tagged articles with: faith

Pope's “personal ecumenism” of encounter and friendship.

He wants to build on this foundation but his approach is not to debate the finer points of ecclesiology. He instead operates a sort of “personal ecumenism” of encounter and friendship: a strategy that seeks to go round the structures and walls of division. One example of this is his planned visit this October to Lund, in Sweden for a gathering of October Catholic and Lutheran leaders preparing to mark the 500th anniversary of the reformation in 2017. 

Walking Together in the Service of God in the World

Declaration after the meeting of Anglican Primates, the senior bishops of the 38 Anglican Provinces, that took place in Canterbury between Monday 11 January and Friday 15 January at the invitation of Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury. We came knowing that the 2016 Primates’ meeting would be concerned with the differences among us in regard to our teaching on matters of human sexuality. We were also eager to address wider areas of concern. 

Iconic music legend was on a neverending quest to define his own spirituality

Tributes to David Bowie who died on Sunday have highlighted the power of his songs, his originality and his creativity. Here a leading Roman cardinal, Gianfranco Ravasi, finds evidence also of a struggle with faith.  

Philippine diocese to keep money out of church services

Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan says the church should rid itself of any semblance of commercialism in the rendering of church services.  The church cannot engage in business and commerce beyond its spiritual mission.

Filipinos' devotion is heroic but it needs to be purified.

There is no stopping Julian Vincent Mendoza, a 30-year-old father of three, from fulfilling a vow he made seven years ago. He, along his wife and three children, wade through a sea of bodies, all devotees of the Black Nazarene in Manila’s Quiapo district.Julian’s aim, like that of the mammoth crowd of about nine million at this year's feast, is to touch the statue

A Breakthrough in Christian/Jewish Relations

A new Vatican document has broken theological ground by stating explicitly that Jews can be saved despite not believing in Jesus Christ. A Jewish commentator hails the conclusion as the most significant advance in Christian-Jewish dialogue in half a century.

Important Orthodox Church gathering difficulties

 New wars and ancient feuds. Long-standing rivalries between Moscow and Constantinople – compounded by disagreements over the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria – threaten to derail the most important Orthodox Church gathering of modern times.

Full Text: Pope Francis’s address to diplomatic corps

 The Pope spoke to members of the diplomatic corps in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace: I offer you a cordial welcome to this annual gathering. It allows me to offer you my best wishes for the New Year and to reflect with you on the state of our world, so loved and blessed by God, and yet fraught with so many ills.

Welby's way: How to avoid an Anglican schism

The Archbishop of Canterbury has called together the 37 most senior figures in the worldwide Anglican Communion to try to head off a potential schism. But serious doubts remain about his chances of persuading them to adopt a new way of working together.

Making your own mind up on role of religion and belief in UK public life--

The Commission’s vision report: a nation with a deeply-rooted Christian history, but which has accommodated others at an ever-accelerating pace. It argues that all should be treated with equal respect and concern, knowing that their culture, religion and beliefs are embraced and valued as contributing to the nation’s common life.

Faith leaders help to forge historic climate deal

United Nations secretary ­general Ban Ki-moon has acknowledged the contribution of faiths to last weekend’s accord between 195 countries to stem carbon emissions and set the world on a more sustainable ­environmental path. He included “faith leaders” in his list of civil society climate campaigners who have “come together under one banner and brought forth this moment of hope”. 

English Bishops: BBC's cuts to religion aid extremism

Corporation is preparing significant cuts to its religion and ethics budget despite accusations that it has already sidelined faith issues. Rt Rev Rachel Treweek remarked that the decision to cut religious programming had presumably been taken 'to reduce the possibility of offending people with too much God stuff over the holiday'

Pope Francis delivers Christmas Urbi et Orbi message

Pope Francis this Christmas day delivered his Urbi et Orbi message, (to the city and the world) from the central loggia of St Peter's Basilica. In it he prayed that recent U.N.-backed peace agreements for Syria and Libya would quickly end the suffering of their people.

John Henry Newman: A Portrait

One of the things which this reviewer takes away from his first reading of this selection of Newman’s letters – and it will certainly be the first of many rereadings – is how overwhelmingly important Oxford remained to Newman, from the moment of his arrival there until his death. The letters to his old Oxford friends, such as Mark Pattison, Dean Church and Pusey, are dotted as an affectionate, nostalgic chaplet, through all the Catholic years.

Crisis in Syria: On the Road from Damascus

The bell rang out from the Carmelite monastery in the Syrian mountains between Damascus and Homs. It would be audible to Islamic State (IS) jihadists, whose front line is less than three miles away. It said defiantly: “We are still here.” The terrorists captured Qara, the local ­village, burnt the churches, dug up the Christian graves and scattered the bones. The friars and sisters had survived only by taking refuge in an old Roman tower where they were protected by Muslim friends. Now the village has been recaptured by the Syrian army.

China's Communist Party to hold meeting on religion

China's ruling Communist Party has officially signaled that it will hold its long-awaited first summit on religion for 10 years in coming weeks, as it prepares to make sweeping changes to its regulations on religious affairs.

Negative modern attitudes towards faith

As a cinemagoer, I’m being carefully targeted for conversion to a philosophy of life. If I don’t like it, that’s my problem. After all, this philosophy of life is completely self-evident to the film-makers, and assumed to be acceptable and attractive to every sane citizen. So advertising our Christian history is not intruding dangerous propaganda into a neutral and benign space. It is competing with existing propaganda, existing philosophies and ideologies. No wonder it’s a challenge for some.

History and Mystery: The O Antiphons in a Favorite Advent Hymn

Many Catholics are becoming interested in including the O antiphons as part of their Advent preparations, by singing or reciting or listening to recordings (or doing all of these things) between Dec. 17 and 23. Everyone can find renewed inspiration at the end of Advent by praying the O antiphons as a countdown to the great feast that is to come. Names of a Scriptural type of the Messiah. He is the Wisdom of God, the Ruler of the House of Israel, the Root of Jesse, the Key of David, the Dawn, the King of the Nations, and God with us.

Filipinos usher in Christmas with predawn Masses

Goodbye Christianity, hello multicultural wasteland...

Would you believe they want to make state schools even less Christian than they already are – accusing our many excellent Church schools of being ‘socially divisive’ and of promoting ‘segregation’ – and to revise the Coronation and services of remembrance to make them more inclusive?