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 |  May. 7, 2020 The May 7 letter, principally authored by Archbishop Carlo Vigano along with dozens of reported signatories, laments the stay-at-home orders issued to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, suggesting they are contrived mechanisms of social control that undercut religious freedom. Hours after the publication of a controversial open letter regarding the coronavirus pandemic, the prefect of the Church’s dicastery for liturgy and sacraments, listed among the signers of the letter, said he did not sign it. The letter, titled “Appeal for the Church and the World,” says the coronavirus pandemic has been exaggerated to foster widespread social panic and undercut freedom, as a preparation for the establishment of a one-world government. Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefe...

This image of Mary shown in this 2009 photo is located at St. Francis of Assisi/Our Lady of the Angels Parish in Chicago. (CNS photo/Karen Callaway, Catholic New World) By Greg Erlandson Catholic News Service WASHINGTON (CNS) — Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, and five other bishops have concluded that alleged apparitions of Our Lady of America — said to have taken place more than six decades ago — were not of supernatural origin. While private devotion inspired by reports of the apparitions could continue without harm to the faith, Bishop Rhoades said, it would not be appropriate for any sort of public devotion. “I must come to the conclusion that the visions and revelations themselves cannot be said to be of supernatural origin in the sense of objective occ...

Vatican City, May 6, 2020 / 09:30 am MT (CNA).- Pope Francis Wednesday advanced the sainthood causes of five men and women, including an Italian teenager who died of a brain tumor in 2009, declaring them “venerable.” After a May 5 meeting with Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, the pope approved the heroic virtue of Italian priests Francesco Caruso (1879-1951) and Carmelo De Palma (1876-1961), as well as the Spanish Redemptorist priest Francisco Barrecheguren Montagut (1881-1957). Before becoming a priest, Barrecheguren Montagut was married (he was later widowed) and had a daughter, Maria de la Concepción Barrecheguren García (1905-1927), who was also declared venerable by the pope May 6. The fifth sainthood cause to move a step toward canoniz...

In a wide-ranging interview at the end of the 1,184-page book, written by German author Peter Seewald, the pope emeritus said the greatest threat facing the Church was a “worldwide dictatorship of seemingly humanistic ideologies.” MUNICH, Germany — Modern society is formulating an “anti-Christian creed” and punishing those who resist it with “social excommunication,” Benedict XVI has said in a new biography, published in Germany May 4. In a wide-ranging interview at the end of the 1,184-page book, written by German author Peter Seewald, the pope emeritus said the greatest threat facing the Church was a “worldwide dictatorship of seemingly humanistic ideologies.” Pope Benedict XVI, who resigned as pope in 2013, made the comment in response to a question about what he had meant at his 2...

CNA Staff, May 4, 2020 / 12:01 pm MT (CNA).- The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has ordered 15 psychiatric hospitals in Belgium which belong to the Brothers of Charity to cease identifying as Catholic institutions after they allowed the euthanization of patients in 2017. The hospitals are managed by a civil non-profit corporation with the same name as the Brothers of Charity religious congregation which owns them. The CDF decision was communicated in a letter dated March 30, stating that “with deep sadness” the “psychiatric hospitals managed by the Provincialate of the Brothers of Charity association in Belgium will no longer be able to consider themselves Catholic institutions.” In a statement responding to the CDF’s decision, the superior general...

Vatican City, May 4, 2020 / 07:00 am MT (CNA).- Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Bishop Daniel Conlon of Joliet, who took a medical leave of absence from leadership of the Illinois diocese in December.  The Holy See press office announced May 4 that the pope had accepted Bishop Conlon’s request to be relieved of the pastoral governance of the diocese.  Conlon, 71, was appointed to Joliet in 2011. On Dec. 27, 2019, the diocese said that he would be taking a leave of absence because of an unspecified health problem. Retired Bishop Richard Pates of Des Moines, Iowa, has served as apostolic administrator during Conlon’s absence. In addition to accepting Conlon’s resignation, the pope appointed Pates as the apostolic administrator sede vacante, the U.S. Conference of Catho...

Rome Newsroom, May 3, 2020 / 08:30 am MT (CNA).- The liquefaction of the blood of the early Church martyr St. Januarius occurred Saturday amid the coronavirus lockdown, leading the Archbishop of Naples to bless the city with the miraculous relic. “Dear friends, I have a big announcement to make: even in this time of coronavirus, the Lord through the intercession of St. Januarius has liquified the blood!” Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe said May 2. Cardinal Sepe, the Archbishop of Naples, offered a Mass via video livestream from the Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary to celebrate the recurring miracle, and then used the relic of the liquified blood to bless the city. “How many times our saint has intervened to save us from the plague, from cholera. St. Januarius is the true soul of Naples,”...

ROSARIO, Argentina – As Catholic bishops across Europe and in the United States discuss  reopening Mass to the faithful and ponder what to do about the distribution of communion, considered a “high risk of contagion” moment, Cardinal Robert Sarah of Ghana, head of the Vatican’s liturgical office, warned that the answer cannot be the “desecration of the Eucharist.” The cardinal said that “no one can be denied confession and communion,” so even if the faithful cannot attend Mass, if a priest is asked to give either they must oblige. In present days, the Italian bishops conference and the government of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte continued their negotiations after the recently announced “stage 2” of the quarantine, meaning a gradual easing of quarantine restrictions, though no date yet...

Follow along with the guide in English: http://www.usccb.org/about/communications/upload/consecration-usa-mary-mother-of-church.pdf.

NEW YORK — While abortion remains one of the most divisive issues in American public life, particularly among people of faith, a new study suggests that it is rarely discussed from the pulpit. Findings from the Pew Research Center released on April 29 found that only four percent of sermons posted online during the spring of 2019 discussed abortion. Further, the study revealed that when pastors do discuss it, the topic is rarely repeated and Church leaders are almost unanimous in their opposition to it. While the study is not comprehensive of all sermons from Christian churches in the U.S., analysts reviewed nearly 50,000 sermons posted during an eight-week period from over 6,000 U.S. churches. The study found abortion was most commonly mentioned by evangelical and Catholic congregations, ...

Fra’ Giacomo Dalla Torre. (Wikimedia Commons.) The Sovereign Military Order of Malta is a Catholic lay religious order originally founded as the Knights Hospitaller around 1099 in Jerusalem for the protection and medical care of Holy Land pilgrims. Courtney Mares/CNA. ROME, Italy — The Grand Master of the Order of Malta Fra’ Giacomo Dalla Torre died early Wednesday at the age of 75. Dalla Torre had been in treatment for throat cancer in Rome in recent months. He is remembered by the Order of Malta for his kindness, appreciation of the arts, and charity towards the poor and disabled. “I worked with Fra’ Giacomo for over 20 years,” Philippa Leslie, communications director of the Order of Malta in Great Britain, told CNA.  “He had a warm and sympathetic personality, a nice sen...

Attorney General William Barr issued a memo to federal prosecutors to be “on the lookout” for state and local directives imposed during the coronavirus pandemic that violate Americans’ constitutional rights. “If a state or local ordinance crosses the line from an appropriate exercise of authority to stop the spread of COVID-19 into an overbearing infringement of constitutional and statutory protections, the Department of Justice may have an obligation to address that overreach in federal court,” Barr wrote in the two-page memo released Monday. “The legal restrictions on state and local authority are not limited to discrimination against religious institutions and religious believers. For example, the Constitution also forbids, in certain circumstances, discrimination against disfavored spe...