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The Vatican’s ambassador to Canada says Pope Francis is opening the door to an apology to the country’s Indigenous people for the abuse of children at Catholic-run Indian residential schools. A papal apology was one of the calls to action issued by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which spent years investigating the schools. And Canada’s Parliament has voted to ask Francis to visit this country and make the requested statement of regret. At a private gathering for foreign dignitaries and Canadian politicians held late last month at his residence in Ottawa, Archbishop Luigi Bonazzi, the Papal Nuncio, said the request...

LUXEMBOURG, July 12, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – The native-born population of the European Union (EU) is on the decline thanks to more deaths than births in 2017, new government figures reveal. On Tuesday, the European Union’s statistics office Eurostat released a report on the latest population data, just in time for World Population Day on Wednesday. It reveals that the EU saw 5.3 million deaths and 5.1 million births in 2017. The overall population increased from 511.5 million to 512.6 million, however, thanks to immigrants making up the difference. “With 82.9 million residents (or 16.2% of the total EU population on...

Bishop Silvio Jose Baez tweeted pictures of his injuries and prayed for those who attacked himNicaraguan bishops and clergy were attacked by armed groups aligned with the government on July 9 as violence in the Central American country escalated and affected the Catholic Church, which has provided humanitarian assistance in its parishes and has tried to diffuse a worsening political crisis through dialogue. Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes Solorzano of Managua and his auxiliary, Bishop Silvio Jose Baez, and Archbishop Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, the apostolic nuncio, were among clergy from Managua pummeled as they attempted to protect St Sebastian Basilica in the...

In a thinly veiled attack on President Duterte, the bishops condemned 'those who have blasphemed God's Holy Name'Catholic bishops in the Philippines, concerned about an increase in violence and police reaction to crime, announced a day of prayer and penance on July 16 and three days of fasting, prayer and penance on July 17-19. The bishops said they wanted to “invoke God’s mercy and justice on those who have blasphemed God’s Holy Name, those who slander and bear false witness, and those who commit murder or justify murder as a means for fighting criminality in our country.” In a pastoral...

YEREVAN, Armenia — Armenia’s dominant church put a significant Christian relic on display Saturday after rumors that a part of it had been sold prompted protesters to occupy a main church administrative building. The Spear of Longinus, which the Armenian Apostolic Church says is the lance stabbed into Jesus Christ’s side as he hung on the cross, was displayed at the mother church complex of Etchmiadzin. Demonstrations calling for the resignation of the church’s leader, Catholicos Garegin II, have persisted for several months. Detractors have claimed Garegin II is married and involved in business activities, which are against church doctrine.

Wisconsin Supreme Court rules in favor of John McAdamsMADISON, Wisconsin (ChurchMilitant.com) - A professor won his lawsuit against a Jesuit university accused of censoring him for his Christian view of marriage. On July 6, the Wisconsin Supreme Court sided with political science professor John McAdams in his legal battle with Marquette University — overturning a previous ruling in a lower court. The Jesuit college pushed McAdams out of his position in 2014 after he made a blog post defending a student who got chewed out by an instructor for speaking up in favor of traditional marriage, suspending McAdams without pay....

ROME, July 7, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) — The demographic collapse of the West in recent decades was planned in order to create the necessary conditions to usher in a New World Order, and the authors of this collapse are now influencing the Vatican at the highest levels, the former president of the Vatican bank has said. Speaking at the first international conference of the John Paul II academy for human life and the family, Italian economist and banker Ettore Gotti Tedeschi said efforts to decrease the world’s population by globalist elites have set in motion a series of predictable and intended...

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican is drafting guidelines to help Catholic dioceses find appropriate ways to decommission unneeded churches so they don't end up as discos, gymnasiums or gelato shops. The Vatican's culture ministry is teaming up with Rome's Jesuit-run Pontifical Gregorian University and the Italian bishops' conference to host an international conference in November on managing the sale of churches and handling of their assets. The event already has a title: "Doesn't God Dwell Here Anymore?"Culture Minister Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi told reporters on Tuesday that many dioceses in Europe, North America and Australia have more churches than they need...

A local bishop said he was 'shocked' to see them prominently seated right behind the podiumFour Montana Catholic priests have strongly criticised for wearing clerical attire to President Donald Trump’s Montana rally on July 5. They garnered national attention after they were seated in the front row behind Trump’s podium. Two of the priests were from the Great Falls-Billings Diocese, headed by Bishop Michael Warfel, and two were from the Helena Diocese, which currently does not have a bishop. Mgr Kevin O’Neill is diocesan administrator. Mgr O’Neill reiterated his diocese’s policy: “Religious leaders should avoid taking positions on candidates or...

Fort Worth, Texas, Jul 7, 2018 CNA/EWTN News.- The Diocese of Fort Worth is removing signs notifying people that concealed and open carry of firearms are both banned on church property – but the policy against guns has not changed. Removal of the signs was recommended by a security team whom the diocese hired as consultants after a mass shooting at a Baptist church in Sutherland Springs last November, NBC reported. Tony Perez, a parishioner at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, has a license to carry firearms, but had been advocating for the removal of the signs. He told Dallas-Fort Worth’s NBC...

BARI /Italy/, July 8. /TASS/. The Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches have begun implementing a plan aimed at reconstruction of Christian churches and monasteries destroyed during the years of Syrian war, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, the chairman of the Department of External Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church, told TASS on Saturday. "We have taken on reconstruction, and some churches and monasteries are being rebuilt now. In particular, restoration work is nearing an end in Maaloula. It is one of the major holy sites in the Antioch Orthodox Church, a nunnery built in the location where the Aramaic language...

'Married' in April, Fr. Giuliano Costalunga is yet to be laicized by his bishopItalian newspapers broke the news this week that a Venetian priest recently married his male partner in Spain, but remains a priest in his diocese. Father Giuliano Costalunga, a 48-year-old priest from the diocese of Verona, married his Spanish partner Pablo in April on one of the Canary Islands. Costalunga was in charge of the parishes of Selva di Progno e Giazza until three years ago. Old press reports show that he created controversy among his flock for being "too modern" and for "having divided the community."...

TASMANIA, Australia, July 6, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – An Australian archbishop has banned a dissident Jesuit priest who supports homosexual "marriage" from speaking at a conference in his archdiocese and faces secular media criticism for doing so. Hobart Archbishop Julian Porteous, who in 2015 faced a government investigation for distributing a pamphlet articulating Catholic teaching on marriage, sent a letter to Father Frank Brennan’s superior notifying him of the decision. Brennan had been scheduled to speak at a conference where Porteous was speaking about marriage. Brennan, the head of Catholic Social Services Australia, supports same-sex “marriage” in opposition to Church teaching,...

Paderborn circle of priests declare Abp. Hans-Josef Becker's directive 'unacceptable'PADERBORN, Germany (ChurchMilitant.com) - A group of faithful German priests is resisting their bishop over intercommunion with non-Catholics. On Tuesday, an association of priests in the western German archdiocese of Paderborn issued a statement condemning Abp. Hans-Josef Becker's decision to allow non-Catholic spouses of Catholics to receive Holy Communion on an individual basis. "We note unanimously that this directive is unacceptable," declared the priestly circle Communio Veritatis. Drawing from the Compendium to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Communio Veritatis declared: "In general, 'to receive Holy Communion, one must be fully...

Decree recognises heroic virtues of Alexia González-Barros, 14, and Carlo Acutis, 15Pope Francis has issued decrees advancing the Causes of four candidates, including two teenagers who heroically lived the Christian virtues. At a meeting with Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, the Pope signed a decree recognising the heroic virtues of Alexia González-Barros, who offered her sufferings from a malignant tumour for the Church. González was born in Madrid in 1971. Her parents were members of Opus Dei and passed on their faith to their five children. She made her first Communion in Rome and the...

July 6, 2018 (Society for the Protection of Unborn Children) – An MP held up a scan of his unborn baby in the Commons chamber to make a point about parental leave offered to members of parliament. A baby firstThe SNP's David Linden wanted more time to debate the principle of proxy voting - where another MP votes on a colleague's behalf, for example when they are on paternity leave - so it could be voted on later. Holding the picture aloft, Mr Linden told colleagues: "This is my daughter to be born in the autumn, so I'm particularly keen...

Monsignor Raffaele Nogaro, bishop emeritus of Caserta, says he is ready to “turn all the churches into mosques if it were useful to the cause and if it allowed us to save the lives of men and women.” And so the Catholic Church continues on its path of aiding and abetting Europe’s civilizational and cultural suicide — not unwittingly, but with its eyes open. As I show in my book The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS, the Catholic Church was once one of the foremost bulwarks of defense in the jihad against Europe. But those days are long...

Pope Francis thanked Mediterranean migrant rescue teams for 'embodying the parable of the Good Samaritan'Hearts that are closed to welcoming migrants and refugees are similar to those of the Pharisees, who often would preach sacrifice and following God’s law without exercising mercy to those in need, Pope Francis said. Jesus’s rebuke of the Pharisees’ “insidious murmuring” is “a finger pointed at the sterile hypocrisy of those who do not want to ‘dirty their hands,’ like the priest or the Levite in the parable of the good Samaritan,” the Pope said in his homily on July 6 during a Mass commemorating...

CHICAGO - Hundreds of protesters led by Chicago priest Father Michael Pfleger and anti-gun activists filled a major Chicago highway for about an hour July 7 demanding that city officials do something to stop gun violence in the city. The march was preceded by a lot of discussion, right up to the march itself, on how much street space the protesters could take. Initially, they were given half of the northbound lanes of the Dan Ryan Expressway, separated by a barrier made up of trucks, emergency vehicles and uniformed officers, but after more negotiations at the scene between Pfleger, the...

Vatican City, Jul 5, 2018 / 11:50 am (CNA).- Most mayors do not live in unheated monastic cells, deliver candy from Orthodox patriarchs to the pope, or become ambassadors for international peace. Giorgio La Pira was not like most mayors. The cause for sainthood for Giorgio La Pira, the “holy mayor” of Florence, was moved forward on July 5 as Pope Francis authorized the decrees of “heroic virtue” for the Italian politician, along with three other “Servants of God.” Pope Francis met with Cardinal Angelo Amato, the prefect for the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on Thursday, and approved...