Pope Francis has said he is not considering appointing women to leadership positions in the Vatican bureaucracy just for the sake of it. During a visit to Turin, the Pope said in a speech he didn’t want to promote a “functionalism” of women’s roles in the Church. “The woman in the Church has the same Read more
A church at the site where Jesus is believed to have fed 5000 people with five loaves and two fish has been badly damaged by fire. Fires were lit on June 17 in the monastery section of the Church of the Multiplication, in Tabgha on the Sea of Galilee. Israeli police said it was arson. Read more
All Hallows College in Dublin has been sold to the Dublin City University. The site was put up for sale last year with a NZS23 million price tag. In May 2014, the board of trustees of All Hallows College started a wind-down of the college’s academic operations. The last group of postgraduate students will graduate Read more
A lobby group fighting to keep its status as a registered charity says it operates the way it always has, so it shouldn’t lose its status. Family First is appealing a decision the Charities Registration Board made to de-register it in 2013. The group said its opposition to gay marriage was the reason Charities Services Read more
Twenty-three-year-old Rez Ricardo was born a refugee. Her Kurdish family had fled Iraq for Pakistan in the hope of receiving aid from the United Nations. Ms Ricardo was born three years after her family left Iraq and spent most of her life, until the age of 6, living in Pakistani refugee camps. The law student Read more
At his post-Cabinet news conference, on Monday John Key said he had been wrong and the numbers were much lower. Mr Key had repeated the claim several times that thousands and thousands of refugees make it into the country, despite the annual refugee quota being just 750. He said many more came in under the Read more
A charity established by Pope Francis has suspended a donations agreement with a football federation in the wake of the FIFA corruption scandals. The South American football federation CONMEBOL had pledged to donate US$10,000 to the Vatican charity Scholas Occurrentes for every goal scored during the Copa America, which began in Chile on June 11. Read more
France’s top Muslim official says 5000 mosques are needed in that nation, and has suggested converting abandoned Catholic churches. Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Grand Mosque in Paris and the president of the French Council of Muslim Faith, said: “It’s a delicate issue, but why not?” There are currently about 2500 mosques in France with Read more
A survey of faculty at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles has shown only one third of professors are Catholic. St John Paul II’s Ex Corde Ecclesiae stipulated that the majority of staff at Catholic universities should be Catholic. The LMU survey reveals conservative Catholic staff believe they are in an environment that is hostile Read more
Outspoken children’s health campaigner Dr Lance O’Sullivan is preparing to take “drastic action” at a troubled Auckland boarding school after learning of what he says are serious safety issues. Dr O’Sullivan, a Kaitaia GP who has been named New Zealander of the Year and Maori of the Year, claims Northcote’s Hato Petera College has failed Read more