Pope Francis says service, not party affiliation, makes a politician Catholic. This involves dedication to promoting the common good, particularly through listening to and empowering people who are often overlooked. The pope was speaking to a group of young Latin American leaders attending a course on politics and the social teaching of the church. The Read more
Women in Catholic Latin American nations hit by the spread of the Zika virus are increasingly going online to obtain abortion pills. The Women on Web site has a long history of helping those in countries where abortion is illegal obtain pills to terminate early pregnancies. An online consultation with a doctor is involved. A woman is Read more
Pope Francis has again hit out at a clerical mindset which obstructs the laity from taking its proper role. The papal criticism came in a letter from Francis to Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. Cardinal Ouellet is also the Prefect for the Congregation for Bishops, which plays a Read more
Latin America is home to more than 425 million Catholics – nearly 40% of the world’s total Catholic population – and the Roman Catholic Church now has a Latin American pope for the first time in its history. Yet identification with Catholicism has declined throughout the region, according to a major new Pew Research Center Read more
To truly understand Pope Francis, one must understand the Latin American mindset, the Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith says. Cardinal Gerhard Müller spoke about the Pope during an interview with the Austrian Pontifical Missions magazine Alle Welt. Cardinal Müller said the Western world would have to learn to see problems Read more
It’s official: the deep Amazonas is more remote than Siberia. In all of the visits I have made to provinces of the Congregation of Jesus (CJ) all over the world, never have I been without a signal for my BlackBerry… until I visited one of our sisters living and working in a community along the Read more
With an Argentinian Pope at the helm of the Catholic Church, populist politicians in Latin America are doing their best to enlist him in order to promote their agendas. Within a week of Francis’ election, the Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro claimed that the new Pope’s statements on the “option for the poor” were, in fact, Read more
An Argentine composer Martin Palmeri introduced the “Tango Mass” a number of years ago, but now we have an argentine Pope, it’s gaining new life and new audiences, “Obviously, I’m very proud. It’s a piece I composed over 15 years ago. And slowly it’s been growing and getting played at bigger venues. For me this Read more
Don’t cry for the Catholic Church in Argentina or anywhere else in Latin America. The church may have lost privileged status in many nations, and is dropping some market share to a rapidly growing Pentecostal movement. But the combination of increasing religious freedom and competition is also fuelling a Catholic renewal movement, and equipping the Read more
The Sept. 30 decision by Archbishop Jose Luis Escobar of San Salvador, El Salvador, to close its human rights office, Tutela Legal, has produced an outpouring of protest from organisations and individuals in many countries concerned with the protection of rights. They recognize Tutela Legal as a particularly valiant part of their movement that played a Read more