Cardinal George Pell says allowing Communion for Catholics who are divorced and remarried outside the Church is impossible. The cardinal said doing so would make pastoral practice incompatible with doctrine. The former Archbishop of Sydney wrote this in a foreword to a book titled “The Gospel of the Family” by Professor Stephan Kampowski and Fr Read more
Speculation is mounting that the only American to currently head a dicastery in the Roman Curia is soon to be replaced. Writing for L’Espresso, Vatican journalist Sandro Mangister posited that the next “victim” of Pope Francis’s “revolution” will be the prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, Cardinal Raymond Burke. The Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura Read more
Within the last year, the Catholic Church has garnered a bounty of something it hasn’t seen in decades: positive attention. The man responsible for the change in the Church’s public reputation is Pope Francis, a candid Jesuit who seems a world away from his traditionalist predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. His effect on the Church seems Read more
No extra security measures will be taken during upcoming trips by Pope Francis to Albania and Turkey despite alleged assassination threats. Threats to kill the Pope by the terrorist Islamic State were revealed by Iraq’s ambassador to the Holy See in an interview in an Italian newspaper on Tuesday. But Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi, Read more
Pope Francis has presided over the marriages of 20 couples in St Peter’s Basilica, the first weddings he has officiated at as Pontiff. Several of the couples already had children and some had been living together before being married. It was a rare act for a Pope, with the last time a pontiff presided at Read more
Pressure is growing on Rome to explicitly reject a series of 15th century papal bulls and decrees that justified the colonisation of indigenous peoples. The Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the United States is calling on Pope Francis to clarify and repudiate any remaining legal status of what is known as the “Doctrine of Read more
“The privileged place for an encounter with Christ are our sins,” Pope Francis said at yesterday’s morning mass in St. Martha’s House. “It is the power of God’s Word that brings about a true change of heart.” The “encounter between [our] sins and the blood of Christ is the only salvific encounter there is.” The Read more
The Vatican is restricting the sale of plaques and parchments with papal blessings, stopping Rome souvenir shops selling them from next year. Shops close to St Peter’s Square have been selling such blessings at a considerable profit. But Bishop Konrad Krajewski, the papal almoner, said that beginning on January 1, 2015, such papal blessings will Read more
Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Cardinal Sean Brady, the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland. Cardinal Brady had turned 75 in August and according to Church law, bishops are asked to submit their resignations to the Pope at that stage. The Pope can either accept or reject the resignation. Cardinal Brady, Read more
The list of those attending the Synod of Bishops on the family is a disappointment to those hoping for reform of the Curia and for those who hope that the laity will be heard at the synod. The appointment of 25 curial officials to the synod on the family is a sign that Pope Francis Read more