A Florida man was arrested Saturday after plowing his vehicle into a Catholic church and then setting the building on fire as parishioners were inside preparing for Mass, according to officials. The Marion County Sheriff’s Office said Steven Anthony Shields, 24, crashed his van through the front doors of Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Read more
According to Italy’s national statistics institute, Italy is likely to see a significant decline in the number of babies born in the period following the COVID-19 pandemic. In their 2020 annual report, Istat, Italy’s national statistics institute, predicted that the climate of uncertainty and fear caused by the coronavirus may result in 10,000 fewer births Read more
A former seminarian has received an apology and damages in the High Court from the publishers of the Irish Sun over an article falsely claiming he had been sent home from the Irish College in Rome. Conor Gannon sued News Group Newspapers (NGN) over the May 12, 2018, article entitled ‘Fling and a Prayer’ which Read more
The charity ChildFund has gone into partnership with the New Zealand government to improve well-being in the Asia Pacific region. The $NZ11.2 million ‘Impact programme,’ to which New Zealand’s foreign ministry will contribute about $NZ8.6 million, targets children, youth and their families in Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, Cambodia, Vietnam, and the Solomon Islands over Read more
Pope Francis expressed his sadness Sunday after Turkey’s decision to convert the former Byzantine cathedral of Hagia Sophia back into a mosque. In improvised remarks after reciting the Angelus, the pope recalled that July 12 is Sea Sunday, when the worldwide Church prays for seafarers. “And the sea carries me a little farther away in Read more
Destiny Church leaders Brian and Hannah Tamaki blocked Queen St in a campaign push to demand that “their voices be heard.” Roughly 1000 people gathered in Aotea Square to hear the pair make their pitch for their party, Vision New Zealand, ahead of the upcoming election. Read more
A kidnapped Christian girl in Pakistan has phoned her parents to say she is pregnant after being raped by her abductor, who has imprisoned her in one room of his house. Tabassum Yousaf, the lawyer fighting for the freedom of 15-year-old Catholic girl Huma Younus who was kidnapped in October 2019 and forced to convert Read more
Staff at the Pope John XXIII hospital in Bergamo — once the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy — announced they had no more patients with coronavirus in their intensive care unit. After 137 days of trying to keep critically ill patients alive, staff gathered July 8 for a moment of silence to remember Read more
A Vietnam court has jailed an outspoken Catholic blogger, known for commenting on social issues, for allegedly trying to undermine the state. The People’s Court in Lam Dong province on July 7 sentenced Nguyen Quoc Duc Vuong, 29, to eight years in jail and three years’ probation for “making, hoarding and disseminating anti-state propaganda.” The Read more
Christchurch-based anaesthetist John Hyndman is no stranger to complicated medical machines. He’s used them for decades. But he prefers them when they are working properly. Otherwise, they are kind of scary. Particularly for his patients. So he was shocked when, in the early 2000s, he was doing voluntary work in small hospitals in the Pacific Read more