Despite Pope Francis’s call for urgent action on climate change, many US Catholic dioceses and organisations retain major investments in energy companies. A Reuters’ investigation has shown some of the largest American Catholic organisations have millions of dollars invested in the energy sector. Investments range from hydraulic fracturing firms to oil sands producers. Dioceses with Read more
An alliance of Christian and Jewish clerics has voiced support for plans to change the law to allow a form of assisted suicide in the UK. In a letter to the Daily Telegraph, several [Anglican] bishops, priests and rabbis argued that, far from being a sin, helping terminally ill people to commit suicide should be Read more
The pro-life coalition Voice of the Family has warned the working document for the synod on the family threatens elements of Church teaching. An analysis by Voice of the Family critiqued the Instrumentum Laboris for omissions and ambiguity in wording. The document “threatens the entire structure of Catholic teaching on marriage, the family and human Read more
A bishop ousted from a diocese in Paraguay by Pope Francis has died in Argentina from complications related to diabetes. Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano, 69, resigned as the ordinary of Ciudad del Este diocese last September, but the Holy See never specified why. The resignation came after an apostolic visitation of the diocese arranged by Read more
One of the effects of Venezuela’s economic crisis is a shortage of unleavened wheat flour to make Communion hosts. The monthly production of hosts in the South American nation has fallen from 80,000 to 30,000 recently, the Catholic News Agency reported. Giovanni Luisio Mass, prior of the Order of Poor Knights of Christ of the Read more
A cardinal has said the synod on the family in October must not forget those who are left alone by divorce. Speaking to the National Catholic Register, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna said “we have to speak about mercy and be merciful to the divorced and remarried, who often experience many sufferings and troubles”. “And Read more
An Italian parish is offering a baby bonus payment of NZ$3400 to local parents for their third child onwards. The initiative in the parish in Staggia Senese in Tuscany is aimed at helping local people have larger families. But the offer comes with strings attached. To qualify for the baby bonus, couples must already have at least Read more
A US archbishop has softened his tone on Catholics who support same-sex marriage receiving Communion. In 2013, Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron wrote that that Catholics who back same-sex marriage and receive Communion would “logically bring shame for a double-dealing that is not unlike perjury”. But this month he told the Detroit Free Press: “Whenever it Read more
Asian theologians have been taken to task by one of their own for being locked into a classical Western moral theology framework. Sri Lankan Redemptorist Fr Vimal Tirimanna told the first pan-Asian conference of Catholic moral theologians, held in Bangalore, India, last month, that fresh approaches are required. Theologians have failed to take seriously indications Read more
Church leaders have hit back at stinging criticism of a BBC’s Songs of Praise special edition recorded in a refugee camp in Calais in France. The setting is a makeshift Ethiopian Orthdodox Church, built by volunteers in the “New Jungle” settlement, in and near which 5000 people from Eritrea, Libya and Syria live. The programme, Read more