Three days after the Pope raised the ire of conservatives by reversing the centuries-old teaching of the Church on the admissibility of the death penalty, the Bishop of Basel, Felix Gmür, has criticized the “rigidity” and the “state of shock” many Catholics have fallen into in recent years, paralyzed by the fear of an uncertain future and nostalgic for an apparently simpler golden era. “I certainly don’t want a God of yore, but a God for today, for tomorrow –... Read more
The cause of interfaith dialog in Germany will receive a new impulse August 2 with the opening of the country’s first Christian-Muslim kindergarten in the town of Gifhorn, in Lower Saxony. Seven Christian children, seven Muslim children and four children from non-religious families will receive education from this Thursday in the ‘Abraham’s Children’ facility, a daycare center which aims to be a “house of tolerance” and a “contribution to reconciliation” between local religious and non-religious communities, according to Martin Wrasmann,... Read more
A sobering tale from Spain in the midst of the hysteria in the global Church over clergy sex abuse. Pope Francis has apologized in person to three priests from Granada acquitted of sex offenses against a minor three-and-a-half years after the pontiff himself telephoned the alleged victim to say sorry for the abuse and to offer him his full support. The Spanish website Vida Nueva reported last week that the Pope received Fathers Román, Francisco and Manuel July 12 at... Read more
Earlier this month the Vatican announced that it is preparing guidelines on how to properly revitalize or repurpose underutilized and deconsecrated churches. Guidance more and more dioceses around the world need as secularization, declining vocations and economic mismanagement continue to decimate the demand for places of worship. Church authorities in Barcelona, however, appear to have forged ahead on the matter without Vatican assistance, giving their blessing to a new book which proposes that the “communitarian” prevail over the “sacred” in... Read more
The Catholic Bishops of Croatia have denounced the fact that stronger EU nations, such as Germany, have created “chaos” in the “transit” region of southeastern Europe by “inviting” immigrants to the continent “without any limitations whatsoever”. In the opinion of the prelates, the disorder in Europe has been exacerbated by the fact that the continent’s citizens in general “are increasingly less ‘open to life’ and are gradually, volens-nolens, renouncing our future”. The Justice and Peace Commission of the Croatian Conference... Read more
For those in the West who divinize anti-migrant Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as the savior of “Christian Europe”, the Bishop of Vác, Miklós Beer, has some stern words of warning. Orbán’s plans to make homelessness a crime in Hungary are “dangerous”, the prelate has declared, and not at all what either Pope Francis or Jesus Christ would do. Not only that, however, but Prime Minister Orbán’s claim to be carrying out a “Christian” political program in general is nothing... Read more
Spain’s Catholic bishops are warning of a return to a “totalitarian dictatorship” after the country’s new left-wing government announced plans last week to further reduce the Church’s privileges and reform State-sponsored Catholic education. “With their usual liberticide they interfere with our freedom”, thundered the archbishop of Oviedo, Jesús Sanz Montes, in Twitter. “They’re scared that the truth will really make us free, so they want to control it, turfing parents out of their children’s education and imposing a State-sponsored ethic”.... Read more
By Cameron Doody and Hendro Munsterman Monsignor Tony Anatrella was widely considered the official “gay expert” in the Vatican and the French Catholic Church. The priest, psychoanalyst and author of thirty books on same-sex attraction was the driving force behind the 2005 decree of the Congregation for Catholic Education that barred gays from becoming priests. A member of the Medjugorje commission of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, and a consultor to two Pontifical Councils – for the Family... Read more
The Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, is so concerned about the migration crisis gripping Europe that it has devoted three front-page editorials to the issue in the space of a week. In the first, dated June 30, deputy editor Giuseppe Fiorentino warned of the “chronic incapacity of EU member countries to sign a binding agreement” on migration issues, while in the second, dated July 4, the paper denounced that the “growing tensions in the political debate on immigration jeopardize free movement... Read more
A full-blown numbers crisis has beset the Archdiocese of Cologne. According to official figures published June 30, Germany’s largest local Church is losing 17,500 members each and every year – “mostly through more deaths than baptisms”, it wryly notes – and by 2030 expects its full-time pastoral workers – priests, deacons, and lay officials – to have been reduced by over half in number, with a median age of over 50. Not only are church membership and vocations in Cologne... Read more
European Communion
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