As impeachment hearings divided the nation Wednesday, several blocks away a blockbuster line-up of Catholic thinkers sought to harness the Church’s social teachings to make sense of increasing political and cultural volatility while, at the same time, wrestling with public witness in a fractured church.
Speaking to people from 18 different religions on Nov. 22, Pope Francis said that the complex challenges of the world today – including globalization, the rapid advances of technology and the persistence of civil conflicts resulting in migration, refugees, famine and war – makes the need for cooperation between religions all the more pressing.
Speaking to some 60,000 members of Thailand’s tiny Catholic community, Pope Francis on Thursday called them to be missionary disciples, explaining that being a “mercenary of the faith” does not compel others to convert.
Pope Francis arrived in Thailand Wednesday to open a Nov. 20-26 Asia tour that will also take him to Japan. It marks the first time a pope has visited the former kingdom of Siam since St. John Paul II in 1984.
When Pope Francis embarks on the thirty-second trip of his pontificate Nov. 19, headed towards Thailand and Japan, he will once again be visiting nations where Catholics are a small minority.
Pope Francis has named Italian Archbishop Gabriele Giordano Caccia to serve as his new representative to the United Nations.
Bishops from across New York state — including Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio and the auxiliary bishops of the Brooklyn Diocese — have concluded their joint ad limina visit to report on the status of their dioceses to Pope Francis.
One of Pope Francis’s closest allies in fighting clergy abuse praised the American church for going “a step further” than the Vatican’s new global guidelines for bishop accountability by requiring a third-party reporting system, which is set to take effect next year.
Pave the Way Foundation — a Wantagh, L.I.-based organization whose mission is to “end the malevolent use of religion” — organized a trip to Rome to present the pope with a copy of a Jewish sacred text for use in the Vatican Library.
Bishops should not give in to calls to be more combative cultural warriors in the world, said Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn.
