Cardinal John Dew has announced that the fifth Synod for the Archdiocese of Wellington is to take place in 2017. A diocesan synod helps to establish the ‘communion and mission’ of a diocesan community. In the decree of convocation Dew said he was mindful of Pope Francis’ desire that we advance along the path of what Read more
Sir John Ribat, the newly appointed cardinal from Papua New Guinea says both Catholics and Protestants have to live with they pain they have because they cannot share Holy Communion during Mass. “But that for the moment this is what they all have to live with as they push towards full Christian Unity.” he added Read more
The Vatican is striking back at critics of Pope Francis’s document on family life, titled “Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love)”. Wednesday’s L’Osservatore Romano carried a front page essay by Italian Catholic historian and politician Rocco Buttiglione. He insisted that the document is in line with teaching by previous popes on divorced and civilly remarried Read more
Philadelphia’s mayor has characterised as “not Christian” guidelines issued by an archbishop on a papal document on marriage and the family. Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia recently released pastoral guidelines in the wake of Pope Francis’s post-synodal exhortation Amoris Laetitia. In the guidelines, one of the topics addressed was divorced and civilly remarried Catholics living Read more
An Italian priest’s alleged refusal to allow a 10-year-old autistic girl to receive her first Communion has been criticised by an Italian politician. The girl’s parents were furious after the priest told them twice that their daughter was “not ready” to receive the sacrament. The priest, from Sicily, told the girl’s mother that her daughter Read more
The Church’s doctrinal chief has said Pope Francis’s document Amoris Laetitia is in line with previous Church teaching on divorce, remarriage and Communion. The prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, told seminarians in Spain that the apostolic exhortation does not change the Church’s discipline in this area. John Read more
Early reaction to Pope Francis’s recent document on family life has seen some divorced and remarried Catholics demanding absolution at an Italian cathedral. This was stated in an article by major penitentiary at Milan Cathedral, Msgr Fausto Gilardi, a translation of which was published on the Crux website. In the article, he mentioned the reaction to a Read more
Pope Francis has spoken of his annoyance at the media’s seeming fixation on Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried. On his flight back from the Greek island of Lesbos on Saturday, the Pope was asked about a much-commented-upon footnote in his recent apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia. In a section of the document discussing pastoral Read more
A Lutheran bishop and some other Lutherans received Catholic communion at a Mass at St Peter’s Basilica last month. The National Catholic Register reported sources stating that Bishop Samuel Salmi of Oulu in Finland and other Finnish Lutherans indicated to the Catholic priests at the Mass that they wanted a blessing. They reportedly tried to Read more
Church authorities in Salt Lake City are investigated the case of a communion host that appears to be bleeding. The consecrated host was reportedly placed in a glass of water by a priest to whom it was returned during Mass. Three days later, churchgoers at St Xavier Church in Kearns reported the host had not Read more