An account of a eucharistic miracle in Buenos Aires, involving Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio — now Pope Francis — has been published in a Polish-based magazine. The article says a priest in the commercial centre of Buenos Aires was finishing distributing Communion at Mass in 1996 when a woman told him she had found a discarded Read more
Catholic bishops have told the British government that members of the royal family who marry Catholics under the provisions of new legislation will not be obliged to bring up their children as Catholics. During a House of Lords debate, Lord Wallace of Tankerness said he had been assured personally by Monsignor Marcus Stock, general secretary Read more
The co-ordinator of the commission of cardinals that will advise Pope Francis on governing the Church has spoken in favour of having women in top Vatican jobs. “This wish is eagerly shared by [all] the continents,” Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras said in an interview with The Sunday Times, London. Another London newspaper, Read more
It is not possible to find Jesus outside the Church, the community that gives Christians their identity, Pope Francis said in a homily on his personal feast day. Dozens of cardinals living in Rome or visiting the Vatican joined in the April 23 celebration of Mass on the feast of St George — the patron Read more
A proposal by the Boy Scouts of America to reverse its ban on openly gay members is causing a dilemma for the Christian churches that sponsor almost 70 per cent of its troops. Of the 100,000 Scout units across the nation, 37,882 are Mormon, 11,078 are Methodist and 8570 are Catholic. And the organisation still Read more
Clericalism and worldly priests are criticised by the future Pope Francis in a book of conversations he had with an Argentine rabbi in 2010. The dialogue between Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Rabbi Abraham Skorka has just been published in English by Image Books, with the title On Heaven and Earth: Pope Francis on Faith, Read more
Sister Angelica, the contemplative nun who founded the Eternal Word Television Network and made it one of the world’s biggest religious broadcasting operations, has celebrated her 90th birthday. “That a cloistered nun with no experience was able to build a worldwide Catholic media network based in Irondale, Alabama, reaffirms my faith every day,” said Michael Read more
The globally trendy TED conferences came to the Vatican on April 19, with contributions from a Serbian basketball star, a Muslim graffiti artist from Birmingham, scientists, a rabbi and Cuban-born American singer Gloria Estefan. TED — short for Technology, Entertainment and Design — offers a worldwide platform for what it calls “ideas worth spreading”. Its Read more
Muslim immigrants are finding a much more welcoming atmosphere in traditionally Catholic Ireland than in Europe or America, according to an article in The Atlantic magazine. Muslims make up just 1.1 per cent of the 4.5 million people in Ireland, but their ranks are swelling due to immigration, births and, in some cases, conversion. The Read more
A second senior Vatican official has spoken in favour of civil recognition of same-sex unions — but has said they can never be equivalent to marriage. Archbishop Piero Marini, who served for 18 years as Pope John Paul II’s liturgical Master of Ceremonies, said “there are many couples that suffer because their civil rights aren’t Read more