The church bells of the city of Masaya in Nicaraguarang without stopping, not to warn of the arrival of death squads, form-ed by police and paramilitaries, but this time with a reason for hope: the arrival of some members of the Episcopal Conference and of the Apostolic Nuncio who on June 25, after learning that Masaya had been attacked once again at 5 am, arrived almost immediately on the spot, to stop the massacre. It was very risky, but seeing the Bishops march down the street, the whole population came out of their houses and joined them. All together, in silence, made the police move away from the streets hastily. After greeting the people, the Bishops made a short procession with the Blessed Sacrament together with the clergy of Managua and Masaya. Then the Bishops went to the police station from where the attacks on civilians were ordered, commanded by Commissioner Ramón Avellán, accused by the population of being responsible for the massacres in recent weeks. After more than an hour, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, Archbishop of Managua, wanted to inform the population: “Commissioner Avellán has committed himself to stop all violence, I told him that if this does not happen, I will call him later.”

The question of allowing Protestants married to Catholics to receive Communion at Mass in special cases has to be decided by each individual bishop and cannot be decided by a bishops’ conference, Pope Francis told reporters after a one-day ecumenical journey to Geneva.

During an inflight news conference on June 21, the Pope was asked about his recent decision requesting the Catholic bishops’ conference of Germany not to publish nationwide guidelines for allowing Communion for such couples.

He said the guidelines went beyond what is foreseen by the Code of Canon law “and there is the problem.” The code does not provide for nationwide policies, he said, but “provides for the bishop of the diocese (to make a decision on each case), not the bishops’ conference.”

“This was the difficulty of the debate. Not the content,” he said.

Cardinal-designate Luis Ladaria, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, had written to the bishops saying that “the Holy Father has reached the conclusion that the document has not matured enough to be published.”

A study by the Pew Research Centre shows that in almost all countries there are differences between young people and older people regarding the importance given to religion; belonging to a group and daily prayer. The influence of economic development, of education, of danger, of age. The cases of Muslim countries, South Korea and Japan.

But even with secularization, the world is becoming more religious. Young people (up to 40 years of age) are less religious than older adults (over forty): this is the conclusion – in some respects obvious – of a long study published by the Pew Research Centre a few days ago. What gives great relevance to this detailed study is the discovery that this difference between young people and adults involves all religions, even if there are some rare exceptions, and is visible in developed and developing countries. Young people’s attitudes are influenced by the greater well-being, greater access to study, changing mentalities throughout the course of life. Such a report is highly useful in preparation for the October Synod, which will focus on the situation of young people in terms of faith and vocation.

The Pew Reserch Centre study covers 106 countries in the world, over a research period of 10 years. In 46 countries, young people (aged 18 to 39) differnegativley to the elderly (40 and over) in saying that “religion is very important;” in 56 countries there are no differences between the two groups. Only in two countries, Georgia and Ghana, young people are more religious than the elderly.

Similar data is reported on other issues such as belonging to a religious group, daily prayer, participation in a weekly religious service. Young people identify themselves less as belonging to a religious group than the older generation in 41 countries; in 63 countries there is no significant difference. Young people pray less than their elders in 71 countries out of 105, and participate less in weekly religious services in 53 countries out of 102.

It must be said that in many countries, the percentage difference between the two groups is not very high: the global average reveals a difference of 5% for affiliation to a particular religious group; 6% for the importance given to religion; 6% for participation in a weekly service; 9% for daily prayer. But there are countries where this difference is very large. The record is in Canada, where this difference is 28 points. In Asia, the figure of South Korea should be noted: a difference of 24 points. In Japan there is a gap of 18 points. Throughout the Asia-Pacific region, the difference is minimal: only 4 points.

On Jan. 2, 2013, 12 fully habited nuns left their convent forever. They walked or were helped to a waiting coach. On board there were some suit-cases and bedding. They left with all they possessed.

So opened the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, given in Rome, at St Peter’s, on Nov. 4, 2009, the Memorial of St Charles Borromeo. It provided for the establishment of Personal Ordinariates through which Anglican faithful might enter, including in a corporate manner, into full communion with the Catholic Church. As it turned out, she was not alone in how she felt. Finally, Mother Winsome, herself now intent on becoming Catholic, called the whole community together. She told them that any sister wishing to be received into the Catholic Church “had to be prepared to walk down the drive with just what she could carry in a bag in her hand, leaving everything else behind, with-out any guarantees for the future, just going forward in blind faith in accordance with her conscience.”

In the end, 11 sisters, and a recently joined religious sister from another community, elected to make that walk. Three of the sisters were in their eighties, three were in their seventies, two of the sisters were prepared to leave the monastery’s Infirmary and the care they received there to follow the call of conscience. One of the more elderly members of the community said what many of them now felt: “I want to die a Catholic.”

Card. Christoph Schönborn has clarified his views on female ordination, saying that women priests would be “too profound a change.” However, he signalled his support for the introduction of deaconesses.

In an interview with Austrian news site OE24, the Archbishop of Vienna said that while there were female deacons in the early Church, he did not foresee a female priesthood in the future.

“There were deaconesses in the first centuries, which could be reintroduced, but there have never been priestesses in the Catholic Church. That would be too profound an encroachment on the 2,000 year tradition, and even Pope Francis said: ‘that is not foreseen.’”

The cardinal had previously caused controversy after saying that a Pope “cannot decide” by himself whether or not the ordi-nation of women is permitted.

“Ordination [of women] is a question that surely can only be settled by a Council,” he told Die Presse. “A Pope cannot decide this by himself. This is too large a question for it to be settled from the desk of a Pope.”