Vatican prosecutors are investigating a lay official who oversaw investments for the Vatican’s Secretariat of State. The investigation is probing the secretariat official’s appointment as a director of a company owned by the financier who brokered the deal for a London luxury apartment building. Vatican prosecutors are also continuing to look into suspicious financial transactions Read more
US bishops are concerned about disparities in COVID-19 infection and death rates, especially among Afro-Americans. “Our hearts are wounded for the many souls mourned as African American communities across the nation are being disproportionately infected with and dying from the virus that causes COVID-19,” the said in a press statement on behalf of four U.S. Read more
While acknowledging the Vatican budget is being trimmed to fit the post-pandemic economy, Fr Juan Antonio Guerrero SJ says rumours suggesting the Vatican is facing a massive default are not true. Nor is it true that an internal analysis of the economy given to Pope Francis places the Vatican’s annual deficit at risk of growing Read more
A UK Catholic diocese has launched what is believed to be the UK’s first-ever Mass available to listen to directly by phone. The new service has been provided specifically by the Middlesbrough diocese for Catholics without internet access, following on from the success of online services, introduced after the suspension of public mass earlier this Read more
As countries continue to reel from the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, Pope Francis offered prayers for the men and women who have been unable to work. “In these days, many people have lost their jobs, were not rehired or work off the books. Let us pray for these brothers and sisters of ours Read more
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Singapore will not conduct wedding solemnisations via video link, despite the government’s move to allow couples to do so for the first time. In a notice to the faithful on Wednesday (6 May), the Chancery of the Archdiocese emphasised the importance of the physical interaction of the persons celebrating the Read more
Officials of the communist government in China imposed restrictions on the funeral of 98-year-old Bishop Joseph Zhu Baoyu of Nanyang. Officials allowed only 40 people to attend the May 9 funeral in Henan province. They also restricted the movement of people and banned parishioners from taking photographs of the service. Bishop Zhu died on May Read more
Sweden’s pandemic approach and the risk it poses to the vulnerable is worrying, says Cardinal Anders Arborelius of Stockholm. Unlike most countries, Sweden has chosen a more relaxed approach to preventing the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In an open letter to Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, Arborelius and other Christian leaders have asked Read more
Magazine articles critical of the flattering comments New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan made about President Donald Trump have been withdrawn from publication. Even though they have been withdrawn, one of the articles has been saved by a digital archive that allows people to see websites as they existed at various points in time. A link Read more
Despite precautions coronavirus (COVID-19) has swept through a community choir in Washington State in the US. Even before Washington State had announced social distancing rules, the choir members had agreed nobody would attend practice if they had even a hint of illness and they’d keep themselves well apart. Then the choir’s conductor emailed singers that Read more