Catholic World News

Beginning in August 2012, all private insurers must provide women with coverage for FDA-approved contraception--including sterilization and contraceptives that have an abortifacient effect--under a...

A bomb exploded at a Syrian Catholic church in Kirkuk, causing severe damage to the church and injuring 23, including the parish priest, Father Imad Yalda. Police then discovered bombs at two other...

One fourth of Somalia’s 9.1 million people have left their homes in search of food, according to a report prepared by Caritas Somalia. “The search for food and service has resulted in a massive...

El Salvador’s leading prelate is urging civil authorities to do more to combat crime in the Central American nation. “We see with sorrow the perpetuation of delinquency and crime, which always...

Ruling that health-care services should be regulated by states and not cities, a superior court judge has removed a proposed ban on circumcision from the November ballot in San...

Archbishop Fernando Filoni, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, paid tribute to St. Justin de Jacobis (1800-60) in a homily that concluded a year-long commemoration of the...

President Barack Obama has sent a message to all American Muslims at the start of Ramadan, “a festive time that is anticipated for months by Muslims everwhere.” In his message, President Obama...

Spotting errors and inconsistencies in media coverage of Catholic dissidents is an endless and thankless task. Terry Mattingly does it well in his analysis of a badly skewed New York Times story on...

The New York archdioces has dismissed a Catholic-school principal who had ties to a white-supremacist organization. A New York Daily News story revealed that Frank Borzellieri had written for...

John Garvey, the president of Catholic University of America, makes a strong case for "conscience clause" protections of those who find it morally repugnant to subsidize contraception,...

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has joined a lawsuit against Catholic Charities in Illinois, arguing that Church-run adoption agencies should be required to provide equal treatment for...

Canadian Bishop Raymond Lahey, who in May pleaded guilty to child-pornography charges, faces a sentencing hearing today. During the 2-day hearing, an Ottawa court will hear a report from a...

Pope Benedict XVI will travel to Rio de Janeiro in 2013, when World Youth Day (WYD) is held there, the city’s mayor has announced. The Vatican has not announced any plans for a papal trip to...

An Australian bishop has said that he sees no need for an investigation into a rash of suicides among the victims of sexual abuse at Catholic schools. Bishop Peter Connors of Ballarat said that...

The International Eucharistic Congress will be held in Dublin next June, despite a leading Irish politician's call to postpone the event. Father Kevin Doran, the secretary general of the...

Catholic officials in the Dominican Republic have charged that prison directors are covering up evidence of cholera in the country’s jails. The Pastoral Commission says that cholera has broken...

A lingering dispute between a Croatian diocese and the Benedictine religious order has prompted an unusual direct intervention by the Vatican, and caused a chill in diplomatic relations between...

The bishops of Alabama have joined with local Episcopal Church and Methodist officials in taking legal action against immigration legislation scheduled to come into effect on September 1. The law...

Two years after a mob of 1,000 Muslims attacked Christians in the northeastern Pakistani city of Gojra, leaders of a local madrassa and mosque have apologized and asked for pardon. “Even though...

The Catholic Health Association (CHA)--which broke with the nation’s bishops by supporting health-care legislation passed in March 2010--has expressed its concern about a new mandate that requires...

A leading official of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State has revealed Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the late apostolic nuncio to the United States, was slated to be named to "an important position in the...

Nearly all of the faculty members at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, including the seminary’s president, have written a letter in support of Sister Elizabeth Johnson following the...

L’Osservatore Romano has paid tribute to Blessed Clemens August von Galen 70 years after the Bishop of Munster preached his famed homily against the Nazi’s euthanasia program, which targeted the...

Pope Benedict XVI recommended the Bible as a summer-reading project, as he addressed a public audience at his summer residence on August 3. Resuming his weekly audiences after a break for his...

The Knights of Columbus have agreed to buy the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center, in Washington, DC, from the Detroit archdiocese. An ambitious project conceived by Detroit's Cardinal Adam Maida,...

Archeologists working in Turkey have made the claim that they have found the tomb of St. Philip the apostle. The tomb, discovered by an Italian team, is located near the ancient town of...

The New York Times offers a portrait of a major-league baseball manager--Jack McKeon of the Florida Marlins--who sustains his Catholic faith by attending Mass each morning. McKeon makes a point...

Public protests in Syria were not originally intended to bring down the Assad government, according to a noted Vatican Arab scholar. But the brutality and corruption of the regime’s response has now...

In a message to the annual convention of the Knights of Columbus, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said that Pope Benedict XVI feels “deep gratitude” to the group for its “continuing contribution to...

A priest of the Mobile, Alabama archdiocese has been found dead, in what archdiocesan officials report was a suicide. Father Ernest Hyndman, Jr, was found death in his rectory on Tuesday morning,...

Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles has called upon Catholics to remember that the roots of America are “Hispanic-Catholic” as well as “Anglo-Protestant.” “The story of the founding fathers and...

Two Christian house churches have been burned to the ground in Riau, a province on the western Indonesian island of Sumatra. Since 1967, an estimated 1,200 churches have been burned down or closed...

In its analysis of the legislation associated with the US debt ceiling debate, the Department of Justice, Peace, and Human Development of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops found “good...

Citing zoning ordinances, officials in Livingston, New Jersey, have twice ordered a homeowner to remove a cross from his front yard. Patrick Racaniello placed the first cross, which measured...

Writing for L’Osseravtore Romano, the president of the Vatican Bank asks, “What does it mean to raise the ceiling on public debt?” “It means essentially to nationalize private debt, which had...

The bishops of Michigan have issued a brief statement on immigration. “We support the positive impact migrant communities have made in our country, and especially in our state,” the bishops...

Vatican Insider profiles Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela, who occupies a unique place in the history of World Youth Day (WYD) celebrations. In 1989, the future cardinal was the Bishop of...

Prosecutors in Philadelphia are asking a court for permission to question Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua—who, at the age of 88, is suffering from dementia as well as cancer—in the trial of a former...

A Catholic priest in the Philippines has called for regulations "to make journalists and opinion-makers accountable for their statements," after a spate of attacks on Catholic bishops who received...

Prison officials in Belarus show no concern for the religious freedoms of prisoners unless they are Orthodox, according to a Forum 18 report. Non-Orthodox prisoners face severe restrictions on...

A priest of the Wilmington, Delaware diocese faces felony charges for allegedly taking over $300,000 from an elderly parishioner. Father Michael Angeloni solicited the funds from his parishioner,...

A devastating famine in the Horn of Africa has spread across three more regions of Somalia, relief officials warn, citing UN reports. More than 11 million people are now at risk because of the...

Young Catholics must enter political life to safeguard Europe's future, according to one of Italy's foremost Catholic political thinkers. Rocco Buttiglione, the vice-president of Italy's Chamber...

William Oddie of London's Catholic Herald objects to a recent column in which George Weigel referred to Ireland today as the "epicenter of European anti-Catholicism." The flaw in Weigel’s article...

A month after receiving the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick from a bishop, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela has said that he has turned to indigenous gods to seek healing from...

In an interview with Aid to the Church in Need, Bishop Augustinus Bane, one of Lesotho’s four bishops, speaks about the challenges of ministering in a nation with widespread poverty, rampant AIDS,...

The British Province of the Society of Jesus has sold the Cuthbert Gospel to the British Museum for £9 million ($14.72 million). The book was placed in St. Cuthbert’s tomb at the end of the seventh...

The Wilmington-Philadelphia province of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales has agreed to a $24.8-million settlement with 39 abuse victims. The settlement follows the Diocese of Wilmington’s recent...

Writing for L’Osservatore Romano,Gaetano Vallini has paid tribute to Elliott Erwitt, a black-and-white photographer born in 1928. Erwitt, writes Vallini, “has always shown creativity, gusto,...

Columnist Timothy Carney argues that the decision to require contraceptive coverage in all health-care plans is a prime example of the approach taken by the Obama administration. Although...

Rome's Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, provoked by a statement from a leading Vatican official about the meaning of the Cross, has raised questions about whether he and other Italian Jews might pull out of...

Despite the mounting urgency of a famine in Somalia, the African Union has postponed a meeting on that country’s crisis until the end of this month. The famine in the Horn of Africa now affects...

A group of artists in the Philippines has issued a statement denouncing Church leaders for suggesting that a blasphemous exhibit might violate the law. The effort to shut down the exhibit--which...

German Catholic bishops are split on the proper pastoral approach to homosexuality, Vatican Insider notes. Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich says that homosexuals, like all others, are welcome in...

William May of the Culture of Life Foundation provides an update on the voluminous evidence of damage done to society by the traffic in...

A Philadelphia court has set a September hearing date to determine whether or not Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua is competent to give testimony for the trial of a former subordinate in the Philadelphia...

Once the leading candidate for Ireland’s presidency, David Norris has seen his campaign founder after it emerged that he once sought clemency for a convicted child abuser who was his former...

Bishop Raymond Lahey’s laptop computer, confiscated by police at Ottawa International Airport in 2009, contained an extensive collection child pornography, prosecutors said during an August 4...

In an address delivered to a symposium on the future of the family, held in Moscow in June, Allan Carlson suggests a few practical measures that would help families recover their proper place in the...

Western nations are using their financial power, and their clout at the UN, to pressure less nations to accept legal abortion and homosexuality, the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (C-Fam)...

Concerned that Toronto Catholic schools will adopt a policy promoting tolerance of homosexuality, a Coptic Orthodox priest is calling upon parents to consider withdrawing their children from the...

Bishop Anthony Sharma, the apostolic vicar of Nepal, has suspended the activities of the Neocatechumenal Way. “We have about two dozen regular members who were involved in only two regular weekly...

A Malaysian bishop has offered strong criticism of politicians who seek to foster anti-Christian sentiment in the largely Muslim nation. Bishop Paul Tan Chee Ing’s remarks follow a decision by...

Norway has joined other nations in calling upon Vietnamese authorities to release Father Nguyen Van Ly, a human rights activist who was recently returned to prison. “We urge the Vietnamese...

A 38-year-old layman has been gunned down in Pakistan’s largest city. Arnold Archie Dass was slain in front of dozens of onlookers in the oldest Christian neighborhood in Karachi. In the decades...

Pope Benedict XVI issued a new appeal for an end to bloodshed in Syria, and added a plea for peace in Libya, during his midday public audience on Sunday, August 7. “I am following with great...

Chinese authorities have released a Catholic priest who had spent 4 months in prison in Hebei because of his refusal to join the government-backed Catholic Patriotic Association. But in Shandong, 4...

At this Angelus audience on Sunday, August 7, Pope Benedict XVI spoke on the importance of placing trust in God at all times, especially in times of danger and difficulty. Reflecting on the day’s...

Although the mayor of Rio de Janeiro has already announced that World Youth Day will be held in the Brazilian city in 2013, the Archdiocese of Rio de Janeiro has cautioned that no final decision on...

The Archdiocese of Chicago’s weekly gay and lesbian Mass celebrates and affirms participants’ “orientations and identities,” according to a notice posted in the Windy City Times. In June, the...

The Irish government is putting pressure on religious orders to surrender schools and other property to the government, to help pay victims of abuse in Church-run institutions. Ruari Quinn, the...

Leaders of the major Christian denominations in Colombia have joined in a statement calling for defense of human life, including the lives of the unborn. Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Methodist,...

Leaders of the German Catholic hierarchy will meet with Pope Benedict XVI this week, to brief the Pontiff on affairs in his native country as he prepared for a visit there in September. German...

The struggling central government of Somalia, which has struggled for years to regain control of the country’s territory, has claimed a definitive victory in a long struggle with Islamic rebels for...

Catholic Church leaders in India’s eastern Orissa state have called for an “impartial investigation” into the 2008 murder of a prominent Hindu leader, which triggered a bloody campaign of violence...

After 3 people were severely wounded by aggressive monkeys in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a Catholic bishop there argued that government should protect human beings, not only rare...

Pope Paul VI planned to resign after reaching the age of 80, and was dissuaded from that step by Vatican officials only after his most trusted aide left the Roman Curia, according to a Vatican...

Church leaders in Malaysia are organizing a drive to recruit volunteer blood donors and organ donors during the month of Ramadan. Donations typically drop off severely in Malaysia—a predominantly...

Human Life International (HLI) has announced a new leadership team, with Father Shenan Boquet stepping in as the organization’s president and Father Peter West as vice president for missions. The...

A group of dissident Catholic priests in Ireland has released an unusually bitter personal attack on the country’s most noted theologian because of his support for a new English translation of the...

Father Edward Dougherty, the superior general of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, has formally warned Father Roy Bourgeois that he will be dismissed from the institute if he fails to retract his...

An Anglican bishop is charging that the military regime of Sudan is engaging in ethnic cleansing in Kordofan, the disputed border region between Sudan and the newly independent state of South...

The global economic crisis demands an international response that includes austerity in government spending and investment in small and medium-sized businesses, according to the president of the...

Twenty-eight states currently require insurance plans to offer coverage for contraception, and 17 offer a religious exemption. Beginning in August 2012, all private insurers must provide women...

Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese of the Military Services, USA issued a statement on August 8 mourning the death of 30 Americans and eight Afghanis in an August 4 helicopter crash--the...

The musician who will direct an August 9 concert at Castel Gandolfo says that Johann Sebastian Bach is “the most rich musical genius that I have ever met.” “As a believer, I am greatly moved by...

As young people begin to arrive in Madrid for World Youth Day (WYD), the apostolic nuncio in Spain predicts that the event, and the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI, will “bring a new wind” into a...

Led by dissident Catholics—including a group of liberal priests—some Spaniards are raising objections to the expenses of World Youth Day (WYD) and the visit by Pope Benedict XVI to Madrid. The...

Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley has rejected an appeal from Baltimore’s Archbishop Edwin O’Brien, who urged him not to promote same-sex marriage out of “mere political expediency.” Responding...

The Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) has closed down a blasphemous art exhibit, amid angry protests from Catholic leaders and from the country’s political leaders. President Benigno...

The media in Pakistan are trying to explain the murder of a leading Catholic politician as the result of a family quarrel rather than a political assassination, according to a lawyer who is tracking...

In El Salvador, 9 retired soldiers have surrendered for questioning about the killing of 6 Jesuit priests in 1989. The suspects—including a former Salvadoran defense minister—are among 20 people...

A sociology professor teaching at a Catholic college in New York is promoting her course on a pro-abortion web site, and describing herself as an “abortion doula” at a public hospital, the Cardinal...

Who was it who described World Youth Day as "a sort of rock festival in an ecclesial key, with the Pope as its main attraction," or "a huge spectacle, magnificent perhaps, but of no real...

Looting and burning homes, thousands of Muslims attacked a largely Christian village in southern Egypt on the night of August 7-8. A local priest was beaten, and a 50-year-old layman was...

In the months following the April 1941 establishment of the fascist Ustashe regime in Croatia, the Holy See sent an apostolic visitor who subsequently intervened on behalf of Jews, L’Osservatore...

A gang of 50 Muslim extremists disrupted a prayer meeting at a Christian woman’s home in West Bengal, an Indian state that borders Bangladesh. Threatening to burn down the home, the group told...

A federal grand jury has indicted Father Shawn Ratigan, a priest of the Diocese of Kansas City - St. Joseph, on 13 counts of child pornography. The priest, who was educated at Mundelein Seminary and...

In an interview with Catholic World Report, Bishop Samuel Aquila of Fargo discusses his efforts to end abortion in North Dakota, his decision to mandate NFP classes for couples preparing for...

The head of the Hispanic division of Human Life International is among three recipients of the People of Life Award, an honor bestowed by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of...

Wearing black badges and raising black flags, Christians of different denominations joined together on August 10 to observe 'black day' to mark the 61st year of official discrimination against...

A Portuguese cardinal was called to a meeting at the Vatican in July, and asked to clarify statements in which he suggested that there was no major theological barrier to the ordination of...

Silence is the key to contemplative prayer, Pope Benedict XVI told his weekly public audience on August 10. “God speaks in silence, but we need to know how to listen,” the Pope told the crowd in...

The Diocese of Orange, California has raised its bid to buy the Crystal Cathedral, as creditors have pressed the bankrupt Protestant owners to sell the building. Last week spokesmen for the...

The visual-arts director of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) has resigned, and some Christian groups are calling for the removal of the institution’s entire board, after a blasphemous...

According to South Korean media reports, Chinese hospitals are packaging the remains of aborted babies into “human-flesh capsules” to be sold as medications. South Korean authorities have...

England’s leading Catholic prelate has condemned the violent rioting that has erupted in urban areas, and exhorted the country’s people to act “with honesty, compassion, and prayer.” Archbishop...

Pope Benedict XVI and his brother, Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, were guests of honor at a concert at Castel Gandolfo on Tuesday evening, August 9. The concert by the New Seasons Ensemble, featuring...

Archbishop Joseph Tobin, the secretary of the Congregation for Religious is offering strong criticism of the atmosphere surrounding the Vatican’s apostolic visitation of institutes of women...

Intervening in a pending merger between a Catholic hospital and the University of Louisville Hospital, Gov. Steve Beshear of Kentucky stated that the resulting entity should have a “public mission”...

The Iraqi government’s failure to provide security is at the root of the recent bombing of a Syrian Catholic church in Kirkuk, according to one of the nation’s leading prelates. “The local...

Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), and Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, chairman of Catholic Relief Services, are calling...

Amid reports that 130 boys are born for every 100 girls in some Chinese provinces, Communist officials are pledging to crack down on sex-selection abortions. The government’s new “Outline for the...

Young adults taking part in World Youth Day will have several different opportunities to meet various US bishops attending the event in Madrid. Eight bishops will offer catechesis, Archbishop J....

The Vatican has announced a plenary indulgence for participants in next week’s World Youth Day festivities in Madrid. At the request of Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela of Madrid, Pope...

The Irish Independent today said that a forthcoming report on clerical abuse in the Raphoe diocese will show that there were “hundreds and hundreds” of victims of sexual abuse by priests, and...

The New York archdiocese has criticized a policy calling for sex-education courses in all the city’s middle schools and high schools. The archdiocese has encouraged Catholic parents to opt out...

A parish in Syracuse, New York is inaugurating a memorial to Father Mychal Judge, a New York priest who was killed in the bombing of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Father Judge,...

A Filipino artist faces criminal charges after a blasphemous exhibit of his work was closed down by popular outrage. Christian groups in the Philippines lodged formal charges against the artist,...

An Australian Catholic bishop has decried the decision of national census officials to count some homosexual couples as “married,” despite the fact that same-sex marriages are not legally recognized...

A suspected Islamic terrorist leader has been extradited by Pakistan to face charges in Indonesia, where he has been charged with planning the 2002 Christmas Eve bombing in Bali and a series of...

Commentator David Quinn reports widespread rumors that the Vatican plans a radical restructuring of the Irish Catholic hierarchy in response to the sex-abuse scandal there. The reforms suggested...

Croatia’s justice minister, Drazen Bosnjakovic, has blocked a recent Vatican decision transferring the ownership of a monastery in Dajla from the Diocese of Porec i Pula to Italian Benedictines and...

The secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Family is cautioning Catholics against making an oversexualized interpretation of Blessed John Paul II’s theology of the body--a series of...

Amid mass student protests against inequities in the nation’s educational system, Chile’s bishops are calling upon civil authorities and students to compromise. “The country cannot go forward...

In an interview with the Catholic Near East Welfare Association, two Iraqi Dominican nuns recounted their efforts to serve the Church and the needy in the nation amidst war and violence. “When...

Spurred on by the draconian one-child policy and a black market in children, some local officials in China have “treated babies as a source of revenue, routinely imposing fines of $1,000 or...

China has pressed its case for the local appointment of bishops, with an article in the government-controlled People Daily arguing that the Vatican’s claim to authority is “the West’s historical...

In a message to the rectors of Catholic shrines throughout the world, the Vatican has emphasized that popular piety must not supersede the Church’s official liturgy. The message from the...

A seminary professor attending a conference for canon lawyers has been charged with assaulting a 15-year-old girl. Father David Szatkowski, SCJ, recalls having several drinks at his hotel and...

Finally ending a 9-year string of legal appeals, the Diocese of Belleville, Illinois, has paid a financial settlement to a sex-abuse victim that was awarded by a jury in 2008. The Belleville...

A new study by the Pew Forum has found that restrictions on religion are rising in countries that account for one-third of the world’s population. Restraints on religious activity became more...

A conservative group of German priests has issued a public protest against the German bishops’ decision to open diocesan personnel files to researchers investigating sexual abuse. The Network of...

Pope Benedict XVI made a surprise visit to the Italian town of Rosciolo di Magliano dei Marsi on August 11, leading a Vespers service in the 11th-century church of Santa Maria. The Holy Father,...

During his visit to Madrid for World Youth Day next week, Pope Benedict XVI will bring an extremely positive and challenging message for all young people in the world,” his spokesman told reporters...

A massive restoration project has begun in St. Peter’s Square, designed to restore the columns, statues, and moldings to their original vivid colors. The project is expected to take 30...

Another Irish prelate has called upon Bishop John Magee, who resigned under pressure last year, to give a public accounting for his handling of sex-abuse complaints in the Cloyne diocese. Bishop...

Father Bernardo Cervellera, the director of the AsiaNews service, argues that the current worldwide economic crisis points to the need for some international authority to guide financial affairs....

The New York Times carries a truly chilling report on women who, discovering that they are pregnant with twins, choose to destroy one of the babies in order to ensure an easier pregnancy--and an...

A federal bankruptcy-court judge has given sex-abuse victims the opportunity to take sworn testimony from retired Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland and a key auxiliary, Bishop Richard Sklba,...

A group of dissident Australian Catholics have released an open letter to their country’s bishops, calling for reconsideration of Church teachings on matters of sexuality, and great consultation...

In an effort to counter the spread of the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram, police in the south-central state of Kogi, Nigeria, are monitoring sermons at churches and mosques. In July, the...

On the eve of his retirement, an Australian prelate said that fear of the loss of government funding for Catholic social service agencies prevented him from speaking out more boldly on behalf of the...

Caritas Internationalis, the confederation of Catholic relief and development agencies, has launched a $5.6-million appeal on behalf of drought-stricken Kenya. “Over 3.6 million people are in...

Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales of Manila has called for prayers of reparation for a blasphemous art exhibit. “As Church we will kneel before our loving God to pray and seek reparation for this public...

Cardinal Edward Egan, who served as Archbishop of New York from 2000 to 2009, has joined with several priests, rescuers, and others in offering reflections on the tenth anniversary of the September...

“Catholicism,” a ten-episode series developed by a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago, will air on 80 PBS stations beginning this fall. Father Robert Barron hopes that those who are “not...

Montserrat Sagot, a women’s studies professor at the University of Costa Rica, has organized a “slut walk” outside the capital’s metropolitan cathedral to protest a bishop’s remarks on...

A bomb ripped through a Syrian Orthodox church in Kirkuk, Iraq, in the early hours of Monday, August 15. St. Ephraim’s church was empty at the time of the blast, and no one was hurt, but the...

During his Angelus audience on Sunday, August 14, Pope Benedict XVI recalled the heroic witness of St. Maximilian Kolbe, who died at Auschwitz. Calling attention to the 70th anniversary of his...

Pope Benedict XVI asked for prayers for the success of this week’s World Youth Day festivities during his Angelus audience on Sunday, August 14. The Pope offered special recognition to a group of...

Tens of thousands of young Catholics from all over the world have arrived in Madrid, where World Youth Day (WYD) festivities formally begin on Tuesday, August 16. Although isolated protests about...

Austrian media outlets ignored a violent attack on pro-lifers and the vandalizing of the offices of Human Life International (HLI). “Imagine the reaction of the press if some pro-lifer had gone...

English archeologists believe that they have discovered the remains of St. Edburga (Edburg) of Bicester, the daughter of a 7th-century pagan king. Workers uncovered a reliquary as they prepared...

The New York Times has rehashed the story that was widely reported in May, about the criticism of Kansas City’s Bishop Robert Finn that arose after the arrest of a local priest, Father Shawn...

Economic statistics can provide misleading testimony on the health of a society, and even on its economic strength, notes a report from Ireland’s Iona Institute. One of the most common measures...

Catholic prelates in several Arabic countries have defended the incumbent regimes against the insurgents of the “Arab Spring,” notes John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter. (The most...

In India’s struggle to combat sex-selection abortion—a practice that has resulted in a severely skewed ratio of male to female births—a new fact has emerged: the practice of aborting female babies...

Rioting in Londonderry led to 7 arrests on August 13, as republican demonstrators clashed with pro-British marchers in the annual Apprentice Boys parade. The rioting, in which cars were burned...

Pope Benedict XVI met on August 13 with the leaders of the German hierarchy, for a briefing on a nationwide “process of dialogue and reflection” intended to defuse a crisis of authority for the...

In Abbottabad--the eastern Pakistani city where Osama bin Laden was killed in May--members of a Protestant church were beaten for showing a movie on Jesus in a city park. In addition, angry...

New guidelines issued by the General Pharmaceutical Council may mark the beginning of the end of respect for the conscience rights of pharmacists in Great Britain. “Until now, the conscience...

Children of divorced parents, despite the heroic efforts of single mothers, risk being “denied a sense of self-esteem and self-worth,” Bishop Christopher Jones of Elphin has told the Irish...

Suffering a dearth of vocations, Assumption Abbey in North Dakota is abandoning its legacy of beef ranching. “It’s so good to have the animals here, to see cows when you look out the window or...

Writing in the National Catholic Register, Joseph Pearce pays tribute to economist E. F. Schumacher (1911-77), author of Small Is Beautiful and a convert to Catholicism. “Schumacher’s lasting...

Anna Williams, a USA Today editorial intern, notes that practicing Catholics under the age of 30 “are spearheading a resurgence of traditional Catholic liturgy and disciplines that their parents...

As World Youth Day (WYD) opens in Madrid, with roughly 1 million young people joining in the festivities, the world’s mainstream secular media are focused on the costs of the event and the...

The Canadian bishops' conference has launched a new web site to help Catholic prepare for the introduction of a new English translation of the Roman Missal, which will be introduced on the First...

An estimated 2,000 Vietnamese Catholics joined in a prayer vigil on August 14 in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in support of the lay Catholics who have been arrested in a recent government...

Preaching before an estimated half million pilgrims in Madrid’s Plaza de Cibeles, Cardinal Antonio María Rouco Varela celebrated the opening Mass of World Youth Day. In his lengthy homily, which...

Authorities in the Netherlands are investigating the suspiciously high number of deaths in the early 1950s at two Catholic homes for the mentally handicapped in the southeastern town of Heel. 34...

Spanish police have arrested a 24-year-old chemistry student from Mexico on suspicions that he was plotting a chemical attack on anti-papal protestors at World Youth Day. The man planned to use...

A Syro-Malankara Catholic church in the southwestern Indian city of Pune was desecrated on the night of August 15. Those responsible for the desecration “vandalized the altar, burnt the...

At his weekly public audience on August 17, Pope Benedict XVI asked the faithful to “join me spiritually in prayer” as he heads to Madrid for World Youth Day. Pope Benedict will leave Rome on...

Priests hearing confessions at World Youth Day have been given the authority to lift the excommunication of penitents who have been involved in abortions. Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela of...

Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, the head of the Vatican Bank, has some interesting and incisive thoughts on the worldwide economic crisis and the moral underpinnings of capitalism, in this interview for...

In a highly unusual move, the Vatican has issued a public response to an Oregon lawsuit that alleges the Holy See bears responsibility for sexual abuse by a Servite priest. In the case of Doe v....

Shaken by the sex-abuse scandal and suffering from a sharp drop in Mass attendance, the Dublin archdiocese is near a “state of financial collapse,” according to a leaked internal...

Recent rioting in Britain is a sign of a society that has “lost its Christianity,” said Bishop Arthur Roche of Leeds. Speaking from Madrid, where he is leading a delegation of young Catholics at...

America has seen an explosion in the number of couples who live together and raise children without benefit of marriage. A new study shows that the number of couples has increased by 1200% since...

Bishop Peter Kang U-il of Cheju, South Korea, has issued a statement opposing the construction of a naval base on Jeju island. The bishop said that the naval base would have a negative impact on...

Two liberal groups have filed suit to stop the transfer of public property in South Bend, Indiana, to a local Catholic high school. The American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for...

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) has elected a new leader, at an annual meeting that emphasized “transforming” religious life and embracing “a new way.” Sister Florence Deacon...

A controversial Melkite Catholic archbishop has charged that Syria is “the victim of a conspiracy,” designed to advance the interests of Israel and the US in the Middle East. Archbishop Hilarion...

An Illinois judge has sentenced a Catholic priest to a 60-day jail term for stealing nearly $300,000 from parish funds. Father John Regan admitted that his conduct had been "absolutely wrong." He...

The chief staff aide to the US bishops’ committee on doctrine has spoken of a “crisis” in Catholic theology, reflecting “a radical divide over the central tenets of the Catholic faith and the...

On the eve of Pope Benedict’s arrival in Madrid, riot police clashed with thousands of protestors, some of whom were chanting “God yes, Church no” and “we are not the Pope’s youth.” Eight protestors...

Young people in the Philippines are less likely to become married because of the unnecessarily high cost of weddings and the baneful influence of foreign media, according to one of the nation’s...

Twelve Catholic biblical scholars have joined nearly 200 scholars from two dozen Protestant denominations in translating the newly published Common English Bible (CEB). “It's an honor and a pleasure...

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and Catholic Relief Services are urging Catholics to advocate for the appointment of a special envoy to the Great Lakes region of Africa. The...

Burundi’s bishops, joined by the apostolic nuncio, hundreds of priests and religious, and thousands of laity, inaugurated the golden jubilee of the nation’s principal Marian shrine on August 15....

Responding to protests in Spain over the costs of the World Youth Day celebration, the Vatican has released a statement pointing out that the costs will be absorbed completely by participants and...

The New Zealand bishops’ relief and development agency is advising Catholic school administrators to plan a special liturgy for the feast of St. Francis that involves taking off shoes in repentance...

New York's Archbishop Timothy Dolan has raised the possibility of returning to the obligatory Friday abstinence from meat, saying that the measure could help to strengthen Catholic...

Most American Catholics are not aware that a new translation of the Mass will be introduced later this year. A study by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University...

A former consultant to the US bishops was the keynote speaker at a conference organized by a group that is lobbying for decriminalization of pedophilia. Dr. Fred Berlin of Johns Hopkins...

Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Madrid on August 18 to join in the World Youth Day (WYD) observances there, and immediately sent a message to the young participants: “Let nothing and no one take away...

An economic system “cannot be measured only by the highest profits, but rather according to the common good,” Pope Benedict XVI said on August 18. In an exchange with reporters who accompanied...

The Global Council of Indian Christians appealed to the federal Supreme Court of India on August 18, seeking to block the demolition threat of a church built by the Catholic refugees in the troubled...

The president of Guinea has named a Catholic archbishop and an Islamic leader to co-chair a commission of national reconciliation. Alpha Conde, who last year became the first democratically...

In his first meeting with the thousands of young people who have gathered in Madrid for World Youth Day (WYD), Pope Benedict XVI exhorted them to listen carefully to the teachings of Jesus...

President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua--a leftist who ruled Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990 and was elected president again in 2007--is making extensive use of Christianity in his reelection campaign....

Stating that “no citizen has a recognized legal right to a contract with the government,” an Illinois circuit judge has ruled that the state is not obliged to renew its annual foster care contract...

A Pakistani Christian woman who was abducted in 2009 has escaped from her captor. After Arifa Alfred, 27, was drugged and kidnapped in central Pakistan, she awoke and was shown papers stating...

The Justice for Immigrants campaign of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is urging priests across the nation to “incorporate petitions, prayers and homilies” into Sunday Masses on...

The bishops of New Mexico have announced their opposition to Gov. Susana Martinez’s efforts to prevent illegal immigrants from receiving driver’s licenses. New Mexico is currently one of three...

L’Osservatore Romano has paid tribute to Boris Pasternak (1890-1960), the Russian novelist and poet best known for Doctor Zhivago. “The fundamental spirit of my experiences or attempts is a...

In a message to the world's Muslims, timed for the close of Ramadan, the president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue has focused on the need to educate young people in...

After praying the Stations of the Cross at World Youth Day on Friday evening, August 19, Pope Benedict XVI told the young participants to “be sure not to pass by on the other side in the face of...

“Gospel radicalism” is needed today to counteract religious “amnesia,” Pope Benedict XVI told an audience at World Youth Day on August 19. Speaking to a group of young women religious at...

Pope Benedict XVI argued against a “utilitarian approach” to education, in an August 19 address to Catholic university instructors in Madrid. In today’s society, “increasingly confused and...

A refugee camp for Somali refugees has become the 3rd-largest “city” in Kenya. The Dadaab refugee camp, in northern Kenya, is now a temporary home to at least 450,000 people. Originally built for...

The scandal-plagued Diocese of Cloyne, Ireland, is facing a financial crisis, Church spokesmen there have acknowledged. "The finances of the diocese of Cloyne have come under extreme pressure...

When Bishop Christopher Jones of Elphin, Ireland, said that the children brought up in single-parent households were "born losers," it was "a most unfortunate turn of phrase," writes columnist David...

The success of World Youth Day reflects the vigor of “Evangelical Catholicism,” writes John Allen in a revealing analysis for the National Catholic Reporter. Allen concedes that the phenomenon he...

In separate statements, Catholic and Anglican bishops in Nigeria have questioned the proposed introduction of Islamic banking and called upon the government to do more to combat the Islamist...

Joined by other Christian and Muslim leaders, the president of Malawi’s episcopal conference has called upon President Bingu wa Mutharika to “stop suffocating civil society, the press, the judiciary...

Islam is on the rise in Brazil, attracting those who disdain society’s libertinism as well as fans of a soap opera with a Muslim hero. Since 2000, the number of mosques in Brazil has quadrupled to...

Citing a “vacuum of information” from the archdiocese on the status of priests suspended following a grand jury report on clerical abuse, a group of Philadelphia priests has formed an independent...

The New York Times notes that the lack of vocations in many US women’s religious communities has left most Catholic hospitals without religious leadership. “In 1968, nuns or priests served as chief...

In 2008, the Catholic Cemeteries Association of the Diocese of Pittsburgh signed a five-year lease permitting an energy company to drill for natural gas using the controversial procedure known as...

Pope Benedict XVI challenged nearly 2 million young people to be “apostles of the 21st century,” as he closed World Youth Day (WYD) ceremonies in Madrid on August 21. “There is no reason to lose...

Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero, who has crossed swords with Church leaders frequently because of his support for a liberal social agenda, now faces complaints from his Socialist...

The former Bishop of Cloyne expressed his sorrow over clerical abuse in the Irish diocese, and promised to make a fuller statement on the issue, after he was tracked down by the Irish...

“Islamic mosques are being built more often in France than Roman Catholic churches, and there now are more practicing Muslims in the country than practicing Catholics,” the Hudson Institute...

During his visit to Spain for World Youth Day, Pope Benedict XVI met with the world’s oldest living cloistered nun. Sister Teresita, who is 103 years old, probably does not qualify as a “youth.”...

Critics of a controversial priest fought with his defenders inside a Catholic church in Kerela, India, on August 21, forcing police to intervene. Ten people required hospital treatment after the...

A Caritas International report estimates that "every 11 weeks, 10% of the under-5 population in Somalia is dying" because of a famine. Caritas, the international Catholic charitable consortium,...

Now that Pope Benedict XVI has named St. John of Avila a doctor of the Church, Sandro Magister of L'Espresso runs down the list of others who might be accorded that honor. Among the candidates...

Bishop John Magee has apologized for the clerical abuse that took place during his tenure as Bishop of Cloyne. Appointed to the see in 1987, he retired under pressure in March 2010 amid reports of a...

Three years after an anti-Christian rampage left an estimated 100 dead and 50,000 homeless, the government of the Kandhamal district in the eastern Indian state of Orissa is forbidding the...

Bishops in the Philippines are continuing their opposition to reproductive health legislation backed by President Benigno Aquino. “We will continue with meetings, conferences, protests,...

In the northwestern Indian state of Rajasthan, the ministry of health in the Jhunjhunu district has set a goal of sterilizing 1% of the population and is paying people to be sterilized. Men who...

Bishop Nicolas DiMarzio of Brooklyn has offered strong criticizing of the New York City public schools’ new sex-education program, which requires sixth-graders to be instructed in condom...

An Ontario man has been sentenced to 18 months in jail for extorting $90,000 from a local priest. Robert Sammut, 46, had told the priest, whose name has been sealed by court order, that he would...

The head of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), Bishop Bernard Fellay, has been called to the Vatican for a meeting on September 14. News of the meeting has revived speculation that...

Plaintiff's lawyer Jeffrey Anderson, who is seeking to hold the Vatican responsible in a sex-abuse lawsuit, insists that documents released last week by the Holy See show that Vatican officials...

Conservative scholar Richard Epstein, in an essay defending free-market principles and low tax rates, classifies Pope Benedict XVI alongside Warren Buffett as prominent figures who are “working...

Christians in India’s troubled Orissa state heaved a sigh of relief on August 23, as a massive rally organized by Hindu militants ended without incident. The Hindus’ rally was called to mark the...

During a visit to China, US Vice President Joseph Biden said that he can "fully understand" that country's brutal one-child population policy. "Your policy has been one which I fully...

Libya’s leading Catholic prelate, who has frequently decried the effort to oust the Qaddafi regime, still holds out hope for a peaceful accord between the government and the rebels who have entered...

The head of Madrid's chamber of commerce estimates that last week's World Youth Day festivities brought €160 million ($230 million) into the Spanish economy. Pilgrims traveling to Madrid spent...

Father James Schall makes the provocative observation that Islam's rise to power could be reversed--just as quickly and peacefully as the Soviet empire perished--because of a fundamental...

On the third anniversary of the beginning of the wave of anti-Christian persecution that left 100 dead and 50,000 homeless, the leading prelate in the eastern Indian state of Orissa said that...

Police in the central Chinese city of Tianshui have detained diocesan administrator Father John Baptist Wang Ruohan, retired Bishop Casimir Wang Milu, and several other priests and lay leaders of...

A leading Russian Orthodox Church official has paid tribute to Russians who died in protests against Communism in August 1991. “We gathered together here to pray for people who had lost their...

In the southwestern Indian state of Karnataka, where 138 incidents of anti-Christian violence have taken place in the last two years, some Christians fear that a new police census of Christian...

L’Osservatore Romano has paid tribute to Father Cornelio Fabro (1911-95) on the centenary of his birth. The philosopher was known for his studies of the writings of Soren Kierkegaard and St. Thomas...

Father Emmanuel Isi, a Nigerian priest who ministers at the cathedral in Birmingham, Alamaba, has been brutally beaten. The husband of a woman with whom the priest was involved is suspected in the...

Last week's World Youth Day in Madrid was "a stupendous manifestation of faith for Spain and for the whole world," Pope Benedict XVI told his Wednesday public audience on August 24. Following his...

The Catholic bishops of Florida have appealed for clemency for a convicted murderer who faces execution on September 1. The bishops intervened in the case of Manuel Valle, who shot and killed one...

A historic Catholic church in Baltimore has been closed because of damage from the earthquake that shook the east coast of the US on August 23. St. Patrick's church in Fells Point, built in 1898...

A community of 3 Franciscan friars has been pinned down inside a monastery in Tripoli as fighting rages through the Libyan capital. The Franciscans were barricaded inside their monastery during...

The former vicar general of Ireland’s Cloyne diocese has conceded that he should have resigned in 1996, since he was unwilling to enforce the sex-abuse policies adopted by the Irish hierarchy....

More than 50 Australian religious leaders have joined in a plea to lawmakers to resist calls for the legal recognition of same-sex marriage. In a letter to legislators, arguing against proposed...

Pope Benedict XVI was profoundly moved by the World Youth Day celebration in Madrid, and at times he was "so emotional, he almost wept," according to the city's archbishop. Cardinal Antonio Maria...

Georgia--the former Soviet republic located between Russia and Turkey--has granted juridical status to the Catholic Church and other ecclesial communities “that have close historical ties with...

In its annual Labor Day statement, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops rued “new efforts to restrict collective bargaining rights” but noted that “some unions in some places have taken...

An Indian prelate who once served as undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue has denounced corruption in Indian society but questioned the tactics of Anna Hazare, the...

Stung by public criticism, US Vice President Joseph Biden has backtracked from recent remarks in which he said that he “fully understand[s]” and is “not second-guessing” China’s brutal one-child...

E. Christian Brugger, a moral theologian at Denver’s archdiocesan seminary, warns that POLST (Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment) documents--which have become part of legislation in 12...

Fifteen parish churches suffered damage in the August 23 earthquake that shook parts of the eastern United States. Seven are located in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, seven in the Archdiocese of...

A grand jury in Missouri is looking into the case of Father Shawn Ratigan, the priest whose indictment on child-pornography charges has sparked criticism of the Kansas City diocese. According to...

Three Kenyan men face the death penalty after being convicted of the brutal 2009 murder of Father Gerry Roche, an Irish missionary priest. Two other men who had been tried in connection with the...

Former students of Professor Joseph Ratzinger—now Pope Benedict XVI—have gathered with the Pontiff at Castel Gandolfo for an annual seminar, at which they will discuss the “new...

British Catholic columnist William Oddie argues that the decision to allow female altar servers was an error, and should be reversed. The 1994 decision to allow girls to become altar servers was...

Catholic Church officials in Nepal have halted a popular catechism class, as the country’s lawmakers prepare to vote on a law that would ban all religious conversions. Since Nepal became a...

In the wake of a divisive political battle, Wisconsin's Catholic bishops are urging Catholics to overcome their differences, and to resist the temptation to see Church teaching from a partisan...

Following up on the report that Bishop Bernard Fellay has been called to the Vatican for a September meeting, John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter reports on the latest round of talks...

A proposal to recognize same-sex marriage in Australia will fail if legislators are allowed a "conscience vote" rather than subject to party discipline, The Age reports. A solid majority of...

Church officials in Nicaragua are demanding an inquiry into the violent death of a priest who had been a critic of the government. The body of Father Marlon de Jesus Garcia was discovered in a...

Archbishop Orani João Tempesta of Rio de Janeiro says that the city is looking forward to hosting World Youth Day in 2013. "We want to show that Rio is not just sports and carnivals," the...

A court in Hawaii has cleared a Catholic priest of sexual misconduct, finding that the complaint against him had been "fabricated." Father Buohdan Borowec, a visiting priest from the Ukrainian...

An Irish columnist, in the course of berating the bishops for their handling of the sex-abuse crisis, unintentionally provides an illustration of how that crisis has allowed Church critics to pursue...

Bowing to demands from victim’ advocates, the Boston archdiocese has released a list of priests who have been accused of sexual abuse. The Boston archdiocese made public an online data-base that...

Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of the Ukrainian Catholic Church met on August 23 with the leader of the Russian-backed Ukrainian Orthodox Church, for a friendly conversation that contrasted...

Amid heightened persecution of Iranian Christians, authorities in the northwestern province of Zanjan have seized 6,500 Bibles. “Missionaries with reliance on huge money and propaganda are...

Vandals broke into a Syro-Malankara Catholic church in the southeastern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, setting fire to the altar, Bibles, and other sacred objects. Members of Bajrang Dal, a...

Acceding to a request from Archbishop Dennis Schnurr, Mother of Mercy High School will not be hosting an iftar dinner with the local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Iftar is...

The director of the Scottish Catholic Media Office, has praised the charity Nil by Mouth for developing anti-bigotry seminars for the workplace. “Sectarianism is often a euphemism for...

The president of the Indian bishops’ conference has called upon activist Anna Hazare to end his hunger strike against endemic corruption. “I’m appealing, and the Church has appealed, to Anna...

An English professor at Central New Mexico Community College has announced that he will protest an outdoor Mass that will take place on the campus of the University of New Mexico on August...

Shahbaz Taseer, the son of the late Salman Taseer, was seized by armed men in Lahore, Pakistan, on August 26. Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab, was killed on January 4, apparently by...

An Anglican parish in Arkansas is preparing to enter the Catholic Church, as one of the first communities to join an Anglican ordinariate. St. George Anglican Church is a small parish, with only...

For the second time in recent weeks, the University of Notre Dame has announced the departure of a board member whose public views clashed with the teachings of the Catholic Church. Marye Anne...

A leftist German politician has praised Pope Benedict XVI for stressing the need for partnership between faith and reason. Gregor Gysi said that the Pontiff is right to teach that modern society...

Victims’ advocates, who had been pressing the Boston archdiocese to release the names of all priests accused of abuse, have complained that the list made public on August 25 is incomplete. When...

Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic, the retired Archbishop of Toronto, died on August 26 at the age of 81, after a long illness. Aloysius Ambrozic was born in Slovenia, but his family was displaced...

Catholic leaders in Libya are hopeful that the Church will be able to continue functioning freely in the African country in the wake of the apparent fall of the Qaddafi regime. Catholics were...

The federal Supreme Court of India, in a historic ruling, has upheld compensation for a pregnant woman who gave birth to a stillborn child following an accident. The top Indian court upheld the...

The Obama administration has sometimes hinted that federal funding for contraception is a wise expenditure because it cuts down the number of babies born into poor households who will need...

Cardinal William Levada, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), has passed retirement age, and has evidently indicated that he does not wish to extend his appointment....

During the week when Pope Benedict has gathered at Castel Gandolfo with his former theology students, Vatican-watcher Sandro Magister writes that the Pontiff still has the characteristics of a...

Zhang Qingli, until recently the leading Communist official in Tibet, has been named the top Communist official in the northeast Chinese province of Hebei, home to a quarter of the nation’s...

In an interview with the Vatican newspaper, the president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity discussed preparations for the 2013 World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro. “The great wooden cross...

One year after Argentina legalized same-sex marriage, the nation’s legislature is discussing the legalization of abortion. “When a woman is pregnant, it is not one life we are talking about , but...

The president of the Vatican Bank is warning that higher taxes are not a solution to the current economic crisis. “During a prolonged crisis, inheritance taxes, new forms of taxation or similar...

Caritas Internationalis, the confederation of Catholic relief and development agencies, has launched a $2.1-million appeal on behalf of drought-stricken Ethiopia. “Four and a half million people...

The 26th World Youth Day in Madrid was a “zero emissions” event, according to organizers. “Unable to avoid the kind of pollution that comes from mass demonstrations like that of Madrid, the...

Archbishop Edwin O’Brien of Baltimore has been named by Pope Benedict XVI to become grandmaster of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre. The appointment is a surprise, because Archbishop O’Brien has...

“Thinking as the world thinks is setting God aside, not accepting his plan of love,” Pope Benedict XVI told his midday audience on Sunday, August 28. Reflecting on the day’s Gospel, in which...

Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayip Erdogan has announced plans to return thousands that were seized by the government from religious ownership. The surprise announcement from Erdogan will result in...

Pope Benedict XVI presided at a Mass for his former students on August 29, closing the annual meeting of the Ratzinger Schülerkreis. The annual meeting of the Pope with his former theology...

Hundreds of churches across India’s central Madhya Pradesh state observed “Martyrs Day” on August 28, in an initiative begun by Catholic Church leaders. The “Martyrs Day” observances included...

A new report on the sexual abuse by Catholic priests in the Irish county of Donegal will renew public outrage, the Guardian predicts. The forthcoming report, on the handling of sex-abuse...

Four Pentecostalist Christians have been arrested in India’s troubled Karnataka region, after reportedly going door to door to evangelize Hindus in an impoverished neighborhood. The Christian...

The sculptor of a highly controversial image of Blessed John Paul II has agreed to modify the statue, in response to a wave of public hostility. Oliviero Rainaldi says that he will make some...

In comments appearing in diocesan newspapers across the United States, Father Michael Guinan, a professor of Old Testament at the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley, California, has dismissed...

The diocese of Belleville, Illinois has announced plans to close as many as 20 parishes of its 117 parishes in a consolidation move prompted by “very serious financial challenges.” Bishop Edward...

An estimated 800,000 people from 38 nations traveled to Rimini, Italy, to attend the annual meeting associated with the Communion and Liberation movement. Speakers at the meeting, which took place...

A Bapist minister has been murdered in Orissa, the eastern Indian state that was the site of massive anti-Christian persecution in 2008. Aid to the Church in Need reported on August 29 that...

The Vietnamese government’s decision to release 10,000 prisoners on the nation’s independence day will principally affect common criminals and not human rights advocates, according to the chairman...

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops has published a decree stating that the new translation of the Roman Missal will be implemented in the nation’s parishes on November 27, the First Sunday...

The Vatican newspaper is drawing greater attention to a recent condemnation of gambling by one of Argentina’s largest dioceses. The pastoral-social agency of the Archdiocese of Córdoba, which has...

The year 2011 marks the centenary of Julius von Schlosser’s work on wax portraiture, L’Osservatore Romano noted in an August 30 article. Schlosser (1866-1938) was the leader of the Viennese school...

Two Franciscan priests and the director of the Maryknoll Office of Global Concerns were among those taking part in an August 29 interfaith protest in front of the White House against a proposed...

Archbishop Ignatius Ayau Kaigama of Jos, Nigeria, voiced sadness and frustration at a new episode of violence between Christians and Muslims in central Nigeria. The latest bloodshed occurred in...

As part of a settlement in a sex-abuse lawsuit, the Chicago archdiocese has agreed to release the personnel files of 35 priests who have been accused of sexual abuse. The files to be made public...

The publication of a new report on sexual abuse in the Irish Catholic Church—this time in the Raphoe diocese—has been delayed until October. The National Board for Safeguarding Children in the...

Archbishop George Niederauer of San Francisco underwent cardiac bypass surgery on August 29, after being hospitalized the previous day because of chest pains. The archbishop—who was on vacation...

Archbishop Edwin O’Brien, the newly appointed grandmaster of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, has a reputation as an unflinching “tell-it-like-it-is” personality, notes John Allen of the National...

A new Catholic university serving the Middle East, located in Madaba, Jordan, is accepting registrations from new students. The American University of Madaba, the fruit of an initiative launched...

"There is need of a great cultural and social conversion," said Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the president of the Italian bishops' conference. The Italian cardinal said that today's society needs a...

Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the secretary of the Vatican city-state government, will soon be named apostolic nuncio to the US, EWTN reports. Archbishop Vigano, the 2nd-ranking official in the...

Melkite Catholic Patriarch Gregory III Laham has issued a call for Syria’s government to negotiate with opposition leaders. In a message to Muslims as they end Ramadan, the Melkite patriarch...

A 13-year-old Christian boy disappeared from a church in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, and his family fears that he was abducted while attending Mass, in the latest of a series of kidnappings of young...

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has been putting pressure on the editors of a Jesuit journal, Theological Studies, according to the National Catholic Reporter. Citing unnamed...

Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York urged tolerance when Muslims sought to build a mosque near the site of the World Trade Towers, notes William McGurn of the Wall Street Journal. But now Bloomberg...

The Vatican’s decision to recall the apostolic nuncio from Dublin, after an inflammatory speech by Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) Enda Kenny, signals a serious diplomatic breach, writes Dermot...

Vandals attacked a parish in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, on August 27. “Wooden ventilators 14 feet high were broken,” said Father Richard D’Souza, pastor of St. Joseph’s Church in Nasrat...

L’Osservatore Romano has published an article criticizing New York’s new mandatory sex education program. “The new course is part of an initiative launched by Mayor Bloomberg to improve the...

Amid reports of hundreds of deaths caused by violence between the Lou Nuer and Murle tribes, South Sudan’s leading prelate has called upon the citizens of the newly independent nation to shun...

Bolivian Cardinal Julio Terrazas Sandoval is supporting Amazonian Indians’ protests against socialist President Evo Morales’s plan to build a 190-mile highway through their territory. Environmental...

Leaders of the Cuban dissident organization Ladies in White are appealing to Cardinal Jaime Ortega to urge the government to end the increased harassment of members of their organization. “We...

In an interview with Vatican Radio, prominent Irish theologian Father Vincent Twomey--one of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s doctoral students--recalls the Pope’s years as a theology professor and...

At his weekly public audience on August 31, Pope Benedict XVI spoke about the “path of beauty” as an approach to God, and the role of art strengthening faith. The Pope asked the 5,000 people who...

A group of dissident Austrian priests has announced plans to engage in open defiance of Church law. The Priests’ Initiative, which claims the support of 329 clerics, has argued in favor of...

Rebutting a story published by the National Catholic Reporter, two noted theologians have revealed that an article they wrote for the Jesuit journal Theological Studies was submitted to peer review...

On Wednesday, August 31, Pope Benedict XVI attended a concert of sacred music organized in his honor by Cardinal Domenico Bartolucci. Cardinal Bartolucci, the longtime director of the Sistine...

A Scottish archbishop has announced that the faithful should receive Communion standing, arguing that “kneeling at the altar rails (where they continue to exist) is not the practice envisaged by the...

A Filipino woman and her 4-year-old child, the wife and daughter of a legal immigrant worker, have been deported from Israel, in the first unhappy application of a policy designed to protect the...

An attorney for Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua is seeking to avoid courtroom testimony by the retired prelate, saying that he is too frail to make an appearance. The attorney, Brian McMonagle,...

An Irish woman who says that she was abused by a priest in a confessional has told reporters that she feels "hurt" by the statements of priests who insist that they would never violate the secrecy...

Prompted by a proposal to provide independent counseling for women considering abortion, a reporter for the London Daily Mail visited several existing services, pretending to be pregnant, to see...

An elderly Chinese cardinal, unable to visit his native land, came as close as he could when he traveled to the island of Matsu, just off the Chinese coast, to speak at a conference...

In a recent study on religious freedom, the Pew Foundation found that restrictions were growing in many countries, especially in the Islamic world. But Sandro Magister of L'Espresso notes that one...

Editor Gary O'Sullivan of the Irish Catholic argues that Cardinal Sean Brady and Frances Fitzgerald, the government's minister for children, should end their public debate about a proposal to...