Letter from Asia Nirmala Carvalho (CRUX) According to Japanese Cardinal-elect Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi of Tokyo, the political situation in Myanmar “is still not stable,” when marking Myanmar Day on November 17. Bishop Celso Ba Shwe of Loikaw was present at the event. He had to abandon his cathedral in Kayah State due to the fighting…
Justin McLellan (CNS) Doubling down on the centrality of synodality in the Catholic Church, Pope Francis said that it is now up to local churches to accept and implement proposals from the final document approved the Synod of Bishops on synodality. Approved by the Pope, the synod’s final document “participates in the ordinary magisterium…
Monasa Narjara (CNA) On November 21, Brazil’s Federal Police charged Fr José Eduardo de Oliveira e Silva of the Diocese of Osasco in São Paulo state as part of a group of 37 people that includes former President Jair Bolsonaro on suspicion of plotting the violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, plotting a…
Madalaine Elhabbal (CNA) A recently released report from a European watchdog group has found nearly 2,500 documented instances of hate crimes against Christians living in Europe. Approximately 1,000 of these attacks took place in France. According to the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe (OIDAC) report, which drew on both police and civil…
President-elect Donald Trump has chosen several Catholics to serve in his cabinet and other parts of his administration, including environmental lawyer Robert F Kennedy Jr, three-term Senator Marco Rubio, and Representative Elise Stefanik. The 45th and soon-to-be 47th president made more than a dozen announcements within 10 days of his electoral victory over Vice President Kamala Harris. Many…
The dictatorship of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, is preventing priests from entering hospitals in Nicaragua to administer the sacrament of anointing the sick to those who need it, according to lawyer Martha Patricia Molina, author of the report “Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church?” while reports emerged over last weekend that…
US bishops: Synodality requires conversion of heart more than new structuresJonathan Liedl Promoting synodality in the United States depends more on a conversion of heart than on the creation of new structures, the US bishops emphasised at their fall assembly in Baltimore. “It’s about cultural change, not necessarily structural change or not necessarily canonical…
Justin Robinson OSB So many people walk across the courtyard of Al Azhar mosque in Cairo that its white marble has become highly polished, the floor below reflecting an almost mirror image of the mosque’s architectural wonders that tower above. I’m sitting in the carpeted arcade around the vast courtyard, watching worshippers milling around in…
A Catholic priest executed by the Nazis in 1944 who’s today a candidate for sainthood will be memorialised in November, along with four other figures, in a “Garden of the Righteous of the World” located on the island of Sicily. Fr Alcide Lazzeri will be honoured in a ceremony on November 29, which will feature…
Bishop Luis Marín de San Martín is one of the key figures of the Synod on Synodality. Pope Francis appointed him undersecretary of the event, which the Spanish prelate says he has experienced as “an offer of grace” and a call “to personal conversion”. With the recent meeting in Rome already concluded and the final…