Only five Catholic cardinals, considered princes of the church who vote for the pope, have resigned — or been kicked out – since 1791. When British Cardinal Keith O’Brien announced his resignation Monday as a Scottish archbishop, he also said he would not do the most important task of a cardinal: vote for the next Read more
Money from the annual Good Friday collection taken up in Catholic churches around the world last year enabled restoration and maintenance on holy places in Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Nazareth, Magdala, Capernaum, Mount Tabor and Mount Nebo. In a letter to Catholic bishops, the prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, said a 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
Catholic and Muslim scholars have pointed out that success in adult stem cell research is being underplayed in favour of more controversial work using cells from embryos because of the “aggressive secularism” or “personal investment” of researchers. Worldwide there have been three clinical trials using embryonic cells, derived from embryos discarded during in vitro fertilisation Read more
The rate of convictions of Catholic Church personnel for sex abuse in Australia seems “strikingly out of proportion” with the size of the Church compared with other faith communities, according to research by a law professor at the University of Sydney. “While there are some similar patterns in terms of victims’ age and gender, the 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
Because of declining church attendances and financial difficulties, hundreds of Catholic and Protestant churches in Germany are closing. One estimate is that 15,000 of the 45,000 churches in the country will soon be no longer needed. “These buildings are simply too opulent, too empty and too expensive to maintain, something akin to an aging grandmother Read more
Representatives of the Catholic Church and four Protestant churches in the United States have begun to discuss the Church’s mission and identity after formally agreeing to recognise each other’s baptisms. The discussion will include “unity and diversity in the Church, and the origins and current interpretations of ministry and ordination, and the nature and role 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
Not so fast, Leicester Cathedral — Richard III was a Catholic, and his last resting place should be in a Catholic church. So argues Elena Curti, deputy editor of the London Tablet, following the news that archaeologists have confirmed the discovery of the king’s missing remains under a car par in Leicester. “The ‘appropriate’ rites Read more