Tag Archives: Catholic Church

The Associated Press reports: Callista Gingrich, Donald Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to the Vatican, told skeptical Democrats on Tuesday that the president wants the United States to be an environmental leader even after pulling the country out of the landmark accord aimed at combating global warming. Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Gingrich said Trump is committed to ...

The Associated Press reports: Cardinal George Pell, a top adviser to Pope Francis, took a leave of absence as the Vatican’s financial chief Thursday to fight criminal charges in his native Australia that alleged he committed sexual assault years ago. Pell forcefully denied the accusations, denounced what he called a “relentless character assassination” in the media and said he would ...

The Guardian reports: Cardinal George Pell, Australia’s most senior Catholic and the third-ranking official in the Vatican, has been charged with multiple sexual offences by police. The charges were served on Pell’s legal representatives in Melbourne on Thursday and they have been lodged also at Melbourne magistrates court. He will appear at Melbourne magistrates court on 18 July. “Cardinal Pell ...

The Washington Post reports: The bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Springfield, Ill., is calling on priests there to deny Holy Communion and even funeral rites to people in same-sex unions unless they show “some signs of repentance” for their relationships before death. The decree by Bishop Thomas Paprocki also said that people “living publicly” in same-sex marriages may not ...

ABC News reports: The New York State Senate struck down a bill Wednesday that would have loosened the statute of limitations of child molestation for the 11th year in a row. “New York has the worst laws on the books anywhere in the country pertaining to the statute of limitations for crimes of child sexual abuse,” Senator and Bill Sponsor ...

From a press release published today by Christian Newswire: Daniel Mattson’s life was marked by constant turmoil between his faith in God and his sexual attractions toward other boys, beginning when he was 6 years old. Finding the conflict between his homosexual desires and the teachings of his church too great, he assumed he was gay, turned his back on ...

Deutsche Welle reports: The 17th annual ‘Equality Parade’ took place as Poland’s conservative government continues to oppose civil unions for same-sex couples. Organizers put the number at 50,000, while the police said 13,000 attended the parade, with 40 foreign embassies, including those of France and the US, expressing their support. The parade was intended to “draw attention to the rights ...

The Hill reports: Pope Francis on Wednesday gave President Trump a copy of his 2015 encyclical letter on the environment and climate change. Trump responded to the gifts by saying: “Well, I’ll be reading them,” according to pool reports. The Trump administration has been pushing to roll back Obama-era regulations on the environment. At the beginning of the meeting, the ...

CNN reports: Callista Gingrich, the wife of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, is the preferred nominee to be the next ambassador to the Vatican. The White House hopes to announce her nomination before President Donald Trump meets with Pope Francis on May 24 in Rome. The decision to nominate Gingrich has been made, but the announcement has taken longer than ...

The Washington Post reports: Pope Francis used a world forum dedicated to promoting cutting-edge ideas to spread his own revolutionary message: “We all need each other.” “When there is an ‘us,’ there begins a revolution,” the world’s most powerful religious leader told the room of scientists, academics, tech innovators, investors and cultural elites in a surprise videotaped message at the ...

Reuters reports: Mexicans who help build U.S. President Donald Trump’s planned border wall would be acting immorally and should be deemed traitors, the Catholic Archdiocese of Mexico said on Sunday, turning up the heat on a simmering dispute over the project. In a provocative editorial, the country’s biggest Archdiocese sought to increase pressure on the government to take a tougher ...

The New York Daily News reports: Pope Francis urged European leaders on Friday to resist the “false forms of security” promised by populists who want to wall themselves off and instead bank on a future of greater solidarity and union. Francis welcomed 27 EU leaders to the Vatican on the eve of a summit to mark the 60th anniversary of ...

Via press release from Catholic League president Bill Donohue: The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), National Public Radio (NPR), and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), are all subsidized by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). The Trump administration is right to propose a budget that completely guts these entities of federal funding. That ...

Yahoo News reports: Pope Francis on Friday advised priests who hear troubled confessions from parishioners to not hesitate to call on the services of an exorcist. A good confessor has to be very discerning, particularly when he has to deal with “real spiritual disorders,” the 80-year-old pontiff told priests at a Vatican training seminar on the art of hearing believers ...

USA Today reports: Pope Francis says he is open to the possibility of permitting married men to become priests to address the serious shortage of Catholic priests in some countries. The pope raised the idea in an interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit. He ruled out the prospect of allowing single men who are already priests to marry, but ...

Reuters reports: Pope Francis delivered another criticism of some members of his own Church on Thursday, suggesting it is better to be an atheist than one of “many” Catholics who he said lead a hypocritical double life. In improvised comments in the sermon of his private morning Mass in his residence, he said: “It is a scandal to say one ...

The Associated Press reports: Pope Francis repeated his appeal for people to build bridges of understanding, not walls as he marked a feast day of a Sudanese immigrant amid a global uproar over the Trump administration’s attempts to impose a travel ban on seven mostly Muslim countries. “In the social and civil context as well, I appeal not to create ...

The New York Times reports: When Stephen K. Bannon was still heading Breitbart News, he went to the Vatican to cover the canonization of John Paul II and make some friends. High on his list of people to meet was an archconservative American cardinal, Raymond Burke, who had openly clashed with Pope Francis. In one of the cardinal’s antechambers, amid ...

The New York Post reports: The pastor of a largely immigrant Catholic church in Queens has a suggestion for his anti-Trump parishioners: Go take a flying leap off the nearest building. “Show your hate for Trump. Do it for social justice. #JumpAgainstTrump,” read a meme posted by the Rev. Philip Pizzo just hours after he celebrated Sunday Mass. The message ...

The New York Times reports: There may be a Gingrich in the Vatican just yet. Callista Gingrich, the wife of Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and a friend of Mr. Trump’s, is in the running to be ambassador to the Holy See, according to a person briefed on the discussions. Mr. Gingrich, reached by telephone, said that he was ...