In China, the Communist Party’s high-tech means to control Chinese Christians’ religious observance include facial recognition surveillance and a smartphone app that ranks citizens’ party loyalty. Chinese authorities in the Xinjiang region use high-tech surveillance with facial recognition and an app tracking its user’s location to monitor the Uyghur ethnoreligious minority intensely. Between 800,000 to Read more
Christians cannot pray like or with Muslims, says Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Müller, the former archbishop of Regensburg, Germany, made the comment during a reflection in Verona on the theme “Prayer: A gift from God,” telling hundreds of listeners that “the faithful of Islam are not Read more
A rash of fires that police say were intentionally set at Jewish community centers in Chicago and around Boston last week has left Jewish groups feeling vulnerable. At the Chabad Center for Jewish Life in Arlington, Mass., where Rabbi Avi Bukiet and his family live about 20 minutes outside of Boston, firefighters were called to Read more
More than 70 Church of Scotland delegates – including the outgoing moderator the Very Rev Susan Brown – have formally lodged their frustration at the decision of its general assembly not to divest from fossil fuels, with advocates describing Wednesday’s vote as “an embarrassing abdication of moral leadership”. Although the general assembly voted to “recognise Read more
Some bishops’ failure to fully implement the Church’s revised marriage annulment procedures has drawn a rebuke from the pope. “I am saddened to note that the reform, after more than four years, remains far from being applied in most Italian dioceses,” Pope Francis, the bishop of Rome, told other members of the Italian bishops’ conference Read more
Resisting large-scale Muslim immigration is a responsible exercise of one’s patriotism, Cardinal Raymond Burke told a pro-life, pro-family conference last week. While the church must be generous to “individuals that are not able to find a way of living in their own country,” this is not the case for many Muslim migrants “who are opportunists,” Read more
At his installation mass as the seventh Archbishop of Washington, Wilton Gregory pledged a new era of openness in the Washington, DC diocese. “I want to be a welcoming shepherd who laughs with you whenever we can, who cries with you whenever we must, and who honestly confesses his faults and failings before you when Read more
Three children of priests, representing the Children of Silence association, will meet the French bishops at the Bishops Conference of France next month. The meeting, which is a first in France, follows an initial meeting between Children of Silence president Anne-Marie Jarzac (67) and two Bishops’ Conference members. “We told them that we needed to Read more
Doctors have been ordered to resume life support for a quadriplegic Frenchman whose case is central to the right-to-die debate in France. The doctors had stopped the nutrition and hydration Vincent Lambert receives, following an earlier judicial ruling in accordance with the wishes of his wife and other relatives. The new order to resume life Read more