Australia’s highest court unanimously acquitted Cardinal George Pell of child abuse on Wednesday, marking a stunning turn of events for the 78-year-old prelate who had previously been the most senior Catholic official to be found guilty of sexual abuse.
With a small procession down the vast and empty central nave of St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis began the first of a series of Holy Week liturgies celebrated without the presence of the faithful from the general public.
Saints can get a bad rap because sometimes people assume they lived in deep piety removed from the burdens of everyday life. But a quick look at the saints known for their ministry to the poor and outcast, the sick and dying, particularly during times of plagues, casts these men and women in a different light.
The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments has approved a special “Mass in the Time of Pandemic” to plead for God’s mercy and gift of strength in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
On Friday, March 27, under a persistent light rain coming down from a gray Roman sky, and facing an empty St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis imparted a special Urbi et Orbi, the blessing “to the City [of Rome] and to the World” that is normally only given on Christmas and Easter.
Despite regulations established by civil and ecclesiastical authorities to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, many priests in remote areas of Ireland are feeling pressure to celebrate funeral Masses. In rural parishes, funerals are “big occasions for the community,” according to Father Brendan Hoban, co-founder of the Irish Association of Catholic Priests.
Catholic nuns emerged as the unexpected heroes in the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic that killed hundreds of thousands in the United States and millions worldwide.
Pope Francis will distribute 30 ventilators to Italian hospitals in need of medical equipment during the coronavirus pandemic.
Friday, March 27, 2020, at 1 p.m. EST, Pope Francis will offer prayers and an extraordinary “Urbi et Orbi” Blessing for the world’s Catholics. The Holy Father stated, “I invite everyone to participate spiritually through the means of communication.”
Pope Francis said he will grant a plenary indulgence to the faithful who watch or listen to his extraordinary blessing “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world) at 6 p.m. Rome time March 27.
