At least four Australian bishops have banned or restricted sales of a book by Emeritus Bishop William Morris, which details how he was sacked by Pope Benedict. Bishop Morris’s book “Benedict, Me and the Cardinals Three”, published by ATF Press, is banned from sale in Catholic bookshops in Toowoomba and Brisbane. It is only available Read more
Aspects of the media frenzy that 796 bodies of Irish children were supposedly dumped by nuns in a disused septic tank are lacking hard evidence. A media storm followed the reported discovery of the remains of hundreds of children from a mother and baby home run by the Bon Secours nuns in Tuam in Ireland Read more
Jesuit theologian Professor Ladislas Orsy has proposed a way once promoted by Joseph Ratzinger for divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion. In 1972, Professor Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, put forward an argument based on “oikonomia” – good spiritual housekeeping – a part of Eastern Church tradition. He argued that Communion could be given Read more
Ten Florida priests have accused their bishop of being a bully and have forwarded their complaints to the apostolic nuncio in Washington. The priests, in Venice diocese, accuse Bishop Frank Dewane of ruling by “intimidations, the use of fear, shaming, bullying and other non-Christian behaviours”. They accuse Bishop Dewane of “outbursts of rage, use of Read more
Retired Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun of Hong Kong has sharply criticised a Chinese white paper that emphasises Beijing’s total control of the special administrative region. “You (the Chinese communists) can tie me up, can take me away, chop my head off, but not as a slave,” said the cardinal in an online radio programme on Read more
Pope Francis has said divisions between Christian churches are a scandal caused by disagreement and human ambition. In an audience with the Church of England’s Archbishop Justin Welby in Rome on June 16, the Pope said: “The goal of full unity may seem distant indeed, yet it remains the aim which should direct our every Read more
A priest was shot and killed with a gun owned by a fellow priest during a robbery in downtown Phoenix, in the United States. Gary Michael Moran, 54, who had only been out of jail for six weeks, has been arrested following the shooting of Fr Kenneth Walker, FSSP, and the beating of Fr Joseph Read more
Pope Francis has hinted that if he eventually retires from the papacy, he might return to live in his native Argentina. In an interview with Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia last week, the Pope was asked if he still had a room reserved in a retirement home in Buenos Aires. Pope Francis said “yes”, explaining that Read more
Four out of five Catholic priests in public ministry in Ireland want the current English translation of the Roman Missal revised or scrapped. This is the finding of a survey of clergy views carried out by the Association of Catholic Clergy (ACP) in Ireland. The survey also showed a significant percentage of priests still use Read more
The Catholic Church was within its rights not to renew the teaching contract of a Spanish married priest, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled. In a nine to eight vote decision, the court ruled the decision not to renew Jose Antonio Fernandez Martínez’s contract “was legitimate and proportionate”. Fernandez Martínez was ordained in Read more