The Vatican has conducted an apostolic visitation of Kansas City-St Joseph diocese in the United States, to investigate the leadership of Bishop Robert Finn. Bishop Finn was the first Catholic prelate in the United States to be found criminally guilty of shielding a guilty priest in the sex abuse crisis. Canadian Archbishop Terrence Prendergast of Read more
The first woman to be appointed to a Vatican congregation sees the move as a realisation of Pope Francis’s wish for more women in official Church positions. Sr Luzia Premoli, superior general of the Combonian Missionary Sisters, was appointed a member of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples on September 13. She told the Read more
Pope Francis has told members of the Vatican’s security force to intervene with people they find gossiping and backstabbing. On September 27, the Pope celebrated Mass for the Vatican’s security personnel. In addition to the more colourful Swiss Guard, the Vatican’s other security body is its own police force, the gendarme corps. The corps of Read more
The 2018 Lambeth Conference of the world’s Anglican bishops is in doubt, with speculation it won’t be convened for years. Based on comments by the presiding bishop of the US Episcopal Church, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Irish Times reported the conference had been cancelled. Bishop Schori said the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby was Read more
The bishop in charge of evangelisation in England and Wales has resigned after revealing he had been “unfaithful” to his “promises as a Catholic priest”. Bishop Kieran Conry of Arundel and Brighton diocese said in a statement read in churches that his unfaithfulness had gone back several years. He apologised for the damage and hurt Read more
A feminist theologian who is a director of UK Catholic weekly The Tablet has been banned from speaking on church property in a Scottish archdiocese. Archbishop Leo Cushley of St Andrews and Edinburgh has ordered the Edinburgh Circle of the Newman Association to cancel an event at which Professor Tina Beattie was due to speak Read more
Pope Francis has sacked a Paraguayan bishop affiliated to Opus Dei in order to try to mend divisions in the Church in that nation. On September 25, Bishop Rogelio Ricardo Livieres Plano of Ciudad del Este diocese was removed to preserve the “unity of both the bishops and of the faithful”, according to a Vatican Read more
The Catholic Church has to turn the image of a punitive, judgemental God head over heels, the Archbishop of Dublin says. Speaking at a Mass in Dublin on the feast of Our Lady of Mercy, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said many in his generation grew up in a religion where this punitive image prevailed. “Mercy was Read more
Married couples will have a prominent role in the upcoming synod on the family, the event’s organiser has revealed. Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, the secretary general of the synod, said that married couples will address the gathering immediately after each topic is opened by a bishop. The synod runs from October 5-19 in Rome and Pope Read more
An Australian, Professor Tracey Rowland, is among five women that Pope Francis has appointed to the International Theological Commission. This is a record number of women to be on the 30 member commission. There were two women appointees in the previous five-year term of the commission, which is an aid to the Pope and the Congregation for Read more