AUCKLAND — Twenty-three years ago the life of Vietnamese Community chaplain, Fr Andrew Nguyen, was transformed. On June 6, 1990, Fr Nguyen arrived in New Zealand to a life of peace and freedom, after a life of war, repression, imprisonment and torture. Speaking of that day in 1990, he told NZ Catholic: “I was very Read more
I have been asked at this meeting of the Australian Jesuits and our companions on the journey to explain why I love the Catholic Church despite all the woes we are suffering as a social institution at the moment. I love the Church because it is the privileged space where people can share their deepest Read more
A crisis of sorts is developing in the appointment of Catholic bishops worldwide as a backlog of 187 sees (excluding China) remain vacant, writes Edward Pentin in the National Catholic Register. Half of Scotland’s ordinaries — four out of eight — have yet to be appointed. The Philippines has nine sees without a bishop, and Read more
It began when the Pope paid his bill. The day after Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was named the leader of the world’s billion Catholics, he asked his driver to go back to the hotel in the Vatican where he’d been staying during the Congress of Cardinals, to pay his bill. The payment was completely symbolic Read more
It was a shipwreck of African migrants off the coast of Lampedusa, a small island in the Mediterranean, that spurred Pope Francis into action. In the past 18 months more than 500 people have died, or gone missing at sea, trying to escape Africa. The world barely noticed. Standing on Lampedusa on Monday, Francis prayed Read more
Oscar Romero, now back on the path to sainthood, was called to conversion by ordinary Salvadorans. Among the welcome news coming on the heels of Pope Francis’ election was an April announcement that the canonization cause of Archbishop Óscar Romero of El Salvador has been, in the words of Italian Msgr. Vincenzo Paglia, who leads Read more
Unpunished attacks on Coptic Orthodox and Catholics led many Christians in Egypt to join the demonstrations that led to President Mohammed Morsi being ousted by the armed forces. “Most of the Christians do not want the president,” said Father Rafic Greiche, the spokesman for the Greek Melkite Catholic Church in Egypt. “We have to be Read more
It was just another weekend at the office for Pope Francis, more of the series of actions, words and gestures that have kept him a fixture in the international media since his March 13 election. On June 15 he took a major step toward reforming the scandal-wracked Vatican bank by appointing his own man, Msg. Read more
It is difficult for us to understand the Spanish Inquisition because we are so used to the separation of church and state in modern times. During the time in which the Inquisition in Spain was most active (1480-1600s), however, heresy was considered a crime similar to political treason because the monarchies of Europe and the Read more
Pope Francis has appointed eight cardinals to assist him in reorganizing the Vatican’s administration. One of them is the archbishop of Sydney, Australia, George Pell. Many think he was chosen simply because he is the only cardinal in Oceania and it appears that the pope wanted one from each continental region. When asked in an Read more