Women seeking an abortion are being offered easier access to the procedure with a free, national telephone consultation service that started this week. Using the freephone number the service has been set up by Wairarapa abortion doctor Simon Snook because of the delays, said to be potentially harmful, faced by many New Zealand women seeking Read more
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has inadvertently accepted a book that labels Pope Francis as the vicar of the anti-Christ. The book was full of messages by the self-styled Italian “seer” Franca Miscio, who is better known as “Conchiglia”. According to Vatican Insider, Conchiglia claims to receive messages from God, Jesus and Mary. Her “prophecies” describe Read more
The latest verbal sparring between Rome and Beijing could be preliminary moves in which both sides establish the ground rules for future relations. Last week, Pope Francis called on Chinese Catholics to attach themselves to “the rock of Peter on which the Church was built”. This means giving allegiance to Rome, rather than the government-sanctioned Read more
Pope Francis has revealed that he hasn’t watched television since 1990, as a result of a promise he made to Our Lady of Mt Carmel. In a long and personal interview in Argentinean newspaper La Voz del Pueblo, the Pope said that he made this promise on the night of July 15, 1990. “I told Read more
Pope Francis wants to create a “listening magisterium”, says German Cardinal Walter Kasper. Speaking at a conference in Washington, DC, Cardinal Kasper said Francis wants to retool the Catholic hierarchy. This will result in a hierarchy that not only defines and enforces Church teachings, but also listens and responds to how laypeople understand God’s will. Read more
Here’s my theory: The shrinking number of American Catholics isn’t just about the hierarchy’s anachronistic politics. It’s also about Catholics seeking, and not finding, an experience of the holy and transcendent — of God — in their Church. Without that, who could be surprised when the Pew Center this month found the Church losing adherents Read more
I’m starting to have a crisis of faith. Not in God, but rather, in Pope Francis. It seems a betrayal to even write these words. I’m a progressive Catholic who longs for a church that is more welcoming of women, homosexuals and divorced people. I want a church where the hierarchy spends more time talking Read more
Martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero was beatified on May 23 in El Salvador with hundreds of thousands of people present for the occasion. “Romero, friend, the people are with you,” the congregation chanted at a square in San Salvador. Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, presided over the beatification Mass. Read more
VATICAN CITY — Six months after becoming the first Latin American pontiff, Pope Francis invited an octogenarian priest from Peru for a private chat at his Vatican residence. Not listed on the pope’s schedule, the September 2013 meeting with the priest, Gustavo Gutiérrez, soon became public — and was just as quickly interpreted as a Read more
The Pope has rejected a proposal that the Vatican Bank has a variable share capital investment fund based in Luxembourg. The proposal had the approval of the Institute for the Works of Religion’s board and was put forward by its president. Having this type of investment fund would have helped IOR managers manage a portion Read more