Category Archives: Christianity

Shia LaBeouf mulls plan to become deacon after Catholic confirmation

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Actor, 37, received sacrament on New Year’s Eve and Capuchin friar Alexander Rodriguez says he wishes to be a deacon ‘in the future’

The Hollywood actor Shia LaBeouf is seeking to becoming a Catholic deacon after receiving the sacrament of confirmation on New Year’s Eve.

A California-based chapter of the Capuchin Franciscans, a Catholic religious order, shared the news in a Facebook post on Tuesday alongside photos of the 37-year-old actor smiling next to several of the organization’s members.

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Vatican: same-sex couples ruling is not endorsement of homosexuality

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New practice does not endorse homosexuality but is not heretical, Catholic church says amid opposition from some bishops

The Vatican has stressed that allowing priests to bless same-sex couples is not an endorsement of homosexuality, but neither is it blasphemous, after some Catholic bishops reacted negatively to the measure announced last month.

Pope Francis approved a ruling in December allowing priests to bless unmarried and same-sex couples so long as the blessing was performed without any type of ritualisation and did not give the impression of the church’s approval of the relationship.

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Italian priest struck off for calling Francis an ‘anti-pope usurper’

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Priest in Tuscany compares Francis unfavourably with Pope Benedict in New Year’s Eve address shared online

An Italian priest has been struck off after calling Pope Francis an “anti-pope usurper” in his New Year’s Eve homily.

Father Ramon Guidetti’s speech to the congregation at St Ranieri church in Guasticce, a hamlet in the Tuscan province of Livorno, was a tribute marking the first anniversary of the death of Francis’s predecessor Benedict XVI.

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‘Sorrow and silence’ in Bethlehem as Christmas festivities are cancelled

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The streets are usually thronged with tourists and pilgrims but this year the town is mourning the dead of the Gaza war

In the days leading up to Christmas, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, said that one particular Bible verse kept running through his mind.

“When Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem she gave birth to the Lord in a manger because ‘there was no room for them’,” he told about 5,000 people during the Christmas Eve midnight mass service in the Palestinian town where Christians believe Jesus was born.

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Indian Christians find comfort and joy in church communities across Britain

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And churches used to dwindling congregations are delighted to see numbers boosted by worshippers of all ages

Father Happy Jacob has a reason to be cheerful. When he started St Thomas’s Indian Orthodox Church in Liverpool in 2002, his congregation numbered about 60 families, and stayed at that level for almost two decades.

Then, a few years ago, things began to change. “We have seen a massive increase in families coming to the church,” says Jacob, 48. At his last count, there were 110 families, with worshippers including NHS workers, international students and about 100 school-age children.

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House speaker’s Christian nationalist ties spark first amendment fears

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Mike Johnson’s links to key leaders prompts alarm he might try to erode elements of constitution on separation of church and state

Links between the new Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, and key Christian nationalist leaders have sparked fears the devout Louisiana congressman might seek to erode elements of the first amendment, which protects key US civil liberties including freedom of religion and the separation of church and state.

Long before th eevangelical conservative Johnson became speaker, he had forged close ties with Christian nationalists like David Barton, whose writings claiming the country’s founders intended to create a Christian nation have been widely debunked by religion scholars.

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Cardinal condemns ‘cold–blooded’ killing of two women in Gaza church

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Vincent Nichols says shooting of mother and daughter did nothing to further Israel’s right to defend itself

The shooting of a mother and daughter allegedly by an Israeli military sniper in a church compound in Gaza City was a “cold–blooded killing”, the most senior Catholic cleric in England has said.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster, said the shooting did “nothing to further Israel’s right to defend itself”.

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US archbishop secretly backed bid to free priest convicted of raping child

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‘I join you in the prayer to guide those regarding your appeal,’ Gregory Aymond of New Orleans wrote to priest given life sentence

As he reached the end of his 41-year life, Kevin Portier had endured child rape at the hands of a southern Louisiana Catholic priest for whom he had served as an altar boy; a highly publicized trial that sent the clergyman to prison for the rest of his days; and the trauma associated with those experiences.

But one of Portier’s harshest ordeals came within his final two years alive. Representatives of the church that he had been raised to believe in approached him at his home, at his job and at a relative’s funeral to ask him to lend his support to efforts to secure an early release for his rapist, Robert Melancon.

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Pope Francis reveals he will not be buried in Vatican

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Pontiff tells Mexican broadcaster he will break with tradition and simplify papal funeral

Pope Francis has said he has “already prepared” his tomb in a Rome basilica in a further sign of the pontiff’s quest to break from longstanding Vatican tradition.

Francis, who turns 87 on 17 December, told the Mexican broadcaster N+ that he would be laid to rest in the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in the Esquilino neighbourhood in Rome, where he goes to pray before and after trips overseas.

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‘The devil was in that building’: New Orleans church orphanages’ dark secrets

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Survivors of institutions run by Catholic diocese recall litany of sexual abuse as bankruptcy process keeps documents hidden

This is the final installment of a three-part series exploring how the archdiocese of New Orleans’s bankruptcy stands apart from other cases of its kind. The first installment ran on Wednesday 29 November 2023, and the second installment ran on Friday 1 December.

Call her Sheila.

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Pope revokes privileges of conservative US cardinal critical of church’s reform

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In second radical action in a month, pontiff hits back at retired prelate Raymond Burke, one of his most vocal critics

Pope Francis has decided to punish one of his highest-ranking critics, Cardinal Raymond Burke, by revoking his right to a subsidized Vatican apartment and salary in the second such radical action against a conservative American prelate this month, according to two people briefed on the measures.

Francis told a meeting of the heads of Vatican offices last week that he was moving against Burke because he was a source of “disunity” in the church, said one of the participants at the 20 November meeting. The participant spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to reveal the contents of the encounter.

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Australian Christian group fights claim it was linked to leader of Kenya starvation massacre doomsday cult

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Kenyan parliamentary committee report finds Paul Mackenzie, held responsible for more than 400 deaths, was ‘influenced’ by Australians Dave and Cherry McKay, which they vehemently deny

A Christian doomsday cult responsible for the deaths of more than 400 people from starvation and beatings in Kenya was influenced by an Australian religious group, a parliamentary committee report in the east African nation has found.

The report into the Shakahola massacre, tabled in the Kenyan Senate on 19 October, found that the accused leader of the group, Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, “was influenced by Dave Mackay and Sherry Mackay [Dave and Cherry McKay] from Australia who are founders of a cult movement known as the Voice in the Desert”.

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US Catholic priest who avoided charges marries teen he fled to Italy with

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Alexander Crow, 30, married 18-year-old high school graduate on Friday, according to license filed in Mobile county, Alabama

A Roman Catholic priest in Alabama who was investigated by law enforcement after fleeing to Europe with a recent high school graduate he met through his ministry legally married after he returned to the US with her, a document provided to the Guardian showed.

According to a marriage license filed in Mobile county, Alabama, Alexander Crow, 30, married the 18-year-old former McGill-Toolen Catholic high school student on Friday.

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Hundreds more US United Methodist congregations disaffiliate amid LGBTQ+ tensions

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Over 7,000 congregations have been approved to break away since 2019, when church strengthened bans on same-sex marriage

Another 250-plus United Methodist congregations have broken with the denomination in north Georgia amid a schism over theology and the role of LGBTQ+ people in the church.

The North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church voted Saturday to allow 261 congregations to break away, or disaffiliate, after theological tensions over bans on same-sex marriages and the ordination of clergy who are openly LGBTQ+.

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Pope Francis dismisses conservative Texas bishop and critic Joseph Strickland

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Rare move comes after years of criticism from Strickland, a strong supporter of former US president Donald Trump

Pope Francis has dismissed a bishop in Texas, Joseph Strickland, one of his fiercest critics among US Roman Catholic conservatives, the Vatican has said.

It is very rare for a bishop to be relieved of his duties outright. Usually bishops in trouble with the Vatican are asked to resign before submitting a resignation, which the pope accepts.

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Louisiana pastor charged with sexual abuse of teenage girl

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Milton Martin, 56, of First Pentecostal Church of Chalmette, accused of abuse of girl, now 28, who was member of congregation

Authorities in Louisiana have charged a Pentecostal pastor with sexually molesting a teenage girl who was a member of his church.

Milton O Martin III, 56, faces one charge each of felony carnal knowledge of a juvenile – colloquially referred to as statutory rape – and of indecent behavior with a minor, records obtained by the Guardian show.

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Australian Catholic church’s insurer launches court bid to cover smaller share of abuse compensation

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Scandal-plagued PwC would determine payout rates under scheme proposed by Catholic Church Insurance in effort to avoid insolvency

The Catholic church insurer wants to establish a scheme that would stave off its own insolvency by paying church bodies only a fraction of the money owed to abuse survivors at rates to be determined by the scandal-plagued consultancy PwC, documents show.

Catholic Church Insurance is facing significant financial turmoil due to the rising volume of abuse claims, estimating it has $381m in liabilities relating to professional standards payouts to various church entities, including dioceses and church-aligned charities.

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Justin Welby accused of ‘relegating’ plight of Palestinian Christians

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Anglicans in West Bank say they are ‘utterly perplexed’ by archbishop of Canterbury’s statements on Israel-Hamas war

Palestinian Christians have accused Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, of “relegating” their plight behind “British domestic political and ecumenical considerations” in his comments on the Israel-Hamas war.

An open letter from Anglican parishioners in the West Bank says they are “utterly perplexed” by Welby’s public statements.

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Pope accepts resignation of Polish bishop after gay orgy scandal in diocese

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Vatican did not say why Grzegorz Kaszak was resigning, but priest from his diocese faced criminal investigation

The pope has accepted the resignation of a Polish bishop whose diocese has been rocked by reports of a gay orgy involving a male sex worker in a priest’s apartment, as well as previous violent incidents involving his clergy.

The Vatican did not give a reason why Grzegorz Kaszak was resigning as head of the diocese of Sosnowiec, in south-western Poland. At 59, he is several years shy of the normal retirement age of 75.

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Outrage over Jerusalem video of ultra-Orthodox Jews spitting as Christians pass

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Intimidating behaviour beside procession of worshippers seen as another sign of victimisation and was condemned by Netanyahu

A video of ultra-Orthodox Jews spitting on the ground beside a procession of foreign Christian worshippers carrying a wooden cross in the holy city of Jerusalem has ignited intense outrage and a flurry of condemnation in the Holy Land.

The spitting incident, which the city’s minority Christian community lamented as the latest in an alarming surge of religiously motivated attacks, drew rare outrage on Tuesday from the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and other senior figures.

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