Pope Francis has called the drowning of migrants in the Mediterranean after a spate of shipwrecks in recent months regrettable and has urged countries in Europe and elsewhere to rush to their aid.
'We feel responsible for this army of the poor, victims of war and hunger, of deserts and of tortures' the bishops wrote. The leadership of the Italian bishops’ conference has pledged its support for migrants arriving in the country while warning against a growing culture of xenophobia across Europe.
Despite the many disappointments in between these heroics, football has remained sacred in Croatia. As well as being staunch Catholics – 86 per cent of the total population – Croats worship football. And while church attendance is in decline mobilisation for football games remains massive. Football is breakfast, lunch and dinner; alpha and omega.
In a series of meetings ranging from the Vatican to the Lateran Emmanuel Macron showed he understood how to communicate a message at the level of this unique world city. In particular, he displayed a keen awareness of the current situation of a Europe that is continuing to tear itself apart over the issue of migration.
The Jesuits in Britain have announced that a new research institute called the Laudato Si' Institute (LSI) is being established at Campion Hall, the Jesuit permanent private hall of the University of Oxford. The LSI will be established during the academic year 2018-2019 and will formally open in September 2019.
The newly released Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae 2016 reports a 1.1 per cent increase in absolute Catholic numbers between 2015 and 2016. In 2015 there were 1,285 million baptised Catholics and in 2016 1,299 million. However the world population increased by 1.14 per cent (from 7.383 billion to 7.467 billion) meaning that as a proportion of world population the proportion of Catholics fell, from 17.73 per cent of the world’s population in 2015 to 17.67 per cent in 2016.
All dictatorships begin the same way: media outlets are put in the hands of "unscrupulous" people who spread lies and weaken democracy, Pope Francis said. Typical standards, norms and laws in regard to communications are first eliminated, the pope said in his homily June 18 during morning Mass at Domus Sanctae Marthae.
The collaboration between the Catholic Church and law enforcement officers to tackle modern slavery is starting to work. Cardinal Vincent Nichols told a UN conference this week that the collaboration between the Catholic Church, through the Santa Marta group, and law enforcement officers to combat human slavery around the world, is starting to work.
A source who asked to be unnamed told ucanews.com that Hebei Provincial Ethnic and Religious Department had given the company verbal notification that neither its newspaper nor website should report pilgrimages in May. Webmasters in other dioceses told ucanews.com that they had submitted articles on local or inter-provincial pilgrimages to Faith Weekly but none had been published.
The decision to keep the cap marks a crossroads for Catholic education. The Catholic community should be proud of its schools, but if it is to secure their future it has to recognise the new and more hostile political reality. Most crucially, it must make the most of its assets – the communities of people in each school who make them the success they are.
For example, it can propose contemplation sessions, a very open prayer with a ritual gesture, where families would be welcomed just as they are today. The spiritual demand is enormous. The need for a break, too.
China's two main Protestant organizations have launched a five-year blueprint that includes writing a secular version of the Bible. They agreed to cooperate with the principle of Sinicization; to insist on self-government; to reflect the core values of socialism; and to espouse the leadership of the Communist Party.
There is of course no need for Catholic leaders in India to actively proclaim a refusal to participate in nationalist projects; this would be a foolhardy venture in the current climate. But there is similarly no need for us to contribute to nationalist rhetoric by asking that we become more Indian. Our call is to be more Christian, loving all without distinction.
At the heart of the opposition to Amoris Laetitia is the fear that, in opening the door to the readmission of divorced and remarried Catholics to Holy Communion in some circumstances, the Pope is changing traditional Church teaching. I don’t think that, strictly speaking, this does amount to a development of doctrine.
American veterans who fought in the Vietnam War are offering hundreds of bicycles to poor students as way to ease people's suffering in parts of the country still dealing with the effects of the conflict. "We want to supply these bicycles for Vietnamese students from poor families in remote areas so that they can pursue their studies," said Michael Shuman, a former U.S. Marine.
A bishop visited Catholics — many whom were from ethnic minorities — in a mountainous part of north-western Vietnam over the Easter triduum, a first since Catholicism was introduced to the area over a century ago. Accompanied by two priests and two seminarians, Bishop John Mary Vu Tat of Hung Hoa paid pastoral visits to nine parishes, subparishes and mission stations in Yen Bai province March 28-April 1.
“A Woman’s Voice: Conversations of Discernment and Grace” is a very important and timely documentary, to premiere on Easter Sunday 2018 on Salt and Light TV, Canada’s Catholic Television Network. The date was no coincidence: for what better launch date could there be for a documentary about some outstanding and astounding women than Easter?
On Holy Saturday, China's communist government, deep in talks with the Vatican on a deal to appoint bishops, issued a ban on internet sales of the Bible. Four days later, it issued its first white paper on religious freedom in 21 years, only a week after hauling Bishop Vincent Guo Xijin of Mindong away from his diocese for a few days during Holy Week.
Sr Kathleen is one of 20 or so religious sisters who took part in an oral history project – the Witness seminars – initiated by independent scholar Dr Dianne Kirby and Lisa Isherwood, professor of feminist liberation theologies at the University of Winchester. The seminars record the largely untold story of the role of Catholic nuns during the Troubles.
Dear brothers and sisters, Happy Easter! Jesus is risen from the dead! This message resounds in the Church the world over, along with the singing of the Alleluia: Jesus is Lord; the Father has raised him and he lives forever in our midst.
