Suspicious activity “sharply” reduced and Vatican financial transactions became more transparent in 2016, says the Vatican financial watchdog. The Vatican Financial Information Authority (AIF) says over the past year it has entered “growing number of agreements” involving international cooperation and information exchange. These allow information to be shared with other foreign financial intelligence authorities. While Read more
The Vatican says the complete and unexplained recovery of severely injured Lucas Batista is the miracle needed to canonise Franciso and Jacinta Marto. They say doctors, some of them non-believers, said Lucas’s recovery could not be explained. Pope Francis canonised the siblings on Saturday at Fátima. Lucas was five when he fell 6.5 metres out of a Read more
“At the beginning of time, God spoke to us through Creation, says the Letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians. Therefore, to study the universe with science, is an act of prayer, a way of encountering God.” However, to do so, “it is necessary to encounter God first as Father, as Abba, otherwise God cannot Read more
Cardinal George Pell has crossed swords over an audit with those responsible for Vatican real estate. They overstepped the mark, he says. Pell is the Vatican Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy. He says the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (ASPA) “overstepped its authority” by instructing other Vatican offices to submit Read more
The Gospel message of “mutual trust and peaceful co-operation” is behind the Vatican’s ongoing work towards a complete ban of nuclear weapons. Speaking to a committee reviewing the 1971 [nuclear weapons] Non-Proliferation Treaty, Archbishop Janusz Urbanczyk reiterated the Vatican’s position. The committee was meeting for the United Nations’ Organisation of Security and Co-operation in Europe Read more
Pope Francis welcomed Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi to the Vatican last week as a new agreement between the Vatican and Myanmar was signed. The occasion saw Suu Kyi and Francis formally agree to a diplomatic relationship between the Vatican and Myanmar. The agreement says it aims to “establish diplomatic relations at the Read more
Forty new Swiss Guards were sworn in at the Vatican on Saturday. The role of the Swiss Guards is to protect the Pope, Although the Guards have both traditional and modern weapons, Pope Francis told the new recruits they won’t be expected to sacrifice their lives in his service. Instead, they must serve “the power Read more
The Vatican is investigating 15 Catholic psychiatric hospitals in Belgium because of a change in their euthanasia policy. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, is personally carrying out the investigation. The investigation follows an appeal to Rome for help from Brother Rene Stockman, the superior general of the Brothers of Charity order running Read more
It was an unusual way for a Vatican official to begin a talk at Oxford University’s shiny new school for public policy wonks: By commemorating a dead cardinal. And even more unusual when the official is a layman. After beginning with a joke that the Vatican had rather more thick walls and fewer windows than Read more
ROME – Talk of an “impending population bomb,” the Vatican’s representative to the United Nations said on Wednesday, has led to sometimes “draconian” policies, which ignore the complex nature of population growth. Filipino Archbishop Bernardito Auza, speaking to the UN’s Commission on Population and Development, said “differing regional and even country specific situations” need to Read more