A court in Hong Kong has adjourned the trial of outspoken Catholic activist Cardinal Joseph Zen and five co-defendants until October 26. The retired 90-year-old bishop and cardinal and five co-defendants pleaded not guilty to failing to properly register their 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which offered financial, legal and psychological help to people arrested during […]
Australia’s Catholic bishops have come out strongly against the medically and ethically controversial gender affirmative model of treatment for gender dysphoria which often involves the use of puberty blockers followed by cross sex hormones, and in some cases gender reassignment surgery.
Luka Binniyat, a Catholic human rights reporter, is facing prison after writing an article in which the Nigerian government was criticised for its inaction in the face of an ongoing threat to Christian communities. Binniyat reported on the mass killings of Christians by armed herdsmen in two Southern Kaduna villages last year.
WelCom September 2022 The Pope says the Holy See’s Provisional Agreement with the People’s Republic of China ‘is going well’ and that he hopes it can be renewed in October. Thanks to the Provisional Agreement signed in 2018, the text of which is currently confidential, the situation of the Catholic Church in China was remedied by […]
WelCom September 2022 Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that he has spoken with Pope Francis over the phone and thanked the Pope for his prayers and humanitarian support. In a tweet posted on August 12, Zelenskyy said: ‘Our people need support of world spiritual leaders who should convey to the world the truth about acts […]
WelCom September 2022 Community and charity groups in Australia are dealing with declining rates of volunteering. Reports compiled by the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) show the number of volunteers has been falling steadily in recent years. It estimated there were 3.3 million volunteers in 2020, and the census found just over 2.9 million people […]
WelCom September 2022 Pope Francis has called on Catholics to counter toxicity in social media, and to engage in dialogue and education to help deal with ‘lies and misinformation’. The Pope has addressed this message to the participants of last month’s 2022 World Congress of SIGNIS in Seoul, South Korea. The 2022 Congress explored the theme […]
WelCom September 2022 The Vatican’s top body on life issues has caused a stir for suggesting that one of the Church’s most influential and controversial magisterial documents, Humanae Vitae, is not covered by papal infallibility. A tweet sent from the Pontifical Academy for Life’s official Twitter account suggested that St Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical was […]
WelCom September 2022 The Church’s falling support in Australia is a ‘wake-up call’ for Catholics, says Archbishop Timothy Costelloe sdb, Archbishop of Perth and president of the Australian Bishops’ Conference. Catholicism is battling to balance its convictions with the realities of an increasingly secular nation. Forty per cent of the population identifies as having no religion […]
WelCom September 2022 Eighty years after Edith Stein’s death at Auschwitz, August 9, 1942, a Vatican cardinal has said Mass in her honour near the former death camp. Raised as a Jew, Stein was an atheist philosopher who converted to Catholicism in 1921 when she was 30. She became a Discalced Carmelite nun in 1938 and […]