Pope Francis rejected war and exhorted all sides to put an end to hostilities and seek peace in Syria. “No more wars. The use of violence never leads to peace. War calls for war, violence calls for violence,” the pope said over the weekend as the United States and its allies prepared to attack Damascus. Read more
Pope Francis on Saturday announced the appointment of Archbishop Pietro Parolin as secretary of state, replacing Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. Archbishop Parolin, 58, is currently the Vatican envoy to Venezuela and served as the Vatican’s deputy foreign minister from 2002 to 2009. He has led various Vatican diplomatic delegations in thorny geopolitical negotiations, including talks to Read more
A new study reported in the Social Psychological and Personality Science said too much religion can harm a society’s economy by undermining the drive for financial success. Religion News Service reported that the study of almost 190,000 people from 11 religiously diverse cultures is raising eyebrows among some of England’s religious leaders for suggesting Judaism Read more
Nelson Mandela spent his first night in many weeks at his home in Johannesburg on Sunday after being discharged from hospital in Pretoria. The former South African president, 95, was admitted in early June for a recurring lung infection. The South African government has said his condition remains critical and can sometimes be unstable “Madiba’s Read more
Coptic Christians in the Upper Egyptian city of Minya are managing to restrain their anger despite a wave of devastating attacks on their churches and institutions by enraged Islamists, news reports said. Tensions are still running high more than two weeks after the attacks in the city some 250 kilometres (155 miles) south of Cairo Read more
A report by the Guardian said a body set up by the Catholic church in Australia to oversee its dealings with the royal commission into child sexual abuse is not the predominantly lay-run organisation it has been represented as. The report noted that the Truth, Justice and Healing Council was established last January by the Read more
Pope Francis has phoned an Argentine woman to comfort her and tell her she is not alone after she wrote a letter to him saying she was raped by a policeman. Alejandra Pereyra, 44, told Argentine television that at first she froze and had to ask him to repeat his name when he phoned but Read more
A new study done by the Clergy Health Initiative at Duke Divinity School found that demands placed on clergy by themselves and others put pastors at far greater risk for depression than individuals with other occupations. The study, published this week in the Journal of Primary Prevention, compared the mental health of 95 percent of Read more
A former military commander of the Salvadoran Army who was linked to the killing of six Jesuit priests has been jailed in the United States. Former Col. Inocente Orlando Montano was sentenced Tuesday by a federal court in Boston after he entered a guilty plea on charges of violating immigration laws. Montano’s past as a Read more
The Vatican’s official daily this week criticized global powers for preparing possible military action against Syria despite an ongoing UN investigation into an alleged chemical weapons attack near Damascus. “The tones are becoming ever more drastic and the action being taken by the United Nations appears subjected to a sort of crossfire,” the newspaper said. Read more