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Christ the King Seminary, which for 163 years trained men to become Catholic priests, will be shut down in May at the end of the current academic year, as the Buffalo Diocese slashes costs amid a clergy sex abuse scandal that’s led to a dramatic downturn in giving. The Rev. Kevin Creagh, seminary rector and president, announced the decision on campus this afternoon to faculty, staff and students, following votes of the board of trustees and members of the seminary corporation. Creagh cited diocesan financial constraints and “uncertainties surrounding future vocations” in explaining the closure. “This is very difficult for us. It’s a very sad and disappointing moment in our history. It’s the end of an era,” he said. Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger, chairman of the se...

Christian funerals have been banned in some areas of China as the communist government begins to enforce a set of repressive regulations on religious practices. In the eastern province of Zhejiang, the government has put in force a set of Regulations on Centralized Funeral Arrangement, which bans priests from attending funeral prayers outside a religious place. The government claims the new rules aim to “get rid of bad funeral customs and establish a scientific, civilized and economical way of funerals.” “Clerical personnel are not allowed to participate in funerals” at homes and “no more than 10 family members of the deceased are allowed to read scriptures or sing hymns in a low voice,” the rules state.  The new rules began to take effect recently, although enacted on...

Vatican City, Feb 2, 2020 / 06:20 am (CNA).- Pope Francis spoke Sunday about the need for Catholics to be active in going out to announce the faith of Jesus Christ to the world. “The world needs Christians who let themselves be moved, who never tire of walking the streets of life, to bring everyone the consoling word of Jesus,” he said Feb. 2 in his Angelus address. “Every baptized person has received the vocation to proclaim,” he added “– to proclaim something, to proclaim Jesus – the vocation to the evangelizing mission: to proclaim Jesus!” For the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, Pope Francis reflected on the day’s Gospel passage, which speaks of Joseph and Mary bringing the child Jesus to be consecrated in the temple, where they encountered the holy Simeon and Anna. These men and...

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...