A wood carving statue of a naked pregnant woman that has been at the heart of brewing controversies since before the Vatican’s major summit on the Amazon region began was stolen from a Roman Church on October 21 and tossed in the Tiber River.
A wood carving statue of a naked pregnant woman that has been at the heart of brewing controversies since before the Vatican’s major summit on the Amazon region began was stolen from a Roman Church on October 21 and tossed in the Tiber River.
Against the backdrop of a Synod of Bishops on the Amazon dedicated to the defense of some of the world’s most impoverished people, the Vatican finds itself rocked by yet another financial scandal after publication Sunday of seamy details about a $200 million purchase of a swanky 183,000-square-foot apartment building in the Chelsea district of London.
Last month, the federal government implemented a new ban on using fetal tissue for research — a move praised by U.S. Catholic leaders.
The Vatican hung banners of the Catholic Church’s newly canonized saints four days before the Mass that officially recognized they are in heaven with God.
Since Pope Francis announced a meeting of bishops on the Amazon two years ago, talk in the media and among some of the key organizers, such as Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes, has been dominated by the possibility of ordaining married men as priests to serve isolated rural communities.
Pope Francis recognized the miracle needed for the beatification of Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, a mentor and friend of St. John Paul II.
Promoting religious freedom, providing humanitarian assistance and fighting human trafficking are three major issues the Vatican and the U.S. administration agree on and on which they will continue to coordinate efforts, panelists said at a joint symposium.
Issues on the table at the upcoming Vatican summit on the Amazon region are not just political and ecclesiastical, but also down to earth and mundane, including the funding difficulties for Amazonian dioceses and parishes.
Pope Francis’s landmark agreement with the Muslim world, signed earlier this year during his visit to Abu Dhabi, was heralded at the annual prayer service on the eve of the United Nations General Assembly as “an antidote to hatred, violence, extremism and blind fanaticism.”
After the consistory to create new cardinals in early October, Pope Francis will have chosen more than half of the men who will enter the Sistine Chapel to elect his successor.