Category Archives: Pope Francis

Coronavirus global report: Christmas curtailed as UK arrivals face tougher measures

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Pope addresses fewer than 200 people in St Peter’s; China and US take action against UK amid concerns about new variant; South Korea reports daily case record

The coronavirus pandemic cast a pall over Christmas celebrations worldwide, with the pope holding a reduced St Peter’s mass, and further restrictions imposed on arrivals from the UK and South Africa amid concerns about potentially more transmissible variants of the virus.

China said it would halt UK flight arrivals indefinitely, deciding to follow the example of dozens of countries that introduced bans this week following the emergence of a new mutation in the virus. There are currently eight weekly flights between mainland China and Britain, including two by British Airways.

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Pope says for first time that China’s Uighurs are ‘persecuted’

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Francis mentions plight of Muslim minority in China, alongside Rohingya and Yazidi, in new book

Pope Francis has for the first time called China’s Muslim Uighurs a “persecuted” people, something human rights activists have been urging him to do for years.

In the wide-ranging book Let Us Dream: the Path to a Better Future, he said: “I think often of persecuted peoples: the Rohingya, the poor Uighurs, the Yazidi” in a section where he also talks about persecuted Christians in Islamic countries.

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Pope says anti-maskers stuck in ‘their own little world of interests’

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Francis contrasts opposition to Covid measures with ‘healthy indignation’ over racism

Pope Francis has taken aim at protests against coronavirus restrictions, contrasting them with the “healthy indignation” seen in demonstrations against racism after the death of George Floyd.

“Some groups protested, refusing to keep their distance, marching against travel restrictions – as if measures that governments must impose for the good of their people constitute some kind of political assault on autonomy or personal freedom,” he said in a new book.

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Soul of the nation: how Joe Biden’s faith will shape his presidency

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President-elect of the US says his belief in equality is rooted in his ‘cultural Catholicism’

He carries a rosary in his pocket, one that belonged to his dead son, Beau. On election day last Tuesday, he went to mass, as he does every Sunday.

In his victory speech on Saturday night, he quoted from Ecclesiastes: “The Bible tells us that to everything there is a season – a time to build, a time to reap, a time to sow. And a time to heal. This is the time to heal in America.”

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Pope Francis backs same-sex civil unions

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Pontiff’s endorsement likely to further enrage his conservative opponents in Catholic church

Pope Francis has given his most explicit support to same-sex civil unions in a move that is likely to further enrage his conservative opponents in the Catholic church.

His comments came in an interview in a documentary film, Francesco, which premiered at the Rome film festival on Wednesday.

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Beatified millennial: Pope sets late tech whiz on path to sainthood

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Carlo Acutis helped spread Catholic teaching online before his death aged 15 in 2006

Pope Francis said the beatification of an Italian computer whiz-kid was a sign to young people that “true happiness comes from putting God first”.

Carlo Acutis, who is on a path to sainthood after being beatified in the Umbrian town of Assisi, helped spread Roman Catholic teaching online before his death from leukaemia aged 15 in 2006. He is the youngest contemporary person to be beatified.

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Mexico asks Pope Francis for apology for church’s role in Spanish conquest

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Mexico’s president says the Vatican should apologise for ‘reprehensible atrocities’ in colonisation 500 years ago

Mexico’s president has written to Pope Francis to ask for an apology for the Catholic church’s role in the oppression of indigenous people in the Spanish conquest 500 years ago.

The request was made in a two-page letter that also asked the Vatican to temporarily return several ancient indigenous manuscripts held in its library, ahead of next year’s 500-year anniversary of the Spanish conquest of Mexico.

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Vatican official accuses Trump administration of exploiting pope

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Pope Francis reportedly declined to meet Mike Pompeo during his visit this week, citing closeness of US presidential election

A top Vatican official has accused Donald Trump’s administration of exploiting Pope Francis in the final stages of the US presidential election campaign.

The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, spoke at a conference on religious freedom on Wednesday organised by the US embassy to the Holy See during his visit to Italy.

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Pope Francis: gossip is ‘plague worse than Covid’ – video

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Pope Francis strays from his prepared text to repeat his frequent complaint about gossiping within church communities and even within the Vatican bureaucracy. Francis did not give specifics during his weekly blessing, but went on at some length to say the devil is the 'biggest gossiper' who is seeking to divide the church with his lies

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Pope appoints six women to top roles on Vatican council in progressive step

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Former Labour minister Ruth Kelly is among the women who will oversee Vatican finances and address its cashflow problems

Pope Francis has appointed six women to oversee the Vatican’s finances including Ruth Kelly, the former Labour minister, in the most senior roles ever given to women within the Catholic church’s leadership.

The appointments mark the most significant step by Francis to fulfil his promise of placing women in top positions. Until now, the 15-member Council for the Economy was all male. By statute, the council must include eight bishops – who are always men – and seven laypeople.

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‘Deeply saddened’: Pope Francis on Hagia Sophia reverting to mosque – video

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The pope said he feels ‘deeply saddened’ by the decision of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to convert Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia from a museum back into a mosque. The Unesco-listed building was first constructed as a cathedral in the Christian Byzantine empire but was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453

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Pope Francis ‘very distressed’ over Hagia Sophia mosque move

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Pontiff says his ‘thoughts go to Istanbul’ after decision to convert Byzantine-era monument

Pope Francis has said he was “very distressed” over Turkey’s decision to convert the Byzantine-era monument Hagia Sophia back into a mosque.

“My thoughts go to Istanbul. I’m thinking about Hagia Sophia. I am very distressed,” the pontiff said in the Vatican’s first reaction to a decision that has drawn international criticism.

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Global report: China hails coronavirus response as world death toll tops 400,000

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Beijing denies cover-up or delay, while countries easing lockdowns face spike in cases

The number of confirmed deaths from coronavirus globally has topped 400,000, as the Chinese government released a report lauding its own response to the pandemic that emerged in the city of Wuhan six months ago.

As more countries prepared to continue easing their lockdowns from Monday, Singapore’s prime minister warned the city-state’s citizens that they were entering a tougher world of slowing demand and travel restrictions for the foreseeable future.

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Pope Francis decries ‘unjust sentences’ after cardinal George Pell acquitted

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Vatican praises Australian cardinal for having ‘waited for the truth to be ascertained’

Pope Francis has recalled the “persecution that Jesus suffered” and has prayed for those who suffer “unjust sentences” hours after Australia’s highest court acquitted cardinal George Pell of child sexual abuse.

The court in Canberra quashed convictions that Pell sexually assaulted two choirboys in the 1990s, allowing the 78-year-old former Vatican economy minister to walk free from jail, ending the most high-profile case of alleged historical sex abuse to rock the Roman Catholic church.

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Pope’s blessing in empty St Peter’s Square watched by 11m on TV

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Hour-long address came as Italy said 969 people had died from Covid-19 in 24 hours

More than 11 million people tuned in to watch Pope Francis deliver a blessing in an empty Saint Peter’s Square, television bosses have said, as the Italian prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, said the EU risked losing its purpose.

The pope’s blessing, Urbi et Orbi (To the city and the world)is usually reserved for Christmas Day and Easter Sunday, with thousands flocking to take part.

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Unsealing of Vatican archives will finally reveal truth about ‘Hitler’s pope’

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Historians can now pore over secret files from the papacy of Pius XII, who has long faced accusations of being a Nazi sympathiser

New light will be shed on one of the most controversial periods of Vatican history on Monday when the archives on Pope Pius XII – accused by critics of being a Nazi sympathiser – are unsealed.

A year after Pope Francis announced the move, saying “the church isn’t afraid of history”, the documents from Pius XII’s papacy, which began in 1939 on the brink of the second world war and ended in 1958, will be opened, initially to a small number of scholars.

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Bolsonaro attacks Pope Francis over pontiff’s plea to protect the Amazon

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  • Pope urged Catholics to ‘feel outrage’ over Amazon destruction
  • Bolsonaro: ‘What is Greenpeace? Nothing but rubbish’

Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonarohas lashed out at Pope Francis after the pontiff pleaded for the protection of the Amazon rainforest, and attacked the environmental group Greenpeace as “rubbish”.

“Pope Francis said yesterday the Amazon is his, the world’s, everyone’s,” said Bolsonaro, who has often railed against international criticism of his environmental policies as an attack on Brazilian sovereignty.

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Pope Francis decides against allowing married men to become priests

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Celibacy issue dividing church as it seeks to address shortage of clerics in remote areas

Pope Francis has decided against opening up the Roman Catholic priesthood to married men – a move that will please traditionalists but dismay those who argue that easing the celibacy rule would tackle a shortage of clerics.

Instead, an “apostolic exhortation” from the pontiff has focused on environmental damage after bishops from the Amazon highlighted the destruction of the region’s rainforests and exploitation of Indigenous people at a Vatican summit last year.

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Former Pope Benedict warns against relaxing priestly celibacy rules

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Move could jeopardise potential plan by Pope Francis to change rules in Amazon

The former pope Benedict XVI has spoken out against allowing married men to become priests, in a move that could jeopardise a potential plan by Pope Francis to change the centuries-old requirement in areas of the Amazon.

Benedict, who implied upon his resignation in 2013 that he would not interfere with the work of his successor, has defended clerical celibacy in an explosive book written with the outspoken conservative cardinal Robert Sarah.

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‘Don’t bite!’: Pope jokes to nun at first audience since hand-slap video

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Pope Francis tells enthusiastic worshipper: ‘I’ll give you a kiss but stay calm’

Pope Francis jokingly told a woman not to bite him as he greeted pilgrims before his weekly general audience.

It was the pontiff’s first walkabout among worshippers after he angrily slapped the hand of a woman in response to her abruptly grabbing his arm on New Year’s Eve.

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