St Peter’s Square has been closed to the public. The Diocese of Rome has cancelled masses until 3 April and announced a day of prayer and fasting. Instead of meeting thousands of pilgrims in St Peter’s Square, Pope Francis held his general weekly audience and delivered his catechism via livestream from the privacy of his Read more
The Pope’s popularity in Italy has dropped from 88 percent in 2013 to 71 percent in 2018. But you’d be mistaken to think that the decline has to do with Archbishop Viganò’s charge that Francis had covered-up for Cardinal McCarrick. The poll was taken before that story broke. According to the poll’s author, much of Read more
Italy’s deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini has been compared to Satan by a Catholic weekly newspaper. The Famiglia Cristiana cover shouts: “Vade retro Salvini” (“Get back, Salvini”). Evidently, the headline is a tweaked version of the medieval Latin formula used during exorcism. Read more
Italy’s “euthanasia in disguise” bill has been passed into law 30 years after it was first mooted. The law allows citizens to create advance directives about their treatment. These directives express their final wishes for medical treatment in case they lose the ability to communicate their choice. The Italian senate passed the bill into law Read more
Mafia connections between the Catholic church in southern Italy and organised crime are over. When a Sicilian mobster known as the “boss of bosses” died in prison last month, a spokesman for the Italian conference of bishops said it would be “unthinkable” to give him a public funeral. Read more
A priest called the guardian angel of refugees is under investigation for people trafficking. Mussie Zerai was nominated for a Nobel prize in 2015 for his compassion to refugees. For tens of thousands of desperate migrants, his cellphone number has meant the difference between life and death as their boats founder. He has been the Read more
The Vatican fountains are unusually quiet at present. That’s because Pope Francis has had them turned off to show solidarity and conserve water during the drought affecting much of Italy. Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si denounces wasteful practices and highlights the importance of clean drinking water. The prolonged drought has hit two-thirds of farmland and has Read more
A working group involving the Vatican and Italian dioceses has been set up to interpret Pope Francis’s reform of the marriage annulment process. As part of the reform, Pope Francis repealed aspects of a motu proprio from Pope Pius XI that set up regional tribunals in Italy. In the wake of Francis’s reforms, the Roman Read more
An Italian sect that arose after alleged apparitions of the child Jesus has been found guilty of schism and has incurred an automatic excommunication. The Diocese of Sora-Cassino-Aquino-Pontecorvo made the announcement on June 5 concerning the self-styled Universal Christian Church of the New Testament. This followed an examination by the Congregation for the Doctrine of Read more
A cash-strapped parish in Italy has asked parishioners to put scratch and win lottery cards on the offertory plate rather than money. A flyer on a door of San Martino church in Cigola near Brescia announced the move. “We all know we need help,” read the flyer. “So with a smile and without making givers Read more