A new mini-series starring Jude Law will depict an ultra-conservative Pope Pius XIII who locks horns with Vatican officials. The first official trailer for Paulo Sorrentino’s eight-part mini-series “The Young Pope” has been released. The trailer shows Law’s Pius XIII – depicted as the first American pope in contemporary times – to be an intense Read more
A Catholic teenager in Britain was tied to a wooden cross and hung from a wall by work colleagues, a court has heard. Four men are on trial at York Crown Court accused of religiously aggravated assaults. All four deny the charges and three claimed the incidents were part of general workplace banter. The mock Read more
In the wake of the Orlando killings, a Florida bishop has lamented the role religion has played in breeding contempt for the LBGT community. Bishop Robert Lynch of St Petersburg wrote on his blog in reaction to the killings of at least 49 people and injuring of 53 more by gunman Omar Marteen in an Read more
Pope Francis has refused a donation from Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri, noting that the amount included the number 666. President Macri had sent 16,666,000 Argentine pesos for Scholas Occurentes, an educational charity the Pope supports. In a note to the charity’s office, the Pontiff said “I don’t like the 666”. The number is associated with Read more
The last surviving Catholic priest imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp has died at the age of 102. Fr Hermann Scheipers, who died on June 2 in Ochtrup, Germany, lived for more than 70 years after surviving a Nazi death march. He spent more than four years at Dachau after being arrested in 1940, reportedly Read more
A working group involving the Vatican and Italian dioceses has been set up to interpret Pope Francis’s reform of the marriage annulment process. As part of the reform, Pope Francis repealed aspects of a motu proprio from Pope Pius XI that set up regional tribunals in Italy. In the wake of Francis’s reforms, the Roman Read more
Pope Francis has decried the obsession with perfect bodies, saying it leads society to hide the disabled to avoid offending the privileged. In a homily at a Mass at St Peter’s Square on Sunday for the Jubilee of the Sick and Disabled, the Pope called for mutual solidarity and acceptance. Francis criticised the modern “objections” Read more
The superior of a US order of Catholic sisters has been summoned to the Vatican to discuss “areas of concern”. The Vatican’s congregation for religious life issued the requirement to the Sisters of Loretto. The order will be asked to explain alleged “ambiguity” in its adherence to Church teaching and its way of living religious Read more
The Vatican has cancelled the first full external audit of its finances, which was to have been done by a global accounting firm. The Vatican announced last week that PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) would no longer be responsible for the audit. Instead it will be performed by the Holy See’s Auditor General. In a statement, the Vatican Read more
Catholic schools in Ireland are under pressure to ban Amnesty International speakers, because of that group’s support for liberalising abortion law. Amnesty has been a public supporter of repealing the Eighth Amendment to the Irish Constitution, which puts “right to life of the unborn” on an equal footing with the right to life of the Read more