The noble image of nuns as sweet, selfless and courageous “brides of Christ” is merely a way of generating public sympathy in the fight with the Vatican. So says US author, researcher and expert on Religious Life, Donna Steichen. Steichen says this view is being manufactured by sympathetic media, including the Washington Post, Huffington Post Read more
The Pope’s representative in Britain has urged Roman Catholic leaders to form a united front with their Muslim and Jewish counterparts to oppose gay marriage. Archbishop Antonio Mennini, the Apostolic Nuncio, called for closer co-operation with other faiths as well as Christian denominations to put pressure on the Government over its plans to allow same-sex Read more
The Vatican is complaining that some bishops in China have “usurped” the Catholic Church’s authority and are confusing the faithful. The Vatican warned Thursday that bishops who were consecrated without the pope’s blessing yet work among the faithful as if they were legitimate are only making their legal status worse. The admonition came in a Read more
The Vatican has just begun offering a widget, a software application, that will allow anyone with a website or blog to provide readers with automatically updated news and documents from the Vatican. When installed, the widget, with fixed dimensions, opens a small window with four tabs. Clicking on one provides the latest news from the Read more
Minister to Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore has said that discussions with the Vatican were under way to allow the former Irish embassy to be used as a location for embassies to Italy and to the Holy See, according to the Irish Times. Gilmore said that the non-resident Ambassador, department secretary general David Cooney, was in Read more
One of Ireland’s best known priests, who is a prominent journalist and broadcaster, has been censured by the Vatican. Fr Brian D’Arcy, who is also a regular contributor to BBC Radio 2’s “Pause for Thought”, as well as a best-selling author and columnist with the Irish tabloid the Sunday World, has been told he must Read more
The tomb of a mafia don buried in a basilica in Rome is to be opened in an attempt to solve a mystery that has dogged the Vatican for three decades. It is thought the sarcophagus could contain not only the skeleton of the notorious mob gangster, Enrico “Renatino” De Pedis, but also the remains Read more
It is almost instinctively that one reaches, when attempting to explain what is going on today in the Catholic church, for metaphors out of the natural world — storms, earthquakes, seismic shifts — to get at the magnitude of events. We search for the terms that explain what we’re experiencing: phenomena beyond the ordinary disturbances Read more
Pope Benedict XVI named Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington to be a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and gave cardinals created in February their assignments as members of other Vatican congregations and councils. The appointments were announced at the Vatican April 21. U.S. Cardinal Edwin F. O’Brien, grand master Read more
Bishop Joseph Chen Gong’ao was ordained today as the bishop of Nanchong diocese and made a pledge to strengthen formation and promote new evangelization. The 47-year-old prelate, the first Chinese bishop to be ordained this year, was approved by the pope and is recognized by the Chinese government. He told ucanews.com that his priority is Read more