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Vatican City, Feb 8, 2021 / 06:30 am MT (CNA).- Pope Francis told diplomats at the Vatican Monday that it is “painful” for him to see more countries move away from “their inalienable duty to protect human life” from conception to natural death. “The pandemic forced us to confront two unavoidable dimensions of human existence: sickness and death. In doing so, it reminded us of the value of life, of every individual human life and its dignity, at every moment of its earthly pilgrimage, from conception in the womb until its natural end,” Pope Francis said in his annual address to diplomats accredited to the Holy See on Feb. 8. “It is painful, however, to note that under the pretext of guaranteeing presumed subjective rights, a growing number of legal systems in our world seem to be movin...

Vatican City, Feb 7, 2021 / 06:14 am MT (CNA).- Pope Francis prayed Sunday for justice and national stability in Burma as tens of thousands protest the Feb. 1 military coup. “These days I am following with great concern the developments of the situation that has arisen in Myanmar,” the pope said Feb. 7, using the country’s official name. Burma is “a country that, since the time of my apostolic visit in 2017, I carry in my heart with much affection.” Francis held a moment of silent prayer for Burma during his Sunday Angelus address. He expressed “my spiritual closeness, my prayers, and my solidarity” with the people of that country. For seven weeks the Angelus was held via livestream only from inside the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace due to pandemic restrictions. But Sunday the pope returned t...

Vatican City, Feb 6, 2021 / 05:20 am MT (CNA).- Pope Francis Saturday appointed a Spanish priest and a French religious sister as under-secretaries of the Synod of Bishops. It is the first time a woman has held a position of this level within the general secretariat of the Synod of Bishops. Fr. Luis Marín de San Martín and Sr. Nathalie Becquart will replace Bishop Fabio Fabene, who was named secretary of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints in January. Working with and under secretary general Cardinal Mario Grech, Marín and Becquart will prepare the Vatican’s forthcoming synod on synodality, scheduled for October 2022.   In an interview with Vatican News, Cardinal Grech said in this position, Becquart will vote in future synods alongside other voting members, who are bishops,...

VATICAN CITY — On January 30, Pope Francis met with Cardinal Blase Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago, who was in Rome for a meeting of the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops. The Holy See Press Office did not release any information on the meeting other than that it took place, and much of the press speculated that the meeting was probably to discuss what happened 10 days before, when the cardinal publicly criticized the U.S. bishops’ official statement on the inauguration of President Joe Biden. But sources in Rome who spoke to CNA on background said that Cardinal Cupich met the pope not to speak of what happened in the recent past, but what may happen in the near future: Cardinal Blase Cupich replacing Cardinal Marc Ouellet as prefect of the Congregation for Bishops. According to one source,...

Rome Newsroom, Feb 3, 2021 / 05:00 am MT (CNA).- The Australian Federal Police said on Wednesday that it had found no evidence of criminal misconduct in its investigation into money transfers from the Vatican to Australia. Australian authorities have been investigating the suspicious payments, equivalent to about $7.4 million, for several months. The federal police (AFP) said in a statement on Feb. 3 that “no criminal misconduct has been identified to date.” “If the AFP receives additional information from Australian or international partners it will be reviewed accordingly,” it said. Local media reported last month that investigators had been unable to account for around $1.9 million in transfers from the Vatican to Australia, but that $5.4 million had been identified as being used for le...

Vatican City, Feb 2, 2021 / 06:00 am MT (CNA).- Pope Francis on Tuesday added the memorial of Sts. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus to the General Roman Calendar, giving the siblings the combined feast day of July 29. A decree from the Congregation for Divine Worship said on Feb. 2 that Pope Francis had included the three saints in the General Roman Calendar “considering the important evangelical witness they offered in welcoming the Lord Jesus into their home, in listening to him attentively, in believing that he is the resurrection and the life.” The General Roman Calendar is the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church, which denotes the dates of holy days and the feast days of saints commemorated annually. The memorial of St. Martha was already included on Jan. 29 in the General Roman Calen...

CNA Staff, Feb 1, 2021 / 06:30 am MT (CNA).- Australian prosecutors announced on Monday that they were dropping charges against individual journalists accused of breaching a gag order over the trial of Cardinal George Pell. Prosecutor Lisa De Ferrari told the Supreme Court of Victoria on Feb. 1 that the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had decided to drop the charges against the individuals after all 12 Australian media outlets accused of breaching the order agreed to plead guilty. The media companies also signaled that they would pay part of the DPP’s prosecution costs. “Each corporate respondent has indicated that it will plead guilty, in respect of each publication for which they are charged, to contempt by breaching the proceeding suppression order,” De Ferrari said, accordin...

Vatican City, Jan 31, 2021 / 06:30 am MT (CNA).- Pope Francis announced Sunday the establishment of an international day to honor grandparents and the elderly to take place each year in July. “The Holy Spirit … arouses thoughts and words of wisdom in the elderly today: their voice is precious because it sings the praises of God and guards the roots of peoples. They remind us that old age is a gift and that grandparents are the link between generations, to transmit to young people an experience of life and faith,” Pope Francis said in the library of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace Jan. 31. “Grandparents are often forgotten and we forget this wealth of preserving and passing on the roots. For this reason, I have decided to establish the World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly,” the pope sai...

Vatican City, Jan 30, 2021 / 08:00 am MT (CNA).- Pope Francis met with Cardinal Blase Cupich on Saturday, 10 days after the cardinal publicly criticized the U.S. bishops’ official statement on the inauguration of President Joe Biden. The private audience occurred in the Apostolic Palace on the morning of Jan. 30. Cardinal Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, has been in Rome for a meeting of the Vatican Congregation for Bishops. The Holy See Press Office did not release any further information on the meeting other than that it took place. On Jan. 20, the day of the U.S. presidential inauguration, Cupich took to Twitter to criticize a statement from Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the U.S. bishops’ conference. In his four-part Twitter thread Cupich said that “the U.S. Confe...

Washington D.C., Jan 29, 2021 / 10:32 am MT (CNA).- Although the national March for Life is closed to the public this year, dozens of young adults gathered for a pro-life prayer vigil in Washington, D.C. on Thursday night. While practicing social distancing and wearing masks, members of the group endured the January cold as they kept an all-night prayer vigil outside the U.S. Supreme Court building. Organizers of the vigil told CNA that despite the Jan. 29 March for Life being closed to the public, they still wanted to take action for life. As Thomas Hackett of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the co-founder of the Catholic worker organization Tradistae, had announced the vigil prior to the decision of the March for Life to be a virtual event, he decided to continue with his plans. Hackett told CN...

In his sweeping order ‘Protecting Women’s Health at Home and Abroad,’ President Biden stated his administration’s commitment to promoting women’s ‘reproductive health.’ WASHINGTON — Leading U.S. bishops decried President Joe Biden’s repeal of pro-life policies on Thursday. President Biden, a Catholic, issued a presidential memorandum on Thursday afternoon, repealing the Mexico City Policy. His act allows for the U.S. to again fund international pro-abortion groups through family-planning funding and global health assistance. The U.S. bishops’ conference (USCCB) warned that, under Biden’s order, the U.S. would be contributing to abortions and abortion advocacy in the developing world. “It is grievous that one of President Biden’s first official acts actively promotes the destruction of huma...

Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark has been working to mediate a settlement between the Archdiocese of Indianapolis and Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School in a dispute over an instruction to dismiss a teacher in a same-sex civil marriage, The Pillar has learned. The archdiocese and the school have been locked in a disagreement over a 2019 decree by Archbishop Charles Thompson, which said the school could no longer call itself Catholic. The archbishop’s decision came after controversy over the employment of a teacher in a same-sex civil marriage. Brebeuf Jesuit Prepatory School. The Pillar file photo. Senior Vatican officials close to both the Congregation for Catholic Education and in the Secretariat of State independently confirmed to The Pillar that Cardinal Tobin was asked last year to help...