Global Church News

With release of religious freedom report, global watchdog gets funding renewal

Oct 21, 2015

President Barack Obama on Friday signed a bill reauthorizing the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, ending a period of speculation about the future of the religious freedom watchdog.
Denver archbishop: Would German bishops side with Henry VIII or Thomas More?

Oct 21, 2015

In his latest column Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver asked this question and pointed to similarities between Cardinal Kasper’s push for allowing remarried Catholics to receive communion and English bishops granting Henry VIII’s “annulment.”
Strengthen marriage with truth and mercy, Venezuela's Cardinal Urosa tells synod

Oct 21, 2015

Both truth and mercy can be found in consistent Catholic teaching on marriage, Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino of Caracas told the Synod of Bishops on Thursday.
That notorious 2014 synod report? We got it an hour after the media did, cardinal says

Oct 21, 2015

Cardinal Wilfrid Napier says the highly controversial midterm report from last year's synod gave weight to issues discussed by only “two or three” people, and was unseen by most synod fathers until after it hit mainstream media.
A Pakistani family converted to Christianity is hounded, victim of death threats

Oct 20, 2015

Israeli authorities have begun erecting a barrier between two East Jerusalem neighbourhoods.
Christians face charges in riots triggered by church attacks

Oct 20, 2015

A Pakistani anti-terrorism court has ordered 88 Christians to appear before it for their alleged roles in violent riots that followed two church bombings in Lahore.
Archbishop Cupich tells journalists he sees transformation in Synod hall

Oct 20, 2015

The archbishop of Chicago, Blase Joseph Cupich, sat down with journalists Friday and responded to their vast array of questionsn in a side room of the Holy See Press Office.
For German bishops mercy comes at a price, critics charge

Oct 20, 2015

As controversy continues to swirl around proposals by the German bishops at the Synod on the Family, the German bishops themselves have faced heightened criticism in recent years.
Drought causes 450-year-old Mexican church to emerge from reservoir

Oct 20, 2015

The ruins of a 16th century church have emerged from the waters of a reservoir in Mexico.
Four held in Turkey over Ankara attack, bomber identified

Oct 20, 2015

Turkish prosecutors said Monday, October 20, they had remanded four people in custody over a deadly Ankara attack, as the identity of one of the two suicide bombers involved was revealed.