German Cardinal Reinhard Marx has lamented the results of European Parliament elections, which saw gains for nationalist and “eurosceptic” parties. These included UKIP in the United Kingdom and French National Front. “A matter of concern is the significant increase of support for parties which reject the project of European integration,” said Cardinal Marx. “Some of Read more
World
Catholic trainee gynaecologists told to emigrate from UK
Friday, May 30th, 2014Catholic doctors who want to follow Church teaching on sexual ethics have been told they can’t train as gynaecologists in the United Kingdom. Charlie O’Donnell, a consultant in emergency and intensive care medicine, sounded this warning at a Catholic Medical Association Conference in the UK. He said the best advice he could give to an Read more
Pope invites Holy Land leaders to Vatican to pray for peace
Tuesday, May 27th, 2014
During his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Pope Francis invited Israeli and Palestinian leaders to join him at the Vatican and together pray for peace. Speaking in Bethlehem, the Pope offered President Shimon Peres and President Mahmoud Abbas “my home in the Vatican as a place for this encounter of prayer”. “Building peace is difficult, Read more
We Are Church head excommunicated after Mass simulated
Tuesday, May 27th, 2014
The head of the international pro-reform We Are Church movement has been excommunicated by the Vatican. Austrian Martha Heizer and her husband Gert suffered this penalty for regularly “simulating the Mass” without a priest present. According to a statement from Innsbruck diocese, the pair publicised this practice, which forced Bishop Manfred Scheuer to take legal Read more
UK Catholic parents oppose their sons’ adoption by gays
Tuesday, May 27th, 2014
A Catholic couple in the United Kingdom have failed in a legal attempt to block the adoption of two of their sons by a gay couple. The parents, of Slovak Roma origin, had asked that the children be adopted by a Catholic family. The parents’ four children were taken into care in Kent last year. Read more
All Hallows College to close after Kennedy letters sale off
Tuesday, May 27th, 2014
All Hallows College in Dublin has announced it is to close its doors only days after its proposed sale of Jackie Kennedy’s letters was stopped. The former United States first lady’s letters were written to Vincentian Fr Joseph Leonard, who died in 1964. The proposed sale was stopped after the intervention of the Kennedy family. Read more
UN committee on torture slates Vatican response to abuse
Tuesday, May 27th, 2014
The United Nations Committee against Torture has issued a damning report on the Vatican’s response to the clergy child sex abuse crisis. Among the committee’s accusations were failures to report allegations of abuse to authorities, and refusing to disclose information for criminal proceedings. The report cited Archbishop Paul Gallagher, Papal Nuncio to Australia, who, it Read more
Woman who killed her new born son at convent gets 4 years
Tuesday, May 27th, 2014A Samoan woman who acknowledged she killed her new born son at a Washington convent where she was studying to become a nun was sentenced to four years in prison. Sosefina Amoa, 26, has said she didn’t know she was pregnant before she gave birth to a baby boy in her room at the Little Read more