Despite news reports to the contrary, a Chilean court denied Monday that it’s reached a conclusion in favor of three victims of clerical sexual abuse who are suing the Archdiocese of Santiago for covering up abuses by former priest Fernando Karadima.
While Ireland has long enjoyed a privileged place on the global Catholic map, the past few months have been particularly demanding for Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh -largely due to the fact that the successor of Saint Patrick has been spending a lot of time with the successor of Saint Peter.
In a decision being hailed as historic, three Chilean survivors of the country’s most infamous pedophile priest reportedly have won a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Santiago. The court found two Catholic cardinals guilty of covering up for Fernando Karadima.
In an interview with The Tablet, veteran Catholic journalist and author of “Rutilio Grande: A Table for All,” Rhina Guidos, describes the vindication many El Salvadorans feel now that Pope Francis has formalized what they knew all along: Archbishop Oscar Romero is, indeed, a saint.
As one of the major protagonists of the Francis papacy – and arguably of the Catholic Church since Vatican II – German Cardinal Walter Kasper argues, “there is no real substantial difference between Pope Benedict and Pope Francis.”
Speaking to his brother Jesuits in Lithuania last month, Pope Francis solicited their support in moving forward the work of the Second Vatican Council.
Women and their role in the Church continues to be a key topic of discussion at the halfway point of this month’s Synod, with many inside the hall pushing for female inclusion in positions of influence and leadership.
While Arturo Mari may have started his professional photography career in the Vatican taking pictures of Pope Pius XII when he was just 16 years old, Mari’s work commanded the world’s attention when he accompanied history’s most travel-minded pope, St. John Paul II, on more than 100 pastoral visits outside Italy.
At a 2007 meeting of the Latin American bishops in Aparecida, Brazil – where then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio would play an instrumental role that would later serve as a catalyst for his election to the papacy – he’s said to have remarked that “Oscar Romero is saint and a martyr, and if I became pope I would canonize him.”
According to the Catholic theology of sainthood, canonization amounts to a judgment that a particular individual is already in heaven enjoying the beatific vision, meaning the unmediated presence of God – to quote St. Paul in 1 Corinthians, no longer seeing the splendor of God “indistinctly, as in a mirror, but face to face.”
