MADRID (CNS) – A Spanish bishop urged medical personnel to stop performing all abortions, even though the Church has backed new legislation that would still allow abortion in cases of rape. “Those who assist with abortions are seen as automatically excommunicated because the Church wants to defend the weak,” said Madrid Auxiliary Bishop Juan Martinez […]
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis is the sovereign of Vatican City and has a Holy See passport. But even dressed in papal white, Jorge Mario Bergoglio is an Argentine citizen with a brand new passport and national identity card. “The pope wanted to continue having normal Argentine documents,” said Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican […]
by Carol Glatz VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Greeting thousands of engaged couples on the feast of St. Valentine, Pope Francis told them not to be afraid of building a permanent and loving relationship in a culture where everything is disposable and fleeting. The secrets to a loving and lasting union, he said, include treating each […]
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis met for the third time in late February with his international Council of Cardinals, an eight-member group advising him on the reform of the Vatican bureaucracy and other issues. The meetings focused on financial and bureaucratic matters even as the council was rumored to be working on a draft […]
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Going to Mass and receiving the Eucharist should make a difference in the way Catholics live, Pope Francis said; they should be more accepting of others and more aware of their sinfulness. “If we don’t feel in need of God’s mercy and don’t think we are sinners, it’s better not to […]
MANCHESTER, England (CNS) – The Queen of England will visit Pope Francis at the Vatican in April, Buckingham Palace announced. A Feb. 4 statement said Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, will meet the pope on April 3. The queen and prince will visit Rome at the invitation of […]
Religious sisters and pro-life advocates have launched a petition drive to urge Pope Francis to call for an end to capital punishment in the U.S. and to personally intervene in the case of a prisoner in Indiana. The Sisters of Mercy and Cherish Life Circle, a pro-life advocacy group founded by the religious community, launched […]
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Vatican said that a report issued by the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child is unfair to the Church. The committee continues to insist that the Vatican compile and publish detailed statistics on clerical sexual abuse of minors and that the pope, as head of the Church, can […]
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Less than a week after a relic of Blessed John Paul II disappeared from a country chapel east of Rome, Italian police recovered the venerated piece of fabric stained with the late pope’s blood. Auxiliary Bishop Giovanni D’Ercole of L’Aquila told reporters that one of three men arrested for the theft […]
by James Martone CAIRO (CNS) – The two worlds Armenian Catholic Bishop Krikor Okostinos Coussan knows best are engulfed in violence. In Syria, where he’s from, a war has led to the death of tens of thousands of people and displaced millions of others. In Egypt, where he lives and currently serves, civil unrest combined […]
