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Vatican City, Jan 14, 2020 / 05:58 am (CNA).- Archbishop Georg Ganswein, the private secretary of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, said Tuesday the former pontiff was not informed he would be presented as co-author of a new book on priestly celibacy and that Benedict has asked for his name and photo to be removed from the cover. According to the German-language news agency KNA, Ganswein said Jan. 14 that he had called Cardinal Robert Sarah that morning, at Benedict’s request, to ask the book’s publisher to remove the signature of the pope emeritus from the introduction and conclusion, because he had not co-authored them. Ganswein said that the chapter in the main part of the book is, however, “100 percent Benedict,” according to KNA. “It was a misunderstanding – without questioning Cardin...

Vatican City, Jan 13, 2020 / 02:56 pm (CNA).- Cardinal Robert Sarah said Monday that claims Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI did not co-author with him a new book on priestly celibacy are “defamations of exceptional gravity.” The publisher of the book told CNA that critics suggesting that the pope emeritus did not co-author the book, or authorize its publication, are wrong. “Are these people really implying that Cardinal Sarah is involved in a conspiracy to distort the truth?” Father Joseph Fessio, SJ, editor-in-chief of Ignatius Press, asked Jan. 13. “If Cardinal Sarah is telling [Ignatius Press] that the chapters from Pope Benedict are from Pope Benedict, we take his word for it,” Fessio said, adding that the publisher stands by its attribution of the book to both Sarah and Benedict. The pries...

The book, entitled From the Depths of Our Hearts, addresses the ‘dark time’ the Catholic priesthood is enduring because of Church scandals and ‘the constant questioning of their consecrated celibacy.’ VATICAN CITY — Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has taken the surprising and historic step of co-authoring his first book since his resignation almost seven years ago — and by asking in it that Pope Francis not allow the ordination of married men to the priesthood in the Latin Church. The 175-page book, entitled Des Profondeurs de nos cœurs (From the Depths of Our Hearts) and written with Cardinal Robert Sarah, the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, discusses the spiritual challenges confronting today’s priests, and draws attention to the dange...

ABOVE: Photo by Vatican Media. BELOW: All photos by Joanne Bergamin. The annual ceremony on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord carries on a tradition of Pope Saint John Paul II. Pope Francis welcomed 29 families to have their newborns baptized in the Sistine Chapel Sunday morning, the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. Pope Saint John Paul II began the annual tradition of baptizing the children of Vatican employees and embassies to the Holy See. Before the papal Mass, there was none of the usual scrambling for seats but rather an unusual amount of joyful calm for an early Sunday morning ceremony at the Vatican. Mothers, fathers, siblings, godparents and extended families were all smiling, amid the very occasional cry of one of the 32 babes in arms, which included one set of twins and one ...

From the streets of Dallas to Chicago (below) and San Francisco (above), thousands of pro-lifers will take a stand for the unborn this month. (2019 photos, courtesy of Catholic Pro-Life Community, March for Life Chicago and West Coast Walk for Life) Events around the country reflect heart of the cause. WASHINGTON — On Jan. 24, tens of thousands of people will be part of this year’s annual March for Life in Washington. Tens of thousands more — adults, teens, school groups and families who cannot travel to the nation’s capital — will be marching in 30-plus companion events held on different days in states across the country, praying for the end of abortion. Midwest The earliest companion marches and walks were scheduled to begin Jan. 10-11. One of the largest is the March for Life Chicago 20...

Berlin, Germany, Jan 10, 2020 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- A radical feminist group has taken credit for an ongoing series of attacks on pro-life advocates in Germany, including the vandalism of two churches and the burning of a pro-life journalist’s car.  On December 27, an evangelical church in the town of Tübingen was spray-painted and a minibus was set on fire in front of the church. Authorities estimated that the vandals caused 40,000 euro in damages.  Shortly after the vandalism, a confession letter was posted online on the website indymedia, where the church was accused of “anti-feminist attitudes.” The letter was singed by a group calling themselves the “Feminist Autonomous Cell.”   Four days later, on the same website, the group said that they had “t...

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis warned Thursday that increasing tensions between the U.S. and Iran are setting the stage for a broader conflict in the Mideast while jeopardizing efforts to rebuild Iraq. Francis listed the “particularly troubling” deterioration of U.S.-Iran relations following the U.S. strike that killed Iran’s top general in his annual foreign policy address that also touched on climate change and nuclear proliferation. Speaking to ambassadors accredited to the Holy See, Francis denounced the “pall of silence” among world leaders about the long-running war in Syria, the humanitarian crisis in Yemen and the intensified fighting in Libya in his global roundup of areas of concern for the Catholic Church. Vatican officials and Christian leaders in Iraq have voiced alarm about...

The Harir air base as seen on Sept. 21, 2016. (Edward Pentin photo) The region, which was targeted by one of the pair of missile attacks launched yesterday as retaliation against the U.S., is home to several thousand Christians who have been trying to rebuild their lives. ROME — Christians in northern Iraq are increasingly concerned about tensions in the region after Iranian forces launched five missiles overnight on an air base in the Iraqi Kurdish capital of Erbil that houses U.S.-led coalition troops. The Nineveh Plain just north of Erbil is home to several thousand Christians who have been trying to rebuild their lives following the trauma of the Islamic State group (ISIS) occupying many once predominantly Christian towns north of the capital from 2014 to 2017. Iraq’s military said the...

Denver, Colo., Jan 7, 2020 / 11:00 am (CNA).- The disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick has moved from the Kansas friary where he had been living since 2018. A spokesman for the Capuchin Franciscan Province of St. Conrad told CNA Jan. 7 that McCarrick left St. Fidelis Friary in Victoria, Kansas, just days ago. He has moved to a residential community of priests who have been removed from ministry, senior Church officials told CNA. The former cardinal made the decision to leave the Kansas friary himself over the Christmas period, sources say, adding that his continued presence in the friary had become a strain on the Franciscan community that was hosting him. McCarrick moved to the friary shortly after he was accused in 2018 of sexually abusing minors, seminarians, and young priests. ...

Vatican City, Jan 6, 2020 / 04:15 am (CNA).- On the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, Pope Francis said worship of Christ reveals the true meaning of our journey of life, as it did for the magi in the Gospel. “When we do not worship God, we end up worshiping ourselves,” Pope Francis said Jan. 6 in St. Peter’s Basilica. “Worship means concentrating on what is essential,” he said. “In worship, we learn to reject what should not be worshiped: the god of money, the god of consumerism, the god of pleasure, the god of success, the god of self. Worship means bending low before the Most High and to discover in his presence that life’s greatness does not consist in having, but in loving.” In his homily for the Epiphany of the Lord, Pope Francis reflected on the magi, or wise men, who bearing g...

Vatican City, Jan 5, 2020 / 04:41 am (CNA).- The Gospel is more than a nice story – it is the concrete revelation of God’s plan for the world and calls people to holiness, Pope Francis said Sunday. The first chapter of the Gospel of John “tells us that the Gospel of Christ is not a fairy tale, a myth, an edifying story, no, the Gospel of Christ is the full revelation of the God’s plan, God’s plan for man and the world,” the pope said Jan. 5, in his address before the Angelus. In Italy, the feast of Epiphany is not transfered to Sunday, as it is in the United States, so Pope Francis’ reflection was on the first chapter of St. John, which begins: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This message of this Gospel is both “simple and grandiose,” he sa...

Buffalo, N.Y., Jan 3, 2020 / 06:01 pm (CNA).- A lawsuit against the Diocese of Buffalo and retired Bishop Donald Trautman claim they covered up a New York priest’s sex abuse of a 10-year-old boy in the mid-1980s, though the bishop has previously denied accusations he has ever covered up abuse. Trautman, now 83, retired as Bishop of Erie in 2012. He served in various roles in the Buffalo diocese under Bishop Edward Head, including chancellor and vicar general. He was ordained an auxiliary bishop for the diocese in 1985. He had been Bishop of Erie since 1990. Trautman told the Erie Times-News Jan. 2 that he had not been served with the lawsuit. As regards the alleged abuser, Fr. Gerard A. Smyczynski, the former bishop said, “I don’t recall the case at all,” adding, “I don’t recall the name.”...