A retired Australian bishop has told a Victorian parliamentary inquiry that his predecessor “effectively facilitated” child sexual abuse by leaving known paedophiles in ministry and this was “absolutely” unChristlike. Bishop Peter Connors said his predecessor in Ballarat diocese, Bishop Ronald Mulkearns, made “terrible errors” and showed “great naivety” in moving paedophiles Gerald Ridsdale and Paul Read more
The president of the German Catholic bishops’ conference has called for a new office of women deacons in the Catholic Church. Archbishop Robert Zollitsch of Freiburg made it clear he was calling for a new office specifically for women, rather than admission of women to the sacramental diaconate. He called for the move at the Read more
The historic 2012 conviction of a Philadelphia archdiocesan official for endangering children was based on the evidence of an unreliable drug addict in a “show trial” driven by prosecutors determined to get a verdict against the Church, according to a secular reporter who covered the trial. Ralph Cipriano, formerly religion reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Read more
An Irish inquest into the death of a woman who was refused an abortion — a case that ignited demands to liberalise the country’s abortion laws — has revealed she died of an undiagnosed infection, not from being denied an abortion. Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old Indian dentist, died in Galway University Hospital last October, a Read more
In his first canonisation ceremony, Pope Francis will raise to the altars an estimated 800 Italian laymen martyrs killed by Ottoman soldiers in the 15th century. Many of the martyrs’ skulls adorn the walls of the sanctuary in the cathedral at Otranto, a small port town at the eastern tip of southern Italy, where the Read more
The Catholic Church in England and Wales has given notice it may be forced to opt out of its civil marriage role if a same-sex marriage bill is passed. The government bill has passed the House of Commons and is now being scrutinised by a joint human rights committee of MPs and peers before being Read more
The kidnapping of two Orthodox bishops in Syria has caused alarm in Rome, where it is feared that Syria will become the next Iraq — with Christians once again becoming the primary victims of chaos following the disintegration of a police state. A Vatican spokesman called the kidnappings “a dramatic confirmation of the tragic situation Read more
A Vatican department has taken the unusual step of issuing a public denial that it is preparing a document on the reception of Communion by Catholics who are divorced and remarried. The denial follows an article circulated by an Italian news agency claiming that Pope Francis had asked Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Read more
The evolutionary laws of heredity and genetic mutation pose no conflict to the Catholic faith, the chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences said during a meeting held to discuss the evolution of mankind. However, said Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, the beginning of the universe — “the transition from nothing to being” — is not Read more
When four bare-breasted feminist demonstrators interrupted a lecture by Archbishop André-Marie Leonard of Brussels and drenched him with water, the archbishop kept his head bowed calmly in prayer. Ironically, Archbishop Leonard was speaking at a conference on blasphemy and the limits of religious freedom, at the Free University of Brussels. The topless protesters, members of Read more