“There was this young woman out there on the Olympic ice and all these cameras are constantly on her,” Pham said. “She was not scared. She just wanted to pray: she didn't care who was watching.” “What an inspiration,” he said of this simple act of public prayer.
In this exclusive interview, Pope Francis speaks about Christmas, hunger in the world, the suffering of children, the reform of the Roman Curia, women cardinals, the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), and the upcoming visit to the Holy Land.
The Roman Catholic Church has ruled out opening any more new schools under the Coalition’s favoured academies programme unless it drops a cap on the number of places which can be reserved for churchgoers’ children.
At today’s General Audience in St. Peter’s Square, Francis said: “Never gossip about one another, never argue. Uniformity kills life” Finally,the Pope said: “the Church is Catholic because it is the “House of Harmony”, where unity and diversity merge together to become a strength.” The Pope used the image of a symphony to illustrate the meaning of harmony. In a symphony, different instruments are played simultaneously; each musician has their own unique timber and the notes of their particular instrument are composed for one common piece of music.
The Archbishop of Canterbury is encouraging Anglicans to adopt the practice of going to confession, a tradition more commonly associated with the Roman Catholic Church. His comments came as he addressed the heads of other churches – including the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England Wales, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols – about divisions between Christians.
The task of Catholic educators today ... is to offer to learners the possibility of an encounter with Jesus Christ.’ At the beginning of a new academic year, Nicholas King SJ suggests how Catholic teachers can and do respond to the challenges that are contained in this task. How can educators create a space in which today’s young people can find the Jesus they are longing to meet?
Considering the role of the Church and her use of the media, he said, “In every situation, beyond technological considerations, I believe that the goal is to understand how to enter into dialogue with the men and women of today in order to appreciate their desires, their doubts and their hopes.
The head of the Vatican’s department for religious life has said that dialogue has been missing from the Vatican-ordered reform of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. Brazilian Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, said that should change in future.
An estimated 12 million Filipinos are working abroad in over 200 countries. Celeste Macaldo says she’s a “devout” Catholic who attended Mass every week until she landed a job as a caregiver in Lebanon five years ago. “For five years, I remember going to church to attend Mass only five times, and only on Christmas Eve,” she told ucanews.com.
No doubt, also in dealing with this delicate matter the new pope will be inspired by the spirit of his patron Saint Francis who, in the history of the Church was a pioneer of dialogue. Communism has been the staunch opponent of the Church in China. Pope Francis will have to deal with this matter. He will find inspiration in the way his predecessors approached China.
A worldwide Catholic network has teamed up with Google to find out what it is Catholics want from the Web. What does the Web say about the Catholic Church? What do Catholics - and not only – want from the Web? And which ethical and spiritual issues are most widely discussed by Internet users?
Summer 1936 at the start of the Spanish Civil War. The film tells us about the martyrdom of 51 members of the Claretian Community of Barbastro (Huesca, Spain). Excellent portrait of the human and religious dimension of each person involved in such a real tragedy of our history. The sacrifies of young Claretians proclaim that "Love overcomes death."
When Pope Benedict's successor is chosen, the civil war between conservatives and liberals will resume with ferocity. Pope Benedict's resignation has brought about a brief truce in the civil war that rages through the Catholic church worldwide, but hostilities will resume as soon as his successor is chosen.
The Catholic school system in the United Kingdom is one of the success stories of which the various Catholic communities of these islands can feel rightly proud. Usually such schools are in demand, sometimes oversubscribed; frequently their success outshines that of other schools in the neighbourhood.
I praised God for the Church’s lookout for the uns — the un-documented, un-employed, un-housed, un-fed, un-healthy, un-born, un-wanted, misunderstood, un-justly treated — and prayed that our beloved country might work for a culture where that dreaded prefix — un — might be no longer.
The prince is believed to be concerned that canon law requires the children of such a marriage to be brought up as Catholics and was said to be sceptical when told that any constitutional difficulties this creates could be resolved by negotiations with the Holy See, according to the Daily Mail.
As a practising Catholic and a feminist there are two refrains I have heard from friends over the years. One goes something like this, and tends to be a question asked by my feminist friends: ‘why on earth would you remain a Catholic?'
I spent the last three days of the year helping on a retreat for young people in south London. On New Year's Eve we had a discussion session, and I put this question to them: If you knew the world was going to end in exactly one hour, what would you do with the time?
With Spain facing its toughest economic crisis for decades, this Christmas will be difficult for many families. But the festive season has inspired a certain wistfulness for simpler times and traditions, including the Catholic family of old. And with nearly two million seeking help from the Church, Catholic organisations are what stand between many people and destitution.
"Go and make disciples of all nations!" is the title of the Holy Father's Message for the twenty-eighth World Youth Day 2013, which will take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in July 2013. Some excerpts from the English language version of the text are given here.
