The 3rd International conference “Catholics and Shiites facing the future. On the occasion of the 2nd anniversary of Pope Francis’ visit to Iraq” will be held in Najaf from the afternoon of 8 until 10 March. The dialogue conference has been organised by the Community of Sant’Egidio together with the Al-Khoei Institute of Najaf. It will be attended by a delegation of the Community including the founder Andrea Riccardi, the president Marco Impagliazzo and Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia, Cardinals Ayuso, Coutts and Sako, Patriarch of Baghdad of the Chaldean, will also be present.
The delegation on the Shia side includes several clerics from the High Shiite Seminary in Najaf, as well as representatives from other Middle Eastern countries and Europe. The conference is scheduled to end on Friday, 10 March, with the final session at the Chaldean Patriarchate in Baghdad. This new phase in the friendship between Catholics and Shiites is part of a journey that began in January 2004, when a delegation from Sant’Egidio, invited to Najaf by Shiite clerics engaged in dialogue in the ‘spirit of Assisi’, met with Grand Ayatollah Al Sistani. In 2015, the first international Catholic-Shiite Conference took place. It was followed by numerous and varied presences of Shia religious at the International Meetings for Peace, promoted by Sant’Egidio in the “spirit of Assisi”.

There are calls for the Catholic Church to ordain women as deacons and priests and to allow women to preach the homily during Mass from in a new survey of more than 17,000 Catholic women around the world.
The International Survey of Catholic Women, carried out last year in response to the call for submissions to the 2021-2024 Synod of Bishops on synodality, is published as women worldwide celebrate International Women’s Day.
Recommendations include changes to Canon Law to permit women to preach the homily during Mass and considering the ordination of women to the diaconate and priesthood as a legitimate expression of doctrinal development.
There are also calls to respect women’s freedom of conscience in matters of sexual and reproductive health and decision-making, and for changes to Catholic theology, doctrine and liturgical practice to ensure women, LGBTIQ+ Catholics, and divorced and remarried Catholics “are valued and fully included in all aspects of church life”.
The report, devised and managed by researchers Dr Tracy McEwan and Dr Kathleen McPhillips at the University of Newcastle in Australia and Professor Emerita Tina Beattie at the University of Roehampton, London, draws on 17,200 responses from women in 104 countries.
Of those surveyed, 79 per cent agreed women should be fully included at all levels of church leadership, 84 per cent agreed reform is needed, 85 per cent agreed clericalism is damaging the Church and 80 per cent agreed Church leaders are not doing enough to address the perpetration and cover-up of sexual abuse.
Participants were recruited across multiple networks and forums worldwide including dioceses, parishes, and women’s networks and organisations.

In the latest move against the Catholic Church and government opponents in Nicaragua, the government of President Daniel Ortega has reportedly banned the traditional public processions of the Way of the Cross in all parishes in the country.
During Lent, and also on Good Friday, the ritual will take place inside churches and not in public venues.
The move comes in the context of President Daniel Ortega’s escalating crackdown against the Nicaraguan Church, and follows the widespread outcry over the recent sentencing of Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa to 26 years’ imprisonment and the deportation to the United States of 222 political opponents.
They have all been stripped off citizenship along with other 94 Nicaraguan citizens, including the exiled Auxiliary Bishop Silvo José Baez of Managua, and a priest from Matagalpa.
Tensions between the Sandinista regime and the Catholic Church reached its peak last week when, in a speech for the 89th anniversary of the killing of Nicaraguan national hero Augusto Sandino.

Aside from the ruthless crack-down on protests over the death of Kurdish girl Mahsa Amini in police custody, 2022 was another year in which Iranian Christians continued to face harassment, arrests and imprisonment only for practicing their faith, a new report of four non-profit organi-zations advocating for persecuted Christians in the world says.
Christians along with other religious minorities in the Islamic Republic continued to be systematically deprived of their right to freely practice their religion,  according to the 2023 Report on “Violations to the rights of Christians in Iran” released  by Article18, a London-based ONG, dedicated to the protection and promotion of religious freedom in Iran, with its partners Open Doors International, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) and Middle East Concern.
The 25-page study, in its fifth edition, was issued in recent days to coincide with the 44th anniversary of the murder of Anglican pastor Arastoo Sayyah, the first Christian killed for his  faith in the Islamic Republic,  just eight days after Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution in February 1979.134 Christians arrested in 2022 for faith related issues.

In a new interview, Pope Francis has discussed the possibility of revising the Western discipline of priestly celibacy.
“There is no contradiction for a priest to marry. Celibacy in the Western Church is a temporary prescription: I do not know if it is settled in one way or another, but it is temporary in this sense,” Pope Francis said in an interview published on March 10.
“It is not eternal like priestly ordination, which is forever, whether you like it or not. Whether you leave or not is another matter, but it is forever. On the other hand, celibacy is a discipline.”
When asked by the Argentine journalist Daniel Hadad if celibacy “could be review-ed,” Pope Francis responded: “Yes, yes. In fact, everyone in the Eastern Church is ma-rried. Or those who want to. There they make a choice. Before ordination there is the choice to marry or to be celibate,” according to a transcript provided by Infobae.
In response to the interviewer’s inquiry if the pope thought that making celibacy opt-ional would lead more people to join the priesthood, Pope Francis said: “I do not think so,” noting that there are already married priests in the Catholic Church in the Eastern rites.
The pope added that earlier that day he had met with an Eastern Catholic priest who works in the Roman Curia who has a wife and a son.
Pope Francis has spoken about the value of priestly celibacy before. In January 2019 he said: “Personally, I think that celibacy is a gift to the Church. I would say that I do not agree with allowing optional celibacy, no.”
The pope added at the time that he thinks there is room to consider some exceptions for married clergy in the Latin rite “when there is a pastoral necessity” in remote locations due to a lack of priests, such as in the Pacific islands.
The nearly one-hour-long interview published Friday with Infobae, a Miami-based Spanish-language online news outlet, also touched on Daniel Ortega’s dictatorship in Nicaragua, drug trafficking in Latin America, the war in Ukraine, and marriage annulments.
When speaking of annulments, Pope Francis advised to look to what his prede-cessor Benedict XVI had said on the subject and said that “a large part of church marriages are invalid for lack of faith.”
“And think about it: Sometimes [one] goes to a wedding and it seems more like it’s a social reception and not a sacrament,” Pope Francis said.