A bill proposed by the ruling Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party would criminalise “harassment” of women entering abortion clinics. The bill was introduced May 21 by the PSOE’s coalition in the Congress of Deputies, the lower house of Spain’s legislature, and would criminalise “harassing women going to clinics for the voluntary interruption of pregnancy”. Penalties for…

Gunmen attacked a Catholic parish in northern Nigeria last Thursday, killing one priest and kidnapping another. Fr Alphonsus Bello was found dead May 21, the morning after his parish, St Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church in the Diocese of Sokoto, was attacked by armed bandits. He was 33. Fr Bello was kidnapped along with another priest,…

Vatican names new liturgy chief Pope Francis appointed Archbishop Arthur Roche last Thursday as the prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. Archbishop Roche, the current secretary for the congregation, succeeds Cardinal Robert Sarah, who served as its prefect for six years until the Pope accepted his resignation…

Hong Kong churches to commemorate Tiananmen victims Seven churches in Hong Kong will offer candlelight vigil Masses on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre this June. The Diocese of Hong Kong’s Justice and Peace Commission has announced that the churches will each offer a Mass for the Dead on the night of June 4.…

Pope Francis will conclude the Catholic Church’s month-long rosary marathon with special prayers to Mary, Undoer of Knots, one of his favorite titles for the mother of Jesus. Bishop Bertram Johannes Meier of Augsburg, Germany, will bring an icon of Mary Undoer of Knots to the prayer service on May 31 in the Vatican Gardens,…

The theft of the gold rosary that Mary, Queen of Scots took to her execution is a “very tragic loss” for Catholic history, a curator has said. Jan Graffius, the curator of the Stonyhurst Collections, made the comment after police reported that thieves broke into Arundel Castle in West Sussex, southern England, on May 21, stealing…

The Catholic Lawyers Corporation of Argentina filed a writ of amparo on May 18 contending that recent health regulations decreed during the Covid-19 pandemic “flagrantly violate” the free exercise of worship and religion. An increase of coronavirus cases in April, especially in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area, which accounts for 40% of the country’s population,…

Some 400 people attended, Germany’s Third Ecumenical Convention in Frankfurt including German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, that concluded May 16, but Bishop Gerhard Feige of Magdeburg, head of the Catholic bishops’ commission on ecumenical relations, told the website katholisch.de that he could not see that the convention gave a particular boost to ecumenism. In terms of…

The newly appointed bishop of Hong Kong gave a press conference Tuesday in which he said he believed that prudence and dialogue were a way forward in the challenges facing his diocese. Bishop-elect Stephen Chow Sau-yan told journalists May 18 that he did not think it would be wise to comment on especially controversial issues,…

The Spanish bishops’ conference expressed concern that migrants were being used to exert political pressure after a sudden influx of migrants in the Spanish territories of Ceuta and Melilla increased tensions between Spain and Morocco. In a statement released May 18, Auxiliary Bishop José Cobo of Madrid, head of the conference’s migration department, and Dominican…