Renewal must be a priority for the Church in India, the country’s bishops have said. In a statement following their biennial assembly, the bishops noted the Church’s “excessive preoccupation with institutionalisation, insufficient zeal and fear of proclaiming Christ as the unique saviour”. They also acknowledged a “growing indifference to and lack of commitment to the…

Churches’ differences remain Although the Catholic and Orthodox Churches agree on key contemporary issues, the two remain divided in serious ways, the Russian Orthodox Church’s ‘foreign minister’ has said. “Despite the understanding reached on many vital problems of modernity,” Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk said in an interview, “profound differences remain between Orthodox and Catholic Christians, in particular…

Christians in Libya, Iraq and Syria are victims of an ISIS-orchestrated genocide, a report issued by the Knights of Columbus and In Defence of Christians has said. The 278-page document was released in Washington, ahead of a congressionally mandated deadline for the Department of State to announce if genocide is being committed against religious and…

A Venezuelan bishop has issued a public appeal after 28 miners went missing. Ciudad Guayana’s Bishop Mariano Parra Sandoval issued his statement after meeting relatives of the missing men, who are feared dead after clashes with criminal gangs. Local reports claim that a clash between miners and gang members took place in Tumeremo in Bolivar…

One of Spain’s most famous churches does not belong to the Catholic Church, local authorities have ruled. According to a report from Córdoba city council’s secretary general, Valeriano Lavela, the city’s mosque-cathedral, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption, the ownership of which the diocese of Córdoba paid €30 to register in 2006, is…

American Catholics should take the lead in fighting “the scourge of anti-Islamic prejudice”, a US bishop has said. Speaking against the backdrop of the US’s first Catholic-Muslim National Dialogue, San Diego’s Bishop Robert McElroy warned that the US is witnessing “a new nativism”, which, he said, “the American Catholic community must reject and label for…

The president of the National Minorities Alliance of Pakistan (NMAP), has called on the Government of Punjab to end almost 60 years of discrimination against religious minorities and uphold the country’s constitution, which declares the equality of all citizens. Lala Robin Daniel issued his appeal just days after entering a formal complaint to Faisalabad’s Education…

The head of Catholic media group Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) has accused an appeal court of refusing to protect religious freedoms. Speaking after a 2-1 decision by the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta to uphold the federal health care law’s Health and Human Services mandate EWTN chairman and CEO Michael P.…

The head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church has expressed mixed feelings about the joint declaration by Pope Francis and Moscow’s Patriarch Kiril. “In general it is positive,” Kiev-Halych’s Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk said in an interview, highlighting how the declaration raised questions of mutual concern to Catholics and Orthodox, and opened new perspectives for cooperation. “However,“…

Arrangements are being made for Australian child sex abuse survivors to go to Rome after the chair of the country’s royal commission into child sex abuse has said it is not unreasonable that they should want to witness Cardinal George Pell give evidence in person. The cardinal, who has already given evidence to the Victorian…