Prosecutors are challenging the medical report claiming Mr Theodore McCarrick is not competent to stand trial on charges he sexually abused a teen in the 1970s. McCarrick is a laicised former cardinal, McCarrick’s legal team filed the report on 27 February in Massachusetts’ Dedham District Court based on a medical evaluation that found McCarrick, 92, Read more
Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega has banned traditional public processions of the Way of the Cross during the Lenten season. The move escalates his crackdown on the country’s Catholic Church and political opponents. The Nicaraguan government has prohibited the processions from being held in public venues, with the ritual to be conducted only inside churches on Read more
When the German bishops’ conference meets in Dresden this week, the group’s chairman has a particular aim. Bishop Georg Bätzing wants Germany’s bishops to support the prospect of liturgical blessings for same-sex couples. The German Catholic news agency KNA says the German bishops’ leader’s agenda will call for “a common line in favour of blessing Read more
Asian Church leaders have concluded their continental-level preparations for making the Church more participatory by discussing key questions that have not been sufficiently discussed during lower-level gatherings. The continental-level gathering that ended on Feb. 26 in Bangkok was the highest preparation level ahead of the Synod of Bishops, more commonly called the Synod on Synodality, Read more
Pope Gregory XIII, the 16th-century pontiff responsible for what is today known as the Gregorian calendar, now has another celestial claim to fame. A working group of the International Astronomical Union has named an asteroid after him, the Vatican Observatory said Tuesday. The “560974 Ugoboncompagni” — Gregory’s birth name was Ugo Boncompagni — was announced Read more
As soldiers and police looked on, bulldozers destroyed more than 100 houses on two streets in Myanmar’s second-largest city, leaving residents – many of whom had been living there for decades – homeless overnight, sources in the country told Radio Free Asia. The junta demolished the homes on Monday on Mandalay’s Ma Kha Yar street Read more
Speaking with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, Father Kirill Gorbunov, who is also vicar general of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of the Mother of God at Moscow, said that “the majority of the people are suffering” and that “after a year of war [with Ukraine], there is no foreseeable solution.” “It seems that the Read more
The Mexican Catholic Church is facing a spiritual crisis, and the bishops admit they’re losing the people. That’s the conclusion of the Mexican Episcopal Conference (CEM) report on the synodal consultations that took place late last year in 75 of the Latin American country’s 79 dioceses. The bishops acknowledged that they have listened “little or Read more
The Seminary of the Good Shepherd in Sydney has broken a record, with 17 men joining this year’s intake, the largest number in the history of the Homebush seminary. The last time so many men entered a seminary in Sydney was 40 years ago when 17 entered Good Shepherd’s predecessor seminary, St Patrick’s College at Read more
The Vatican’s top envoy to the Middle East, Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, has called for an end to sanctions against Syria, which he says “benefit no one” and are hindering earthquake relief efforts in the country. Gugerotti visited Syria and Turkey from 17-21 February to express Pope Francis’s support for earthquake victims and to coordinate relief Read more