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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.”...

AMMAN, Jordan — Iraqis fear their country, already weary from years of war, may be dragged into a conflict between the United States and Iran, following the U.S.-targeted killing in Baghdad of Iran’s top general, Qassem Soleimani. “We prayed during the days of Christmas for peace on earth, and the timing of this revenge from America creates in us a big anxiety about what will happen,” Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Yousif Thomas Mirkis of Kirkuk, Iraq, told Catholic News Service by phone. “This can also divide the population. Some are against. Some are for,” Mirkis explained, but warned that the assassination of Soleimani, known as the architect of Tehran’s proxy wars in the Middle East, could spark further sectarian divisions in Iraq between Sunni Muslims and Shiites. Many of the recent dem...

Sacramento, Calif., Jan 2, 2020 / 10:00 am (CNA).- A three-year window opened in California Wednesday, allowing lawsuits over childhood sexual abuse that would normally be impeded by the state’s statute of limitations. The window was created when California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed AB 218 into law in October. In addition to the window, the bill also permanently adjusted the state’s statute of limitations for civil suits regarding childhood sexual abuse. Previously, a person had until the age of 26, or three years after discovering damages from sexual abuse, to file a claim. The state now allows plaintiffs to file lawsuits until the age of 40, or five years after discovering damage. The California Catholic Conference said in a statement released at the bill’s signing that the state’s bi...

Vatican City, Jan 1, 2020 / 06:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis apologized Wednesday for losing his patience with a woman who grabbed his arm in St. Peter’s Square on New Year’s Eve. “Many times we lose our patience; me too. I apologize for yesterday’s bad example,” Pope Francis said in a departure from his prepared remarks for the Angelus prayer Jan. 1. While greeting the crowd in front of the Vatican nativity scene Dec. 31, a woman yanked the pope’s arm. Visibly upset, Pope Francis slapped her hand and walked away frustrated. After his impromptu apology, the pope said that contemplating the nativity scene helps one to see with the eyes of faith a vision of “the renewed world, freed from the dominion of evil and placed under the royal lordship of Christ, the Child who lies in the manger.”...

The new measures will be implemented starting from February 1, 2020. Activities, rallies, programs of religious communities must have the approval of the Religious Affairs Office.  Religious organizations must “spread the principles and policies of the Chinese Communist Party” by educating “religious staff and religious citizens to support the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party”. Beijing (AsiaNews) – As of February 1, 2020, new administrative measures will be put in place for Chinese religious groups.  According to a communication published by Xinhua, published yesterday, they complete the “Regulations on religious affairs” revised two years ago and implemented on February 1, 2018. The text of the “Administrative measure...

HONG KONG — A secretive Chinese court sentenced one of the country’s best-known Christian voices and founder of one of its largest underground churches to nine years in prison for subversion of state power and illegal business operations, according to a government statement released on Monday. Wang Yi, the pastor who founded Early Rain Covenant Church, was detained last December with more than 100 members of his congregation as part of a crackdown on churches, mosques and temples not registered with the state. While most of Mr. Wang’s parishioners, including his wife, Jiang Rong, were eventually released, Mr. Wang never re-emerged from detention. As part of his sentence, he will also be stripped of his political rights for three years and have 50,000 renminbi, or almost $7,200, of his asse...