Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, to protest against increasing cases of kidnappings for ransom, in which many Christians have been targeted. Several people blocked the highway between Abuja and Kaduna, with burning tires, shouting, “we must stop the kidnappings”. Among the kidnapped there are several priests, including Read more
In a rare moment of hope in troubled times, a Jewish man killed during an eruption of Middle East violence has given new life to an Arab woman. Yigal Yehoshua died after being pelted with rocks amid clashes between Arabs and Jews in Israel’s mixed city of Lod. The ethnic violence was triggered by protests Read more
Pope Francis is inviting all Catholics to a seven-year journey to become totally sustainable. The “predatory attitude” toward the planet must end, he says. The new initiative, the Laudato Si’ Action Platform, is “a seven-year journey that will see our communities committed in different ways to becoming totally sustainable, in the spirit of integral ecology,” Read more
The University of Notre Dame held its commencement ceremony this weekend with the notable absence of one very important guest: President Biden. The Catholic News Agency reported earlier this month that Biden, the second Catholic president in American history, was invited to give remarks to new graduates but could not attend due to scheduling conflicts. Read more
Four civilians were killed, and eight more were injured in an attack by the Myanmar army on a Catholic church in Kayan Thar Yar village in Kayah (Karenni) State. The incident on 24 May marked the latest in a series of attacks on Christians and churches which have taken place amid a wider crackdown on Read more
Pope Francis has kissed the tattoo of an Auschwitz survivor during a general audience on Wednesday. Lidia Maksymowicz, 80, a Polish citizen who was deported to Auschwitz from her native Belarus by the age of 3, showed the pope the number tattooed on her arm by the Nazis, and Francis leaned over and kissed it. Read more
Father James Altman, pastor of St. James the Less Parish in La Crosse, Wisconsin, told Mass attendees that Bishop William P. Callahan has asked him to resign because he is “divisive” and “ineffective.” Altman — who told his congregants that he is being singled out for preaching “the truth” about “all the evil that confronts Read more
The Vatican has postponed the 2022 Synod of bishops on Synodality by one year. The additional time will allow for an unprecedented consultation with Catholic laity. According to a Vatican communique, the three-stage process “will help to make possible a true listening to the People of God to ensure the participation of all in the Read more
Fifteen US seminaries have committed to using new sexual misconduct benchmarks to assess how well their misconduct policies are working and if their seminarians know about them. The benchmarks were developed at the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame after surveying responses from 1,544 seminarians in 2018. A 20-person study Read more
A group of disgruntled Vatican employees has written a letter to Pope Francis, expressing their discontent over what they say are labour injustices at the Vatican. When Pope Francis decided to cut the pay of Vatican employees, lay and religious, in late March, it was mostly welcomed as a positive effort to rein in the Read more