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August 9, 2014
In northern Nigeria, mounting fears of militant female suicide bombers have raised calls to ban the hijab, or the veil that covers the head, chest and, in some cases, the entire body.
August 10, 2014
CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy - The aisle is paved with stone from an ancient Roman road; the apse is made of carefully trimmed evergreen bushes; the columns are tall, thin cypress trees; and the nave is a lily pond, complete with gold fish.
Ontario’s Catholic Women’s League plans to bolster its social justice work during the forthcoming year.
VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis wants a "poor Church for the poor," but that "doesn't necessarily mean a Church with empty coffers," said Cardinal George Pell, "and it certainly doesn't mean a Church that is sloppy or inefficient or open to being robbed."
Suffering, violence and persecution have always been central to Christian experience. This is the religion that adopted the ultimate Roman instrument of torture, used to not only kill but humiliate its victims, as its central image.
20th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A) Aug. 17 (Isaiah 56:1, 6-7; Psalm 67; Romans 11:13-15, 29-32; Matthew 15:21-28) There has always been a battle of wills between God and human beings. Something in our wounded human nature prods us to do our best to possess God for ourselves and the group with whom we identify. This “possession” of God is great for inflating the collective ego and enhancing a sense of superiority towards outsiders. It is also a key contributing factor to religious hatred and violence. Additionally, it prevents us from honest self-examination and robs us of the wisdom and riches of other cultures and belief systems. God is on the other end of the tug-of-war and has very different ideas. God’s intent is always to the greater and the more universal and inclusive.
The mainstream media has caused great confusion about the topic of euthanasia and has been extremely deceptive in its portrayal of human suffering and compassion.
August 11, 2014
TORONTO - Dressed in shirts that proclaimed “I am Christian, I am Iraqi,” carrying signs pleading for protection of their families still in Iraq, 5,000 Iraqi Christians and their supporters marched on Queen’s Park August 10 to draw attention to the plight of their brethren back home.
Priest, politician, Scripture scholar and lightning rod for controversy Fr. Raymond Gravel has died.
TORONTO - A professor of theology at Toronto’s St. Augustine’s Seminary has been chosen to lead the Syro-Malabarrite Diocese of Chanda, India.
Toronto - Legal scholar Iain Benson rejects New Atheism’s teaching that religion leads to division and violence. Benson, a lawyer and lecturer, spoke to an audience from the legal and Catholic community on how difference, including a difference in religion, can be a social good.
BEIRUT - Mideast Catholic and Orthodox patriarchs denounced the "total international silence" on the persecution of Christians in the Middle East and called for Muslim religious authorities to issue fatwas, or legal edicts, banning attacks against Christians and "other innocents."
The following is statement from Cardinal Thomas Collins.
VATICAN CITY - As he dispatches a top aide to wartorn Iraq this week, Pope Francis made his most impassioned plea yet for the world to halt the “slaughter” of Christians and other religious minorities by Islamic extremists.
August 12, 2014
LAGOS, Nigeria - In an effort to curtail the spread of Ebola, the Archdioceses of Lagos and Abuja instructed their priests to suspend all forms of physical contact during Mass, including the traditional sign of peace.
BEIRUT - The memory of that brutal June evening in his home near Mosul, Iraq, brought 48-year-old Joseph, now a refugee in Lebanon, to tears.
OTTAWA - Canadian Catholic charitable agencies have put out urgent appeals for assistance to help Iraqi Christians fleeing for their lives from Islamist extremists from the Islamic State (ISIS}.
Pope Francis departs Aug. 14 on a five-day trip to South Korea, his first to Asia and the start of an important new papal focus on the region: In January, Francis will return to visit Sri Lanka and the Philippines, and a trip to Japan — where the Pope wanted to go as a young priest — is reportedly under consideration.
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican called on Muslim leaders to condemn the "barbarity" and "unspeakable criminal acts" of Islamic State militants in Iraq, saying a failure to do so would jeopardize the future of interreligious dialogue.
August 13, 2014
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Liberia's health system is in "complete shambles," a Church aid agency said, as the death of a Spanish priest brought to six the number of caregivers at a Catholic-run hospital in the capital of Monrovia who have died of Ebola in August.