IF great minds had brainstormed how to create a podcast that would jump to No. 1 in Apple’s podcast rankings, they never would have landed on The Bible in a Year, joked Jeff Cavins, a biblical scholar and creator of the Great Adventure Bible Timeline. Yet, two weeks into 2021, The Bible in a Year with Fr Mike Schmitz tops the ... Read More »

JOE Biden became the second Catholic to be inaugurated as president of the United States on January 20, giving some US Catholics and their religious leaders a reason to rejoice and others to fear more access to abortion under his leadership. As Mr Biden placed his hand on the Bible and was sworn in as the 46th president of the ... Read More »

CHURCH leaders across the United States and the world have decried the violence and insurrection unfolding at the Capitol Building in Washington DC today as US House and Senate members failed to confirm the electoral college vote for President-Elect Joe Biden. The vote count was interrupted by rioters, who pushed past two police lines, a line of metal barricades and ... Read More »

A VACCINE said to be 95 per cent effective against COVID-19 was given emergency authorisation to be administered across the United Kingdom from last Tuesday, becoming the first mass-vaccination program in the world. UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock reportedly dubbed it “V-Day”, a reference to victory in the Second World War, as the vaccine became the first returned fire at ... Read More »

SOUTH Sudanese priest serving in Brisbane Fr Stephen Kumyangi is deeply saddened at the desperate plight of millions of people in his homeland. The worst floods in more than 60 years have swept across South Sudan this year, submerging entire villages and separating larger cities into islands. For months entire populations have been left vulnerable – another cruel blow in ... Read More »

POPE Francis has proclaimed 2021 will be the “Year of St Joseph”. The announcement came on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, which marked 150 years since Pope Pius IX declared St Joseph the patron of the universal Church. In an apostolic letter, “Patris Corde” (“With a father’s heart”), Pope Francis said Christians could discover in St Joseph, who often ... Read More »

RED floodlights have been switched on at St Stephen’s Cathedral to symbolically wash the stone facade in the blood of persecuted Christians as the Church remembers and prays for them in November. One in nine Christians around the world are persecuted for their faith in Jesus, according to the 2020 Open Doors World Watch List. In the past year, more ... Read More »

CLEVELAND (CNS) — New job in hand, Jim Richter was adjusting well to life in Minneapolis several months after leaving his hometown of Chicago. He was enjoying his fellowship at the University of Minnesota Medical Center despite the long hours and he was coming to realize his move was a good one. Sexually abused as a teenager by a South ... Read More »

WASHINGTON (CNS) — The Catholic Church’s unusual transparency in a report detailing the ascent to power of former U.S. Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, despite top church officials’ knowledge of his sexual abuses, brought feelings of betrayal and hurt after its Nov. 10 release. “As I read the #McCarrick report I am disgusted,” tweeted Juan Carlos Cruz, a survivor of clergy ... Read More »