WHEN the villagers of impoverished Bereina need to quell their famine, they reach for the noxious betel nut. In the town of Bereina, in the Central Province of Papua New Guinea, the addictive seed, which is prohibited in Australia, is often the only food source for the local villagers. It is an unfathomable sight for Sr Anna Pigozzo, a missionary ... Read More »
SOUTH Asia was battered by more than a week of monsoon rains, leading to major flooding in three countries and affecting 3.2 million children. But the monsoon season is just starting and the region is teetering on the edge of a humanitarian crisis. More than 150 people are confirmed dead but hundreds more remain missing and the death toll is ... Read More »
Italy’s most famous musician sat down with Zenit for a chat about his childhood and why his mother saved his life by refusing an abortion. Q: You were born in Lajatico, a small village on the hills, near Pisa, in the Valdera region. You spent your childhood among olive groves and fields in the wonderful land of Tuscany. Why today, when ... Read More »
PRAYER can bring miracles and it keeps hearts from growing hard, Pope Francis said at his morning Mass on January 12 in the Casa Santa Marta. “It’s the prayer of the faithful that brings change to the Church,” the Pope said. “It’s not us popes, bishops or priests who carry the Church forward, but the saints.” The Pope focused his ... Read More »
REPORTS on a private letter allegedly signed by 13 Cardinals to Pope Francis have caused unnecessary “disruption” to the worldwide meeting in Rome, director of the Vatican Press Office said. Fr Federico Lombardi, the official spokesman for the Holy See, offered words of caution with a statement clarifying the letter, which was leaked on Italian publication L’Espresso. “As we are aware,” the spokesman ... Read More »
AFRICAN bishops including Cardinal Wilifred Napier of Durban, have reaffirmed the Church’s doctrines on marriage and family and say “anti-God ideologies” imposed by government and other agencies will not derail their expectation for “the Church’s age-old traditions and teachings (to be) clearly and firmly restated” by the Church. Read more on this story from Zenit. Read More »
POPE Francis is calling on all European parishes and religious communities to take in one refugee family, as the United Nations recognises the record number of people trying to enter Europe, mostly from Syria, Eritrea and Afghanistan. “Every parish, every religious community, every monastery, every sanctuary of Europe, take in one family,” the Pope requested, after praying the midday Angelus ... Read More »
By Fr Robert Barron EVERY third winter, the Catholic lectionary provides a series of readings for Sunday Mass from the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John. This is the magnificently crafted chapter in which the evangelist’s Eucharistic theology is most fully presented. It is a curiosity of John’s Gospel that the Last Supper scene includes no “institution narrative,” which ... Read More »
POPE Francis has instituted a World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, which will be celebrated each year on September 1. Pope Francis made this announcement in a letter he sent to Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, which was published by the ... Read More »
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