International

Priests should be allowed to be married

Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta, who also serves as an adjunct secretary of the Holy See’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, says the Catholic Church has lost “good priests just because they chose marriage.” Speaking to the Times of Malta, the archbishop said, “Why should we lose a young man who would have […]

German bishops express burning concern over rise of AfD

On a snowy Saturday in January 20, German bishops’ conference chairman Bishop Georg Bätzing joined protesters at a demonstration near his residence in Limburg, in the central state of Hesse. Bishop Georg Bätzing attends a Jan. 20, 2024, demonstration against racism, fascism, and the AfD in Limburg, Germany. . Bätzing was one of the more […]

Amid row over same-sex blessings, Pope laments ‘splitting into groups’ in the Church

Pope Francis on the feast of the Epiphany lamented the sharp division among Catholics of differing views, saying believers must imitate the three wise men in putting God at the centre of their lives, rather than their own ideas of the faith. Speaking to attendees of his Jan. 6 Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, the […]

Martin Scorsese says new Jesus film aims to ‘take away the negatives’ of organised religion

Adaptation of book by Shûsaku Endô, who wrote the source novel for 2016’s Silence, is understood to be set mostly in the present day Martin Scorsese is to follow up his triumphant true-crime epic Killers of the Flower Moon with an 80-minute film about Jesus designed to “take away the negative[s] … associated with organised religion”. In […]

Top Ukraine prelate says Vat doc on same-sex blessings applies only to Latin church

Amid a broad spectrum of reactions unleashed by Fiducia Supplicans, a new Vatican document permitting non-liturgical blessings of same-sex couples, Ukraine’s Greek Catholic Church has become the first eastern communion to declare explicitly that the document does not apply outside the Latin Church. “On the basis of canon. 1492 of the CCCC this Declaration concerns […]

Surrogacy is an Injustice to All Involved, Bishop Barron Says in Support of Pope Francis

Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth, issued this reflection in support of the Holy Father’s recent remarks to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See, which included a specific mention of the harms of surrogacy. “Pope Francis strongly condemned […]

African bishops’ conferences unite against blessing same-sex couples

The episcopal conferences of Africa are united in the belief that “the extra-liturgical blessings proposed in the declaration Fiducia Supplicans cannot be carried out in Africa” without creating scandal. Cardinal Fridolin Ambogo of Kinshasa, the president of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) summarized the stands taken by the different bishops’ conferences of […]

Conservative Cardinal Burke says he is ‘still alive’ after rare pope meeting

Conservative American Cardinal Raymond Burke, one of Pope Francis’ fiercest critics, had his first private audience with the pontiff in seven years on December 29, a month after the pope said he was stripping him of some of his Vatican privileges. Asked by Reuters outside his residence in Rome if the meeting had gone well, […]

Eviction-facing Indian Catholics to fight Muslim charity’s claims

Goans oppose tourism project near 16th century basilica