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Priests demand fair trials in Indonesia’s Papua region

More than 100 Catholic priests have signed a petition seeking fair trials in cases of violence, including sensational murders, as a way of peace-building in Indonesia’s restive Christian-majority Papua re-gion. The petition includes a five-point declaration which was adopted during a meeting of 106 diocesan priests from all five dioceses in the region in Agats, […]

A social development quest in Timor-Leste

In 2015, when Father Hwang Seokmo ended his term as the director of the headquarters of his religious order in Seoul, he requested the superior send him as a missionary to Timor-Leste. The 57-year-old priest, a member of the South Korea-based Clerical Congregation of the Blessed Korean Martyrs, said the tiny Catholic-majority country, also known […]

Cardinal Müller on Synod on Synodality: ‘A Hostile Takeover of the Church of Jesus Christ …We Must Resist’

A top cardinal raised concerns about how his fellow prelates understand the nature of the Church and treat papal authority. “The theory of the Pope as autocrat, borrowed from 19th century Jesuit theology, not only contradicts the Second Vatican Council, but undermines the credibility of the Church with this caricature of the Petrine ministry,” Cdl. Gerhard Müller told Spanish […]

Belo sex allegations test Timor Church’s mettle

Cardinal Virgilio do Carmo da Silva of Dili, Timor-Leste’s first archbishop who was named a cardinal in August, is set for a baptism of fire that will test his every fibre and that of his countrymen. A credible allegation of sexually abusing minors has been made against one of Cardinal da Silva’s predecessors — the […]

Swiss bishop resigns at age 59 due to ‘inner fatigue’

Pope Francis accepted the resignation of a 59-year-old Swiss bishop on October 9 who said “inner fatigue” had made his office “unbearable” to him. Bishop Valerio Lazzeri was in charge of the Diocese of Lugano in Switzerland since 2013. During a press conference Monday afternoon, he said: “Sincerity and complete transparency compel me to tell […]

2022 Ratzinger Prize goes to theologian and to professor of law

On 1st December next, Pope Francis will award the Ratzinger Prize 2022 to Professor Michel Fédou, SJ, and to Professor Joseph Halevi Horowitz Weiler during a ceremony in the Apostolic Palace’s Clementine Hall. It was launched in 2011 to recognize scholars whose work demonstrated authentic and meaningful contributions to theology, much like Pope Benedict XVI had throughout […]

Top Russian prelate says relations with Vatican are ‘practically frozen’

Less than a month after meeting briefly with Pope Francis in Kazakhstan, one of the Russian Orthodox Church’s most senior prelates has said that relations between the two churches are more or less at a standstill. In an interview with the “Church and Peace” program on Russian television station Russia 24, Metropolitan Anthony Sevryuk of Volokolamsk, […]

‘We’ve seen God’s miracle within the crisis’: An interview with Cameroon’s Archbishop Nkea

The Catholic Church — which spans the divide between Francophone and Anglophone Cameroon — has suffered amid the complex crisis. Just last month, gunmen seized five priests, a nun, and three lay people at a church in Nchang, a village in Cameroon’s Southwest Region. Pope Francis appealed for their release, but at the time of writing, […]