Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga lambasted “movements in the United States” that have expressed criticism of the Pope’s upcoming encyclical letter on the environment, calling it “absurd” to disparage a document that has not yet been released.
ROME, Italy– Throngs of marchers took to the streets of Rome on Mother’s Day to commemorate Italy’s fifth annual March for Life, a pro-life event affirming the universal right to life in opposition to state-sanctioned abortion.
ROME, Italy– During his morning Mass Monday, Pope Francis once again threw down the gauntlet to the jihadists of ISIS and Boko Haram, applying to them the words of Jesus that those who persecute Christians have never known God.
Visiting Pope Francis in Vatican City Sunday, Cuban President Raúl Castro thanked him publicly for the role he played in mediating relations between Cuba and the United States this past year.
At his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis welcomed some of the Harlem Globetrotters, who were visiting Rome while on tour.
In his morning Mass Thursday, Pope Francis insisted on God’s nearness to humanity, noting that it was an early Christian heresy that saw Him as far away and abstract, instead of the “God with us” of the visible, tangible Christ.
Christians are called to bear trials and tribulations with courage and patience, but this does not mean they are masochists, Pope Francis said Tuesday morning.
In a meeting with Christian laypeople Thursday, Pope Francis explained a confusing schedule mix-up by appealing to his fallibility in daily activities.
The Pope’s stand in favor of women’s equality and against abortion may earn him the ire of the reigning feminist regime, but it seems he has history on his side.
A new study claims that Pope Francis is the most influential person on Twitter for the third year in a row, and his influence is growing steadily. Although U.S. President Barack Obama has more followers than any other world leader, Pope Francis is the most retweeted leader, which counts more for “influence,” according to the criteria used by the study.
While climate change activists busily campaigned the Pope for support for their projects, Francis’s mind was elsewhere, reflecting on the importance of traditional marriage and the plight of women in the world.
A group of like-minded thinkers meeting at the Vatican for a workshop on climate change have issued a final statement, making a series of bold proclamations on the environment and issuing an alarming ultimatum that the climate summit in Paris later this year “may be the last effective opportunity” to keep global warming from reaching “devastating” levels.
VATICAN CITY: “Religion and science are united on the need for action on climate,” declared UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon at a papal climate summit in the Vatican this morning. This statement is at best moot, at worst a risible and
ROME, Italy–As the Vatican gears up for a high-level workshop on climate change this Tuesday, a group of 90 prominent scientists, religious leaders, and academics have written an open letter to Pope Francis, urging him to entertain the scientific and moral arguments against current climate change theories.
The Turkish government announced it had captured 350 migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea from the port region of Mersin to Italy or the greater EU.
ROME, Italy – Contrary to what a worryingly large proportion of His churches believe, God isn’t a climate charge alarmist. If you’re in any doubt, I’d recommend you read this superbly erudite open letter to Pope Francis which has been
On Sunday morning Pope Francis ordained 19 new priests, exhorting them to serve the flock rather than manage it, and to feed the people of God with heartfelt homilies rather than boring sermons.
In an interview Friday with Italy’s Religious Information Service (SIR), the President of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants, Cardinal Antonio Maria Vegliò, expressed harsh criticism of the accord reached Thursday at the EU Brussels summit on the issue of Europe’s immigration crisis.
ROME, Italy– Counterterrorism police conducted coordinated raids across Italy on Friday against an Islamist cell based in Sardinia and linked to al-Qaeda, arresting eight Pakistanis and an Afghan.
ROME, Italy– With his usual candor, Australian Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s financial czar, spoke Thursday of the future of Christianity in the United States, Europe, and China–noting that Christianity is already spreading like wildfire in China just as it did “in the old pagan Roman Empire” two thousand years ago.
The tenth annual course on exorcism has gotten off to a bang in Rome, with a full house of 170 students eager to learn how to recognize and fight demonic possession.
Access to the Vatican website, www.vatican.va, was blocked twice in the space of 24 hours this week following Pope Francis’s comments Sunday regarding the Armenian genocide.
Continuing with his insistence that Christians speak the truth boldly and “without fear” of the consequences, on Wednesday Pope Francis took on both the gay lobby and radical feminists by contending that men and women are essentially different and not interchangeable.
Turkey’s reaction to Pope Francis’s comments Sunday on the Armenian genocide was swift and resolute, as the country recalled its Vatican ambassador back to Ankara and denounced the Pope for instigating “hatred and animosity” by spreading “unfounded allegations.”
Rampant speculation on whether Pope Francis would employ the “G-word” in describing the Turkish massacre of 1.5 million Armenians a century ago has been definitively answered as the Pope called the slaughter “the first genocide of the twentieth century” Sunday
In preparation for a special Mass commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide to be celebrated Sunday, Pope Francis received a delegation Thursday from the Armenian-Catholic Church.
In an unusually public and confrontational manner, South African Cardinal Wilfrid Napier shot off a series of Twitter messages this week criticizing his fellow cardinal, the German Walter Kasper, in response to a Huffington Post article that called Kasper “the Pope’s theologian.”
In an Easter peace wish, Pope Francis on Sunday praised the framework nuclear agreement with Iran as an opportunity to make the world safer, while expressing deep worry about bloodshed in Libya, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa.
The Vatican is offering a course on exorcism—or casting out demons—this April to teach priests and laypeople how to recognize and fight demonic possession.
Italian and Vatican authorities have signed an agreement on taxation entailing “full cooperation” and “transparency,” including financial activities operated by entities that have accounts at the Vatican Bank.
A Vatican statement released on Friday from its UN representative, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, denounces a series of atrocities committed by the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) against children in Syria. The statement follows the release of a similar speech on Thursday, which was the first Vatican document to mention the Islamic State by name, rather than the more generic “religious fundamentalism.”
An official Vatican communiqué Friday conveyed the Pope’s sorrow and solidarity with the families driven from their homes by Islamic State militants in northern Iraq. He likened their suffering to that of Jesus Christ during His passion, and sent them financial assistance, as well as Italian Easter cakes, as a sign of his closeness to them.
Employing its harshest and most candid language to date, the Vatican has condemned the actions of the Islamic State by name, declaring it guilty of “unspeakable crimes” and “repulsive and damnable” atrocities.
On March 8, Pope Francis visited the parish of Santa Maria Madre del Redentore, in the poor Roman neighborhood known as Tor Bella Monaca. Now he has sent a thousand pounds of food as well as medicine to the poorest families of the area.
Amidst the enthusiasm for the upcoming Jubilee year of 2016 proclaimed by Pope Francis, Cardinal Camillo Ruini has added a sobering note of caution. “Terrorism is the greatest threat looming over the Jubilee proclaimed by Pope Francis. You cannot ignore it after what has happened in Tunisia,” he said in an interview this weekend with the Italian daily La Repubblica.
Pope Francis returned to the topic of the West’s ageing population Wednesday, insisting that when the birthrate of a society barely makes it to one percent, “we can say that this society is sad and gray because it is left without children.”
Recent years have seen an increasing reluctance on the part of the Vatican to speak of the traditional “Just War Doctrine,” as Church officials have urged the exhaustion of diplomatic solutions before even considering the use of force. This reluctance seems now to be giving way to a grittier realism in the face of a relentless enemy with whom constructive, rational dialogue is impossible.
In an interview Wednesday with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Emeritus Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun accused the Vatican of being naïve in its dialogue with Beijing, saying that the Church is preparing to give away too much. “Italians in the Roman Curia don’t know the Chinese dictatorship,” he said, “because they have never experienced a Communist regime.”
Vatican spokesman Father Tom Rosica had his lawyers send a letter threatening to sue a Catholic blogger in Canada for the man’s ongoing criticism of Rosica and his influence on the Extraordinary Synod of Catholic Bishops last fall in Rome. But now, after considerable media attention, Father Rosica has backed off and says he never really meant it.
In a rare interview, the head of the Vatican police force, or “Gendarmerie,” Commander Domenico Giani, said this weekend that the Islamic State (ISIS) threats against Pope Francis are “real” and not just media propaganda. “This is what emerges from the talks I have had with Italian and foreign colleagues,” he said.
