Zollner, 56, has been one of the best-known faces of Vatican-led reform efforts on child protection for years – he is widely regarded among Church leaders as an honest broker, a candid voice with a singular commitment to initiating and implementing reform efforts. The priest’s resignation from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors (PCPM) points to the problems plaguing the Vatican’s efforts to respond decisively to the clerical sexual abuse problems, which came to the fore after the scandals of former cardinal Theodore McCarrick in 2018. It also indicates the crumbling credibility of Pope Francis’s reform efforts.

A seven-page document out-lining the changes noted that in the five years from 2017 to 2022, the annual number of new entrants to priestly formation in the archdiocese fell from 24 to 6.
Delpini, who signed the document March 25, announced the “reconfiguration” of seminary training at a Chrism Mass in Milan Cathedral April 6.
“I would like to inform this particular assembly that I have approved, on a trial basis for a three-year period, a reconfiguration of the seminary path, according to what has been pre-pared by the seminary formators and discussed with the Milanese episcopal council,” he told arch-diocesan clergy, referring to the new document.
Delpini, who succeeded Cardinal Angelo Scola at the arch-diocese’s helm in 2017, said that seminarians will spend their third year living in small groups in parishes, while attending daily classes at the seminary. They will be connected with families, which will offer them support.
According to the new document, there were a total of 150 seminarians in the year 2013-14, 139 in 2017-18, and 78 in 2022-23. There were 24 new admissions in 2017, 19 in 2018, 18 in 2019, 16 in 2020, 11 in 2021, and 6 in 2022.

On March 29, dozens of posters urging the pontiff to cease his hostilities against the TLM were plastered on billboards in Roman neighbourhoods surrounding Vatican City.
The posters featuring images and quotes from Pope Benedict XVI, Pope John Paul II and Pope Pius V will be displayed in Rome for 15 days in an act of resistance to Francis’ Traditionis Custodes – his July 2021 motu proprio that aims to suppress the TLM.
“Those who go to the ‘Latin Mass’ are not second class believers, nor are they deviants to be re-educated or a burden to be gotten rid of,” traditionalist groups promoting the poster campaign warned in a press statement.
“The growing hostility to-wards the traditional liturgy finds no justification on either a theological or pastoral level. The communities that celebrate the liturgy according to the 1962 Roman Missal are not rebels against the Church,” the statement noted.
“On the contrary, blessed by steady growth in lay faithful and priestly vocations, they constitute an example of steadfast perseverance in Catholic faith and unity, in a world increasingly insensitive to the Gospel, and an ecclesial context increasingly yielding to disintegrating impulses,” the organizers observed.

Irish analytics and data company Amárach recently conducted a survey that found only about 14% of Irish Catholics regularly atte-nd Sunday Mass. Before Ireland’s bishops went along with the government’s draconian COVID lockdowns and church closures, only 24% of Ireland’s population attended weekly Mass. And only 59% of that 24% has return-ed, yielding an abysmal 14% Mass-attendance rate.
The Amárach survey also found that among those who used to attend Mass but no longer do, nearly one-third (31%) said their faith simply “isn’t as strong” as it used to be. Additionally, only 28.5% of respondents expressed satisfaction with Pope Francis’ leadership, while only 16.5% said they believe Satan exists. A staggering 39.5% said they believe Ireland has “lost her soul.”
Although shocking, these aren’t the only worrying numbers in Ireland. There are currently only 56 seminarians studying to serve the faithful of the Emerald Isle, and a survey last year revealed that the majority of Irish priests are elderly, with 15% still working past the typical retirement age of 75. In addition, Islam is on the rise, threatening to replace the native Catholic population.
The numbers from Amárach indicate the Catholic Faith in Ireland is waning. Father Jim Murray, parish priest at St. John’s church in County Sligo, told Church Militant:
As a country, we now have a generation of people who no longer practice their faith except at baptisms, weddings and funerals. During the pandemic, people lost the habit of attending Mass on a weekly basis – combined with the widespread introduction of web cams in churches. For many, it is easier to sit at home and watch the Mass on the television or iPad. The difference is that now those who are going to Church are making a conscious decision and choice.

Christians are living “under bondage” in northern Nigeria, according to Archbishop Matthew Manoso Ndagoso of Kaduna, located in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, where the predominantly Muslim north meets the predominantly Christian south.
Kaduna State has imposed limited Sharia law in areas with a Muslim majority.
Ndagoso said it is increasingly difficult to build Churches or other Christian infrastructure in northern states like Kano, Sokoto, Katsina, and Zamfara during a March 8 webinar sponsored by Aid to the Church in Need.
“For over 60 years, no single certificate of occupancy has been given officially to any Christian community to build a Church, except in the early 90s when one governor who was a Catholic – a military governor – gave a certificate of occupancy. So, in this part of our country, Christians aren’t free to practice their faith as the Constitution demands, because if I am not free to build a church, if I am not free to get land, you cannot tell me that I am free,” the archbishop said.
“The Christian community in the area has been living under bondage especially in regard to their capacity to practice their faith,” he added.

When the Artemis 2 takes off sometime late next year, four astronauts will strap into a gumdrop-shaped capsule atop a tower of rockets taller than the Statue of Liberty. Mission control will count down 10, 9, 8, … and a controlled explosion with 8.8 million pounds of force will fire, throwing the four astronauts from the coast of Florida into high-earth orbit, where another engine, setting spark to a mixture of liquid hydrogen and oxygen, will thrust them beyond the bonds of Earth for the first time in more than half a century.
And Glover, the pilot of the spacecraft, will say a few words to God.
He told CT he will listen to God, too, attending to the quiet stillness in his mind where he can lay down his own personal interests and desires and truly say, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
“I know that God can use us for his purposes,” Glover said. “When Jesus was teaching the disciples to pray, he used that very specific prayer that we all know, ‘Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name …’ So, listen, I am a messenger of his kingdom; his will be done.”
Glover was named Monday as one of the four people who will lead humanity’s return to the moon more than 50 years after we stopped going. The other members of the crew are Reid Wiseman, Jeremy Hansen, and Christina Koch, who will be the first woman to go to the moon.
Glover, 46, is a Navy captain who flew combat missions in Iraq before becoming a test pilot, a NASA astronaut, and a crew member of the International Space Station. He will become the first Black man to go to the moon, breaking a racial barrier the American space agency set up without explanation in the 1960s.

The Vatican’s liturgy czar has intervened against the implementation of resolutions of the German Synodal Way that demand laypeople should be able to regularly baptize and preach the homily at Mass in churches across Germany.
In a letter to the German Bi-shops’ Conference president da-ted March 29, Cardinal Arthur Roche said neither was possible despite at least one German diocese already announcing both practices.
The written intervention by the Vatican’s prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments was addressed to Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner, which has obtained a copy of the document.
Apart from covering the question of homilies and baptisms by laypeople, the seven-page letter also reminded the German bishops that liturgical translations must be confirmed and approved by the Vatican.
On the issue of homilies, Roche wrote that the reason why laypeople cannot regularly preach at Mass is not due to their need for “better theological preparation or better communication skills.” Nor is the intent to create “inequalities among the baptized.”

Bishop Joseph Shen Bin, 52, the erstwhile Bishop of Haimen, was installed as Shanghai’s new bishop with no formal announcement from the Vatican, or even from his own diocese before the liturgy commenced.
In an unusual move, priests in Shanghai were sent last week invitations to the installation of a new bishop, who was not named on the invitation.
In an April 4 installation at the diocesan Cathedral of St. Ignatius, Bishop Shen, who is also the president of the state-sanctioned Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China, promised to lead the Shanghai diocese with “patriotism and love.”
One cleric in China told The Pillar Tuesday that local priests had expected Shen to be installed as their bishop – he said word of the appointment was “in the wind” among the city’s presbyterate in the days preceding the mysterious installation.
The cleric, who requested anonymity because of the possibility of government reprisal, said that Chen’s name was likely omitted from the invitation to avoid the possibility of protests against his installation.
Describing Bishop Shen as “a capable man, who believes the faith” the cleric said Shen “recognizes the reality of life in China means that if you want room to maneuver for the good of the faithful, you sometimes have to make compromises.”

Saudi Arabia stunned foreign policy observers this month by publicly agreeing to normalize relations with Iran, under Chinese sponsorship. The deal between the neighbouring Sunni and Shia arch-rivals, known for sectarian proxy fights, is expected to ease tensions within Islam.
Meanwhile, the kingdom has recently taken less publicized steps toward another religious normalization: public Christian faith. In this case, Egypt is the supporting nation.
“Nine years ago, I was told, ‘Pray, but don’t publicize it,’” said Bishop Marcos of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church. “This time, Saudi Arabia is publicizing it themselves.”
On January 7, Marcos headlined a month-long pastoral visit by celebrating the eastern Christmas liturgy amid 3,000 Coptic Christians residing in the kingdom. Facilitated by the Egyptian embassy, additional services in Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, Khobar, and Dhahran were “held under the full sponsor-ship of the Saudi authorities.”
It was the first public Christmas celebration admitted by the Islamic nation, home to the pilgrimage sites of Mecca and Medina. Muslim traditions cite Muhammad as forbidding the existence of two religions in Arabia, though scholars differ as to the geographic scope.
But Marcos’s trip was not the first Christian worship permitted.
He began praying about visits to Saudi Arabia after being sent in 2012 to help solve a dispute between authorities and an Egyptian Christian migrant worker. Marcos estimates there are about 50,000 Copts in the kingdom, among 2.1 million Christians – mostly Filipino Catholics.
None have a church to worship in. Open Doors’ World Watch List ranks Saudi Arabia No. 13 among the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian today. Visiting Coptic clergy used to meet the faithful in neighboring Bahrain.
The idea had been broached as early as 2008 by Catholic officials. Various Saudi figures have stated “definitely …it’s coming” and that it is “on the to-do list” of the authorities. Speculation about its location centers on the diplomatic district in the capital, Riyadh, or on Neom, a $500 million planned megacity in the northwestern desert.