A high-profile Italian priest who championed euthanasia and same-sex marriage has been dismissed from the priesthood at his own request. Fr Luca Favarin, 53, who had been suspended since last December, made the announcement of his dismissal from the clerical state in an August 24 post on Facebook, saying the Vatican decree had arrived the Read more
Fr Paul Sanogo and Seminarian Melkiori Dominick Mahinini who were kidnapped on August 3 in the assault on the parish of St Luke Gyedna in the local government area of Paikoro in the State of Niger, in central northern Nigeria have been released. This was confirmed by the superior general of the Missionaries of Africa Read more
Pope Francis has merged the Archdiocese of Osaka and the Diocese of Takamatsu to create the new Archdiocese of Osaka-Takamatsu. The current archbishop of Osaka (Cardinal Thomas Aquino Manyo Maeda) is the new archdiocese’s first archbishop; the bishop of Takamatsu retired last September. The Archdiocese of Osaka was founded in 1904 and elevated to an Read more
Immigration New Zealand staff have been warning their managers for a year that the under-fire Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV) system has major flaws and is a recipe for migrant exploitation – but were ignored. Concerned Immigration staff say employers are being allowed to bring in migrants without any paperwork or financial checks, even when Read more
The Nicaraguan government has seized a prominent Jesuit-run university in the capital, Managua, in President Daniel Ortega’s latest effort to lash out against the Catholic Church. The Central American University (UCA) announced on Wednesday that all classes and administrative activities were suspended after a criminal court ruled its property and financial accounts were being transferred Read more
The Lumsden Tree Lovers group has been protesting the removal of 130-year-old cypress trees from the Lumsden Presbyterian Church grounds this week. On Monday, a small group of people gathered at the church and chained themselves to one of the trees in protest of a decision to fell the trees, planted in the 1890s, to Read more
Pope Francis said on Monday that he was writing a follow-up to his landmark 2015 encyclical on the protection of the environment and the dangers of climate change “to bring it up to date”. He made the surprise announcement in a brief, unprepared addition in a speech to a group of lawyers from the Council Read more
Vietnam’s President Vo Van Thuong met with the country’s Catholic bishops to thank the church for its role during the Covid-19 pandemic, share on his recent visit to the Vatican and strengthen ties, including the possibility of opening Catholic schools, media reports say. The meeting was held at the headquarters of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference Read more