As the American Catholic bishops debate whether President Joe Biden should receive Holy Communion given his support for abortion rights, outrage has been building in the United Kingdom since the country’s chief executive, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, recently came out as Catholic, to the concern of British Catholics, some parish priests and parliamentarians. The controversy began Read more
Church leaders including Pope Francis and the Syrian Patriarchs are condemning last weekend’s airstrikes by the United States (US), Britain and France. War planes and ships launched over 100 missiles at three chemical weapons storage and research facilities near Damascus and Homs. The airstrikes sought to punish President Bashar al-Assad for a suspected chemical attack Read more
Proclaiming Christianity could be seen as a hate crime in the United Kingdom. However, the British government is refusing to say whether it is or not. The question arose when Lord Pearson of Rannoch raised a question on the issue in the House of Lords. In response, he says the government failed to state clearly Read more
Pope Francis has called for the European Union to find new creative ways to stay together. This follows Britain’s planned exit from the EU. The Pope told reporters on his flight back from Armenia that it is clear “something isn’t working in this unwieldy union [the EU]”. Francis said Europe must reflect on the “air Read more
Pope Francis has been drawn into Argentina’s dispute with Britain over the Falkland Islands after a brief incident at a general audience. During the Pope’s audience on August 19, an activist from the “Dialogue for Malvinas” campaign thrust a sign towards Francis’s hands as he passed by. It read: “It’s time for Argentina and Britain Read more
Negative attitudes about the Catholic Church and its teachings are worsening in Britain, a study has shown. An analysis of 180 opinion polls among British adults from the 1950s to today shows a steady decline in esteem for the Church and its clergy. This seems to have accelerated since 2000. But the same study by academic Dr Read more
St Patrick is one of a handful of Christian saints, along with Mary, Valentine and Francis, that is celebrated in popular culture. His feast day is commemorated with supermarket meat sales, green rivers, green beer, and (my favourite) parades. But who was the real St Patrick? Most people know that the missionary Patrick (Patricius or Pádraig) Read more
An apostolic exhortation by Pope Francis is the best-selling papal document in Britain since the Second Vatican Council. More than 25,000 copies of Evangelii Gaudium have been sold since December. This is the highest figure for any Vatican document since Unitatis Redintegratio, the Vatican II Decree on Ecumenism sold 85,000 copies in Britain. Sales are Read more
British government officials have dismissed a suggestion by Argentina’s President Cristina Kirchner that Pope Francis could act as mediator in the two countries’ dispute over possession of the Falkland Islands. “The last thing we need is religion inserted in this,” said Michael Summers, a veteran Falklands legislator. Britain’s United Nations ambassador, Mark Lyall Grant, agreed. Read more
Ordinations of new Catholic priests in Britain have fallen to one tenth of the number in 1965, and marriages and baptisms have also dropped significantly. Details of the declines have been revealed for the first time by the compilation of statistics for these sacraments over the past century. The figures were compiled by the Latin Read more