Father Mick Kelly, the Sydney-born priest and journalist who works with and helps about 400 Pakistani refugee families in Bangkok, Thailand. (Photo by James Massola) Mick Kelly remembers the phone call from his friend in Pakistan as if it was yesterday. “He asked me to help out this one guy who was fleeing Pakistan, and on Read more
Cardinal Zen would do well to take a short course in Catholic history. In what is both false and misleading, Cardinal Zen keeps repeating the claim that the Vatican’s behavior in its relations with Beijing on the appointment of bishops in China is “unprecedented.” It is not and it is false to claim it is Read more
The German bishops are engaged in a dispute with the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith over allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive the Eucharist. The congregation’s prefect is repeating the well-trodden path of common Catholic practice – the only place for a married Catholic is in a sacramental marriage and the Read more
The resignations of two bishops on child sex abuse allegations in the past six weeks and the Vatican’s handling of these latest cases has again prompted questions on how the world’s oldest monarchy handles controversy: It ignores it. In both cases – a nuncio to the Dominican Republic and, most recently, an auxiliary bishop in Read more
While everyone agrees that the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Pope Francis is unprecedented in many ways, it is not entirely a surprise. He was runner up to Joseph Ratzinger in the 2005 Conclave that saw him elected as Pope Benedict XVI. Bergoglio is the first Jesuit, first Latin American and first Pope from Read more
It’s frequently observed that the only three remaining absolute monarchies/dictatorships left in the world are Saudi Arabia, North Korea and the Vatican. But the parallels that are of more powerful significance are those between the Vatican, Vietnam and China, both in terms of their governance and the current state of their political lives. All are Read more