Though it was reported widely in the mainstream press this week, the dissident LGBT group, New Ways Ministry, did not receive VIP treatment from the Vatican. In fact, Vatican officials did not even know the group was there.
Father Thomas Rosica, a Vatican spokesman who works in the media, has sent a menacing legal letter to a little-known Canadian blogger, threatening a lawsuit for allegedly criticizing him unfairly.
“What happened in Paris with the Charlie Hebdo attacks could also happen at the Vatican. We are ready to intervene to ensure Francis is protected,” says the new commander of the Swiss Guard, Colonel Christoph Graf.
Father Tom Rosica, frequent official voice of the Vatican and Pope Francis, has sent out a tweet that seems to suggest the Vatican considers American Cardinal Raymond Burke a dissenter from Church teaching.
This morning, Pope Francis condemned the brutal slaying of 21 Coptic Christians perpetrated by ISIS in Libya over the weekend, proclaiming them martyrs killed out of hatred of their Christian faith.
Pope Francis’ reform of the Vatican departments, one of the priorities of his pontificate, seems to be nearing completion. The 165 Cardinals in Rome for meetings with Francis were briefed Thursday on a proposal to shrink the Vatican Curia, merging several existing departments into just two.
Two high-ranking Vatican officials who were slated to address the national assembly of India’s Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCBI) in Bangalore this week have been denied visas by the Indian government.
When the hastily written interim report was read aloud before all the bishops gathered for the Vatican marriage summit last October, it was met with consternation and disapproval. At the time, it was generally assumed that Pope Francis had never seen the text, but now the Cardinal in charge of organizing the summit has claimed that the document was “seen and approved by the Pope.”
The Vatican has announced a new program of giving free haircuts, showers, and even a shave to Rome’s homeless population, a report says. This month the new services were added to last year’s announcement that church officials were adding showering facilities in
Though both China and the Vatican have made efforts in recent months to better diplomatic relations, Beijing’s recent announcement of its intention to ordain Catholic bishops in 2015 without the Pope’s approval is sure to extinguish whatever good will had been achieved.
The relationship between the Catholic Church and China is “an open wound, which must be treated and cured,” says Joseph Wei Jingyi, the underground bishop of Qiqihar, in northeast China.
As a backdrop for his marriage proposal to his boyfriend, Vito Cammissano, NFL defensive end Michael Sam chose Saint Peter’s Square in Vatican City.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church has been published for the first time in Farsi (modern Persian), the official language of Iran and Afghanistan, and includes an introduction by Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio gave Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Secretary of State who is the second most important official at the Vatican, a mock-up of New York’s new municipal identification card and said the cards will influence the
Pope Francis baptized 33 children on Sunday morning, the day that Christians celebrate the feast of the Baptism of the Lord. In his homily, the Pope told parents to teach their children that “you cannot be a Christian outside the
Wednesday’s attack on the Paris offices of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, in which 12 people were killed, caused “abhorrence” in the Vatican, according to sources at the Holy See press office.
After his midday “Angelus” prayer Tuesday, Pope Francis urged the tens of thousands gathered in Saint Peter’s Square to carry the Bible with them wherever they go.
A recent Washington Times piece suggests that President Obama has found a convenient ally in Pope Francis because of the latter’s interest in climate change and his “soft” economics, which seems to converge with points of the democratic platform. At the same time, The Hill reports that Francis is driving a wedge between the Catholic Church and the GOP.
On Christmas day a topless Femen protester stormed the nativity scene at St. Peter’s Square and stole a statue of the baby Jesus after the Pope’s Christmas address.
In what was slated an “exchange of Christmas greetings” with clergy working in the Vatican, Pope Francis did not merely opt for a polite “Merry Christmas.” Instead, he took advantage of the occasion to urge his hearers to undertake an
The White House has credited Pope Francis with being an important catalyst to the diplomatic thaw between Cuba and the United States. On Wednesday, President Obama instructed the Secretary of State to immediately initiate discussions with Cuba on the normalization
Pope Francis and the Vatican were involved in the negotiations with Cuba, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters on background. The Vatican also hosted the United States and Cuban delegations to discuss the political exchange of prisoners
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang expressed his appreciation for Pope Francis’ decision not to meet with the Dalai Lama, who was in Rome for a summit of Nobel Peace Prize winners. Qin said Monday that China had “noticed” the
The world’s smallest nation wants to host the biggest athletic event. The pope has endorsed Rome’s bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympics and wants Vatican City to host a small number of events. Speculation of just what sports the
Pope Francis has identified what he called “the sins of the media,” narrowing them down to three: “disinformation, slander, and defamation.” Of these, he said, “the most insidious is disinformation,” which he compared to telling half-truths. “Of these three sins–disinformation,
The new motto for the New York Times could well be “All the news that’s fit to fabricate,” for as much fact-checking as the paper is doing when it comes to the Catholic Church. Its Thursday issue featured a front-page
“No one has ever heard of a sad saint or a saint with a funeral face,” Pope Francis said Sunday. “Unheard of! It would be a contradiction. A Christian is a person who has a heart full of peace because
With great rhetorical flourish, on Friday, Pope Francis spoke of Jesus as “the great discarded one” and the “liberator” who frees us “from all our slaveries and miseries,” while Mary’s canticle of Magnificat “proclaims a God who delights in overturning
Pope Francis has given four legged friends across the world an early Christmas present by saying that “Paradise is open to all God’s creatures”. In his weekly audience in The Vatican, His Holiness quoted the apostle Paul who told a
The Vatican has announced that Pope Francis will name a batch of new cardinals in February, a year after his last set of appointments to the select group that counsels the pope and eventually gathers to elect his successor. Last
In a message to the UN Climate Change Conference winding down in Lima, Pope Francis said that “there is a clear, definitive and urgent ethical imperative to act” to combat climate change. “The consequences of environmental change,” Francis said, “which
Pope Francis spoke Wednesday about the recent Vatican Synod on marriage and the family, in an effort to correct the false impression that some may have had of what was really going on and to calm fears that things were
Pope Francis has written a preparatory letter for the 8th World Meeting of Families, which he plans to attend in Philadelphia next September, saying that he “looks forward with confidence and hope to this blessed event.” This will be the
Pope Francis has sent a recorded video message to Christian refugees in Erbil, capital of the Kurdistan region of Iraq, which Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, archbishop of Lyon, France, delivered personally on Sunday. The Pope told the refugees that he would
Patriarch Louis Sako, head of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq, has said that the U.S.-led bombing campaign is insufficient to defeat Islamic State (ISIS) jihadists, “especially when there are no troops on the ground providing assistance.” Not long ago,
In an extensive interview Sunday, Pope Francis said that much of the unrest generated by the recent Vatican marriage summit came from people only reading “some news in a newspaper, or an article,” rather than reading what the synod actually
Pope Francis has flatly denied that same-sex marriage was an issue at the recent Vatican marriage summit. “Nobody mentioned homosexual marriage at the synod,” the Pope said in an interview Sunday. “It did not cross our minds.” The Pope suggested
In an interview Sunday, Pope Francis weighed in on a recent Pew Research Center study documenting the shift of many Latin Americans away from the Catholic Church and toward Pentecostal Protestant churches. The study showed that despite the “Francis Factor,”
Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi announced Saturday that three top former officials of the Vatican Bank are being charged with embezzlement and that their bank assets totaling 16 million euros have been seized. Former Vatican Bank President Angelo Caloia, its
“Continue along the path of voluntary and disinterested commitment,” Pope Francis encouraged international Christian service groups on Thursday. “There is so much need for a witness of the value of giving freely.” But, he warned, “the poor cannot become an