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Vatican UN envoy says military action justified to save Christians in Iraq The Vatican’s representative at UN headquarters in Geneva has said that “military action in this moment is probably necessary” to curb the slaughter of Christians in Iraq. Archbishop Silvani Tomasi told Vatican Radio that in the long run, the only solution to Iraq’s problems will come with “a dialogue of reconciliation and the acceptance of diversity,” with a regime that ensures equal rights for all. But in the immediate future, the crucial question is the survival of the country’s Christian minority. The archbishop said that it has been...

The sign of peace at Mass has not always led to serenity among liturgists or within the congregations gathered each Sunday in Catholic churches around the world. After nine years of study and consultation, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments has told Latin-rite bishops around the world that the sign of peace will stay where it is in the Mass. However, the congregation said, “if it is foreseen that it will not take place properly,” it can be omitted. But when it is used, it must be done with dignity and awareness that it is not a liturgical...

Pope Leo XIII, born in 1810, is credited with being the founder of Catholic social teaching. (CNS/Library of Congress) By Carol GlatzCatholic News Service VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Going by the pseudonym "X," Pope Leo XIII anonymously crafted poetic puzzles in Latin for a Roman periodical at the turn of the 19th century. The pope created lengthy riddles, known as "charades," in Latin in which readers had to guess a rebus-like answer from two or more words that together formed the syllables of a new word. Eight of his puzzles were published anonymously in "Vox Urbis," a Rome newspaper...

I read at Il Giornale today that the prayer read by the Imam in the Vatican Gardens was indeed from the Sura 2, wherein Allah is asked to crush infidels (that’s us) and let Islam triumph over the whole world (that’s us, too). Vatican Radio, at the time, tried to give this an allegorical spin. It didn’t work very well. At a certain point it seems they also tried to edit out the troubling passage. Suffice to say that an Imam sang: “grant us victory over the heathen/disbelieving/infidel” (Sura 2: 286) in the Vatican Gardens, in front of the Pope,...

I begin with a piece, spotted by Fr Tim Finigan and reported in his indispensable blog The Hermeneutic of Continuity, which had been published in Sandro Magister’s blog—not his English one, Chiesa, but his Italian language blog for L’Espresso, Settimo Cielo.A few days ago, Magister told the story of a parish priest in the Italian diocese of Novara, Fr Tarcisio Vicario, who recently discussed the question of Holy Communion for the divorced and remarried. This is how he explained the Church’s teaching on the matter: “For the Church, which acts in the name of the Son of God, marriage...

In a Monday letter to a Mexico City Vatican conference, Pope Francis wrote that the tens of thousands of Central American children illegally crossing into the United States should be “welcomed and protected.” Just days after President Obama visited Texas and pledged a solution to the US border crisis, the Pope said migrant children’s human rights are being violated. “Many people forced to emigrate suffer, and often, die tragically,” he said. “Many of their rights are violated. They are obliged to separate from their families and, unfortunately, continue to be the subject of racist and xenophobic attitudes.” The Pope also...

Some Papal Quotes that somehow and in some way beyond my meager intellect are in continuity with each other, or something. First Quote Pope Eugene IV, the Bull Cantate Domino, 1441. ex cathedra (infallibly defined): “The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so...

The International Association of Exorcists (IAE) now has a legal status. Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano reports that the Congregation for the Clergy approved the association’s statutes and recognized it under Canon Law (Canon 322, paragraph 1) on 13 June 2014. The IAE is now recognised as a private international association of faithful in accordance with Canon 116, paragraph 2 and has all the rights and obligations stated within the Code. The idea of creating an association of exorcists was introduced in Italy by Gabriele Amorth, a priest from the Society of St. Paul, towards the end of the last century....

Pope Francis telephoned Rome’s chief rabbi to personally express his sadness over the murder of three kidnapped Israeli teens whose bodies were found June 30 in Hebron, West Bank. Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni said the pope phoned him at home late in the afternoon July 1 and said: “Good evening. This is Pope Francis. I wanted to personally express my sadness for the death of the three youths.” The rabbi told Rome’s Il Messaggero newspaper he was surprised since the Vatican press office had already published a strong statement condemning the murders of the boys who were kidnapped in mid-June...

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed leader of the Islamic State stretching across Iraq and Syria, has vowed to lead the conquest of Rome as he called on Muslims to immigrate to his new land to fight under its banner around the globe. Baghdadi, who holds a PhD in Islamic studies, said Muslims were being targetted and killed from China to Indonesia. Speaking as the first Caliph, or commander of the Islamic faithful since the dissolution of the Ottoman empire, he called on Muslims to rally to his pan-Islamic state. "Those who can immigrate to the Islamic State should immigrate, as...

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican's former ambassador to the Dominican Republic has been convicted of sex abuse by a church tribunal and defrocked pending further criminal proceedings in the first case of its kind. Polish archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, who was recalled to Rome last year amid claims that he sexually abused a number of children in the slums of Santo Domingo, was found guilty by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican said on Friday. It is the first time that a Vatican ambassador has been defrocked for sexual abuse. Wesolowski, who has two months to appeal,...

Cardinal Baldisseri discusses the working document yesterday (CNS) The Vatican has released the eagerly awaited instrumentum laboris, or working document, of the family synod in October. The 73-page text, which takes about an hour to read, consists of 159 numbered paragraphs, divided into three sections. The first is devoted to “the Gospel of the Family”, the second to challenges to family life, and the third to “openness to life” and parental responsibility.The document is based on responses to questions in the synod’s preparatory document, released last November. It’s written primarily for the select group who will take part in October’s...

A major document by the Vatican has said that unjust discrimination against gay people needs to be avoided and that children of same-sex unions must be cared for as any other, but it still maintains opposition to same-sex couples adopting children and has affirmed traditional teachings on marriage. The Instrumentum Laboris is a result of Pope Francis' call in October 2013 for Roman Catholic bishops around the world to convene and discuss matters of family and the Christian faith. "On unions of persons of the same sex, the responses of the bishops' conferences refer to Church teaching. 'There are absolutely...

>On June 8, 2014 — Pentecost Sunday — the Vatican hosted an “interfaith event” that included prayers by Christian priests, a Jewish rabbi, and a Muslim imam. The occasion was well-publicized in advance by the Holy See as a “pause in politics” that would promote peace between the Israel and the Palestinians. During his visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority the previous month, Pope Francis had invited Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to attend the event. Both leaders accepted the invitation, and sat with the Pope while prayers were said and chanted in the...

For the first time ever, the Vatican is staging an unusual exhibition in the Emirate of Shajah. The show is seen as a sign of openness and cooperation between religions. Ulrike al-Khamis has outdone herself. In a project that began six years ago, the art historian from Germany was tasked with bringing the extensive collections of the Emir of Sharjah into shape when the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization was renovated and re-opened. The exhibition she is now presenting in a sparkling domed building almost the size of a soccer field has exceeded expectations. "It is the first collaboration of...

Pope Francis has declared a sort of holy war on the Mafia. And it's not unreasonable to believe that the Mafia may fight back. On Saturday, the pope traveled to Calabria, the heartland of one of Italy's biggest organized crime enterprises, the 'Ndrangheta, and, in front of a crowd of more than 100,000, blasted the 'Ndrangheta as example of "the adoration of evil and contempt of the common good." Then he dropped the hammer: Those who in their lives follow this path of evil, as mafiosi do, are not in communion with God. They are excommunicated. [Pope Francis] This is...

Dearest Pope Francis, I am so pleased to have the opportunity to greet you. You'll surely not remember me and I understand, since, seeing so many new people every day, it must be very difficult for you to remember all the people with whom you have conversed and lived at some point during in your life. Over the past 12 years, we happened to meet, several times, you and I, in some meetings, gatherings, and Church congresses that were held in the cities of Central and South America on various topics (communication, catechesis, education). During these pastoral meetings I had...

“Remember, not every being that occupies the unseen world, the spiritual world, is a good guy, is a good spirit.” Mr. Fisher said interfaith gatherings — specifically those that join Christians with Muslims — should be regarded with alarm, Raw Story reported. “No Christian, in space over which he has authority, should ever willingly allow another spiritual leader to invite the presence of demons into his sanctuary,” he said, Raw Story reported. “This is for the simple reason that if they are invited, they will come. Thus any clergyman, whether an evangelical pastor or the pope himself, compromises the spiritual...

Contrary to Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich’s promises to Internal Affairs and Environment Committee chair MK Miri Regev (Likud-Beytenu) in mid-May not to change the status quo at King David’s Tomb, that status has been breached in a move endangering Jewish prayer at the holy site. […] Video footage, courtesy of Rabbi Tal, exposes the Mass prayers held on the second floor of the David’s Tomb Compound, which Christians term the “Room of the Last Supper.” The rabbi reports hundreds of Christian visitors, priests, Catholic monks and nuns praying at the site, as evidenced by the film. In another video...

....Joel Osteen, the pastor of Houston's Lakewood Church, was meeting Thursday with Pope Francis at the Vatican. Osteen said Friday it was a great honor to represent the pastors of America in the meeting with the pontiff, whom he described as warm, personable and full of joy. "I like the fact that this pope is trying to make the church larger, not smaller," Osteen said. "He's not pushing people out but making the church more inclusive. That resonated with me." "We had very little time with him," Osteen said. "We were going to have more time, but a cardinal died...