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New Haven, Conn., Jan 31, 2020 / 07:11 pm (CNA).- The Knights of Columbus has announced a major revision to its longtime initiation ceremonies and for the first time will open them to the public, saying the changes are needed to become more appealing to prospective members and to respond to a “crisis” in church membership. “Today, we need an exemplification of our principles that presents, in a clear and convincing way, how charity, unity and fraternity can come together to form a Catholic way of life for today’s man and his family,” Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson said in the January 2020 issue of Columbia magazine. The rituals of the Knights, sometimes called ceremonies or exemplifications, have for decades been separated into first, second and third degrees focused respectively on the p...

Countless Catholics and other Christians across China are facing a weekend without church services and changed Eucharistic practices after the coronavirus spread to every province, the infection rate surpassed SARS and the World Health Organization declared a global emergency. Human rights groups have become increasingly disturbed at controls being enforced by Chinese authorities, including heavy censorship, some of which are considered by medical experts to be counterproductive, as governments around the region scrambled to get citizens out of the Hubei province quarantine zone. The death toll had climbed to 213 in China with 9,692 infections as of Jan. 31. Hundreds more cases have been reported around the world and tens of thousands of people are under observation. The UK today reported ...

Lyon, France, Jan 30, 2020 / 07:45 am (CNA).- Cardinal Philipe Barbarin has been acquitted by a French appeals court of failing to report sexual abuse by a diocesan priest. The Archbishop of Lyon was convicted in March, 2019, of “of non-denunciation of ill-treatment” of a minor and given a six-month suspended prison sentence. The decision Jan. 30 by the appeals court in Lyon was reached after prosecutors in the case sought the Cardinal’s vindication. The cardinal’s lawyer called the result “logical,” saying that Barbarin had been the subject of “calumny” over the course of the trial. At the time of his conviction in March last year, five other archdiocesan officials on trial with Barbarin were acquitted. Barbarin’s acquittal was widely expected on appeal after the prosecutor in the case ar...

Iraqi Christians attend Christmas Eve Mass at the Syriac Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception in the predominantly Iraqi Christian town of Qaraqosh, in Nineveh province some 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from Mosul, on Dec. 24, 2019. The 2020 ‘World Watch List’ report found that 87% of Christians have left Iraq since 2003. (Zaid Al-Obeidi/AFP via Getty Images) The 2020 ‘World Watch List’ on the persecution of Christians highlights an unprecedented level of persecution against Christians. ROME — The 2020 “World Watch List,” published by international religious freedom advocate Open Doors, confirms the unprecedented level of persecution against Christians around the world — a persecution that appears even worse than what the Church experienced in the first few centuries of its existence...

Vatican City, Jan 28, 2020 / 08:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis has co-authored a book of reflections on the life of St. John Paul II to be published in Italian. The book, entitled “St. John Paul the Great,” is the product of a series of conversations between Pope Francis and Fr. Luigi Maria Epicoco which took place from June 2019 to January 2020, according to its preface. The book is expected to be published sometime ahead of the 100 year anniversary of the birth of Karol Wojtyla on May 18. When Wojtyla became Pope John Paul II in 1978, a 41-year-old Fr. Jorge Mario Bergoglio was serving as the provincial superior of the Jesuits in Argentina. Pope John Paul II appointed Bergoglio to be an auxiliary bishop in 1992, elevating him to become Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998, and crea...

Kobe Bryant and daughter Gianna Bryant attend a basketball game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Dallas Mavericks at Staples Center on Dec. 29, 2019 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images)  |  Jan. 26, 2020 Kobe Bryant Dead at 41: How Scandal Turned Him to Catholic Faith and Divine Mercy “His most inspiring trait,” said singer Cristina Ballestero, “was his decision to turn to his faith in God and receive God’s mercy and to be a better man after a regretful decision.” LOS ANGELES, Calif.  — Basketball superstar Kobe Bryant died Sunday in a helicopter crash in Southern California. Bryant, the father of four, was 41. Bryant’s daughter Gianna, 13, was reportedly killed in the helicopter crash as well, along with another teen and her parent, and ...

Vatican City, Jan 26, 2020 / 04:30 am (CNA).- Pope Francis preached Sunday about the life-changing power of God’s word in Scripture, encouraging everyone to keep a Bible close for daily inspiration. “Let us make room in our lives for the word of God. Each day, let us read a verse or two of the Bible. Let us begin with the Gospel: let us keep it open on our table, carry it in our pocket, read it on our cell phones, and allow it to inspire us daily,” Pope Francis said in his homily Jan. 26. “The Lord gives you his word, so that you can receive it like a love letter he has written to you, to help you realize that he is at your side. His word consoles and encourages us. At the same time it challenges us, frees us from the bondage of our selfishness and summons us to conversion. Because his wor...

Vatican City, Jan 25, 2020 / 05:30 am (CNA).- Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re has been elected the new dean of the College of Cardinals with Cardinal Leonardo Sandri as vice-dean. Re, 85, will serve a five-year term under the new term limits created by Pope Francis in a motu proprio issued Dec. 21. Previously, cardinal dean, considered “first among equals,” was a position held for the duration of one’s life. The dean of the College of Cardinals presides at the conclave for the election of the pope and represents the Holy See during the sede vacante. Because Cardinal Re is over the age of 80, he is ineligible to take part in a conclave. The responsibility of presiding over the conclave will therefore fall to 76-year-old vice-dean, Cardinal Sandri. Both Re and Sandri’s elections were approved ...

Vatican City, Jan 24, 2020 / 09:20 am (CNA).- As the March for Life got underway in Washington, DC, Pope Francis and Vice President Mike Pence met in the Vatican Friday to discuss the Church’s commitment to the pro-life movement. “It was a great privilege to spend time with Pope Francis and to be able to do so on a day that literally hundreds of thousands of Americans, including many Catholic Americans, are gathered on our National Mall in Washington D.C. standing up for the right to life, was a particular joy for me,” Pence told EWTN News Jan. 24. “And to hear his passion for the sanctity of life … It was a great privilege,” Pence added. “I believe that the Church in the U.S. has been a bulwark in the right to life movement since Roe v Wade was first adopted by our...

Philadelphia, Pa., Jan 23, 2020 / 04:25 am (CNA).- Bishop Nelson Perez of Cleveland was appointed Archbishop of Philadelphia Thursday, returning to the local Church of his priestly ordination. He succeeds Archbishop Charles Chaput, 75, who had led the Philadelphia archdiocese since 2011. Ordained a priest of the Capuchin Franciscans in 1970, Archbishop Chaput served as Bishop of Rapid City and Archbishop of Denver before his transfer to Philadelphia. “Bishop Perez is a man who already knows and loves the Church in Philadelphia, and is already known and loved by our priests and people. I cannot think of a better successor to lead this Archdiocese,” Chaput wrote online following the announcement. Bishop Perez, 58, was born in Miami to Cuban parents, and grew up in New Jersey. He ...

Washington D.C., Jan 22, 2020 / 07:05 am (CNA).- A pro-life political group has announced its plans to support President Donald Trump and pro-life senatorial candidates in their 2020 election campaigns. The announcement comes after Planned Parenthood announced its own plans to spend an unprecedented amount during the 2020 elections. The Susan B. Anthony List and Women Speak Out PAC, its partner super PAC, said Friday it has plans to spend $52 million in the 2020 election cycle.  Mallory Quigley, national spokeswoman for the group, told CNA the amount is “the largest budget for any election cycle that we’ve ever had.” News of the pro-life group’s campaign war chest followed an announcement last week that Planned Parenthood Votes will spend $45 million in a “We Decide 2020” ca...

10 years after Vatican reform, Legion in new abuse crisis By MARIA VERZA and NICOLE WINFIELD January 20, 2020 GMT https://apnews.com/d71dbfb06b1065b2e9f910c2581371e2 MEXICO CITY (AP) — The administrator of the elite Catholic school in Cancun, Mexico, used to take the girls out of class and send them to the chapel, where the priest from the Legion of Christ religious order would sexually abuse them. “As some were reading the Bible, he would rape the others in front of them, little girls aged 6 to 8 or 9,” said one of his victims, Ana Lucia Salazar, now a 36-year-old Mexican television host and mother of three. “Afterward, nothing was the same, nothing went back to the way it was,” she said through tears at her home in Mexico City. Salazar’s horrific story, which has been corroborated by oth...