In a new document, Pope Francis has called for renewed efforts to strengthen marriages, while being compassionate and close to people in their frailty. The 325-paragraph document, Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), draws together almost three years of consultation with Catholics around the world, including synods in 2014 and 2015. Among the many topics Read more
The Archbishop of Canterbury has discovered that his biological father is not who he thought it was. In the last month, Archbishop Justin Welby discovered that his biological father is not Gavin Welby, but rather the late Sir Anthony Montague Browne. This was revealed by DNA testing. Sir Anthony was Sir Winston Churchill’s last private Read more
Four Irish prelates are to meet a priests’ group to discuss calls for restoration to full ministry of priests disciplined by the Vatican. This is one of the topics likely to be on the agenda of a proposed meeting between the prelates and representatives of the Association of Catholic Priests. Other matters to be discussed Read more
Participants in a Vatican conference are hoping to see just war theory dislodged as a leading framework for Catholic response to violence. Eighty experts engaged in global non-violent struggles have gathered this week to develop a new moral framework that rejects ethical justifications for war. They also hope Pope Francis’s next excyclical will be on Read more
A grieving UK family has been told that it cannot put an image of Thomas the Tank Engine on a headstone for their three-year-old son in a church graveyard. Max Gainard, who was born in Bristol, died from sepsis last February. The boy was said to have loved the stories of Thomas the Tank Engine. Read more
Groups of Catholic women walked out of Masses in two Polish cities to protest at a proposed tightening of the nation’s abortion laws. They walked out of churches in Warsaw and Gdansk. At the Warsaw church of St Anna, the women shouted “scandal” as a priest read out a letter from Poland’s bishops in favour Read more
A Democratic contender for the US presidency, Bernie Sanders, is going to the Vatican to speak in a conference on economics. But how this came about has become a point of contention. While the US senator said he accepted a Vatican invitation, one of the conference’s organisers said that his campaign had lobbied for his Read more
An Irish nun is seeking an apology from the Catholic Church for its treatment of women. Sr Eileen Lenihan’s call came in Limerick at the first diocesan synod to be held in Ireland in 50 years. Sr Lenihan said: “The apology that is being called for, perhaps it needs to come from the Church, radically Read more
Pope Francis’s exhortation “Amoris Laetitia; On Love in the Family,” which is scheduled to be released on April 8, will be a call to “dialogue,” according to a “reading guide” released by the Vatican. The guide, issued by the Vatican’s office for the Synod of Bishops, says that the exhortation will be “first and foremost Read more
Questions about the pastoral implications of assisted suicide continue to arise as Canada gets ready to legalize it in June while in the United States several states are poised to discuss the issue later this year. Catholic health and ethics experts, however, said there is no definite answer as to its implication on pastoral care. Read more