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Myanmar Church speaks out against rare earth mining

Church leaders in Myanmar are up in arms against unregulated mining for rare earth elements — widely used in the production of high-tech devices like smartphones, computers, electric vehicles and solar cells — in the conflict-torn Southeast Asian nation’s Kachin state. Mining for rare earth has increased sharply in northern mineral-rich Kachin state, bordering China’s […]

HK bishop to visit Beijing seeking exchanges, interaction

Hong Kong’s Catholic bishop is scheduled to visit Beijing next month at the invitation of the archbishop based in the Chinese capital to promote exchanges and interactions between Catholics in the two regions of China, an official statement said. Bishop Stephen Chow Sau-yan of Hong Kong accepted the invitation from Archbishop Joseph Li Shan of […]

Korean Catholics seek more counselling to curb suicides

Experts and Catholic groups in South Korea have called for more psychotherapy centres and counsellors and urged the Church to promote counselling as part of pastoral care amid a rise in suicide rates. “[Pastoral] counselling should be added to sacramental pastoral care,” said Father Matthew Hong Sung-nam, director of the Catholic Psycho-Spiritual Counselling Centre of […]

Catholicism ‘most trusted religion’ in South Korea

The Catholic Church in South Korea is the most trusted religious group on the peninsula, according to a recent survey. Among those surveyed, 21.4 % of respondents revealed that they had more trust in Catholicism in comparison to other religions in the country. The “2023 Korean Church Social Trust Survey” was conducted by G&Com Research […]

Ecclesial assembly showed great promise for Asian churches

The Second Vatican Council’s document Lumen Gentium (light of the nations) clearly taught that the Church consists of all the baptized, not just the clergy. The return to this conciliar concept surely is a powerful antidote to the recent discoveries of clerical domination and abuse in almost all spheres of ecclesial life. In fact, the unprecedented […]

asteroids named after three Jesuits and a Pope

These are the names of the four asteroids named after three astronomers from the Vatican Observatory, and Pope Gregory XIII. Pope Gregory, who was born Ugo Boncompagni, is the Pope to whom we owe the reform of the calendar (later known as the Gregorian Calendar) and the beginning of the tradition of papal astronomers and […]

10 years of Pope Francis: Significantly more women working at the Vatican

There are currently 1,165 female employees working for the Pope, compared to only 846 in the year Francis took office in 2013. The percentage of women in the total workforce at the Vatican rose in the current pontificate from just under 19.2 to 23.4 per cent today. These figures refer to the two administrative units Holy […]

German bishops’ leader rejects Vatican caution on Synodal Council

Bishop Georg Bätzing has told reporters that the German bishops’ conference will proceed with the formation of a Synodal Council, despite clear opposition from the Vatican. Bishop Bätzing, the president of the episcopal conference, said that the Synodal Council—composed of bishops and lay people, and tasked with setting policies for the Church in Germany—would be […]