Recent Features
Papal audience: St. Paul on Church authority and freedom
Vatican, Oct 1 2008 (CWN) - In his weekly public audience on October 1, Pope Benedict XVI discussed how the writings of St. Paul show the Apostle's attitude regarding authority and freedom in the Church. Speaking to about 20,000 people in St. Peter's Square, the Holy ...
Hanoi: archbishop under virtual house arrest
Hanoi, Oct 1 2008 (CWN) - In an escalating battle with government officials in Hanoi, Archbishop Joseph Ngo Quang Kiet is now under virtual house arrest. The archbishop's office is closed. His staff has locked the gate outside the office to prevent sudden attacks by the ...
Pope Benedict's memories of John Paul I
Vatican, Sep 29 2008 (CWN) - During his midday audience on Sunday, September 28, Pope Benedict XVI invoked the memory of Pope John Paul I, whose sudden death came on the same date in 1978. Speaking to pilgrims assembled in the courtyard at Castel Gandolfo-- in his final ...
Another casualty in Orissa: malaria claims life of nun who fled to jungle
Bangalore, Sep 29 2008 (CWN) - The unabated violence against Christians in Orissa has claimed a new victim, with a young nun from the southern Kerala state succumbing to malaria. Sister Mable, a 30-year-old Clarist, was buried on Sunday at St. Thomas parish in the ...
Pope rejects idea that St. Paul 'invented' Christianity
Vatican, Sep 24 2008 (CWN) - At his weekly public audience on September 24, Pope Benedict XVI resumed his series of talks on St. Paul, discussing his interactions with the other Apostles. The Pope again traveled from his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo to hold the ...
Hanoi: bishops, clergy face new threats
Hanoi, Sep 22 2008 (CWN) - The abrupt demolition of the building that once housed the office of the apostolic nuncio in Hanoi-- a building that government officials had promised to return to the Church-- has sparked angry protests from the Vietnamese hierarchy. At the ...
Bangalore: Catholics condemn government after church desecration
Bangalore, Sep 22 2008 (CWN) - More than 3,000 stunned Catholics gathered in sorrow at St. James church at Marianapalaya, a Bangalore suburb, on Sunday after the church was found desecrated. Eighteen locks of the church had been broken by the intruders who entered in the ...
News Briefs
Viet bishops in confrontational meeting with prime minister
10/2 A delegation of Vietnamese bishops met with Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on Wednesday, October 1 to discuss issues relating to growing ...
2 Christians killed in Orissa, 250 homes burned; relief camps targeted
10/2 At least 250 more homes of Christians have been destroyed in the eastern Indian state of Orissa, according to Church sources there. ...
Somalia: Islamists destroy church, will build mosque on site
10/2 Sheik Abubakar Al-Seylici, the Islamist leader of the southern Somalian town of Kismayu, has ordered the destruction of an abandoned ...
Korean bishop issues pastoral letter on suicide: no funeral Mass unless person mentally ill
10/2 Bishop Boniface Choi Ki-san of Incheon has issued a pastoral letter on suicide following media reports on South Korea’s high suicide rate. ...
Spain: Supreme Court rules against men who sued Church to change baptismal records
10/2 The Spanish Supreme Court, overturning a lower court decision, has ruled that the Church need not change the baptismal records of two men ...
Baghdad archbishop: ‘Very real persecution’ remains in Iraq
10/2 Archbishop Jean Sleiman, leader of Baghdad’s Latin-rite Catholics, told a London audience that most Iraqi Christians wish to leave the ...
Russian court posthumously clears Czar Nicholas II
10/2 Russia's highest court has pronounced the rehabilitation of Czar Nicholas II and his family, who were killed in July 1918 on Lenin's ...
Ecuador's new constitution makes 'nature' a juridical person
10/2 ...
Vatican 'foreign minister' urges new push for nuclear disarmament
10/2 At a Vienna meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican's Secretary for Relations with ...
Evangelization respects freedom, counters fundamentalism, Pope tells Kazakh bishops
10/2 Speaking on October 2 to a group of bishops from Central Asia, Pope Benedict XVI said that the process of evangelization must always ...
US bishops set agenda for November meeting
10/2 The US bishops’ conference has announced its agenda for its annual fall meeting, which will take place November 10-13 in Baltimore. ...
Statues removed from closed parish founded by saint; Hibernians oppose bishop
10/2 Artifacts, including statues, have been removed from a recently closed Pennsylvania parish founded by St. John Neumann. Because of the ...
Christian woman axed to death in Orissa; torture, arson continue
10/1 In a pre-dawn attack in two villages in the eastern Indian state of Orissa, Hindu radicals attacked sleeping Christian families, killing ...
Cardinal Bertone defends religion in public square
10/1 Speaking on the relation between religion and politics at a conference in Rome, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, said that ‘politics not ...
US bishops’ Respect Life Sunday statement: Oppose FOCA, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research
10/1 Calling for ‘a culture in which every human life without exception is respected and defended,’ Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of the US ...
Vatican official denounces death penalty
10/1 Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travelers, has denounced the death penalty as ...
Pro-life, pro-family forces concerned by Ecuador's new constitution
10/1 Ecuadorians have approved a new Constitution for their nation that critics say contains pro-abortion and pro-homosexual language, ...
YouTube closes down site showing desecration of Eucharist
10/1 Responding to thousands of complaints from Catholic internet users, the video-sharing site YouTube has removed clips showing desecration ...
Charges of 'extremism' endanger religious freedom in Russia, group says
10/1 The gravest current threat to freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Russia comes from the federal government's approach to ...
Pope’s brother recalls details of Benedict XVI's childhood
10/1 In an interview for the Italian newspaper Il Giornale, Msgr. Georg Ratzinger recalled life in the Ratzinger household when he and ...
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