On Friday Germany’s Synodal Way approved a text on the role of women in the Catholic Church, one that challenges the exclusion of women from sacramental ministry. The vote took place on the second day of the plenary session. The document “Women in ministries and offices in the Church” was facing its second reading. The Read more
A long-running fight over who gets to run a parish has landed a group of clerics in a Congolese civil court. On one side of the battle are the Dominicans friars. On the other side is their archbishop, Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo (pictured). Both want to run Saint Dominic’s Parish in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Read more
A group of Canadian Inuit are in France this week to press the Macron government to extradite a retired Catholic priest. The priest is accused of sexual abuse. The allegations come from a time Fr Johannes Rivoire (93) was working for the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate in Canada’s northern regions. The Inuit group’s trip Read more
Despite the risk, three bishops from Myanmar have spoken cautiously and emotionally about the military coup in their Southeast Asian nation. Accustomed to discretion, all three know that a word against the army would endanger them and their Catholic people. Archbishop Marco Tin Win, Bishop Noel Saw Naw Aye and Bishop Lucas Dau Ze Jeimphaung Read more
US bishops are calling for world leaders to continue working towards nuclear disarmament after participants in the recent Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Review Conference (NPT) failed to reach a consensus on a final document. In a statement on 8 September, Bishop David Molloy of Rockford (Chair of the US Bishops’ conference committee on international justice Read more
Everybody loses when politics tries to poison church life and when church members use the logic of politics, an Italian cardinal says. “To poison ecclesial relations with the logic of politics is making trouble,” says Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the president of the Italian bishops’ conference. This isn’t just a problem in Italy, he adds. It Read more
Britain’s new health secretary is facing pressure over her stance on abortion. Thérèse Coffey, a practising Catholic, was named the UK’s deputy prime minister and health secretary on 6 September by incoming prime minister Liz Truss, the successor to Boris Johnson. Coffey, who has voted against measures to expand abortion, told Sky News that she Read more
The oldest major shopping centre in the Philippines is exhibiting more than 50 Marian images to celebrate the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The exhibition “Salamat Maria: Tribute to the Beloved Mother’s Birthday” was inaugurated on 1 September 1 and will be open until 10 September at the Ali Mall in Read more
Places of worship have become the latest target for the forced roundup of Eritrean teens to serve as soldiers, which clerics describe as a deteriorating situation. For two years, 15- and 16-year-olds have been taken from towns and villages. According to the sources, some are ending up on the front lines in the war in Read more
The Cambodian government has rejected allegations made in Hong Kong and Taiwan that human traffickers had lured victims into this country for “organ harvesting” and the sale of body parts for transplants on the black market. “Up until now, there has not been a single case of a human trafficking organisation harvesting organs from their Read more