The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the most important Dicastery of the Roman Curia, has had a new prefect since July 2, 2012: for the second time in the recent history of the Catholic Church a German theologian, Gerhard Ludwig Müller, the former bishop of Regensburg, a personal friend of Benedict XVI, has been [...]
On Saturday, May 4th, Pope Francis visited St. Mary Major, the biggest church in Rome dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, for the second time. He was received by a friend of his, the Spanish Cardinal Santos Abril y Castelló, archpriest of the Papal Basilica of St. Mary Major. Indicated as one of the main supporters of [...]
On until August 18th in Florence at the Palazzo Strozzi is the blockbuster exhibition, The Springtime of the Renaissance: Sculpture and the Arts in Florence 1400-60. From September 26 until January 6, 2014, it will be at the Louvre in Paris. Primarily through sculpture, the branch of figurative art that generated this “new season,” the exhibition [...]
For the first time, a Pope has chosen to be named after St. Francis of Assisi. A Pope’s choice of name usually has a precise motivation; in fact, behind every name there is a message. So, what is the message conveyed by the name Francis? Father Ugo Sartorio Father Ugo Sartorio: The desire for [...]
Pedophilia, the reform of the Curia, the challenges confronting the Church under Pope Francis’ pontificate. A 360° interview with Charles Chaput, archbishop of Philadelphia, who illustrates the situation of one of the biggest dioceses of the USA three months after Jorge Bergoglio’s election as Pope. Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput answers questions at a [...]
He governs the Church like a Jesuit superior general. He listens, but decides on his own. Even a McKinsey man has been called in to study the reform of the Curia, which Francis wants to purify from corruption and from the “gay lobby.” All that was missing was a guru from McKinsey to design that [...]
For Jesuit Father Nawras Sammour, the ongoing conflict in Syria is a professional challenge and a personal heartache. Father Sammour is Jesuit Refugee Service’s regional director for the Middle East and lives in Damascus, Syria. He was born in Aleppo, and his mother, brother and sister still live there, but his nieces and nephews “have all [...]
Christians must help the people of Syria because “where there is suffering, Christ is present,” Pope Francis told representatives of Catholic aid agencies working in Syria and with Syrian refugees in neighboring countries. “How much suffering, how much poverty, how much pain; and it’s Jesus who suffers, who is poor, who is thrown out of his [...]
The director of the Vatican’s Financial Intelligence Authority said the Vatican will further amend its finance-related laws in the coming months, increase screening of account holders at the Vatican bank and continue assessing the potential risk that accounts could be used for money laundering and the financing of terrorism. Rene Brulhart, the Swiss finance lawyer hired [...]
In the popular imagination, the Vatican bank is so shady that even the German businessman appointed its president in February thought his task would be “cleaning out and dealing with improper deposits.” But Ernst von Freyberg, president of the Institute for the Works of Religion, the formal title of the bank, told Vatican Radio and several [...]