Martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero was beatified on May 23 in El Salvador with hundreds of thousands of people present for the occasion. “Romero, friend, the people are with you,” the congregation chanted at a square in San Salvador. Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, presided over the beatification Mass. Read more
A Jesuit theologian has scotched the notion that the Second Vatican Council was a pastoral council and did not propose new doctrines of the Church. Fr John O’Malley said this in an opening address to a conference on Vatican II at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. The conference was focused on the meaning and import Read more
A Vatican official has disagreed with pro-life groups over the involvement in a climate change conference of people who have supported abortion. Pro-life sources had expressed concern that the Vatican partnered with United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon and US economist Jeffrey Sachs at an April 28 summit in Rome. The summit was hosted by the Read more
A US mother has filed a lawsuit after she told a Catholic school that her child was bullied and the school got an abuse investigation launched against her. Melissa Schroeder’s attorney has filed the action against Kansas City Archdiocese, Sacred Heart Catholic School in Shawnee and the school’s principal. Mrs Schroeder said she reported the Read more
The Vatican is refusing to confirm that Mother Teresa of Kolkata will be canonised as a saint in September next year. Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi responded to reports in Italian media that she would be canonised before the end of the Holy Year of Mercy. “It is a working hypothesis, therefore no official confirmation can be Read more
Cardinal George Pell has strongly denied being involved in an alleged sex abuse cover-up and trying to bribe a victim to be quiet. In a statement, Cardinal Pell renewed his rejection of claims that he helped move paedophile Fr Gerald Ridsdale between parishes and tried to pay one of the victims to remain quiet. He Read more
Ireland’s former president, Mary McAleese, has spoken of her son as a devout young Catholic who was made to feel lonely and was bullied because he was gay. Mrs McAleese said her son Justin was a “willing and happy” altar boy and an enthusiastic member of his local Catholic youth club. But he went through Read more
Pope Francis has changed one significant emphasis of his pontificate since last year’s extraordinary synod on the family, a Vatican watcher says. Vaticanista Sandro Magister, writing for the Italian L’Espresso magazine, said in the first two summers of his pontificate, Francis “gave space and visibility to the men and movements in favour of a reform Read more
A United States seminary has hired to professional actors to help seminarians be better prepared for future preaching. Detroit’s Sacred Heart Major Seminary hired the actors to put seminarians through a three week acting and public speaking workshop. The exercise has been nicknamed “Preaching Boot Camp”, reported the Detroit Free Press. Actors Arthur Beer and Read more
The Vatican has denied that Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment had been delayed over doctrinal fears. Veteran Vaticanista Sandro Magister claimed on his blog Settimo Cielo on May 11 that the Pope had “binned” the first draft of the encyclical in March. Magister said the Pope feared the first draft would have been “demolished” Read more