WelCom May 2021 Catholic organisations are trying to pressure Brazil’s government to do more to protect the South American country’s environment, especially in its Amazon region. The initiative was launched by the Bank für Kirche und Caritas (BKC), a German financial institution connected to the Church. Since 2019, when President Jair Bolsonaro took office, there […]
WelCom May 2021 A giant new statue of Christ being constructed in southern Brazil will rise even higher than the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue that overlooks Rio de Janeiro. The statue, to be named Christ the Protector, will stand 43 metres tall, including its pedestal, making it one of the world’s tallest statues of […]
WelCom May 2021 Controversial Swiss theologian Hans Küng, whose authorisation to teach Catholic theology was revoked in 1979, has died at his home in Tübingen, Germany, on 6 April 2021, aged 93. Küng was ordained a priest in 1954 and became professor at the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Tübingen in 1960. […]
WelCom May 2021 Pope Francis has expressed his hope that religions, together, can fight the profound evil of child abuse. Francis’ message was delivered at an online symposium by Michael Hoffman, a clergy child sexual abuse survivor and activist. Religious representatives from several world religions, including Catholic, participated in the symposium called Faith and Flourishing: […]
WelCom May 2021 The Vatican is planning a major symposium on priesthood for 2022. The symposium is aimed at increasing vocations to the priesthood, improving the way lay people and priests work together and ensuring that service, not power, motivates ordination. The three-day gathering is aimed specifically at bishops and delegations of theologians and vocations […]
WelCom May 2021 The Vatican’s Statistical Yearbook shows that there has been a steady growth in the number of Catholics in every continent except for Europe. As at the end of 2019, the worldwide Catholic population exceeded 1.34 billion or about 17.7 per cent of the world’s population. This marked an increase of 16 million […]
WelCom May 2021 The Vatican has launched a new sign-language service on its YouTube account. On Easter day, the project went live, offering those with hearing disabilities access to the Pope’s livestreamed general audiences and Angelus and Regina Coeli addresses. The sign-language service provides translation into Italian Sign Language and American Sign Language. In the […]
WelCom May 2021 Pope Francis has appointed a prominent Chilean survivor of clerical sex abuse to a Vatican commission that focuses on education to prevent abuse in the Catholic Church. Juan Carlos Cruz, 59, an international advocate for abuse victims, has been appointed to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.
WelCom May 2021 Fr Seph Pijfers Last month, 41 clergy of the Archdiocese of Wellington gathered for a week-long assembly at Tatum Park conference centre, north of Ōtaki on the Kāpiti Coast. This was the first time in a good number of years the clergy have gathered for an extended period such as this. We […]
WelCom May 2021 Catholic students were among the thousands of students who took to the streets across Aotearoa New Zealand on 9 April 2021. Students around the country had six key demands for action to reduce carbon emissions. The gatherings followed the School Strike 4 Climate actions two years ago. In Wellington, an estimated 4000 […]