Australia’s treasurer, Jim Chalmers is not the only one looking to Mariana Mazzucato for ideas about reforming our global economic system, so is Pope Francis. The pope commends Mazzucato’s thinking for offering a compelling analysis of problems in the global economy and what can be done to build a more sustainable and fairer world. This Read more
There is probably no pope in all of history — certainly not in the last 400 some years — who served so briefly as Bishop of Rome and yet had such an immense impact on the Catholic Church as John XXIII. [That’s leaving aside Sixtus V. He’s the hard-nosed pope who, in just five years Read more
An Australian priest backing the Indigenous Voice referendum to parliament fears the result will leave Australians divided. That will be a tragedy, he says. Father Frank Brennan (pictured), a Jesuit priest and human rights lawyer, blames leadership on both political sides for not seeking common ground. He hopes a “reconciling spirit” will blow through parliament’s Read more
Pope Francis on Friday said he was told the synod process was an “impolite word.” The comments, directed at the pope, came as he entered the Vatican audience hall for a meeting. Francis said as he entered the Vatican audience hall for the meeting, someone – using an Argentinean phrase that is not very polite, Read more
Russia has reacted positively to the Pope’s Ukraine peace initiative. There are no immediate plans for a Vatican mission to Moscow, however. The Russian Foreign Ministry’s statement about the peace initiative was Moscow’s first public acknowledgement of the pope’s overtures. It followed the Vatican’s weekend announcement that Italian Cardinal Matteo Zuppi (pictured), has been suggested Read more
Perhaps you are wondering, “What is Laudato Si’ Week?” And for that matter, what does Laudato Si’ mean? Laudato Si’ is medieval Italian for “Praise be to you.” It is a quote from St. Francis of Assisi’s beautiful Canticle of the Creatures: “Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains Read more
The Anglican Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, was in Rome this week. It is his first official visit to the Anglican Centre and the Holy See. Cottrell said he felt encouraged to have met people within the Roman Catholic Church leadership after meeting Pope Francis at the Anglican Centre on Monday. His audience with Francis Read more
If G7 nations expect Global South support for the Ukraine War, they must give something back in return says Max Lawson, Head of Inequality Policy at Oxfam. Lawson says the G7 needs to cancel Global South debts, end hunger and pay up for climate damage. Lawson spoke out after the G7 met in Hiroshima last Read more
Charity – caritas – is our very life; it is what makes us “be” what we are. When we embrace God’s love and when we love one another in him, we plumb the depths of our identity, as individuals and as Church, and the meaning of our existence. We understand not only how important our own lives are, but Read more
Picking the Pope’s successor was at the top of Cardinal George Pell’s to do list in the weeks before his death. He was secretly promoting someone very different from Francis. Hungarian writer and polemicist Rod Dreher says Pell told him he was “so in favour” of conservative Hungarian Cardinal Peter Erdo (pictured) as Francis’s successor. Read more