Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa was convicted and sentenced by a Nicaraguan court to 26 years in prison on February 10 – barely a day after the outspoken prelate defied President Daniel Ortega by refusing to go into exile. The court convicted Bishop Álvarez on charges of conspiracy to undermine national integrity and spreading false…
The FBI says it is retracting a leaked document published on the internet February 8 that appears to reveal that the bureau’s Richmond division launched an investigation into “radical traditionalist” Catholics and their possible ties to “the far-right white nationalist movement”. In response to an inquiry from CNA, the FBI said it will remove the…
While Pope Francis has returned to Rome after his six-day apostolic trip to Congo and South Sudan, the words he left there will resonate across the continent for a long time, Church leaders and experts say. Catholic bishops in Congo said the words of the Holy Father not only comforted, but shook up, the continent,…
The head of the Ukrainian Catholic church has defended President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s requests for long-range weapons, although a Vatican diplomat warned that arms supply is a complex topic. “I cannot morally endorse this request for arms because I don’t know all the details – but we cannot defend ourselves without arms,” said Major Archbishop Sviatoslav…
The Church of England has banned church weddings for same-sex couples while at the same time allowing priests to bless same-sex marriages and partnerships. The General Synod of the Church of England decided on February 9 that same-sex couples would be allowed to come to church after a civil marriage or civil partnership to give…
Priest charged for praying in UK ‘buffer zone’ A Catholic priest who faced criminal charges for praying for free speech outside an abortion clinic after business hours is the latest to run afoul of a strict buffer zone law in the English city of Birmingham. “I pray wherever I go, inside my head, for the…
Pope urges solidarity with Syria, Turkey after earthquakes Pope Francis urged all people to be in solidarity with the regions of Turkey and Syria struck by two powerful earthquakes early February 6 and that are “in part already martyred by a long war”. The two earthquakes, which both measured above 7.0 magnitude according to the…
Authorities in the UK have dropped charges against a woman arrested for silent prayer in a “buffer zone” that bans pro-life advocacy outside an English abortion clinic. However, Isabel Vaughan-Spruce says the charges still could be revived, leaving her in an ambiguous legal situation. “It can’t be right that I was arrested and made a…
The Catholic Church in Sydney bid farewell to its former archbishop, Cardinal George Pell, in a funeral at times solemn, reverent, defiant and sorrowful, shot through with wry Australian humour, and attended by mourners from all walks of life. The cardinal remained a sign of contradiction until the very end, with protesters’ shouts of “George…
A Belgian television station has rediscovered a 20-minute video in which Fr Georges Lemaitre, considered the father of the Big Bang theory, explains what the origin of the universe may have been like. Fr Lemaitre was a Belgian astrophysicist known for being the first academic to propose the theory of the expansion of the universe…