Tag: vatican

Pope Francis used his weekly audience Wednesday (Dec. 10) to challenge media reports of “clashes between factions” at the recent bishops’ synod on family issues.

Gearing up for round two of a blockbuster Synod on the Family, the Vatican has asked bishops around the world to survey their flocks on hot-button issues such as divorce, abortion and the place of LGBT Catholics.

Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput, a leading culture warrior in the U.S. hierarchy, says he was “very disturbed” by the debate over church teachings on gays and remarried Catholics at this month’s Vatican summit, saying it sent a confusing message and “confusion is of the devil.”

Catholic nuns in the U.S. have been thumbing their nose at Rome’s demands to toe the doctrinal line and they need to obey or face serious consequences, the Vatican’s enforcer of orthodoxy said in a surprisingly tough talk to women representing most American sisters.

VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican's new commission for the protection of minors, led by Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, is designed to show the pope’s personal commitment to confront the sex scandals that have shaken the church around the world.

(RNS) In his strongest personal remarks yet on the clergy sex abuse scandal, Pope Francis on Friday asked forgiveness "for the damage" that abusive priests have inflicted on children and pledged that the Catholic Church will not "take one step backward" in addressing the crisis.

VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Jesuits provide an all-encompassing personal and professional framework that the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio brought with him from Buenos Aires, and one that continues to shape almost everything he does as Pope Francis.