Category Archives: Catholicism

Pope Leo calls for leaders to reject polarisation as he begins Spanish tour

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Pontiff to make marginalised a focus of first papal visit since 2011 including meeting with migrants in the Canaries

Pope Leo has urged political leaders to seek unity, rather than divide their populations for political gain, and said they must fight for peace, in the opening speech of his tour in Spain.

The pope has made the marginalised a focus of his visit – his first tour of an EU country, apart from Italy – including meeting homeless people in Madrid and migrants in the Canary Islands. The pope, who has clashed with the US president, Donald Trump, over his immigration policies and war with Iran, said his visit was aimed at setting an example of respecting “every human being”.

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Louisiana church remembers abuse victims after reversal over prayers for convicted priest

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St Anthony of Padua asks for prayers for survivors after removing Anthony Odiong’s name from list of intentions

A Louisiana Catholic church that solicited prayers for a former pastor recently sentenced to life imprisonment for criminal clerical sexual assault, then backed off having offended his victims, is asking its community to pray for survivors of clergy abuse.

The shift took place in an updated 7 June parochial bulletin published by St Anthony of Padua church in the New Orleans suburb of Luling, Louisiana, where priest Anthony Odiong was pastor from 2015 to late 2023.

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Divine intervention: why Pope Leo visit could be a godsend for Pedro Sánchez

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Pontiff’s resolve to highlight plight of migrants has aligned him with Spanish PM, whose inner circle and party are mired in corruption allegations

While Pope Leo XIV isn’t due to touch down in Madrid until 10.30am on Saturday, his presence in the Spanish capital is already verging on the ubiquitous.

The smiling, avuncular face of the first US pontiff greets visitors from posters, from the sides of buses, from commemorative travel cards and even from the digital screens on the metro system, where it flickers up between adverts for sun cream and banking deals.

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Vatican stresses need for peace as Rubio meets pope amid strained relations

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US secretary of state speaks with Leo and officials after tensions following attacks by Trump over Iran war

The Vatican has said it raised the “need to work tirelessly in favour of peace” in talks with the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who is in Rome on a trip widely regarded as an effort to ease tensions after Donald Trump’s repeated criticisms of Pope Leo.

Amid unprecedented strain on relations between the Holy See and Washington, Rubio was received by the pope on Thursday at the Apostolic Palace, before holding a series of meetings with Vatican officials

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Pope Leo rejects claim he supports nuclear weapons after Trump tirade

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Pontiff responds after US president accuses him of ‘endangering a lot of Catholics’ with stance on Iran war

Pope Leo has said he has never supported nuclear weapons and that those who criticise him need to speak the truth, in response to Donald Trump’s latest tirade accusing him of “endangering a lot of Catholics” with his stance on the Iran war.

Speaking to journalists on Tuesday night after leaving the papal retreat in Castel Gandolfo, near Rome, the first US-born pontiff said: “The mission of the church is to preach the gospel, to preach peace.”

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Trump accuses pope of ‘endangering a lot of Catholics’ with Iran stance

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US president directs fresh criticism at pontiff days before secretary of state Marco Rubio’s visit to Vatican

Donald Trump has issued another verbal attack against Pope Leo, accusing the pontiff of “endangering a lot of Catholics” because “he thinks it’s fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon”.

The remarks come two days before Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, meets Leo at the Vatican in an effort to ease the tensions sparked by Trump’s previous broadside against the Chicago-born pontiff over his condemnation of the US-Israeli war on Iran.

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Marco Rubio to meet pope this week after Trump’s broadside against Leo

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US secretary of state’s two-day visit reportedly intended to thaw Washington’s frosty relations with Vatican and Italy

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, will meet Pope Leo on Thursday, weeks after Donald Trump’s unprecedented broadside against the pontiff.

Rubio will meet the first US-born pope privately in the Vatican’s apostolic palace at 11.30am (10.30 GMT), the Holy See’s press office confirmed on Monday after media reports on Sunday.

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Marco Rubio to visit Rome, reportedly to ‘thaw’ US relations with Pope and Meloni

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US secretary of state will be in Italian capital on Thursday and Friday, the one-year anniversary of Pope Leo’s papacy

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, is to travel to Rome this week for a visit reportedly aimed at thawing frosty relations with the Italian government and the Vatican.

Rubio is scheduled to be in the Italian capital on Thursday and Friday, which will also mark the one-year anniversary of the papacy of Pope Leo, the first US-born pontiff.

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Pope appoints former undocumented immigrant as bishop of West Virginia

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Leo, who has criticized Trump’s hardline immigration policy, selected Evelio Menjivar-Ayala as state’s new bishop

Pope Leo XIV has appointed a man who had once entered the United States as an undocumented immigrant, hidden in the trunk of a car, as the new bishop of West Virginia.

The pope approved the resignation of Bishop Mark E Brennan of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia, and selected Bishop Evelio Menjivar-Ayala, 55, of Washington to take his place, reported OSV News.

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Republican senator criticizes Trump’s ‘holy war’ with Pope Leo

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Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, a long supporter of Trump, says president’s feud with the pope is a ‘distraction’

A Republican lawmaker has condemned what he refers to as Donald Trump’s “holy war” against Pope Leo XIV.

Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, a long supporter of Trump and the ultraconservative Maga movement, condemned the president’s attacks on the pope during a Fox News interview on Saturday.

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Pope Leo visits Algeria in sign of Africa’s growing importance to Catholic church

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Pontiff makes first papal visit to country as he starts 11-day tour that will also include stops in Cameroon and Angola

Pope Leo XIV has arrived in Algeria for the first papal visit to the country, calling for peace on the opening stop of a tour of Africa that signals the continent’s growing importance to the Catholic church.

The 11-day trip, which will include stops in Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea, is the longest by Pope Leo since being elected to the papacy in May last year.

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I do not fear Trump, says Pope Leo after US president calls him ‘weak’

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Leader of Catholic church says he will continue to speak out against war after president’s extraordinary criticism

Pope Leo said he did not fear the Trump administration and would continue to speak out against war after Donald Trump delivered an extraordinary broadside against him in which he said he did not think the Chicago-born pontiff was “doing a very good job”, while also suggesting he should “stop catering to the radical left”.

In remarks that have been widely criticised, the US president used a lengthy social media post to sharply criticise Leo while he flew from Florida to Washington on Sunday night, then continued in comments on the tarmac to reporters. “I’m not a fan of Pope Leo,” he said.

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Nuns who broke back into their Austrian convent ‘are step closer to being able to stay’

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Plan for three nuns who escaped from care home last year to go to Rome thought to be positive sign of Vatican’s decision

Three nuns who escaped from a care home to return to their convent in a castle close to Salzburg where they had spent most of their lives are a step closer to being able to stay there, sources close to them say.

Sisters Bernadette, Regina and Rita, who are in their early to late eighties, broke into their convent home in Elsbethen last September with the help of former pupils of the Catholic school at which they had taught and other supporters. Their case became a cause célèbre, attracting attention from around the world.

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Pope Leo heads to Monaco 488 years after the last papal visit

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Decision to choose small, wealthy – but very Catholic – state for first European trip has baffled some Vatican observers

Pope Leo will travel to Monaco, the semi-enclave famous for casinos and superyachts, on Saturday on his first European trip since being elected pontiff, causing bemusement among some Vatican observers, not least because it comes 488 years after the last papal visit.

Leo will travel from the Vatican by helicopter for the one-day trip, and will be greeted at Monaco’s heliport by Prince Albert and his wife, Princess Charlene, before being taken to the palace, which has been the residence of the Grimaldi dynasty since the 13th century. It is the first time a pontiff has visited Monaco since Pope Paul III in 1538.

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Spain to formally pardon 53 women incarcerated by Franco regime

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Thousands of girls were locked up by Board for the Protection of Women for ‘rehabilitation’

Spain is to formally pardon a group of 53 women who are among thousands who were incarcerated by the Franco regime on the grounds that they were supposedly “fallen or in danger of falling”.

The women were locked up as adolescents by the Board for the Protection of Women, a collection of institutions run by religious orders. The board, which had echoes of Ireland’s notorious Magdalene laundries, was overseen by Carmen Polo, the wife of the dictator Gen Francisco Franco.

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A binge and a prayer: Italian monks told to avoid Netflix and social media

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Prior of hermitage says digital technologies are designed to be addictive and present ‘challenge for monastic life’

The prior of a hermitage in Tuscany has urged monks living in the secluded retreat to avoid the use of social media and streaming services, arguing that their rooms are sacred places for prayer and “not for Netflix or other platforms”.

Father Matteo Ferrari, the prior general of the Camaldolese congregation and of the Camaldoli monastery and hermitage in Arezzo, Tuscany, said such digital technologies were “specifically designed to create addiction” and “should absolutely be avoided”.

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Pope Leo urges Lebanese leaders to make peace highest priority

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Pontiff tells politicians and religious heads they must persevere with peace efforts despite facing ‘highly complex, conflictual’ situation

Pope Leo has urged political leaders in Lebanon to make peace their highest priority in a forceful appeal as he is visiting the country, which remains a target of Israeli airstrikes, on the second leg of his first overseas trip as Catholic leader.

Leo, the first US pope, arrived in Beirut on Sunday from a four-day visit to Turkey where he said that humanity’s future was at risk because of the world’s unusual number of bloody conflicts, and condemned violence in the name of religion.

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Rebel nuns who busted out of Austrian care home win reprieve – if they stay off social media

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Trio given leave to stay in their abandoned convent near Salzburg until further notice, church officials say

Three octogenarian nuns who gained a global following after breaking out of their care home and moving back to their abandoned convent near Salzburg have been given leave to stay in the nunnery “until further notice” – on condition they stay off social media, church officials have said.

The rebel sisters – Bernadette, 88, Regina, 86, and Rita, 82, all former teachers at the school adjacent to their convent – broke back into their old home of Goldenstein Castle in Elsbethen in September in defiance of their spiritual superiors.

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Alabama priest leaves clergy after woman alleges ‘private companionship’ beginning when she was 17

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Robert Sullivan’s self-imposed removal comes after accusations he provided financial support in exchange for arrangement which included sex

A longtime Roman Catholic priest in Alabama has voluntarily left the clergy after a woman alleged to his superiors that he provided her financial support in exchange for “private companionship” including sex beginning when she was 17.

Robert Sullivan’s self-imposed removal from the priesthood – known as laicization – was announced Wednesday, the day before the US holiday of Thanksgiving, in a public statement from Birmingham, Alabama, by Bishop Steven Raica.

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Pope Leo condemns US’s ‘extremely disrespectful’ treatment of immigrants

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Pontiff backs statement by US bishops condemning raids and mass deportations under Trump administration

Pope Leo has reiterated his disapproval of Donald Trump’s immigration policies, saying foreigners in the US are being treated in an “extremely disrespectful way”.

Leo, the first US pontiff in the history of the Catholic church, made the remarks in response to questions about a statement adopted last week during a special assembly of US bishops that criticised the Trump administration’s mass deportations and lamented the fear and anxiety caused by immigration raids.

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