The New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference’s Council for Young People is making plans to send delegates to World Youth Day (WYD) 2023. They have received the go-ahead from the bishops and are now on a countdown to the big event. Although the Covid epidemic delayed the international get-together for a year, Pope Francis has confirmed Read more
For many Catholic adults who oppose abortion today, the pro-life movement was our real introduction to moral philosophy. Maybe we attended prayer vigils with our families in grade school or high school, or maybe we just read news magazines and argued with kids on the school bus. Either way, the questions surrounding abortion opened our Read more
I have been on this planet now for almost 80 years. I grew up in a 50/50 Catholic family but lost the Catholic half when I was 10. This was largely compensated for by spending seven years at boarding school, both nuns and priests being my mentors. This is something for which I will be Read more
Much of what the church has built up in Ireland over the last two centuries is crumbling before our eyes, says Galway’s new bishop. But fresh opportunities are also presenting themselves, he maintains. At his installation Mass last Sunday, Bishop Michael Duignan of Galway and Kilmacduagh (pictured) highlighted the Church’s diminishing role in the Republic. Read more
A submission to the 2023 synodal process from 58 of over 100 members of Be the Change Catholic Church Aotearoa is asking for a new, inclusive model of the church. Formed by the scriptures and teachings of the Catholic Church and the circumstances of today, Be the Change Catholic Church Aotearoa (BCCCA) says their vision Read more
Pope Francis is reorganizing the Vatican Curia — the church’s administrators and his senior staff — and may name new cardinals in June. Francis’ new apostolic constitution, “Praedicate Evangelium” (“Preach the Gospel”), issued last month, noted that the heads of dicasteries and other offices that manage the church need not be ordained. This highlighted Francis’ Read more
If girls education makes societies stronger, more peaceful and prosperous, then the chances of Asia achieving those goals have become more distant with the coronavirus pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, girls’ enrollments in school had seen significant improvements in Asia. But with the pandemic, those gains have been wiped out. UNESCO estimates that about 24 Read more
Many patients recover from COVID within a week or two, but at least one in five experience Long Covid; persistent or new symptoms more than four weeks after first being diagnosed. Long COVID is a growing concern. But we still don’t have a clear definition and there are insufficient data to provide a trajectory or Read more
Against a background of the war in Ukraine and the conflict in Afghanistan, ANZAC Day 2022 challenged many Wellington youth to appreciate the war sacrifice of our ancestors and pray for peace, to ‘remember them.’ As part of programmed visits and a range of events, the young people joined a pilgrimage around Wellington’s military sites Read more
On the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi in 1965, in the middle of a historic visit to New York City, Pope Paul VI ascended the rostrum before the United Nations General Assembly and summoned the world to peace. The visit came two and a half years after John XXIII’s Pacem in terris refashioned the Read more