Even though an estimated 70 percent of Nicaragua’s six million people are Catholics, many in the country today nevertheless believe that being Catholic and young is virtually synonymous with being a criminal, or, at the very least, a potential enemy of the state.
For more than 38 years, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa has preached to the pope and top officials of the Roman Curia. In early January, he will lead the weeklong retreat of the U.S. bishops.
More than 90,000 police and soldiers and a moderate Muslim youth group will help guard nearly 50,000 churches across Indonesia, including some previously attacked by terrorists, during the Christmas period.
The death penalty is an inhumane form of punishment that ignores the primacy of mercy in the name of justice, Pope Francis said.
Christmas trees are up, festive lights are strung across street corners, shopping center speakers play classic Christmas carols and nativity sets depicting the starry night in Bethlehem scene are on display. The reason for the season: Jesus.
In a small workshop, young people with special needs have been busy as elves preparing for Christmas by handcrafting candles and napkins that will decorate the tables of their neighbors in Egypt.
Pope Francis often refers to the biblical Beatitudes as a path in the pursuit of mercy and personal holiness. Yet perhaps recognizing that the Bible never could have imagined the politics of the 21st century, the pontiff invoked an entirely new set of beatitudes for politicians in his 2019 message for the World Day of Peace.
It would be tragic if, now that Ukraine appears to be on the brink of finally achieving a hard-won degree of independence, that achievement were to be marred by perceptions that it, too, was achieved with the help of force and political collusion.
In one of the most closely watched trials in modern Catholic Church history, Cardinal George Pell, the most senior Church official to stand trial for sexual abuse, was found guilty on Tuesday by a Melbourne Court.
The day after a shooter opened fire on a crowd in Strasbourg, France, killing at least two and injuring 12 others, Strasbourg Archbishop Luc Ravel issue a statement lamenting the tragedy.
