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Pope Francis has opened the Jubilee Year of Mercy by calling for a Church that always puts mercy before judgement. In a Mass at St Peter’s Square on December 8, Francis said the holy year is a gift of grace. “How much wrong we do to God and his grace when we affirm that sins Read more
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Pope Francis has said that lay people are not second class members of the Church at the service of the hierarchy. Instead they participate in Christ’s priestly role through their own work in the world. The Pope said this in a message marking the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council’s Decree on the Apostolate Read more
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Works by a former Catholic nun Sr Corita Kent, IHM, will be the subject of a major exhibition at New Plymouth’s Govett-Brewster Art Gallery later this year. Sr Corita, who developed her art as an Immaculate Heart of Mary sister, made political pop art in the United States in the 1950s to the 1970s. Her Read more
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The Church likes to pretend that its current state is as it has always been, and it does this by reading history backwards, an historian writes. Practising Catholic and Pulitzer Prize winner Garry Wills argues this in his latest book, titled: “The Future of the Church with Pope Francis”. “Since one begins from a certitude Read more
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A Jesuit theologian has scotched the notion that the Second Vatican Council was a pastoral council and did not propose new doctrines of the Church. Fr John O’Malley said this in an opening address to a conference on Vatican II at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. The conference was focused on the meaning and import Read more
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A cardinal has warned religious against trying to abandon the changes in the Church brought about by the Second Vatican Council. Brazilian Cardinal João Braz de Aviz said this to a conference of religious formation directors in Rome last week, according to an article in the National Catholic Reporter. “Do not distance yourself from the Read more
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John XXIII at the Opening of Vatican II, the 21st Ecumenical Council: The substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another. Further, the Pope said that it is necessary first of all that the Church should never depart from the sacred Read more
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Pope Francis has announced a Jubilee Year of Mercy in order to celebrate God’s forgiveness. The “extraordinary Holy Year” will take place from December 8, 2015, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, to November 20, 2016, the Feast of Christ the King. Announcing the closing date, the Pope added a new term to the title Read more
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Pope Francis’ road map for the future of the Church will far outlive his pontificate, a German theologian has predicted. Speaking in Austria during the second week of the recent synod on the family, Cardinal Walter Kasper said Francis is a “gift of God”. The Pope’s theology and his vision for the Church are centred Read more
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The way Vatican II looked at ecumenism shows a possible path forward for interpreting doctrines about marriage, Cardinal Walter Kasper says. Speaking to Vatican Radio, Cardinal Kasper said the responses to recent Vatican questions about the family show there is an “abyss” between Church teaching and people’s situations. “The Church has to bridge this abyss,” Read more
Alex McNaughten