Visions of Mary, if taken in the wrong spirit, can sow confusion and distance people from the Gospel, Pope Francis has said. “The spirit of curiosity generates confusion and distances a person from the Spirit of wisdom, which brings peace”, said Pope Francis in his homily at morning Mass at Casa Santa Marta. Curiosity, the Read more
Pope Francis has said he suffers when he sees women in a role of servitude in Church organisations, instead of the servanthood to which all Christians are called. “I suffer — speaking truthfully! — when I see in the Church or in some ecclesial organisations that the role of service that we all have, and Read more
More than 100,000 people came to St Peter’s Square at the Vatican on October 13 to see Pope Francis consecrate the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The original statue of Our Lady of Fatima, which had been brought to the square the evening before, took centre stage as the Holy Father made an Read more
The issue of Christian missionaries proselytising in India has taken a bizarre turn after a church in the eastern state of Jharkhand installed a statue of Mother Mary and Baby Jesus depicted as “tribals,” the indigenous people of the state. With dark brown complexions and sporting traditional Indian tribal clothing (white sari with red border, Read more
Returning to the Marian shrine where he oversaw the drafting of a crucial document on re-evangelising Latin America, Pope Francis said he wanted to “knock on the door of the house of Mary” before beginning his heavy World Youth Day schedule. Recalling the call for evangelisation issued by the Latin American bishops when they met Read more
A statue of the Virgin Mary has been smashed in an act of vandalism. Church staff noticed the shattered shell in its grotto behind the church building in Maxwell Rd yesterday after the Queen’s Birthday Weekend. Continue Reading and more
The Vatican has translated and published procedural rules used to determine the credibility of alleged Marian apparitions which for 30 years have only been available in Latin. The “Norms regarding the manner of proceedings in the discernment of presumed apparitions or revelations” were approved by Pope Paul VI in 1978 and distributed to the world’s Read more
Imagine the fury of the men of Galilee when a young, unmarried girl showed up in their village pregnant. They must have talked about punishments. Stoning — a legitimate penalty, condoned by Deuteronomy — would have been appropriate, although the more compassionate among them might have suggested something gentler: ostracism or banishment. If the girl Read more
Traffic jams subsided in Russia after a relic, said to belong to the Virgin Mary, was returned to its home in the Greek monastic complex of Mount Athos. The relic, a belt of the Virigin, is believed to help women’s fertility and cure illnesses and modest estimates calculate nearly three million people visited the relic during its Read more
Braving sub-zero temperatures and a line stretching several kilometres, almost half a million Russians queued this week to venerate a relic of the Virgin Mary brought to Moscow from Greece.
The Moscow authorities said 400,000 people had waited outside Moscow’s vast Cathedral of Christ the Saviour since The Belt of the Virgin Mary relic arrived on Saturday. Around 82,000 were queuing on Thursday alone.
In an extraordinary display of the strength of Orthodox Christianity in post-Soviet Russia, the faithful have stood in a queue stretching five kilometres (three miles).
The Belt of the Virgin Mary is believed to help women’s fertility and cure illnesses. It toured ten other Russian cities before arriving in the capital.
“There is something I need to ask. Nobody in this line is here just for fun,” said 40-year-old Ivan, who was waiting at the front of the line for his wife and child.
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