Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi announced that further discussions were to be held in an effort to achieve reconciliation between the traditionalist St Pius X Society and the Vatican. Recent talks were held after the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith examined the latest response from the Society, to the “doctrinal preamble” presented to Read more
Widely known Protestant convert and theologian, Dr Scott Hahn, has been to appointed to an endowed chair of the Franciscan University of Steubenville. Hahn’s reception of the “Father Michael Scanlan Chair of Biblical Theology and the New Evangelization” was announced May 12. Fr Michael Scanlan was credited with enabling the school’s Catholic revival. “Through his Read more
President Obama stated his support for same-sex marriage in a reversal of his stance last week. Obama said, “At a certain point, I’ve just concluded, that for me, personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.” Following the president’s comments, presidential Read more
Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior general of the Society of St Pius X (SSPX), has expressed hope of a possible reconciliation with Rome. The Society effectively broke with Rome in 1988, when its founder, the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, ordained four bishops without the permission of Blessed John Paul II in a protest against changes of Read more
Pope Benedict was delighted when told by Bishop James D. Conley of Denver of rising seminarian numbers across the United States. Bishop Conley was one of ten bishops from Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming who had an audience with Pope Benedict as part of their five-day ‘ad limina’ pilgrimage to Rome which concludes tomorrow. Read more
Hildegard von Bingen, a German 12th-century Benedictine nun, is the first woman to be officially recognized as a “prophetess” by the Catholic Church. She was was noted as a mystic, a theologian, a poet, a composer and a scientist. On Thursday (May 10), Benedict ordered Hildegard, who died in 1179, to be inscribed “in the catalogue of saints,” Read more
Nearly 7,000 pro-life advocates marched from Rome’s Colosseum to St. Peter’s Square on Sunday for the city’s inaugural March for Life. “We’ve never seen anything like this in Rome,” march co-organizer Juan Miguel Montes said of the event. American cardinal Raymond L. Burke led a group of priests in the march. He said it brought back Read more
With controversy still raging over the role of Cardinal Brady in the Brendan Smyth affair, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has called for an independent commission of inquiry into Smyth’s offending and the circumstances around it. Archbishop Martin said “I know it’s not fashionable today to talk about Commissions but I do really believe that Read more
Jesuit Fr. Samir Khalil Samir SJ, professor of History of Arab Culture and Islamic Studies, estimates that there are 16 million Christians in the Middle East, with 8 to 10 million of those in Egypt, 2 million in Lebanon and Christians in Syria, Jordan, Palestine and Iraq. Though Christianity existed in these countries before Islam, Read more
Italian historian Lucetta Scaraffia, writing in the L’Osservatore Romano, claims that the same arguments that were once used by the Nazis to promote their eugenics program of mass extermination are now being used by proponents of euthanasia and abortion of the chronically ill unborn. Scaraffia’s article comes in the wake of the Italian translation of Read more