During a rally in 2019, Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy party, quoted G K Chesterton. The English writer, theologian and heavily-mustachioed sage seemed an unlikely choice for the climax of an impassioned oration by a tiny, fiery Italian blonde. But maybe not. Chesterton was known as the “Apostle of common sense”. “Fires will Read more
Preparations for a papal statement rejecting the Doctrine of Discovery are underway. Canada’s Catholic bishops’ conference (CCCB) and Vatican officials are working together on the document. They aim to create a statement rejecting an entire tradition of legal reasoning, said Jonathan Lesarge, CCCB spokesman. It is likely to address core concerns of Indigenous people in Read more
Pope Francis returned from his brief trip to Kazakhstan, a country nestled between Russia and China, having failed to sit down with his Russian counterpart Patriarch Kirill or the delegation of Chinese President Xi Jinping. With the pope surrounded by empty seats in Kazakhstan, critics questioned the efficacy of his diplomacy of encounter and his Read more
It is madness, said Pope Francis when he heard Russia was threatening to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Last week Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the West he is not bluffing about using the weapons of mass destruction. He ordered Russia’s first mobilisation since World War Two and backed a plan to annex swathes of Read more
This month has seen over 330 new Catholic bishops taking part in a formation course in Rome. Among them was Archbishop Coadjutor Paul Martin, appointed the tenth Catholic Bishop of Christchurch in December 2017. He was consecrated in March 2018 (pictured). There isn’t usually such a time lag between being appointed bishop and attending the Read more
Pope Francis’ recent three-day visit to Kazakhstan seemed not to have been widely reported in the general media, including here in Italy where there’s news about him almost every day on TV and in the press. Most people around the world, including most Catholics, probably don’t even know that the pope made the September 13-15 Read more
Cardinal Konrad Krajewski and those working with him emerged unscathed after they came under fire on Saturday, near the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia. Krajewski, was sent by Pope Francis to Ukraine to show the pope’s “closeness” to the Ukrainian people. “It would be good if you could go again to Ukraine, to the war zones, Read more
Pope Francis says God must never “be held hostage to the human thirst for power”, and religion must never be used to justify the “evil” of war. An implicit criticism of Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, who backs the invasion of Ukraine and has boycotted a conference of faith leaders, the Pope made his views plain Read more
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests – SNAP NZ – has written to Pope Francis urging him to instruct the New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference to initiate an urgent, independent and transparent review of the National Office of Professional Standards and its principles and procedures document, A Path to Healing. SNAP’s unhappy letter to Read more
A child abuse survivors’ group has told Pope Francis the Catholic Church in New Zealand is mishandling the abuse redress process. They are being retraumatised during the process, Aotearoa-New Zealand’s chapter of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) told Francis in a letter last week. SNAP, a global organisation, went on to accuse Read more