The Vatican’s cricket team has honoured Australia’s Phillip Hughes with a memorial Mass in Rome on the eve of his funeral in Australia. Team captain, the Rev. Anthony Currer, presided over the Tuesday evening service at the Venerable English College, the main English seminary in Rome. He said the team wanted to show its closeness Read more
World
Ireland church records go online
Friday, December 5th, 2014Tracing your Irish roots just got a whole lot easier as the National Library of Ireland is to give free online access to its Catholic Church records collection online, from summer 2015. This will enable millions of people around the world to trace their roots in Ireland. Genealogy expert John Grenham wrote in The Irish Read more
Orthodox and Catholic union all but a formality
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2014
The union of Orthodox and Catholic Churches is all but a formality. This is the view of the Vatican Correspondent for NCR after a momentous meeting between Pope Francis and the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. The pair met on the Feast of St Andrew, at the Church of St Read more
Islamophobia, fundamentalism and peace focus Papal diplomatic talks in Turkey
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2014
The plight of Christians in the Middle East and Muslims in the West dominated Pope Francis’ first day in Turkey. Both the Pope and Turkish leaders spoke frankly about their respective concerns. “It is essential that all citizens – Muslim, Jewish and Christian – both in the provision and practice of the law, enjoy the Read more
Pope: Church living in past; change needed to minister in cities
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2014
The pastoral practice of the church is based and rooted in times gone by and we need to change it, Pope Francis has said. Speaking to bishops, cardinals and pastoral care workers, Thursday, at the International Pastoral Congress, on the World’s Big Cities, Pope Francis urged them to be creative in order that everyone in Read more
Respond to the God of today Pope tells religious
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2014
Pope Francis is counting on religious to “wake up the world” throughout the Year of Consecrated Life. “This (waking up the world) is a priority needed right now,” the Jesuit Pope wrote in his letter to mark the November 30 start of the year. However to be so bold, Francis is urging religious communities to Read more
Animals also go to heaven suggests Pope
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2014
Tip the dog, Soda the cat and Tweety-bird, indeed all animals will also go to heaven. At least this is one interpretation of remarks made by Pope Francis in his weekly general audience in the Vatican, reports the Guardian. “The holy scripture teaches us that the fulfilment of this wonderful design also affects everything around Read more
Thailand parliament bans commercial surrogacy
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2014Thailand’s parliament has voted to ban commercial surrogacy after outrage erupted over the unregulated industry following a series of scandals including the case of an Australian couple accused of abandoning a baby with Down’s syndrome. A draft bill — which would see those caught profiting from surrogacy punished with up to ten years in prison Read more
EU churches call for greater action on human trafficking
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2014The EU and its member states urgently need to implement the legal framework already in place and to intensify cooperation with civil society and church organisations that work with victims of human trafficking at the grassroots level. This was one of the main messages of the Dialogue Seminar organised by COMECE and the Church and Read more
German bishops cannot agree on labour law changes
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2014German bishops have, for now, tabled a reform of Church labour law that would allow homosexual employees in a relationship and remarried Catholics to work in Church-run institutions. The bishops postponed the decision until April 2015 after a minority of conservative bishops resisted the change. They were also impeded by a federal court ruling that Read more