To many Catholics, this meeting came as a surprise.

Traditionally, the themes of detachment, sacrifice, humility and repentance appear far more frequently in religious writing and preaching than the spiritual benefits of a good laugh.

But as a specialist in medieval Christian history, I am aware that, since antiquity, many theologians, preachers, monastics and other Christians have embraced the role of humour as a valuable part of Christian spirituality.

Some have even become popularly known as the patron saints of comedians or laughter.

Comedy is natural

Many Catholic saints have considered laughter to be an integral part of nature itself.

For example, the 12th-century German nun St. Hildegard of Bingen, a mystic poet and musician, wrote in a poem on the power of God:

I am the rain coming from the dew
That causes the grasses to laugh with the joy of life.

In the 13th century, St. Francis of Assisi called himself the "Jongleur de Dieu" - troubadour or jester of God - because of his ministry.

He probably used a French reference because his mother came from France and spoke French at home.

Francis and his followers wandered from town to town, singing God's praises and preaching joyfully in the streets.

People laughed when he preached to birds in trees, and he once had to politely ask a large flock to stop chirping first.

The 16th-century nun and mystic St. Teresa of Avila wrote in a poem, alluding to the voice of Jesus Christ as love:

Love once said to me,
‘I know a song, would you like to hear it?'
And laughter came from every brick in the street
And from every pore in the sky.

Humour and play are an important part of human nature. They provide opportunities for relaxation and relief and offer a way to cope with the challenges of human life.

In the 13th century, Dominican scholastic theologian St. Thomas Aquinas composed a lengthy summary of theology that became one of the most important resources in the Catholic tradition: the Summa Theologica.

In it, he argued that humor and other kinds of joyful recreation offer the mind and soul the same kind of rest that the body needs.

Aquinas cautioned, however, that these kinds of words or activities must not become hurtful or indecent.

Comedy can heal

The shared experience of laughing can break down barriers across cultures and bring people together.

St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits in the 16th century, is said to have danced a jig to raise the spirits of a despondent man on retreat; he also praised a Jesuit novice for his healthy laughter.

In the same century, St. Philip Neri, who has been called the patron saint of humor and joy, was reputed to be a mystic and visionary.

To put others at ease, he engaged in pranks and jokes, once attending a gathering with half of his beard shaved off.

Some famous Catholic saints even faced death with a smile, such as the second-century deacon St. Lawrence, one of the patron saints of comedians.

The legend goes that as he was executed by being roasted alive on a gridiron over a hot fire, he joked with his executioners, saying, "Turn me over … I'm done on this side!"

This legend has carried over into the official story of his life.

The Carmelite nun St. Therese of Lisieux also lived a life marked by humour in the 19th century.

Even as she lay dying from tuberculosis at the age of 24, she is said to have joked with the other nuns and her doctor.

Supposedly, when a priest was called to give her the last rites, he refused because she looked too healthy. She replied that she would try to look sicker the next time he was called.

Popes and humor

Francis is far from the only pope to stress the value of humor in Catholic and Christian life.

Pope St. John XXIII, who in 1961 summoned the Second Vatican Council, calling all Catholic bishops worldwide to a series of formal meetings at the Vatican to update Catholicism, was known for his humour.

Famously, when asked once how many people worked at the Vatican, he replied, "About half of them."

The next pope, St. Paul VI - elected in 1963 - was an accomplished administrator known for his wit.

One of his papal documents was on the importance of "Christian joy."

Now on the path to sainthood as "blessed," John Paul I, who reigned for only a month in 1978, was known as "the smiling pope" because of his cheerfulness.

Pope St. John Paul II, the first non-Italian elected pope in almost 500 years, was only 58 years old when elected in 1978, and he was well-known for his sense of humour.

The German cardinal who succeeded him in 2005, Pope Benedict XVI, also valued the role of humour in a balanced Christian life: "Humour is in fact essential in the mirth of creation."

And before this 2024 audience with comedians, Francis discussed the topic of humor more fully in his 2018 apostolic exhortation.

In this important document, addressed to the whole Catholic Church, the Pope stated that holiness is within the reach of every believer and is achieved through a joyful life.

Humour has a section of its own within the exhortation.

In the audience with comedians on June 14, Francis, who took the name in honour of St. Francis of Assisi, the troubadour of God, has very publicly affirmed that for Catholics, humour is an important part of a faithful life.

The meeting even concluded with one of the pope's favorite prayers, for good humour, attributed to St. Thomas More, the chancellor of England under King Henry VIII - fitting, given More's legendary sense of humour.

Executed for treason in 1535, More is said to have asked the constable of the Tower of London to help him up the steps of the scaffold, with one of his last jokes: "For my coming down, I can shift for myself."

The prayer asks God for, among other things, "a good sense of humour … to share with others."

• First published in The Conversation
• Joanne M. Pierce is a Professor Emerita of Religious Studies, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts.

This was, after all, the same Brian Tamaki whose Destiny Church followers wanted to reclaim Christchurch "for Jesus" in the immediate aftermath of the 2019 terrorist attacks. And who blamed the Christchurch earthquakes on "gays, sinners and murderers".

Those familiar with the branch of modern Christianity known as Pentecostalism would not have been surprised at all. Tamaki's Destiny Church is part of the fastest-growing religious movement in the world, with an estimated 500 million adherents.

Today the average Pentecostal is as likely to be Nigerian, Fijian, Korean or Brazilian as they are to be British, American, Australian or Kiwi.

Aotearoa New Zealand is just one of many places Pentecostalism is flourishing. As well as the more prominent churches such as Destiny, City Impact, the Assemblies of God (AOG) and Elim, a host of smaller congregations exist throughout the country.

Here and elsewhere, Pentecostals' steadfast assertion that the raw power of the Holy Spirit will prevail over the principalities of darkness has run up against the cultural and environmental realities of the modern world.

A record of resistance

Nowhere is this more obvious than in their responses to COVID-19. As nation-states have rolled out public health measures, Pentecostals have seemed unwilling and unable to accept epidemiological explanations and strategies.

Tamaki's actions are the tip of an iceberg of global resistance. Pentecostals have been at the forefront of legal pushbacks against gathering restrictions and insisted only the second coming of Christ would force churches to close their doors.

They have proclaimed COVID cannot survive in the bodies of the faithful, declared a link between the virus and 5G mobile technology, and maintained the pandemic is God's yardstick for distinguishing his loyal servants from pretenders.

While these claims and interpretations can appear outlandish and dangerous, they are not entirely incomprehensible. Rather than view them as nonsense, it is more helpful to see them as a different kind of sense altogether.

Miracles and wonder

Specifically, Pentecostal values are a religious response to the pandemic and a spiritualisation and demonisation of the virus. This goes directly to the Pentecostal obsession with the Holy Spirit.

Pentecostalism is defined, above all, by its intense experientialism. More than any other Christian variant, it is concerned with saturating human existence in otherworldly power.

The Pentecostal vocabulary is not one of ritual, liturgy or structure, but of ecstasy, surprise, miracles and wonder.

From this standpoint, any stricture, rule or earthly imposition that impedes a life in the Spirit is, by default, suspect and anathema. This sets up an overall opposition between the spiritual and the worldly that helps define the difference between good and evil or God and Satan.

Defining Pentecostalism

For the devoted Pentecostal, everything is either one or the other, and to be on the side of the world is to collaborate with the enemy. Several features of this theology directly shape Pentecostal responses to COVID-19.

Triumphalism: Pentecostals are fearless combatants in a spiritual war against Satan. The Holy Spirit is the ultimate weapon in this charge, providing absolute confidence in a Biblically preordained victory. With its long shadow of sickness and fear, COVID-19 bears the Devil's signature.

Framed as an active demonic force, the virus is something that should not - must not - be feared. The triumphalism determined by a total faith in the Spirit to conquer evil immediately establishes an ethos that spurns caution, regulation and withdrawal.

Deliverance and healing: The former expels demonic forces threatening well-being, while the latter cleanses a diseased body affected by those same powers. These religious tools are brought to bear against the pandemic, warding off the Satanic viral threat while healing the afflicted. Logically, vaccination becomes unnecessary, misguided and a betrayal of faith.

Tribulation: Pentecostals are deeply concerned with the end of human history as the precursor to Christ's return and the establishment of God's paradisical kingdom. The Tribulation is a seven-year nightmare of evil and suffering featuring the rise of a nefarious "new world order".

Within this end-times scenario, all humanity is branded with the mark of the beast, a process authorised by Satan. An apocalyptic plague and Satanic mandates for vaccination provide further prophetic justification for a pro-healing, anti-vaccination position.

The Kingdom: Pentecostals are not huge fans of worldly entities and human rules. They prefer divine authority, spiritual inspiration and Biblically sanctified morality. The Kingdom of God is juxtaposed with the debased platforms of government and capitalism (even if countless Pentecostals embrace a divinely sanctioned materialism).

Translated into the pandemic context, the continual legislative and policy directives of the government are, by virtue of their human origin, tainted with iniquity. As always, paramount trust must be placed in the Holy Spirit and the Bible.

Faith and science

It may be tempting to see Pentecostalism as its own worst enemy by denying the science and leaving its followers vulnerable to epidemiological catastrophe.

But it is also a relatively young branch of Christianity and not necessarily uniform in its beliefs. As has been observed elsewhere, "medical science and divine healing […] have never been considered mutually exclusive by the entire movement".

The question therefore becomes, can Pentecostalism reach a détente with the world, as mainstream Protestant, Anglican and Catholic churches have done?

It would seem the tide can be turned, even if compelled by tragedy. For example, after the death of one of its congregants, the Pentecostal church at the centre of the largest sub-cluster of Auckland's current Delta outbreak embraced vaccination, having initially denied its validity.

This is a pattern now being repeated across many pockets of the Pentecostal world, albeit within a church still fixated on spiritual dynamism and miraculous cures. For now, however, it may take more than faith in worldly reason to persuade Brian Tamaki and his flock that vaccines and lockdowns are a blessing and not a curse.

• Fraser Macdonald is a Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, University of Waikato
• First published in The Conversation

I suppose the church really committed to dialogue and positive engagement at the Second Vatican Council, with the famous declaration on the relationship of the church to non-Christian religions, "Nostra Aetate."

There's a paragraph in there dedicated to Islam and opening up possibilities for good, positive relationships.

Of course, that was prefigured by some important historical figures in the church, who found positive ways to engage with Islam. St. Francis of Assisi is one of the key figures here.

While churches and mosques have been built for centuries in close proximity to each other, the relationship between those who worship God inside these sacred houses of prayer has not always been as close.

Pope Francis taking the name of Francis of Assisi when he became pope was in many ways a statement of intent with regard to openness to the Muslim world.

I think that's now being seen very clearly. But you could point to several other people in the Catholic tradition who have been very open to the Muslim world; who have overcome some of the prejudices of their age and who reached out.

If you were to do a kind of whistle-stop tour between Pope Paul VI and Pope Francis, how would you characterize the popes' interactions with Muslims?

Pope St. John Paul II was a towering figure in Christian-Muslim relations.

He is known in the Muslim world as somebody who was unprecedented in his outreach to the Muslim world.

He visited many Muslim countries; said very positive things about the Muslim tradition; famously kissed the Quran.

It was an important moment, and he attracted a huge amount of criticism from the Catholic world for having done this. But he was a real pioneer of interreligious relations and especially in the worlds of Islam and Judaism. So his efforts represent a high point.

The papacy of Benedict XVI is a time of more strained relationships with the Muslim world, of course.

Coinciding with 9/11 geopolitically, it included the Regensburg lecture, which was perceived at the time as something of an attack on Islam.

It was actually much more an attack on Western secularism. But people interpreted it in an opportunistic way.

It led to a certain amount of damage.

I think there were hurt feelings in the Muslim world, Muslims wanting to understand why the pope was joining in the sort of Islamophobia so apparent in much of the Western world at that time.

That was something of a low point.

But then, of course, Pope Benedict visited the Blue Mosque in Turkey and had that extraordinary moment when he stood in a moment of prayer there.

That was thought to have saved the situation, something of a diplomatic triumph.

Francis has right from the beginning struck a very different tone.

The agenda before Pope Francis was above all focused on religious freedom; what the Vatican calls reciprocity. In other words, "We Christians allow you Muslims to come to our countries and worship freely. Why don't you do the same for us?"

Pope Francis is convinced that suasion and warmth and encounter and mutual understanding can in the long term actually change relationships.

With Francis, there is a desire to understand religious extremism in all its forms, so you get this acknowledgement, right from the beginning of his pontificate, in "Evangelii Gaudium," where he refers not just to religious fundamentalism as a phenomenon you find in other religions but also in Christianity.

And I think that's been quite a helpful thing to have pointed out because it means that the enemy if you like, is not Islam.

It's a certain kind of extreme Islam, but you don't find that Christianity is free of extremism either.

Certainly, I think the last few years— if you have been watching what's going on in the United States—would bear that out.

You see an extraordinary politicization of Christianity in the name of a certain political agenda, which is not exactly the same but it is reminiscent of the way that Islam was hijacked by radical Islamism.

And while Pope Benedict was keen to detect that as evidence of a fundamental problem in Islam, I think Francis would be saying, "Well, actually, this is a weakness present in all religions, including our own, and this is something we have to combat together." Continue reading

Talking about sexual assault is hard.

For many survivors, the reaction of the first person they disclose to, often a friend or family member can have a huge effect on their healing process.

Over the past 25 years, RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) is the US' largest anti-sexual violence organization, and has helped more than 3.2 million people, including many family and friends who are looking for guidance on how to help someone they care about.

About one-third of visitors to the hotline have never disclosed before.

As a result, many conversations become about disclosure — when it goes well, when it doesn't, and when someone is thinking about disclosing and is worried about how someone in their life will react.

Despite a loved one's best intentions, sometimes survivors feel blamed or questioned after telling someone they love, and this can make it hard to continue talking about what happened and to start healing.

Most of the time, loved ones of survivors want to do anything they can to help, but just aren't sure what to do.

Whether someone you love has disclosed to you already, or you just want to make sure you're prepared if the moment ever arises, take the time to proactively learn how to support a survivor as they disclose. It can make all the difference. Here are a few tips to keep in mind.

Don't play detective - just listen

Many people are shocked and upset when they learn that someone they love has experienced sexual violence. They're so worried about saying the wrong thing and so badly want to help that they start asking a lot of questions.

Even if you have good intentions, unfortunately, this isn't helpful. Asking questions can make a survivor feel blamed or pressured into sharing more of their story than they're comfortable with. It's important to keep in mind that, if someone discloses an assault to you, they're not looking for you to gather facts — they're looking for your love and support.

Even if your instinct is to ask for more details, it's best to avoid doing so. Simply listen to however much or little someone is comfortable sharing with you.

Recognise the importance of managing your own emotions

It's normal to feel angry or upset that something has happened to someone you love — and you might even think that showing your feelings is a way of expressing that you care about them. However, this can be counterproductive.

If you become very upset when someone discloses to you, it can make them feel that they are responsible for your feelings.

Show you care by using supportive phrases, such as:

• I believe you.
• It's not your fault.
• You are not alone.
• You didn't do anything to deserve this.
• Thank you for telling me this.
• I am always here for you.

By managing your emotions, you can help remove this burden from the person who is disclosing so that they can focus on their own healing process. Continue reading

The label "divorced" does not define a person.

It's an event that happened—terrible as it is—but it in no way is the sum total of who a person is.

You may feel like you're walking around with a big "scarlet ‘D'" on your forehead for all to judge you by, but what you need to focus on is how God sees you.

He sees you as his beloved with all the gifts, talents and potential he gave you, especially the specific purpose in life you have to fulfill.

It's the love of God that will carry you through this difficult time.

Another extremely important lesson is that forgiving those who have hurt you is essential if you want to heal from divorce.

There are no shortcuts, no half-measures when it comes to this.

It can seem impossible to forgive someone for causing such devastation; however, you'll never move forward if you don't find a way to forgive.

You will always be a victim.

The key is to ask God for the grace to forgive because we cannot do it on our own.

Last but definitely not least, the cross of divorce can change a person for the better.

This cross is an immense opportunity to grow emotionally and spiritually and to become a stronger, wiser person in the end.

How do you explain the difference between divorce and annulment to people?

A civil divorce decree and a declaration of invalidity (annulment) are apples and oranges, to be certain.

A civil divorce decree means the government has terminated your marriage contract, which applies purely on a legal basis.

The annulment process, however, does not terminate, dissolve or invalidate anything contrary to what many people believe.

It determines whether or not a valid marriage was brought into being on the day of the wedding.

If it is determined there was not a valid marriage, the tribunal issues a decree of invalidity stating such.

What are some common misunderstandings Catholics have about divorce and annulment?

One misunderstanding I'd like to address right up front is the myth that receiving a decree of invalidity means your marriage never existed and your children are considered illegitimate.

If you want to get someone angry, tell him or her exactly that, but I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth.

Receiving a decree of invalidity does not mean your marriage relationship never existed. The church recognizes that you lived in society under the assumption that your marriage was valid.

The technical term for this in Canon Law is "putative" (from the Latin for "supposed") marriage.

You had a real relationship that was witnessed by society, and nothing can make that untrue.

The decree of invalidity declares that the bond was not valid, meaning that, although you lived together as husband and wife, your marriage was not an unbreakable covenant between you, your spouse and God.

The list of misunderstandings goes on, such as an annulment is just a "get-out-of-jail-free" card, or it's just a money maker for the church.

Many people believe the process places undue burdens on witnesses and that it takes years and years to get through.

I tackle all these and more in my book. But the important thing for anyone to remember is the annulment process is a tool.

It's a valid tool whose purpose is to determine the truth and set healing in motion. Continue reading

• Lisa Duffy is a Catholic lay writer and speaker with 24 years of personal and professional experience in healing from divorce. Ms. Duffy suffered through the pain of an unwanted divorce in the early 1990s. Her newest book is Mending the Heart: A Catholic Annulment Companion.
• Image: Amazon

An IV dripped poison into my veins that would simultaneously cure me of the cancer in my body, and wreak havoc on it, sending waves of nausea, chills, malaise.

The concoction did not discriminate between healthy and cancer cells. It killed almost everything. This rendered me alive, but sick, bald, and weak.

As I sat looking out the shaded glass windows which overlooked the busy downtown area where I was receiving this treatment, I remember feeling amazed that as I sat, literally fighting for my life, my world falling apart, not only from cancer but being exhausted having just had a new baby right before my diagnosis, the rest of the world seemed not to care one bit.

People carried about their normal activities with no perception about my own personal agony. I watched businessmen in suits on the sidewalk below, hurrying to their destinations.

Women with bags of lunch from the deli were laughing as they scurried out of sight. A mother, unlike me, a seemingly healthy mother, was pushing a stroller with a child.

The sun rose and traveled across the sky in cheerful apathy to the deep suffering I experienced for six unbearably long hours each chemo session.

Flash forward.

Yesterday I was listening to a talk radio program. A teenager who had escaped without injury during the recent Las Vegas shooting had called into the show.

She was understandably quite traumatized. Her boyfriend had thrown his body on top of her then they got up and ran.

She was scared. She was heartbroken. She felt guilty that she was alive and others weren't. "The world is just going on around me and I can't get past this."

I completely understood.

The practicing psychotherapist talk show host kindly empathized with the girl then made a suggestion I thought was very wise. Continue reading

• Theresa Thomas is a Catholic mother of nine children. She lives in Indiana.

In Fiji hundreds of people have been flocking to the village in Dawasamu, Tailevu to be bathed under water that is said to contain miraculous healing qualities.

Visitors have claimed the water has cured skin and eye infections.

"A village elder known only as Laulaba told me they first discovered water's healing power around February 2016 when a young boy with hernia was healed by bathing in water." said the Archbishop.

"How do we explain the Natadradave healing water? Is it miraculous?" he asked.

"From a church and theological perspective the question may be framed as: What is God saying and doing through the Natadradave healing water? How can we co-operate with God's plan?"

Loy Chong used his visit to village as an opportunity provide a theological reflection on the Natadradave healing water in the Fiji Times.

He went on to broaden the reflection and to talk about how water features in the bible and to explain the church's teaching about water.

"The Natadradave healing water emerged in a critical era of Fijian history. We have just experienced the destructive forces of category 5 Severe Tropical Cyclone Winston. Winston showed clearly the impacts of climate change."

"The Catholic Church in Fiji has now been awakened to the need to address disaster management and environmental issues."

"Pope Francis in Laudato Si challenges all peoples to hear both the cries of the poor and the earth. He says we must address both social and ecological justice. Climate change has now become an international concern."

Read the Full article

Source

• abc.net.au
• fijitimes.com
• Image: radionnz.co.nz

But are there times when too much control can be ceded to God?

When it comes to health, the answer in many cases may be yes.

Placing too much control in divine hands may lessen efforts to seek treatment or take preventive measures such as quitting smoking or following a healthy diet, according to a new study.

Men and women who said they believed in divine healing were more likely to let God decide how to solve their health problems, a study led by University of Michigan researcher R. David Hayward found.

And people who were more likely to place responsibility for their health care in divine hands reported worse health outcomes.

Divine deferral still can be a beneficial approach in the cases of dying individuals when medical intervention can no longer help, researchers noted. Placing faith in a benevolent God to be at their side in their last days can help ease their anxiety and suffering.

Until they reach that stage, however, the study suggests that religious people may find it more beneficial to work together with God by doing their best to find the correct treatment for illnesses and living a healthy life.

It is finding the right balance between divine control and personal control that can be the tricky part.

More than four in five Americans say God often performs miracles. Nearly half of Americans say they have experienced a supernatural miracle.

And for many religious people, particularly blacks and evangelicals, there is a greater likelihood of ceding personal control of health issues to God.

In a University of Chicago study of urban cancer patients, 61 percent of black participants said God was in control of their cancer; just 29 percent of whites agreed with the statement. Continue reading

Sources

• Stuff / The Washington Post article by David Briggs
• Image: About Religion

In an interview with the Sunday Star Times, American Msgr Robert Oliver praised the media's role, echoing a tribute he paid early last year.

"It's hard for any group over time to keep up the kind of energy that's needed to do this work," he said.

"What the media has been doing was to keep that energy up . . ."

Msgr Oliver was in New Zealand at the invitation of the National Office for Professional Standards late last month.

The promoter of justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he spoke at a training day in Wellington run by the Church.

Msgr Oliver told the SST the Church has made many mistakes historically, especially in not listening to victims.

"We had to change very much from those days. Is it true to say we are lagging behind others? I think the unfortunate truth is just about everyone was not listening to victims and not responding."

Msgr Oliver said statistical modelling suggests the number of paedophile priests has dropped below 1 per cent now and only a "very small number" are true paedophiles.

Pope Francis has said abusive priests number 2 per cent.

Serving in Boston when a major abuse crisis was exposed in 2002, Msgr Oliver said at the time he had no idea this was happening.

"When you first hear about abuse, the reaction is ‘it's just not possible, how would an adult harm a child' and then you quickly come to realise not only does it happen, but it is frightening how often it does happen."

As a canon lawyer, then Fr Oliver served as director of Boston's Office for Investigations from 2002 to 2005 and was part of a training team for implementation of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' charter for the protection of children and young people from 2003 to 2008.

He is not interested in winning a PR battle over the Church's image, but rather in making concrete improvements and in hearing from victims' groups about these.

"You realise what this [abuse] does to people . . . how deeply harmed they are."

Sources

• Sunday Star Times
• Huffington Post
• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: National Catholic Reporter

In an interview with the Canberra Times, Archbishop Christopher Prowse said the Church is going through an "unprecedented crisis".

"There is so much shame, there is so much humiliation with the criminal acts of some of us [that] for us to stand alongside victims, to encourage them to come forward and to listen to their story, is absolutely imperative," he said.

Appointed to lead the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn last September, Archbishop Prowse said he had been humbled and inspired by "the raw courage of so many victims of clerical sex abuse as children".

"They have been very heroic in trying to refocus on their life and to instruct us as a church [on] where we have failed and what we can do to ameliorate a very difficult stage of our history."

He said the victims "who are able to be courageous enough to share with us their stories" are "the new missionaries".

"When I sit down with victims there's tears, there is anger, there's shouting, there's lament.

"Yet, over a period of time, I've also found reservoirs of wanting to start again, a sense of forgiveness that would come after the acknowledgement of the injustice, a sense of working together to make sure these things don't happen again."

The archbishop is the first to concede the road to reconciliation is complex, delicate and challenging.

"Sex abuse is a bit like an atomic bomb on faith. It devastates faith for the people that have been affected by it directly."

Last week, Pope Francis was reported in the Italian La Repubblica newspaper that abuse of children is "leprosy" in the Church.

He pledged to "confront it with the severity it requires".

The Pope was reported as saying he had been told that two per cent of Catholic clergy are paedophiles.

The number would represent 8000 priests, based on the latest Vatican figures that count a total of 414,000 priests globally.

Sources

• Canberra Times
• Kansas City Star
• Image: Canberra Times

Sacred Heart parish priest James Lyons said Subritzky's request to hold a meeting at the church was accepted because the power of prayer was indisputable. "He's not saying, 'I will cure you'.

"He's saying, let's come together and pray, and God's power is quite beyond our comprehension."

Asked if he thought people really had been healed by attending Subritzky's meetings, Lyons said he had no reason to disbelieve it.

The local Health Board's clinical leader for radiation oncology, Carol Johnson, said any declaration of miracle healing should be taken with "extreme caution".

"We strongly recommend that, if you think there is something wrong with your health, you seek medical advice as early as possible, as it is proven that early detection significantly increases survival rates."

Source

• Stuff.co.nz
• Image: Dove Ministries

A rift in the Methodist Church from over two decades ago will be healed at the beginning of this year's Methodist Church in Fiji annual conference.

In the late 1980s, the tenure of then church president Reverend Josateki Koroi's, who was seen as a moderate came to a premature end with a rift in leadership between Mr Koroi and Reverend Manasa Lasaro.

As a result, Koroi has did not exercise his role as a past president; to officiate during the installation of a new church president.

So this year with Koroi will join immediate past president Reverend Ame Tugaue in to installing the new president Reverend Tuikilakila Waqairatu.

In an interview with Radio Australia, deputy general secretary Reverend Tevita Banivanua said next year the church was planning to hold a church-wide "washing of the feet".

This process would see Tuikilakila washing the feet of the superintendent ministers and lay leaders of the church's 55 divisions.

These leaders would then continue the process in their divisions until every church has held a 'washing of the feet', as a sign of humility, servitude and seeking of forgiveness.

"All we're trying to do now is to mend the broken net of the church as a whole," Banivanua told Radio Australia.

Source

• Radio Australia
• Fjii Sun
• Fiji Times
• Image: api.ning.com

The alleged miracle now requires the approval of theologians and then the cardinals and bishops of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, before being submitted to Pope Francis for final approval.

Vatican journalist Andrea Tornielli reports that approval of the miracle could lead to the late Pontiff being canonised as early as October 20.

Continue reading

John Paul II was beatified in 2011 after the Congregation for the Causes of Saints accepted evidence of the healing of a French nun, Sister Simon Pierre, who had Parkinson's disease — the same condition the late pope had.

If the congregation eventually concludes that the unexplained healing was a miracle, attributable to the intercession of the late pontiff, it would fulfill the requirement for his canonisation.

Continue reading

The Centre, available in English, German, French, Spanish and Italian, will provide information for victims and guidance to those who are in the position to respond to abuse cases.

"We want people to know that we are serious about this and that we think the Church has to be at the centre of a solution," said Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi.

"This is not a flash in the pan initiative but something we are committed to in the long-term."

"The e-learning centre will work with medical institutions and universities to develop a constant response to the problems of sexual abuse," said Monsignor Klaus Peter Franzl of the archdiocese of Munich.

The Vatican e-learning centre will be called "Toward Healing and Renewal," and will work with medical institutions and top experts on sexual abuse of children by clergy.

The centre is due to go live early in 2012.

Source

• Reuters
• Image: Criminal Records