Prison sentences handed down this week for three young pro-democracy activists, in tandem with the arrest of media tycoon Jimmy Lai, has been largely read as the latest chapter in China tightening its grip on Hong Kong and eviscerating the principle of “one nation, two systems” under which the territory was transferred to Chinese control in 1997.
Archbishop Georg Gänswein, the pope emeritus’ secretary, is denying media reports that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI lost his voice.
In a moving tribute to four American women slain in El Salvador during the height of that country’s civil war in 1980, Auxiliary Bishop Raymond Chappetto led a memorial Mass marking the 40th anniversary of their deaths on Dec. 2.
Pope Francis weighed into a long-standing debate about whether people with intellectual disabilities should be able to receive the sacraments Thursday, saying the disabled are members of equal standing in the Catholic Church and, as such, have the same right to the sacraments as everyone else.
People gathered in Trier’s cathedral the evening of Dec. 1 to pray for the victims of a lone attacker who plowed his SUV into Christmas shoppers, killing five people and seriously injuring about a dozen others.
In one of the regions of El Salvador most battered in a bloody war funded by American dollars, four Catholic women from the U.S. were hailed as examples of solidarity, of Christian faith and martyrdom, as Salvadorans remembered them Dec. 2, the 40th anniversary of their assassination.
The Venezuelan bishops are warning parliamentary elections called by President Nicolás Maduro for Dec. 6 will aggravate the political and economic crisis in the country.
Catholic bishops warned of a “deepening crisis” in Belarus as people continue to protest and strike against government crackdowns since disputed elections in August.
When Cardinal Wilton Gregory got his red hat from Pope Francis on Saturday to become the first Black American cardinal, a group of supporters from a small parish in Glenview, Illinois, tuned in.
On Dec. 2, Maryknoll Sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel and laywoman Jean Donovan will be remembered worldwide on the 40th anniversary of what many increasingly consider their martyrdom.
