At an event at the U.S. embassy to the Holy See responding to a rising tide of anti-Semitism in various parts of the world, the Vatican’s current Cardinal Secretary of State revealed that one of his predecessors, a full 25 years before the Holocaust erupted in Nazi Germany, vowed solidarity with the “children of Israel” in a letter to an influential American Jewish group on the basis of defending human dignity.
Pope Francis believes that the COVID-19 pandemic revealed “the best and worst” of each person, and that now more than ever, it’s important to recognize that the crisis can only be overcome by searching for the common good.
According to one Venezuelan bishop, the world should be concerned by the growing military presence of Iran in his country.
Members of the Nigerian Igbo community at St. Fortunata parish in East New York, Brooklyn, cry out against persecutions of Catholics and other Christian denominations in their homeland.
Several unplanned protests have broken out in Rome in recent days over coronavirus restrictions, and among the demonstrators have been some high-profile traditionalist Catholics.
Over the last three years, sexual abuse charges against two high-profile and massively influential cardinals have rocked the Catholic Church, and now, seemingly, both stories have reached their conclusions. Cardinal George Pell is a free man, while Theodore McCarrick is laicized and exposed as a cunning manipulator able to hoodwink three papacies until his string finally ran out.
A self-described ‘crypto-charismatic,’ Brunei’s new and first-ever recipient of a red hat, Bishop Cornelius Sim, said he never dreamed of being a priest, let alone a cardinal, but welcomes his appointment “with open arms.”
Even during a global pandemic, the World Day of the Poor will be an important opportunity for parishes to highlight the importance of charity and spiritual comfort for those in need, said a Vatican official.
In the end, it’s possible the McCarrick report may be remembered as the single most consequential step toward reform during the Pope Francis papacy, not only because of what it reveals about this particular case, but the precedent it sets for how all future cases ought to be handled.
Pope Francis blessed a statue of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal as it was to begin a pilgrimage throughout Italy to mark the 190th anniversary of Mary’s apparitions to St. Catherine Laboure.
