Catholic church says it will open its records on the once-revered Emmaรผs founder, who died in 2007Franceโs Catholic church has said it will open its records on allegations of sexual abuse and harassment made against a priest whose campaigning for the p…
The Vatican’s relations with China, the weight of Catholicism in Asia, interreligious dialogue and sexual violence are some of the issues that will come up on the Pope’s trip. Singapore-based researcher Michel Chambon says that Francis is seeking to ‘d…
Don Antonio Coluccia was leading anti-crime march when he was reportedly assaulted with planks, bottles and sticksAn Italian antimafia priest who has been fighting for years against crime and drug-dealing in Rome has been subjected to a โviolent mafios…
Inquiry to follow preliminary investigation unearthing 2,400 allegations of historic abuseThe Irish government is to set up a statutory commission of inquiry into sexual abuse at schools run by Catholic religious orders after a preliminary investigatio…
New examination supports claim remains are of Teodomiro, a key figure in establishing Camino de Santiago pilgrimageScientists believe a set of ancient bones discovered in north-west Spain almost 70 years ago are those of the bishop whose devotion to St…
Apology follows anger among Catholics and other groups at opening ceremony segment that resembled biblical sceneParis 2024 organisers have apologised to Catholics and other Christian groups angered by a kitsch tableau in the Olympic Games opening cerem…
โA lot of my conservative worldview was influenced by Tolkien.โ
Artist behind controversial piece in Linz cathedral says vandalism shows there are still โpeople who question womenโs right to their own bodiesโVandals have beheaded a sculpture of the Virgin Mary giving birth to Jesus on display in the cathedral in th…
Emphasizing Europeโs โJudeo-Christianโ heritage and looking only to antiquity betrays the European project, excluding the various peoples and entities that shaped the Continent.
Trouble is brewing in the very regions that cradled the 16th-century Protestant Reformation.
Pope Francis met comedians from around the world at the Vatican, telling them it was not heresy to joke about God.During the meeting with comedians, who included American artistes such as Whoopi Goldberg, Jimmy Fallon, and Chris Rock, the pontiff even …
Figurine sits in front garden of family that previously claimed to have seen tears of blood from another statueIn the front garden of the Gregori family home on the outskirts of Civitavecchia, a port city close to Rome, is a well-curated grotto contain…
Statement says pontiff apologises โto those who felt offended by the term reported by othersโPope Francis has apologised for using an offensive slur during a discussion with bishops about admitting gay men into seminaries, saying he โnever intended to …
Second posthumous miracle attributed to leukaemia victim Carlo Acutis, qualifying him for canonisationA London-born teenager who died of leukaemia aged 15 is to become the Catholic churchโs first millennial saint.Carlo Acutis was a computer prodigy who…
Updated guidelines strip bishops of power to recognise โsupernaturalโ nature of purportedly divine eventsApparitions of the Virgin Mary and weeping statues have been part of Catholicism for centuries, but the age of social media has prompted the Vatica…
Worldโs smallest army, which is preparing to swear in its latest recruits, has in the past engaged in ferocious battlesWith their feathered helmets, ruffled collars and coloured, puffed-sleeve uniforms, the Vatican Swiss Guards are often likened by cur…
Pope Francis, 87, met inmates, staff and volunteers at Giudecca jail during first trip outside Rome for monthsThe Pope has met female prisoners in Venice who are stars of the Vaticanโs pavilion at the Biennale contemporary art show, and urged the women…
Pope Francis to attend installation that includes short film featuring Zoรซ Saldaรฑa and Giudecca inmatesOriginally a convent dating to the 13th century, and once a reformatory for prostitutes, the Giudecca womenโs prison, set on an island in the Venetia…
Viewersโ association accuses Amica Chips of resorting to blasphemy in order to increase salesAn Italian TV advert that depicts nuns eating crisps instead of altar bread while receiving holy communion has been accused of blasphemy by an outraged associa…
Torrential rain forced the cancellation of Good Friday processions through Seville and other holy week parades, from Cรกdiz in the south-west to Zaragoza in the north Continue reading…
Appearance comes a day after last-minute decision to miss previous service to โconserve his healthโ Pope Francis presided over the Vaticanโs somber Easter Vigil service on Saturday night, a day after making the last-minute decision to skip his particip…
New date for Antoni Gaudรญโs basilica announced but enormous, controversial stairway will take another eight yearsBarcelonaโs Sagrada Familia basilica has a new completion date of 2026, which will come 144 years after the first stone was laid.The presid…
Biopic of an Italian nun who moves to New York to build orphanages in the slums portrays her as wholly holy in her missionReleased in the UK to coincide with International Womenโs Day, this biopic of Italian nun Francesca Saverio Cabrini, also known as…
Francisโs failure to condemn Moscow as aggressor decried as โshamefulโ and โincomprehensibleโThe Ukrainian government has responded angrily and vowed never to surrender after Pope Francis said the country should have โthe courage to raise the white fla…
Victorious former EU Parliament staffer said the court verdict was a blow against “politically driven” prosecutions elsewhere of Donald Trump-allied figures.
Pontiff undergoes โdiagnosticโ checks at Gemelli in Rome before returning to Vatican soon afterwardsPope Francis was taken to hospital on Wednesday after telling worshippers at his weekly audience that he had not yet recovered from the symptoms of flu….
Pontiff thought be be responding to conservative critics after sexually explicit book by cardinal resurfaces โSexual pleasure is a gift from Godโ but Catholics must avoid pornography, Pope Francis has said.The pontiff made the remarks during a cateches…
I helped expose the grotesque hypocrisy of the Catholic church. But I owe so much to the nuns who formed meThe 1990s witnessed the collision of three tectonic plates that are still shaping the course of Irish history: the Celtic Tiger, the peace proces…
Church has โlost many great priests because they chose marriageโ, says Charles Scicluna of MaltaA senior Vatican official has said that the Roman Catholic church should revise the requirement for priests to be celibate, while acknowledging that some wi…
Maurizio Patriciello has had police protection since a bombing near his church in Caivano, Naples, but he vows to keep fighting crimeFather Maurizio Patriciello is running late. โIโm waiting for my bodyguards,โ he says by text message.He is neither a c…
Priest in Tuscany compares Francis unfavourably with Pope Benedict in New Yearโs Eve address shared onlineAn Italian priest has been struck off after calling Pope Francis an โanti-pope usurperโ in his New Yearโs Eve homily.Father Ramon Guidettiโs speec…
Brothers of Italy party plans law to โprotectโ Christian traditions and prevent schools โmodifying the essence of ChristmasโItalyโs ruling far-right party has identified a new battleground in its war to protect the countryโs โcultural rootsโ: the schoo…
Highest-ranking church official ever to stand trial before Vatican criminal court sentenced to five years and six months in jailA Vatican court on Saturday sentenced a once powerful Italian cardinal to five years and six months in jail for financial cr…
Pontiff tells Mexican broadcaster he will break with tradition and simplify papal funeralPope Francis has said he has โalready preparedโ his tomb in a Rome basilica in a further sign of the pontiffโs quest to break from longstanding Vatican tradition.F…
Pope cancelled Saturday activities due to โlight fluโ a week before key climate addressPope Francis has undergone hospital tests after he came down with the flu but the results ruled out any respiratory problems, the Vatican said.Francis, who had part …
Rare move comes after years of criticism from Strickland, a strong supporter of former US president Donald TrumpPope Francis has dismissed a bishop in Texas, Joseph Strickland, one of his fiercest critics among US Roman Catholic conservatives, the Vati…
The success of centre-left parties follows the collapse in devotion. Like Ireland, we are loosening the churchโs grip on the stateThe city council of Czฤstochowa in central Poland passed a shocking resolution last year. Councillors announced that the c…
Vatican office adds there must be no โsituations in which there is a risk of generating a public scandalโThe Vaticanโs doctrinal office has said that transgender people can under certain circumstances be baptised in the Catholic church and serve as god…
โIt was as if I had killed someone,โ says priest in Ossanesga, Bergamo province, who chose child to assist him A parish priest has defended himself after provoking a scandal in a small northern Italian town when he asked a child to help him serve holy …
Ombudsman says Catholic churchโs response to cases โinsufficientโ and calls for creation of a reparations fundMore than 200,000 minors are estimated to have been sexually abused in Spain by the Roman Catholic clergy since 1940, according to an independ…
Vatican did not say why Grzegorz Kaszak was resigning, but priest from his diocese faced criminal investigationThe pope has accepted the resignation of a Polish bishop whose diocese has been rocked by reports of a gay orgy involving a male sex worker i…
A mass mobilisation of voters appears to have ousted the radical right from power. That is good news for Polish democracy, and for EuropeBack in 2018, as Polandโs ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) neared the end of its first term in office, its leader…
In Italy, the cradle of Catholicism, new research suggests that only 19% of citizens attend services at least weekly, while 31% never attend at all – and it’s a trend already growing in some European nations.
A new exhibition chronicles the shifting lenses through which Spainโs Catholics saw the countryโs Jewish populationThe jet, horn, silver and coral amulets placed around the neck of a three-year-old boy in Tร rrega almost seven centuries ago offered no p…
After centuries of disdain, shame and silence, regional parliament recognises suffering of xuetes, forced to convert to Catholicism in 1400sGrowing up on Mallorca, Miquel Segura Aguilรณ, 78, felt like he was living in a โghetto without wallsโ but could …
Pontiff says rescuing those making Mediterranean crossings is a โduty of humanityโ on first visit by a pope to Marseille in 500 years Pope Francis has decried what he called the โfanaticism of indifferenceโ as people risked their lives on dangerous jou…
Ulma family including unborn child all beatified for their actions to help Jews during second world war The Vatican has beatified a Polish family of nine โ a married couple and their small children โ who were executed by the Nazis during the second wo…
Seen by many as highly political, itโs difficult to believe Pope Francis’ latest remarks were misjudged as far as he sees it.
Alex Crow was previously accused of acting inappropriately with students and remains under orders by archdiocese to return homeA Roman Catholic priest in Alabama who fled to Europe with a recent high school graduate whom he met through his work has dra…
Pope Francis arrives in Lisbon on Wednesday (2 August) for a global gathering of young Catholics taking place in the shadow of Portugal’s huge clergy sexual abuse scandal and criticism of soaring costs for the event.
