In a passage of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Taking this to heart, this year the Vatican has asked children to write the meditations for the Way of the Cross led by Pope Francis on Good Friday, April 2.
When Michael La Civita of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association considers how the agency prioritizes where to send aid, he says the best way to describe it is like a “triage,” given the crises so many countries face.
On Palm Sunday, Julian Assange, the Australian founder of WikiLeaks who made headlines in 2010 for publishing thousands of confidential US diplomatic documents, received a personal letter from Pope Francis.
A suicide bombing at the Catholic cathedral in Makassar “shocked everybody in Indonesia, not only Catholics,” according to the country’s top prelate.
As Catholics around the world enter the holiest week in the Christian calendar, many are setting their plan for Church attendance during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A Christian life should be filled with amazement — astonishment at the son of God suffering and dying for humanity and awe at realizing how precious and loved people are in his eyes, Pope Francis said.
To be blunt about it, worshippers March 28 at Sacred Heart of Jesus Cathedral in Makassar, the capital of Indonesia’s South Sulawesi province, got lucky. When two suicide bombers detonated their devices outside a Palm Sunday Mass, they were the only ones who died, in part because a security guard had prevented them from entering the church’s compound.
Catholics leaving a Palm Sunday Mass at an Indonesian cathedral were targeted by two suicide bombers.
An estimated 340 million Christians worldwide face persecution for their beliefs, according to data from Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). Christians are increasingly getting that message, but ACN officials are concerned that people might become numb to that magnitude.
As what’s come to be called the German “Synodal Path” begins forwarding its mid-term conclusions to Rome, many lay activists and bishops are describing the process as an historic and inspiring moment, a potential springtime of sweeping reform and renewal in Catholic life.
