Over the past week, the houses of 450 Catholic families were destroyed in Pakistan, and those of 1,000 Christians will be bulldozed by government officials in upcoming days. The country’s Supreme Court ruled that the homes are on state-owned lands, and their presence makes the cities of Hyderabad and Karachi more flood-prone, since they block the path of rainwater to the sea.
The meeting between Pope Francis and Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali al-Husaymi al-Sistani can make a difference in America, says Cardinal Wilton Gregory, because it demonstrated “that people from different religious traditions can work together in a spirit of dialogue and mutual respect.”
A Chilean bishop is urging civil disobedience after several regions of the country went into lockdown again to stop the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, imposing heavy restrictions on the celebration of religious ceremonies.
As security forces in Myanmar have increased their crackdown on civilians, with disappearances, detentions and the killing of peaceful protesters, Pope Francis appealed for an end to violence and the start of dialogue.
One year after the first ecclesial lockdown came into effect in the Netherlands, “ordinary parish life is partly falling away” and the crisis is accelerating the already existing problem of secularization.
Responding to efforts in some parts of the Catholic world to devise “blessings” of same-sex unions by the Church, the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog released a statement Monday saying that such blessings are “not legitimate,” as homosexual unions are “not ordered to the Creator’s plan.”
Ten years after Syria’s bloody civil war began, most of the fighting is now over. Yet the country is now facing a massive economic, social, and humanitarian crisis in which rampant poverty is the next major battle it faces.
The joy of the Gospel has been an integral part of the Filipino identity since the arrival of Christianity in the Southeast Asian country five centuries ago, Pope Francis said.
Pope Francis officially announced Ireland’s Knock Shrine as an international Marian and Eucharistic shrine on the feast of St. Joseph on March 19.
Internally, his to-do list features a long-simmering reform of the Roman Curia, a sweeping clean-up in money management, the fight against clerical sexual abuse, empowerment of women and laity, a more collaborative (“synodal,” to use his word) mode of decision-making, and more.
