David Gibson of Commonweal alerts readers to a two-hour special airing on the History Channel tonight, giving a behind-the-scenes look at life in the Vatican and some rare footage of Pope Benedict at home and at work: The show provides an overview of the history of the Vatican, and focuses on everyday life in the … Read more
Several weeks ago, the Vatican announced that it would not grant the necessary approval for Lesley-Anne Knight’s second, four-year term as secretary general of Caritas International, a global network of 165 Catholic agencies working primarily in the Third World on development and health-care issues. Predictably, the Vatican black ball was deplored by some leaders of … Read more
Following up on yesterday’s post about Catholic opinion on homosexuality: A Vatican representative to the UN Human Rights council has said that people who oppose gay marriage sometimes have their rights violated because of those beliefs: “People are being attacked for taking positions that do not support sexual behavior between people of the same sex,” … Read more
Micro cap NeoStem, Inc (NBS) has been working in the area of adult stem cells, making notable discoveries and picking up acquisitions along the way. Its business model may have them in the red as of today, but there’s something about the company that has attracted the Vatican’s attention. And money. The Vatican has placed … Read more
Following the Bart Stupak betrayal, several pundits declared the end of the pro-life Democrat. For months, Congressman Stupak and a small group of Catholic House members had held out against Obamacare, insisting it be stripped of funding for abortion. But when the bill returned from the Senate with abortion funding intact, Stupak revealed himself to … Read more
Something quite remarkable happened recently: William Wakefield Cardinal Baum — emeritus archbishop of Washington, emeritus prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, emeritus major penitentiary of the Catholic Church — passed the late James Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore (who died in 1921) to become the longest-serving American cardinal in history. It’s an astonishing record that … Read more
Over at the National Catholic Reporter, John Allen says that too much has been made lately of letters sent by officials in the Vatican to various American and Irish bishops, letters that appear hesitant about immediately reporting sexual abuse allegations against priests. Allen says some people want to turn such letters into smoking guns, as … Read more
Are there aliens out there? Nothing is more likely to grab headlines than the latest speculation about extraterrestrial life. Here, a Vatican theologian speculates and organizes a conference; there, a scientist says he’s analyzed 500 planets and is convinced that the cosmos is a cold, empty and lifeless place. Still others insist the sheer size … Read more
Contraception is the elephant in the living room of contemporary Catholicism: Everybody knows it’s there, but few people care to acknowledge the fact. Meanwhile, the accumulating pastoral damage that results from this state of collective denial is painfully real. Partly it arises from the circumstance that even churchgoing Catholics today live in a state of … Read more
You might have seen the New York Times article yesterday that made a serious claim about the Vatican’s response to the abuse scandal in Ireland — namely, according to its original title, that it “warned bishops not to report child abuse.” That incendiary title seems to have been changed today, but the charge is largely … Read more
The miracle of a French nun’s recovery from Parkinsons through the intercession of Pope John Paul II has been confirmed by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Now it must be approved by a commission of bishops and cardinals before a date is set for beatification. But Catherine Pepinster at the Guardian wonders … Read more
The Discovery Channel will be debuting a reality series this spring that explores and recreates past cases of exorcism. Here’s the twist: They’ve gotten the cooperation of the Vatican to do so. The Exorcist Files will recreate stories of real-life hauntings and demonic possession, based on cases investigated by the Catholic Church. The project includes … Read more
The Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues (PNCI), a pro-life outreach to members of democratically-elected legislatures, reports that Lord Nicholas Windsor has described abortion as “the single most grievous moral deficit in contemporary life.” The great-grandson of King George V penned the essay “Caesar’s Thumb: Europeans should not forget their most pressing moral issue: abortion” in … Read more
The New York Times reported yesterday on Pope Benedict’s Christmas message to Vatican hierarchy in Rome where he spoke about the clergy sexual abuse crisis: Pope Benedict XVI said on Monday that the continuing sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church had reached a “degree we could not have imagined” this year, and that … Read more
It appears the jury is still out as to whether the Church has taken — or will take — a stand on genetically modified (GM) crops. At first it seemed the Vatican was for it. According to The Independent, a leaked document from a group of 40 scientists who are linked to the Pontifical Academy … Read more
When a parish is closed, what happens to the art? Lou McClung, an artist and jack-of-many-trades near Cleveland, Ohio, wondered just that and decided to do something unusual: open a museum for rescued statues. A local paper, the Canton Rep, carried the story. McClung, who owns Lusso Studio, recently bought a decommissioned church to show … Read more
The oldest Catholic University in the world — Belgium’s Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, founded in 1425 by Pope Martin V — is commencing an internal debate over whether the institution should drop “Catholic” from its name: “It’s time for a different orientation,” says Leuven Rector Mark Waer. After the outbreak of the pedophilia scandal in the … Read more
As I write, there is a Catholic Press Conference being held at the Vatican, sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. Three representatives were invited from each country, and one of them was Greg Erlandson, president of Our Sunday Visitor. Erlandson is an astute and experienced observer of Catholic media, and his comments to … Read more
Pope Benedict was in Palermo, Sicily, yesterday, encouraging the locals to resist the evils of the Mafia: “The temptation toward discouragement, to resignation, comes to those who are weak in faith, to those who confuse evil with good, to those who think that, faced with often profound evil, there is nothing to do,” Benedict told … Read more
In Ross Douthat’s Sunday New York Times column, he explains why — despite the insistence that the Church today is irrelevant for failing to keep up with the times — hundreds of thousands of Catholics came out for the UK papal visit: [I]n turning out for their beleaguered pope, Britain’s Catholics acknowledged something essential about … Read more