Catholic World News

In a message to the leaders of the G8 industrial nations, who are meeting in Northern Ireland this week, Pope Francis said said that “the goal of economics and politics is to serve humanity, beginning with the poorest and most vulnerable wherever they may be, even in their mothers' wombs.” The Pope’s message—sent to British Prime Minister David Cameron, who is hosting the June meeting of the...

“Whenever we want to assert ourselves, when we become wrapped up in our own selfishness and put ourselves in the place of God, we end up spawning death,” Pope Francis said as he celebrated Mass for...

Msgr. Battista Mario Salvatore Ricca has been named as the “ad interim” prelate of the Vatican bank, the Institute for Religious Works (IOR). The appointment is the first major personnel...

President Barack Obama has nominated Ken Hackett, who served as president and CEO of Catholic Relief Services for nearly two decades until his 2011 retirement, as the new US ambassador to the Holy...

Odoardo Focherini (1907-44), an Italian layman who saved more than 100 Jews during World War II, was beatified on June 16 in the northern Italian city of Carpi. Focherini, an insurance agent,...

Four Christian churches in northern Nigeria were bombed and burned over the weekend, in attacks attributed to the terrorist group Boko Haram. Archbishop Ignatius Ayau Kaigama of Jos, the...

Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan spoke about the decline of Europe, the dangers associating with efforts to export democracy, and the need for reform of the Roman Curia, in a revealing interview with...

The principle of secularity in French government “shouldn’t mean hostility to religious reality or the exclusion of religious from the social sphere,” Pope Francis argued in an address to French...

Several Catholic parishes in Portland, Oregon, sent representatives to the city's Gay Pride parade on June 16, in defiance of a directive from Archbishop Alexander Sample. Although the archbishop...

Pope Francis met with Venezuela’s President Nicolaus Maduro Moros at the Vatican on June 17, for discussions that centered on the country’s situation after the recent death of President Hugo...

Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese pro-life activist who came to the US after an international incident in 2012, is losing his fellowship at New York University (NYU), and charges that the school...

A man was shot in the head during Sunday Mass at a church in Ogden, Utah, on June 17. Charles Jennings was arrested on charges of shooting his father-in-law, in the head. The victim, James Evans,...

A Catholic-school teacher in the San Diego archdiocese has been informed that she will not be re-hired because her ex-husband could pose a danger to her students. Carie Charlesworth was placed on...

Two armed men stole a few thousand Euros from a Salvatorian monastery and boarding school in Austria on June 3. The first suspect was soon apprehended; the second, a Serb national, fled to...

A US district judge has ruled that a Georgia hospital did not discriminate against a nurse supervisor who was disciplined after she made remarks critical of homosexuality. In 2009, Amanda Dix, a...

During a five-day visit to the United Kingdom to promote interfaith relations, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, delivered separate...

Pope Francis met on June 15 with José Manuel Durao Barroso, the president of the European Commission. A Vatican statement released after the meeting reported that the Pope had spoken with Barroso...

The administrative council of the Populorum Progressio Foundation, the papal charity that funds self-help projects for the poor in Latin America, will hold a meeting in Arequipa, Peru this week to...

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America have launched Faithandsafety.org, a website designed to help parents in guiding their children...

From June 21 to July 4, the Church in the United States will commemorate its second annual Fortnight for Freedom to raise awareness about threats to religious liberty. Archbishop William Lori of...

Since the ouster of President Francois Bozize in March, the Central African Republic has descended into chaos, a group of civic groups has warned in a plea for humanitarian help. The plea,...

The new president of the Vatican bank, Ernst von Freyberg, has launched a public-relations campaign to restore the image of the institution after years of criticism. Von Freyberg has scheduled a...

Australian opposition leader Tony Abbott has said that he will not strike deals on federal abortion restrictions in order to form a new government coalition. Insisting that his coalition would...

Relations between the Holy See and the government of Vietnam have “progress in a spirit of goodwill, constructive exchange, and respect for principles in the relationship,” according to a joint...

Meeting on June 14 with editors of the Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica, Pope Francis told them that “your main task isn’t to build walls but bridges.” Civilta Cattolica occupies a unique place...

Pope Francis met on June 14 with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Justin Welby, and the two affirmed the need for a shared Christian witness and joint efforts to promote social justice and peace. Greeting the Anglican leader to the Vatican, Pope Francis used the words that Pope Paul VI had used when an earlier Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, had visited in 1976. The Pontiff...

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is asking Catholics to pray, fast, and abstain from meat on June 14 “for fathers, that their attentive care for their children may reflect...

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Justice for Immigrants campaign is asking Catholics to “call your senators as soon as possible” and urge them to oppose five amendments to...

In a 436-0 vote, with one abstention, Russia’s Duma, or lower house of parliament, passed legislation banning the distribution of pro-homosexuality information to minors. President Vladimir Putin...

Preaching at the cathedral in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, the prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples urged Catholics to preserve their faith in a...

The Catholic Organization for Life and Family – an initiative of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Knights of Columbus – has denounced legislation that would legalize “aid in...

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, has begun a five-day visit to the United Kingdom to promote interfaith relations. On June 13, he visited...

Pope Francis met on June 13 with Slovenia's Prime Minister Alenka Bratusek, for a conversation that centered on religious freedom and the role of the Catholic Church in that country's public...

The Vatican’s representative to the Organization of American States (OAS) has observed that efforts to legalize abortion undermine the moral basis for a drive to eliminate drug trafficking in Latin...

An American bishop has abruptly resigned, citing reasons of health, at the age of 54. Bishop Fernando Isern of Pueblo, Colorado said that persistent health problems had convinced him that the...

US House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi denounced a bill that would ban late-term abortions, and said that the issue of abortion is “sacred ground,” in a testy exchange with a reporter during a June...

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has turned down a bid to bring charges against Pope Benedict XVI for crimes against humanity. The ICC found “no basis” for an investigation of the charges...

Pope Francis has asked a German management consultant to suggest administrative changes at the Vatican. Thomas von Mitschke-Collande, a manager of the international consulting firm McKinsey &...

Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the leader of the Eastern-rite Ukrainian Catholic Church, has issued an invitation to the country’s most prominent Orthodox leader to attend services for the...

Christians should continue to serve as “a bridge between communities” in Iraq, the Chaldean Catholic Synod proclaimed at the close of a meeting in Baghdad. Although half of Iraq’s Christians have...

Pope Francis has confirmed that he is completing an encyclical that was begun by Pope Benedict XVI, on the subject of faith. Before announcing his plans to resign, Pope Benedict had been drafting an encyclical on faith, to complete a series he had begun with earlier encyclicals on the theological virtues of love and hope. He did not complete the text before stepping down from the papacy, and...

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Justice for Immigrants campaign is calling upon Catholics to lobby senators to amend immigration-reform legislation. “As you consider S. 744, I...

Two women religious – Sister Zofia Czeska Maciejowska (1584-1650) and Sister Margherita Lucia Szewczyk (1828-1905) – were beatified in Kraków, Poland, on June 9. Sister Maciejowska founded the...

Sri Lanka’s bishops, led by Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith of Colombo, have announced their opposition to a proposed change to the nation’s constitution. A constitutional amendment that took effect in...

Representatives of Isai Maha Sangh, a Catholic organization, and Rastriya Secular Manch, a Muslim organization, met with Indian President Pranab Mukherjee and called for an end to discrimination...

Vietnamese police have ruled that a Christian leader’s March prison death was caused by suicide through electrocution. Hoang Van Ngai, an elder of the Evangelical Church of Vietnam, died in...

In Rome for a Jewish-Catholic dialogue sponsored by the Focolare movement, Rabbi Abraham Skorka recalled his conversations with Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, with whom he coauthored the book...

Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George has questioned whether American Catholics might be subjected to a “religious test” when running for public office or seeking work at newspapers, universities, or...

A Pennsylvania judge has sentenced a Catholic priest to a 6-to-12 year prison terms after his conviction in a sex-abuse case. Father Charles Engelhardt was convicted in January along with a...

Pope Francis has been presented with two classic Harley Davidson motorcycles, as the American manufacturer celebrates its 110th anniversary. Continuing a publicity offensive in Rome for its...

An English bishop has expressed strong support for the Community of St. John, after reports that the group’s founder had been involved in sexual misconduct. Bishop Thomas McMahon of Brentwood...

Pope Francis warned of two dangerous attitudes in the Church—a fear of change on one extreme, and an “adolescent progressivism” on the other—during his homily at a Mass in the Domus Sanctae Marthae on June 12. The Holy Father was reflecting on the day’s Gospel reading, in which Jesus says: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.” The law, the Pope said, “reaches...

A prominent priest in Scotland plans legal action against another priest who wrote a book charging that sexual harassment was commonplace in Scottish seminaries. Father Matthew Despard’s book,...

An estimated 4.6 million women in India have been sterilized—often under pressure and without adequate understanding—as part of that government’s aggressive family-planning program, the AsiaNews...

“What does it mean to be the People of God?” Pope Francis asked at his weekly audience on June 12. As he neared the end of his midday address, the Pontiff offered an answer to his own question:...

Before taking part in demonstrations in Istanbul’s Taksim Square, “many young people” visit Istanbul’s largest Roman Catholic parish to light a candle to St. Anthony, according to the parish’s...

Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Holy See’s Secretary for Relations with States, traveled to the Atlantic island nation of Cape Verde on June 10 to sign a diplomatic accord on the Church’s legal...

Destroying statues and removing the tabernacle, attackers desecrated a parish in Sri Lanka on the night on June 5. “The unknown group had forcefully removed the tabernacle from the sanctuary of...

The rising political influence of evangelicals in Brazil has made abortion a more central political issue in the world’s fifth most populous nation. “Though belonging to a dozen different...

Representatives of the Holy See and the Vietnamese government will soon begin a fourth round of meetings devoted to the establishment of diplomatic relations. The Communist nation of 91.5 million...

Cardinal Fernando Filoni, the prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, has traveled to the United Arab Emirates to consecrate a new church that will seat 1,500. Masses will be...

The 2010 murder of a Catholic bishop in Turkey was the work of a lone individual, not a group or religious faction, a Turkish court has ruled. Bishop Luigi Padovese was stabbed by his driver,...

The Vatican’s representative at UN headquarters in Geneva has called attention to the difficulties that millions of people face in obtaining needed medications. Speaking to a session on access to...

Critics of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) are engaged in “McCarthyism” that interferes with the Church’s efforts to help the poor, according to a report from a Washington-based...

Warning that pending legislation would “fundamentally change the culture of medical practice in Ireland,” the country’s Catholic bishops have called upon lawmakers to reject a bill that would allow...

Pope Francis has set an audio message to participants in a summer program organized by the Italian Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired. In the Gospels, the Pope observed, “the...

A spokesman for Egypt’s influential Al Azhar University has said that a restoration of friendly ties between the Islamic institution and the Vatican will come when Pope Francis proclaims that Islam...

The Church must carry out her work “with a heart of poverty, not with the heart of an investment broker,” Pope Francis told a congregation at the Domus Sanctae Marthae on June 11. The key to...

Although the cause for beatification of Archbishop Oscar Romero was reportedly “unblocked” by Pope Francis earlier this year, Pope Benedict XVI had also favored the beatification of the slain...

Pope Francis reportedly confirmed the existence of a “gay lobby” within the Roman Curia, in a candid conversation with visiting religious from Latin America. During a meeting with representatives of the Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of Religious (CLAR), the Pope spoke frankly about the need for reform in the Church and particularly in the Vatican bureaucracy. A report on the...

Some Hungarian students have a created a Facebook page of a fake priest who is an alcoholic, a pedophile, and posts blasphemous comments. In a nation of under ten million people, the page has...

For the first time in its history, the largely Muslim west African nation of Niger has a native-born bishop. Auxiliary Bishop Djalwana Laurent Lompo of Niamey, the nation’s capital, was ordained...

The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church has forcefully denied that he dissents from the teaching of the Church on homosexuality. “Some call you the most liberal head of the Ukrainian...

Speaking at a press conference near San Diego, where the US bishops are on retreat, three prelates called for the passage of immigration-reform legislation. “While not perfect, the Senate...

Reversing course, the Obama administration has ended its appeal of a federal judge’s ruling that mandated the over-the-counter sale of the morning-after pill to women and girls of all ages. “By...

Speaking at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, the Vatican’s leading ecumenical official challenged the Eastern Orthodox world to “boldly examine its main ecclesiological problem, namely,...

“In today's world, religious freedom is more often asserted than accomplished,” Pope Francis said as he greeted Italian President Giorgio Napolitano to the Vatican on June 8. Napolitano, who was...

“All of life is a pilgrimage,” Pope Francis said in a telephone message to thousands of young people preparing for the 35th annual pilgrimage from the Italian town of Macerata to the shrine of...

The Detroit archdiocese is implementing a series of changes, closing or merging parishes in response of financial constraints and a shortage of priests. After the changes go into effect the...

The Sacred Heart of Jesus is “the ultimate symbol of God’s mercy,” Pope Francis said at his midday audience on Sunday, June 9. The Pope reminded his audience that the month of June is...

Looking forward to the June 14 meeting between Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity has said that the meeting will be “of particular interest...

The Beatitudes can be understood only by someone whose heart is open to the Holy Spirit, Pope Francis said at a morning Mass on Monday, June 10. The Beatitudes are “the new commandments,” the...

Retired Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Brussels has added his name to the list of prominent Catholic prelates calling for some legal recognition of same-sex unions. The Italian journal L’Espresso...

The French president of the Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe is encouraging continued opposition to a new law allowing same-sex marriage, even after the law has gone into...

Criminal charges have been dropped against a student at Carnegie-Mellon University who paraded semi-nude in a costume mocking the Pope. Katherine O’Connor reached an agreement with prosecutors to...

Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) Enda Kenny has announced that he will impose party discipline on lawmakers in an upcoming vote on a measure to allow for legal abortion, dismissing a plea for a free...

The Ten Commandments expand, rather than limit, human freedom, Pope Francis told a crowd in Milan, Italy, on June 9. “The word ‘commandment’ isn’t fashionable,” the Pope conceded in his message,...

The head of the Synodal Department for Church and Society Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate says that acceptance of same-sex marriage could lead to collapse of the West in 50 years. “The main...

The US State Department has called upon Myanmar (Burma) to end its policy of limiting some Muslim families to two children. The Burmese government’s renewed efforts to enforce 1994 child...

By unanimous votes in the both the state house and senate, Louisiana lawmakers have approved legislation related to student-initiated prayer gatherings at public schools. “Upon the request of any...

As Irish lawmakers consider a bill that would legalize abortion, the Pro Life Campaign held the largest pro-life march in Ireland’s history. Over 40,000 people attended the National Vigil for...

An estimated 45,000 people attended Germany’s national Eucharistic Congress, which took place in Cologne from June 5 to June 9. Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, president emeritus...

Turkey’s foreign ministry has lodged a formal protest with the Vatican after Pope Francis referred to the mass murder of Armenians as “the first genocide of the 20th century.” The Pope alluded...

Pope Francis revealed that he never wanted to be the Pope, and that he has chosen not to live in the papal apartments for the sake of his mental health, in a candid exchange with students on June...

Bishop William Dendinger of Grand Island has joined Episcopal, Lutheran, and Methodist leaders in Nebraska in urging representatives and senators not to support cuts to the federal food stamp...

Writing for a Washington Post blog, Bishop Richard Pates of Des Moines, chairman of the Committee on International Justice and Peace of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, argued that...

Archbishop Jose Palma of Cebu, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, has said that legislation that would expand divorce and alter the definition of marriage in the...

Three months after a mob of 3,000 Muslims attacked a Christian neighborhood in Lahore, Pakistan’s second-largest city, few of the perpetrators are in prison. Hundreds of those detained...

The United Kingdom moved closer to altering the definition of marriage when the House of Lords, by a 390-148 margin, rejected an attempt to table same-sex marriage legislation. “The Church’s...

Faced with a shortage of executioners, the government of Saudi Arabia plans to begin carrying out the death penalty by firing squads rather than relying exclusively on beheadings. There have been...