Pope Benedict has withdrawn to Castel Gandolfo while his successor is chosen. But few know that the papal summer residence of almost 400 years has a curious history, serving as a hideout for Jews, delivery ward and target for paparazzi. In the late evening of Aug. 6, 1978, a heavy iron chain was pulled across Read more
The introduction of sex education classes in Croatia’s schools has sparked a bitter row between the Catholic Church and the centre-left government. “Peace in our homeland is at stake,” declared Archbishop Josip Bozanic of Zagreb as opponents of the curriculum change claim it will promote pornography, promiscuity and homosexuality. Deputy Bishop Valentin Poziac compared the Read more
Being about the only professor at a liberal, tolerant, cosmopolitan Western university who is known to be a practicing Catholic — baptized at the age of two weeks — I have been asked frequently in recent times about what I think will happen to the church in the light of Pope Benedict’s resignation. Will it Read more
A think tank of religious brothers in the United States says they are an invisible group in the Church, but that allows them the freedom to be ordinary men performing an extraordinary ministry. In a country where the number of Catholic brothers fell from 12,271 in 1965 to 4477 in 2012, representatives came together from Read more
As I’ve been promoting this week, today was Google Hangout day for the Southern Cross New Media Project folks: Sarah Coppola and Emilie Ng from Cradio and James Bergin and I from Icon Media/Station 15 etc. And we were joined by the very impressive young man Brandon Vogt, who is doing some fantastic work in communicating Read more
Hong Kong’s retired Cardinal Joseph Zen has accused Vatican officials of “a policy of appeasement and compromise” that allowed Communist China’s control of the Church there. Cardinal Zen said Pope Benedict XVI set appropriate policies, but “his work was wasted by others close to him, who did not follow his line”. “Saying ‘others’ I mean Read more
I am one of a rapidly growing group – a woman in the second-half of life, struggling to find a place of belonging in the institutional church. The mainstream churches are hemorrhaging committed, gifted, passionate, knowledgeable, prayerful, spiritual seekers. Women who have given twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years in the service of their spiritual or Read more
The biblical mandate to “go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19), should have come with this disclaimer: If you are a missioner in a conflict zone, your emotional and psychological well-being will be shredded, you will destroy your life as you currently know it and, by the way, you may be Read more
Three senior Catholic Church officials — including the Archbishop Philip Wilson of Adelaide — will testify at an inquiry into the alleged cover-up of child sex abuse in a New South Wales diocese. The NSW inquiry on abuse will look at whether the Church protected predatory priests in the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle. The inquiry will Read more
The awful record of the institutional Catholic church’s leadership in dealing with the scandal of clerical sex abuse of minors has clearly, and rightly, been a trigger for the federal government’s Royal Commission into sexual abuse of children in Australia. This is a record that has already prompted other inquiries here and overseas. It would indeed be Read more