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Pope Francis on Friday issued his second change to Vatican City law in two days. In a newly issued motu proprio, the pope amended Vatican City state law, to allow cardinals and bishops to stand trial before the city state’s civilian-led courts, with his prior consent.  The change might set the stage for a dramatic conclusion to the roiling financial scandals at the Secretariat of State. Members of the Vatican City State’s national police force. Credit: Gaspard Miltiade/wikimedia. CC BY SA 4.0 The change to the law was approved by Francis on April 30, the same day it was published, and the day after the pope issued a raft of other financial laws for the curia and Vatican City, apparently in direct response to the still-unfolding series of financial scandals surrounding the Vatican’s Se...

Pope Francis has issued a new Vatican law that aims to combat corruption by senior officials in the curia and in the city state, and that bars investments in companies or businesses “contrary to the social doctrine of the Church.”  The new law also aims to end customary cash gifts exchanged among Church officials and those with whom they work, by prohibiting officials from receiving nearly any gift of cash. Such gifts came under heavy criticism in the wake of the Theodore McCarrick scandal. Pope Francis. Credit: Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk Share The law comes days after the Vatican faced criticism for past investments in pharmaceutical companies which produce abortifacient drugs, and ahead of a new report on the Vatican from international anti-money laundering watchdogs. The pope publis...

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis responded Wednesday to reports of poor governance, financial mismanagement and moral failings in the Ecuadorian diocese of Riobamba by not only accepting the resignation of the retiring bishop but that of his heir apparent as well. Francis on Wednesday accepted the resignations of Bishop Julio Parrilla Diaz, who turned 75 last month, and his deputy, Monsignor Gerardo Miguel Nieves Loja, 53. Nieves had been named “coadjutor bishop” for Riobamba last year and was due to be consecrated bishop in February, to take over when Parrilla retired at 75, the normal retirement age for bishops. But Nieves offered his resignation to Francis a week before the ceremony. Parrilla confirmed Nieves’ resignation in a Feb. 19 letter to his flock, reproduced by the Spanish-language Cath...

“When the two men shot the bishop-elect, one of them dropped down his phone and the bishop fell on it. It is this phone that the security used to find the people connected,” the source said. Among those arrested after the shooting are members of the clergy and “other prominent lay personalities in the Diocese of Rumbek,” the source disclosed, adding that 12 people were linked to the “physical evidence of the cell phone found where the bishop-elect was shot.” South Sudan, an east-central African country of 11 million people, gained independence from Sudan in 2011. The Catholic Church is the largest Christian body in the country, which borders Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic. The arrests follow a directive from South Suda...

After his condition took a turn for the worse, he wrote to Pope Francis asking to move forward his ordination date. Fr. Livinius had first entered religious life with the Order of the Mother of God in Nigeria ten years ago and had made his final vows in September. The pope’s reply came on March 31 that the seminarian could be ordained the following day, Holy Thursday, according to Vatican News. Bishop Daniele Libanori, an auxiliary bishop of Rome, ordained Fr. Livinius on April 1 at the Medica Group Casilino Hospital. “As a priest, you will be joined with Jesus to make your body an offering pleasing to God. Our priesthood, indeed, reaches its peak when together with the bread and wine, we know how to offer all of ourselves, the things the Lord has given us, and our very lives,” Bishop Liba...

To thank her neighbors for raising her, she opened a small school, where she taught children the Psalms, which she had learned by heart, and instructed them in the Catholic faith. She died in 1320, at the age of 33, and was buried inside the church, where her tomb quickly became associated with miracles. Pope Paul V declared her Blessed by equivalent beatification in 1609. Candidates for equipollent canonization must meet three criteria. They must be the subject of a long-standing cult. They should have a solid and enduring reputation for virtue. They must also have a long association with miracles. While there were few equipollent canonizations in the 20th century, Benedict XVI declared Hildegard of Bingen a saint via the procedure in 2012. Pope Francis has used the process relatively fre...

In his latest challenge to Rome’s authority, the president of the German bishops conference is publicly rejecting recent Vatican instructions regarding this issue. In his latest salvo to challenge Rome, the president of Germany’s bishops’ conference has said that any German Protestant who wishes to receive Holy Communion in a Catholic Church on Kirchentag — a day of unity in May for German Protestants — may do so.  “Anyone who is Protestant and attends Communion can receive Communion,” Bishop Georg Bätzing told an online discussion in Frankfurt on Thursday about the May 15 event that usually brings thousands of Christians to the city for ecclesial events.  “We want to take steps towards unity,” he said, adding that “whoever believes in conscience what is celebrated in the other d...

Cardinal Blase Cupich has said he will turn over the investigation of a popular local priest accused of sexual abuse to another diocese if efforts to “intimidate” members of the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Independent Review Board do not come to an end.  “Once again this week, there was an organized effort through the St. Sabina website to employ inappropriate and intimidating tactics to put pressure on the Archdiocese of Chicago and the Independent Review Board (IRB) as the case of Father Michael Pfleger Is being processed,” Cupich wrote in an April 13 letter to the parish administrator of Chicago’s St. Sabina Parish. Cardinal Blase Cupich saying Mass at St. John Brebeuf Church Niles, Ill. Credit: Charles Edgar Miller/CC BY-SA 2.0 “Tactics of intimidation that put pressure on individual...

A jury on April 20 determined that Chauvin was guilty on three charges of unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. Chauvin’s trial began on March 8. On May 25, 2020, Chauvin restrained Floyd, a 46 year-old Black man, during an arrest for using a counterfeit $20 bill. Video footage from bystanders showed Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes as Floyd audibly gasped, moaned, and complained he could not breathe. Towards the end of the video, Floyd appeared unconscious. After an ambulance arrived and transported Floyd to a nearby hospital, he was pronounced dead. Chauvin was arrested on May 29 and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter. Prosecutors later upgraded the charges to second-degree unintentional murde...

The religious freedom report also called attention to the use of surveillance based on artificial intelligence and facial recognition technologies by authoritarian governments that violate religious freedom, particularly in China, where the state has employed such technologies in its mass internment of mostly Muslim, ethnic Uyghurs. The report documented an increase of “sexual violence used as a weapon against religious minorities — crimes against women and girls who are abducted, raped and forced to convert.” It included a case study of Pakistan, where young Christian and Hindu girls have been abducted by Muslim men. Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) found that persecution, hate crimes, and religiously motivated violence were worst in 26 countries, including India, Myanmar, Iran, Mala...

But in recent months, violations of the cease-fire agreement have grown in frequency, as Russia builds up troops at its border with Ukraine. “We are very perplexed and worried about the increase in the Russian military presence at the threshold of our country,” Shevchuk said. “It seems that this is the most powerful militarization that has ever happened since the beginning of the war. This fact cannot go unnoticed by the international community.” Pope Francis said that he was closely following the situation in eastern Ukraine at his Sunday Regina Coeli prayer on April 18. Leading Catholics in praying a “Hail Mary” for the country and its people, Francis appealed for a decrease in tensions, and for an increase in mutual trust, reconciliation, and peace. “May we also keep at heart the grave ...