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May 7, 2015
IRBIL, Iraq - The head of the Vatican's Congregation for Eastern Churches visited Iraq to convey Pope Francis' blessing and concern for Church officials and the displaced living and working in difficult circumstances.
Some time next month the Vatican will release the Pope’s much-anticipated encyclical on the environment. It will be the first time a pope has devoted an encyclical to environmental matters and already critics are questioning Pope Francis’ qualifications to address this complex scientific issue.
Perhaps the single, most-often quoted line from Pope Francis is his response to a question he was asked vis-à-vis the morality of a particularly dicey issue. His, infamous-famous reply: “Who am I to judge?”
The Catholic Register and Michael Coren are parting ways after the award-winning columnist confirmed that he has joined the Anglican Church.
VATICAN CITY - Europe's Christians must speak with one voice to defend religious liberty and to ensure desperate migrants are treated fairly, Pope Francis said.
NEW YORK - Catholics and Jews risk losing their hard-won interfaith amity if they take ecumenism for granted and fail to pass it along to a new generation of seminarians and laity, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York said in an address at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
May 8, 2015
The April 25 earthquake that killed more than 8,000 and left close to 15,000 injured was bad, but “it could have been terribly, terribly worse,” said Canadian Jesuit Father Bill Robins.
MISSISSAUGA, ONT. - The main shrine of Mississauga’s grand Fo Guang Shan Temple is typically used by Buddhists for weekly services or meditation. On May 2, however, a modest crowd of Catholics, Sikhs, Jews and Muslims joined with the Buddhists to address a situation that all grapple with — the future.
VATICAN CITY - A French court has told authorities in Ploermel, France, to remove the small town's statue of St. John Paul II on claims the statue's placement in a public square violated the separation of church and state.
VATICAN CITY - The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors received temporary approval of its first set of statutes.
May 9, 2015
BROD, Kosovo - The Catholic priest followed the village elders up a narrow road that curved between the green hills in the tiny hamlet of Gjonaj in southern Kosovo.
The Future of the Catholic Church with Pope Francis by Garry Wills. (Penguin, 288 pages, hardcover, $32.95) At first glance, Garry Wills’ latest book might appear to offer insight into the life and intentions of Pope Francis. But anyone familiar with Wills’ polarizing views might well guess that is not the case. He does discuss Pope Francis — in the introduction and in the epilogue — but his treatment of the Pope is minimal.
TORONTO - A simple idea that has helped hundreds of women who face domestic violence and abuse is down to its last few weeks unless Ontario’s provincial government comes up with $70,000 per year to keep it going.
TORONTO - More than 12,000 times, people in Toronto slept on a vinyl-covered foam mattress on the floor of a church, synagogue or mosque this past winter.
TORONTO - Blessed Sacrament, the school and parish, pulled together May 1 for a barbecue to mark the joint success in raising funds for the Archdiocese of Toronto’s Family of Faith campaign.
VATICAN CITY - Catholic charities around the world have no doubt about the reality of a "Francis effect" on their work. Because of the ongoing global economic crisis, most of the 164 national Catholic charities that form the Caritas Internationalis confederation report no significant increase in donations. However, the secretary-general of the Vatican-based network says Pope Francis has had a huge impact on their programs and priorities, on the number of volunteers and, especially, on their sharing.
NISKAYUNA, N.Y. - The night she miscarried in 1968, Dorothy Caruso remembers remaining calm, as if she was watching someone else losing a much-wanted pregnancy. The baby was about three months along; she’d already bought a white baby sweater and a set of blocks.
VATICAN CITY - Never let practice and competition get in the way of going to Mass, studying for school, being with friends and helping the poor, Pope Francis told an Italian sports association.
May 10, 2015
NEW YORK - It used to be that just saying the words “liberation theology” around Catholics was enough to start a schism-level fight, or at least raise a red flag in Rome.
TORONTO - Dynamic Women of Faith and the Archdiocese of Toronto are joining together to initiate fellowship groups for mothers in parishes across the Greater Toronto Area.