When ISIS stormed into the villages of Karamless and Qaraqosh in Iraq’s Nineveh Plains on August 6, 2014, the Feast of the Transfiguration took on a whole new meaning for Christians, with ISIS burning and looting their homes and churches while inhabitants fled for their lives.
Two thousand years ago, the Holy Family fled to Egypt to take refuge from the persecution of King Herod. Today, Christians are invited to make a pilgrimage in their footsteps.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the death penalty now is no longer admissible under any circumstances.
According to tens of thousands who rallied in Nicaragua on July 28 in defense of the Catholic Church, particularly the bishops, the prelates are “neither terrorists nor coup-mongers, [but] shepherds with the smell of their sheep.”
A Chilean prosecutor last weekend announced plans to bring an “historical trial” against the Catholic Church for attempting to hide or eliminate evidence related to clerical sexual abuse, confirming what Pope Francis said in May in a letter to the country’s bishops’ conference: “We know that there were religious who destroyed evidence.”
Catholic groups have collected and are distributing aid for thousands of people affected by a deadly earthquake that struck Lombok, Indonesia’s popular tourist island.
After a month of mounting allegations of sexual abuse against American Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Pope Francis has accepted his resignation from the College of Cardinals. Cardinal McCarrick continues to be a priest, and has been ordered to remain in a house “to be indicated” until the accusations against him are examined.
While the situation in Bangladesh, where the country has taken in more than 800,000 majority Muslim Rohingya refugees fleeing ethnic cleansing in neighboring Myanmar, and those seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, are undoubtedly different situations, Cardinal Patrick D’Rozario, C.S.C., believes there’s a shared lesson to be learned.
After an investigation into alleged irregularities in the Archdiocese of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of 57-year-old Auxiliary Bishop Juan Jose Pineda Fasquelle.
Despite repeated attempts to distance himself from his country’s sexual abuse crisis, including recently asserting there’s a climate of “slander” against the Catholic Church, Chilean Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati of Santiago is facing mounting scrutiny for his role in the scandals both from outside the Church and within.
