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…
“Tragically, religious freedom for many is increasingly under assault around the world,” Rep. Michael McCaul said at the International Religious Freedom (IRF) Summit, which took place in Washington, DC, last week. Faith leaders from across the world – including Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and others – gathered at the summit to address the ongoing persecution…
Anglicans and Catholics in the US are continuing to discern “the Spirit at work” in each other, a number of ecumenical experts told OSV News. Over the past several years, the US Catholic Conference of Bishops and the Anglican Church in North America have moved from an initial “meet and greet … to really looking…
Cardinal Zen hospitalised in Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen has been hospitalised in Hong Kong after his health deteriorated upon returning from Benedict XVI’s funeral in Rome. The 91-year-old cardinal wrote on his blog on January 31 that he is receiving treatment in the hospital after experiencing difficulty breathing. Cardinal Zen said that the doctors…
New head for Vatican body overseeing selection of bishops Pope Francis has chosen Chicago-born Bishop Robert Prevost of Chiclayo, Peru, to succeed Canadian Cardinal Ouellet as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. The Vatican announced on January 30 the retirement of Cardinal Ouellet and the appointment…
Following a rampage of a radical Jewish gang in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City on the evening of January 26, the Assembly of the Catholic Ordinaries in the Holy Land called on political and religious authorities to bring civil and religious life in Jerusalem back to “greater serenity”. “This is only the latest…
A sacristan was killed and a priest wounded during a suspected terrorist attack January 25 on two Catholic churches in Spain. As reported by Europa Press, according to police sources, the sacristan of the Church of Our Lady of La Palma was murdered and the pastor of St Isidore Church was wounded. Both churches are…
Peru’s bishops pleaded for peace as violent protests against the country’s current president and legislature have claimed the lives of dozens of people. “We deplore the violence that has been unleashed because violence only begets more violence,” the Peruvian bishops’ conference said in a message published January 20. “The death of more than 50 Peruvian brothers and…