Retired Belgian Bishop Lucas van Looy of Ghent has asked Pope Francis to withdraw his nomination for appointment as a cardinal. Francis has agreed. The Belgian bishops’ conference issued a statement last week announcing the decision and thanking van Looy for making the request. The statement said the 80-year old van Looy’s appointment “provoked many Read more
The Vatican announced on Friday that Pope Francis has been forced to cancel his July 2-7 visit to two countries in Africa due to a knee ailment, the exact nature of which it has never made public. The abrupt cancellation of the trip, which had just been confirmed on May 28, intensified concerns over the Read more
A papal advisor has dismissed media rumours of the pope’s likely resignation as nothing more than “a cheap soap opera”. According to Cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, who advises the pope within the Council of Cardinals, news reports suggesting Pope Francis’ physical decline will soon lead to a new conclave are “fake news”. The rumours Read more
Pope Francis is either an anarchist or a man with an unshakable faith in the work of the Holy Spirit. Of course, he could actually be both. How else does one describe what the 85-year-old pope did on May 29 when he announced a consistory for late August during which he intends to make 21 Read more
Rumours Pope Francis may be considering retirement have been given added fuel over his plans to attend a feast initiated by a 13th-century pope who himself resigned. Francis announced he would visit the central Italian city of L’Aquila in August. He will attend a feast initiated by Pope Celestine V, one of the few pontiffs Read more
Pope Francis named 21 new cardinals on Sunday and in doing so sent a message to some US bishops. The only US bishop named is Robert W McElroy (68), bishop of San Diego, California, who is considered one of Francis’s ideological allies. Known often to spar with more conservative US bishops, McElroy is outspoken about Read more
Synodality is not populism, it means communion, says Pope Francis. Synodality is “a path of ecclesial communion that seeks to open minds and hearts to the will of the Holy Spirit.” What synodality is not, is a reorganisation of church structures, he emphasises. In a video message to the Pontifical Commission for Latin America last Read more
New Zealand canon lawyer Msgr Brendan Daly (pictured) says the Church needs more lay people in governance roles. Its episcopal appointment process could also be altered so it is more open – it could save a lot of unnecessary distress, he says. The clerical sexual abuse scandal shows the necessity for these changes, he wrote Read more
Pope Francis just took another step forward to de-clericalize the Roman Catholic Church. And what most people probably don’t realize is that he did so by taking a step backward and rewinding the clock some four centuries! The 85-year-old pope has just decreed that so-called “lay brothers” can be heads of their religious orders, even Read more
Last year (on World Communications Day) we reflected on the need to “Come and See” in order to discover reality and be able to recount it beginning with experiencing events and meeting people. Continuing in this vein, I would now like to draw attention to another word , “listen”, which is decisive in the grammar Read more