In Northern Ireland, Catholic councillors may find they have a potential conflict of interest. The rules in Northern Ireland demand councillors complete a ‘Declaration of Interest’ that could potentially influence their decision-making in chambers. Declaration of Interest confusing One councillor says he was confused as to how to complete the Declaration of Interest correctly. “I Read more
On July 15, less than a week before Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, Donald Trump chose J.D. Vance, the 39-year-old senator from Ohio (elected in November 2022) as his running mate. If elected with Trump on November 5, Vance would be the second Catholic vice president in U.S. history after Biden. However, Read more
In the same month of July, in the two countries I spend most of my time and I know best, the United States and Italy, Catholics held important national gatherings. Looking at them from a distance, not as an active participant, but knowing personally or professionally many of the speakers, has been an instructive experience Read more
A new report indicates that Spain leads the world in terms of the number of Catholic missionaries serving abroad, with almost 10,000 Spanish priests, nuns, and brothers working in Latin America and other corners of the world. It’s also in second place in terms of financial support for missionary activity. Such a commitment is obviously Read more
After the second time I appeared on CNN, an anonymous Twitter user tweeted at me: “What makes you so qualified to go on there talking about Catholicism?” The topic I had commented on? Having children. Me, a Catholic mother, seem imminently qualified to speak on such a thing, but still, this faceless follower without a Read more
On May 1, the Associated Press ran an interesting report on the return of conservative Catholicism in the United States. The nutshell of the article is this sentence: “Generations of Catholics who embraced the modernizing tide sparked in the 1960s by Vatican II are increasingly giving way to religious conservatives who believe the church has Read more
The controversies over the blessing of homosexual couples in Africa and Pope Francis’ diplomacy regarding Ukraine are evidence of a global shift happening in the Catholic world, that favors the global South. Catholics from the Old Continent must take this into account in a Church that has been, for centuries, led by Europe. Global shift Read more
High-ranking Catholics from across the globe have converged on the Vatican, where a landmark initiative is underway that will shape the future of the Catholic Church. Cardinals, bishops, priests and lay Catholics, both men and women, are meeting Oct. 4-29, 2023, as part of the Synod on Synodality: an effort Pope Francis launched in 2021 Read more
You know when you start to make a smoothie and everything is loud, the blender is shaking, and you think it’s about to explode? That was me at age five realising that my beliefs contradict each other. Growing up in a Māori Catholic family, I struggled to exist within two worlds. My spirituality has never Read more
These days, Catholic intellectuals open the op-ed pages of the New York Times with the same dread they once had for the threatening, unsigned editorials of the official newspaper of the Vatican, L’Osservatore Romano. Except that we’re not talking about condemnations emanating from the pope. Instead, the condemnations found in world beacon of the liberal Read more