The extent and gravity of the reported incidents has deeply distressed priests as well as laity, and has caused more than a few to call into question the very Faith of the Church. It was necessary to send out a strong message, and seek out a new beginning, so to make the Church again truly credible as a light among peoples and as a force in service against the powers of destruction.
In one of his most extended public statements since his resignation more than six years ago, Pope emeritus Benedict XVI has ascribed the clerical sexual abuse scandals to the sexual revolution of the 1960s and a post-Vatican II “collapse” in Catholic moral theology.
Bishop Pablo Virgilio David of Kalookan has been a long-time critic of the president’s brutal campaign against the drug trade, which human rights groups say has led to thousands of extra-judicial killings.
Pope Francis published a new document April 2 dedicated to youth, bringing full-circle a process of consultation that began last year when the Vatican reached out to young people around the world ahead of an October summit of bishops on how to better approach them.
Religious sisters in India say they are “committed to our education ministry” after an attack which left several of them hospitalized in the southern state of Tamil Nadu on March 26.
For all intents and purposes they’ve been sworn enemies for five years, each in charge of one side of a bloody civil war that theoretically ended last year with a “revitalized” peace agreement – a deal that few observers believe will hold up for very long – installing one as president and the other vice-president of South Sudan.
When she first heard that Pope Francis wanted her to write the meditations for the world’s most followed Way of the Cross ceremony, Italian Sister Eugenia Bonetti said she was “embarrassed” but soon realized that it could be a “great opportunity.”
Within the universal Christian vocation of serving God and serving others, God handcrafts a specific calling for each person, a vocation that fits his or her personality and abilities, Pope Francis said.
Pope Francis will celebrate the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper with prisoners in Velletri, about 36 miles south of Rome.
Many churches in Canada are closing their doors because of declining finances amid low numbers of worshipers. But Michael Haddad, an immigrant Catholic from Egypt, recently put up more than $300,000 to keep open the United Church in Hensall, Ontario, for its older worshippers.
