Blessed Pope Paul VI will be canonised a saint in October. The ceremony will take place at the end of the Synod of Bishops on youth and discernment, Cardinal Pietro Parolin says. The cardinals and bishops who are members of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes have voted to recognise a miracle where Blessed Paul healed Read more
Changing admissions rules for new faith schools would be ‘divisive’ say Rowan Williams, Richard Dawkins and over 60 other signatories to a letter to the Daily Telegraph. Williams is the former Archbishop of Canterbury and Dawkins is an English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author. The letter attacks a policy that would allow the Catholic Church Read more
Forty gay priests and seminarians are implicated in a 1,200-page document claiming they used a male escort. The escort Francesco Mangiacapra gave the documents to Cardinal Cresenzio Sepe of Naples, who passed it on to the Vatican. The document is said to contain social media conversations and photos showing priests and seminarians are actively interested in Read more
The Vatican has invited hackers to its first-ever hackathon. The four-day coding marathon event began yesterday. The hackathon, called VHacks, has brought together people from all faiths as well as those who have no faith. In this, computer scientists, developers and designers use technology to solve global problems. Read more
Pope Francis’s clergy sexual abuse commission could be more effective in protecting children if the group were granted more time to work directly with him. It also needs resources to hold more in-person meetings each year, a former member says. Read more
America’s newest cathedral, the Cathedral of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, was dedicated last Saturday. Over 1,000 parishioners joined five cardinals, 21 bishops, more than 100 priests, 58 deacons and 39 men and women religious at the dedication Mass. Read more
Trainee priests in France are swapping their boarding school seminary isolation for community-based housing. Many have already relocated from enclosed suburban retreats into city centres. So far seminarians from the dioceses of Lille, Orleans, Nantes, Lyon, Rennes and Paris have relocated. The change in living arrangements responds to Pope Francis’s wish for trainee priests to Read more
A sexual offence charge against Australian Cardinal George Pell has been withdrawn because his accuser died. Mark Gibson SC, crown prosecutor, told the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday the charge following the death of key witness Damian Dignan was being withdrawn. However, Pell still faces numerous other sexual offence charges. He is denying all of Read more
Accusations of embezzling and laundering €50 million have resulted in a former Vatican bank president and his lawyer being ordered to stand trial. The Vatican says the bank’s former president, Angelo Caloia, is the highest-ranking Holy See financial official to be indicted on such charges. Seventy-eight year-old Coloia, along with his lawyer, 94 year-old Gabriele Liuzzo, Read more
The Vatican has confirmed Pope Francis will join the World Council of Churches 70th anniversary celebrations in June. The gathering will take place in Geneva. The World Council of Churches (WCC) includes 348 member churches across 110 nations. It is the largest umbrella group of Christian denominations in the world. Members include most Eastern Orthodox Read more