Catholic churches around the world will be participating in a worldwide “confession drive” on Friday as part of the Jubilee Year of Mercy celebrations. In the Vatican, Pope Francis will hear confessions from the faithful at St. Peter’s Basilica as part of a “24 Hours of Reconciliation” initiative in Italy. In England and Wales, teams Read more
For more than 65 years, the Catholic Church in North Korea has been known as the “silent church”. Then dictator Kim Il-sung purged and executed leading church figures after the communists took power in the north in 1948, severing ties with the Vatican. Contact between North Korean Catholics and the outside world remains rare. Following Read more
A senior Mormon apostle has said most Catholics don’t know who God is, who Jesus is or who the Holy Ghost is. Elder M. Russell Ballard made this remark at a gathering in Argentina last year, but it has only recently come to light in media. The comment has raised hackles both within and outside Read more
Congress and the United Nations rolling out their red carpets, nuns working overtime to bake communion hosts, prison inmates carving a walnut throne, tickets for events snapped up in seconds: America is gearing up for pope-mania. Pope Francis is expected to be greeted with huge crowds and across-the-board reverence when he tours Washington, New York Read more
The share of Americans whose primary religious affiliation is Catholic has fallen somewhat in recent years, and now stands at about one-in-five. But according to a new Pew Research Center survey of U.S. Catholics and others, an additional one-in-ten American adults (9%) consider themselves Catholic or partially Catholic in other ways, even though they do Read more
(RNS) A new report mapping the Catholic Church’s more than 1.2 billion souls — on track to reach 1.64 billion by 2050 — holds some surprises. And not all bode well for the church’s future as it faces major demographic and social shifts. “Global Catholicism: Trends & Forecasts,” released Monday (June 1) by the Center Read more
Support from Catholics in Scotland could swing the upcoming referendum in favour of independence from Britain, a Scottish academic says. Writing in The Times, Professor Sir Tom Devine of Edinburgh University noted that, historically, Catholics in Scotland have not favoured devolution. This was because they were sceptical about the Presbyterian majority using devolution to gain Read more
Prayers and services of remembrance were held across the world this weekend for the country’s first black President, Nelson Mandela, who died on Thursday. South African Cardinal Wilfred Napier presided over a Requiem Mass at Emmanuel Cathedral in his archdiocese of Durban on Saturday night, which was followed by an ecumenical service and an all-night Read more
The new head of the Catholic bishops’ conference says Church leaders in the Philippines have failed to evangelize the faithful despite there being large numbers of Filipino Catholics. “Many of our people do not even know the fundamentals of our faith,” Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan said in a pastoral letter on the Year of Read more
When Pope Francis was elected in March, Bridget Kurt received a small prayer card with his picture at her church and put it up on her refrigerator at home, next to pictures of her friends and her favourite saints. She is a regular attender of Mass, a longtime stalwart in her church’s anti-abortion movement and Read more