On a bright and clear January afternoon, Bishop Oswaldo Escobar Aguilar walked into a cemetery and gently dusted off a white name plate on top of a sky-blue block of tombs. Making plans for the year ahead, he told secretary Violeta Esmeralda Serrano nearby that they needed to make sure the tombs were decorated with flowers Dec. 2.
When it comes to the private notes of a pontiff, the world usually has to wait until they’ve died to have access to them, but Pope Francis this week made some of his personal notes public.
Nigeria’s internal conflict is “a Molotov cocktail of anger, frustration, religious extremism, toxic politics, corruption and deep rut,” according to a leading bishop in the country.
Pope Francis’s newest book, “Let Us Dream,” will look at life during the time of this global crisis, and explore what this moment in history can teach people about how to approach and address upheaval in our own lives.
For history’s first pope named for Francis of Assisi, the saint’s Oct. 4 feast is bound to be a big deal, and this year is no exception, as several major Vatican events are already on the calendar.
A “slum priest” in Argentina admired by Pope Francis died Saturday after a three-month battle with the coronavirus, hailed by the movement of which he was a part as a “martyr for the poor.”
When religion is “instrumentalized or politicized for vested interests,” the cause of peace is put “in jeopardy,” an Indian archbishop has told a forum on religious liberty in the Asia-Pacific region.
The power of prayer is needed to help heal Lebanon, according to religious leaders who gathered at Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Cathedral on Aug. 25 for a prayer service that doubled as a fundraising event for the victims of the Beirut explosion.
Since 2014, more than 20,000 migrants and refugees have died while trying to reach Europe from Africa, while thousands of others have been forcibly returned to Libya, which has received funding from the EU to train its coastguard to try and stop the crossings.
The German Catholic news agency KNA reported the bishops said they want lay Catholics to be involved in the discussion. The bishops’ conference made the announcement after a meeting of its 27-member Permanent Council.
