The shocking extent of alleged clerical sexual abuse in Australia has been revealed for the first time to the commission established to investigate such cases. Undertaking its work since 2013, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard on Monday last, during a sitting in Sydney, that 7% of Catholic priests in…
Christian leaders in the Middle East have condemned as “divisive” moves by US President Donald Trump to prioritise Christian refugees while barring others from entry to America. Responding to the president’s executive order against seven Muslim-majority nations and his signalling of preferential treatment of Christian refugees, Bishop Antoine Audo of Aleppo in Syria said any…
Catholic leaders in Pakistan have reacted angrily to the acquittals of all 115 suspects charged in relation to the devastating 2013 attack on the Christian community of Joseph Colony in Lahore, north-west Pakistan. The suspects had been identified as being part of a 3,000-strong mob which stormed through the district, torching at least 100 Christian…
The government of Hungary has said it aims to make the country a hub for and supporter of organisations tackling Christian persecution worldwide. In an address to a conference in Budapest attended by Christian advocacy groups, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Ministry for Human Resources, Bence Rétvári, pointed out that Hungary was the first nation…
Anti-Semitic crimes in Britain have surged to their highest levels on record, new figures from a monitoring group have revealed. According to records compiled by the Community Security Trust (CST), there were 1,309 incidents of anti-Semitism across 2016, a figure which surpassed the previous record of 1,182 recorded in 2014. The majority of crimes against…
Religious orders ‘haemorrhaging’ members, cardinal reveals The secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life has sounded a warning on the “haemorrhaging” of people from religious life. Interviewed by L’Osservatore Romano, Cardinal José Rodríguez Carballo revealed that between 2015 and 2016, some 2,300 monks and nuns had left their…
On Saturday morning, Rome woke up to discover its walls and sidewalks festooned with anti-Pope Francis posters asking, “Where’s your mercy?” Under a dour shot of the Pontiff, the poster cited crackdowns on groups and individuals perceived as conservative-to-traditionalist. A few hours later, I got a phone call from a veteran Italian Vatican writer I’ve known for…
The blasphemy law proves politically useful, writes Paul Keenan If politics is the art of ‘spin’, a masterclass of the art was offered to the world this week from Pakistan. Amid an angry row surrounding five abducted secular human rights activists, the nation’s Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan intervened on the issue of Pakistan’s…
The Chaldean Patriarchate in Iraq has begun to distribute funds to dioceses and parishes to begin the rebuilding of communities in areas liberated from so-called Islamic State (ISIS). As Patriarch Raphael Louis Sako I led a delegation to the Nineveh Plain las week to view for himself the damage inflicted on homes and churches by…
Order of Malta Grand Master resigns The grand master of the Knights of Malta has resigned after Pope Francis declared all actions undertaken by him since the December dismissal of Grand Chancellor Albrecht Freiherr von Boeselager “null and void”. According to the National Catholic Register, Fra’ Matthew Festing was summoned to an audience with Pope…
John L. Allen Jr.
Paul Keenan