synodal assembly in Frankfurt, Germany. The assembly…
Isolating Syria from the international community through sanctions “benefits no one” and complicates relief efforts to the millions left homeless after earthquakes devasted the country, said a top Vatican official who visited Turkey and Syria. “We are still in the middle of this tragedy because it is not certain that the tremors are over,” said…
The Society of Jesus said it will open a new internal procedure on Jesuit Fr Marko Rupnik after receiving abuse accusations with a “very high” degree of credibility against the artist. According to a February 21 statement on the Jesuit website, the accusations the religious order received span from 1985 to 2018 and include claims…
Following a devastating arson attack on a historic church in Germany — and several prior incidents in Paris, France — a European watchdog has raised concerns over hate crimes targeting Christian churches on the continent. The 1,000-year-old Church of the Elevation of the Cross in Wissen, a community in the Westerwald region, was severely damaged…
The legislative effort to delay broadening Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) eligibility to individuals solely afflicted with a mental illness by a year is forging ahead, but there are signs Canadians are not comfortable with moving forward. Bill C-39 passed the House of Commons February 15, and one day later it was read for the…