Pope Francis has laid out his vision of re-evangelisation in the 21st century, stating that the “club of judgement” will not bring back the lost sheep. Francis told hundreds of priests who are to serve as “Missionaries of Mercy” during the jubilee year that holiness of life is the principle of renewal and reform in Read more
Pope Francis has invited a group of divorced and remarried Catholics to a private audience, ahead of the expected release of a document on family life. Sixty members of the Italian group L’anello perduto (“The Lost Ring”) had sent a letter to the Pope to share their experience of divorce. “In separation we have suffered Read more
Pope Francis’s council of nine cardinals has formally presented the Pontiff with their final proposals to set up two major new offices in the Roman Curia. The two new Vatican offices proposed are “Laity, Family and Life” and “Justice, Peace and Migration”. Pope Francis will make the final decision on these proposals. The cardinals are Read more
A clergy abuse survivor was asked to step aside from the Pope’s commission to protect minors after a clash over the group’s work and mission. According to an Associated Press report, Peter Saunders said the members of the 17-person Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors asked him to step aside, with one abstention. This Read more
Pope Francis is to meet Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill on February 12 in Cuba in what is an historic first meeting between leaders of their two churches. The meeting, which is expected to take two hours, will take place when the Pope is en route to Mexico, the Vatican announced. A statement from the Vatican Read more
A German bishop has recounted an incident in which Pope Francis showed no opposition to the concept of more married priests. The auxiliary Bishop of Hamburg, Bishop Hans-Jochen Jaschke, spoke of this on a German television talk show “Nachtcafe”. Bishop Jaschke mentioned the meeting between the German bishops and the Pope on November 20 last Read more
So, the pope is cool and “groovy” for telling priests and nuns not to “drop a gossip bomb” on their peers. He told members of the clergy in an improvised speech: “If you get an urge to say something against a brother or a sister, to drop a gossip bomb, bite your tongue! Hard!” We’ve Read more
It is no longer “exceptional” that some priests turn down an appointment as bishop, says the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops. Cardinal Marc Ouellet told the Catholic News Service that this does happen nowadays, but the number of priests who do so is not high. Priests decline an appointment as bishop, which is offered Read more
The “overview effect” is a term used to describe a cognitive shift in awareness reported by some astronauts and cosmonauts during spaceflight, often while viewing the Earth from orbit or from the lunar surface. It refers to the experience of seeing first-hand the reality of the Earth in space. From space, national boundaries vanish and Read more
An Italian priest is worried at the “quality” of people’s confessions he hears and he believes some penitents are misusing Pope Francis’s words. In a letter to the chiesa website last month, the confessor recounted two instances that illustrated what he believes is a trend. One man, who repented of a series of sins against Read more