Category: News

The impact of Covid-19 on our Catholic school communities

The impact of Covid-19 on our Catholic school communities

WelCom August 2022 Dr Kevin Shore, Chief Executive, NZ Catholic Education Office The school holidays [July] have come at just the right time for many of our Catholic school communities in Aotearoa. A winter wave of Covid, influenza and colds have all come together in a perfect storm of challenges in managing the day-to-day responsibilities […]

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New CE for Te Kupenga

New CE for Te Kupenga

WelCom August 2022 Robert Blucher has been appointed chief executive of Te Kupenga – Catholic Leadership Institute. He is currently Northern Regional Manager of Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu – also known as Te Kura, the former Correspondence School. Robert replaces Te Kupenga’s inaugural chief executive, Dr Areti Metuamate, who returned to Australia last […]

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Plenary Council concludes with united vote

Plenary Council concludes with united vote

WelCom August 2022 The Catholic Church in Australia has agreed a series of landmark reforms on the role of women, a new translation of the Roman Missal and the wider use of the ‘third rite’ of confession.  These were voted through on a final day of voting at the week-long plenary assembly held in Sydney […]

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Pope’s penitential pilgrimage to Canada

Pope’s penitential pilgrimage to Canada

WelCom August 2022 Pope Francis has apologised to Canada’s native people on their land for the Church’s role in schools where indigenous children were abused, branding forced cultural assimilation a ‘deplorable evil’ and ‘disastrous error’. The Pope made the penitential pilgrimage to Canada in July, to fulfil a promise he made to indigenous delegations that […]

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US Bishops welcome Supreme Court decision

US Bishops welcome Supreme Court decision

WelCom August 2022 The Catholic Bishops of the United States have welcomed the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling ‘which legalised and normalised the taking of innocent human life’ through abortion.  In June, the United States Supreme Court released its decision in the case of Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organisation, […]

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Legal wrangle over Wizard of Oz dress

Legal wrangle over Wizard of Oz dress

WelCom August 2022 The Catholic University of America cannot auction a dress from the Wizard of Oz until a court resolves a legal challenge about its ownership, a federal judge has said. The university had scheduled an auction of the dress worn by Judy Garland for the classic movie in hopes of raising more than […]

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‘God will say’

‘God will say’

WelCom August 2022 Pope Francis has said he has no plans to resign soon and that his knee injury is healing. Reports of Pope Francis resigning began to spread recently in light of three events that were to happen in late August. These included the creation of new cardinals and a day trip to the […]

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Top positions for women

Top positions for women

WelCom August 2022 Pope Francis has appointed three women to the Dicastery of Bishops, which assists the Pope in choosing bishops. They are the first women to ever be named members of the dicastery. Two of them are religious sisters. Sr Raffaella Petrini, a Franciscan, has been secretary general of the Vatican’s governorate, the second-ranking […]

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Russian patriarch accused of ‘heresy’

Russian patriarch accused of ‘heresy’

WelCom August 2022 Cardinal Kurt Koch, a Swiss prelate of the Catholic Church and president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, says Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill’s defence of the war in Ukraine amounts to ‘heresy’, and has fractured the unity of the Orthodox community. ‘It is heresy that the patriarch dares to legitimise […]

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Missionaries of Charity expelled

Missionaries of Charity expelled

WelCom August 2022 Nicaragua’s Sandinista-controlled congress has expelled nearly 200 non-governmental organisations from the Central American country, including 18 Missionaries of Charity. According to the newspaper El Confidencial, the nuns were taken by the General Directorate of Migration and Immigration and the police from the cities of Managua and Granada, where they had been serving […]

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