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GermanTrappists who went Old Rite close monastery for lack of novices

Germany’s only Trappist monastery — which attempted to revert to the gruelling, pre-Vatican II monastic schedule and worshipped exclusively in the Tridentine Rite — is to be closed by the end of the year. The Vatican congregation that deals with religious orders said Mariawald Abbey, located in Westphalia near the today’s border with Belgium, had dwindled to just […]

WHY ARE YOUNG NIGERIANS ABANDONING THE CHURCH FOR PENTECOSTALISM?

Susan Onyedika was born 22 years ago into a Catholic family in Lagos, Nigeria’s bustling commercial city. When she was a child, she took part in the Block Rosary Crusade (where an image of the Virgin Mary visits family homes), as well as catechism classes in her parish. But as she matured into a teenager she started having doubts about the faith she had practised from […]

China-Vatican deal shocks Chinese Catholics

Chinese Catholics have reacted with shock to the news that the Vatican and China’s communist government intend to sign an agreement soon over the appointment of bishops. Under the agreement, the Vatican would be given a say in the appointment of bishops in China, while an agreement could allow Chinese authorities more control over the country’s underground […]

Chinese in Manila can eat meat on first Friday of Lent

Chinese Catholics in Manila Archdiocese will be allowed to eat meat on the first Friday of Lent on Feb. 16 as it coincides with Chinese New Year. Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila has issued a circular granting dispensation from the Lenten discipline of abstinence to Chinese Catholics in his jurisdiction. “In view of the celebration of […]

Catholic activists get harsh sentences in Vietnam

Two Catholic environmental activists have been jailed in Vietnam after helping hundreds of fishermen to sue a Taiwanese steel plant for polluting coastal waters. Hoang Duc Binh, 35, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for “resisting officials on duty” and “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe the interests of the state, the legitimate interest and rights of […]

Cardinal says Rohingya need international help, because Myanmar doesn’t want them

Cardinal Charles Bo predicts that the roughly 600,000 members of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority probably will never return to the country, in part because a Buddhist majority inflamed by “propaganda and hate speech” won’t accept them, and says it’s urgent for the international community to find a solution for this “stateless” people that “the world doesn’t want.” “It has […]

Churches in Pakistan province to get weapon licenses

A provincial government in southwest Pakistan plans to issue churches in the region with weapon licenses and has donated millions of rupees to a Methodist church to support victims and families of a suicide bombing that killed nine worshippers in December. The Balochistan government notified all 41 churches in the provincial capital of Quetta on Jan. 24 […]

100 Christians sent to ‘re-education’ camps in China

More than 100 Christians have been sent to “re-education” camps in China’s north-western Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the past few months, World Watch Monitor has learned. In these camps, also known as “study centres” or “mind-transformation centres”, they are taught how to be loyal to the communist ideology. Most of those detained are from the Uyghur […]