Wadi al-Kharrar, Jordan | AFP | Hundreds of Catholic worshippers attended a special mass Friday on the banks of the Jordan River in an annual pilgrimage to the site where many believe Jesus was baptised. Before the ceremony started on the Jordanian side of the river, dozens of priests filled …
Read More »Pope says nationalist leaders undermine global diplomacy
Vatican City, Holy See | AFP | Nationalist leaders are weakening the world’s system of multilateral diplomacy, Pope Francis warned on Monday in his annual address to ambassadors to the Holy See. The pope decried “the resurgence of nationalistic tendencies at odds with the vocation of international organisations to be …
Read More »S.Africa worshippers make annual pilgrimage to holy mountain
Ndwedwe, South Africa | AFP | Thousands of white-robed devotees of the Shembe Church in South Africa greeted the New Year last week by climbing the mountain of Nhlangakazi, sacred to them for more than a century. Every New Year, people mostly from Inanda township, near the coastal city of …
Read More »Ukraine’s newly independent church holds ‘historic’ first service
Kiev, Ukraine | AFP | Ukraine’s newly created independent Orthodox Church held its first service in Kiev on Monday after a historic break with the Russian Orthodox Church that has enraged Moscow. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko attended the service in Kiev’s most ancient church, the 11th-century Saint Sophia’s Cathedral, as …
Read More »Pope vows justice for victims of ‘vile’ sex abuse
Vatican City, Holy See | AFP | Pope Francis vowed justice for victims of clerical sex abuse Monday, describing paedophilia as one of the “vilest” crimes ahead of a historic global meet on the crisis roiling the church. “I cannot refrain from speaking of one of the plagues of our …
Read More »Orthodox worshippers mark Christmas in Bethlehem
Bethlehem, Palestinian Territories | AFP | Hundreds of Orthodox Christians began marking Christmas in Bethlehem Sunday, as protesters demonstrated against the sale of church land to Israelis. Greek Orthodox patriarch Theophilos III arrived at the Church of the Nativity, built on the traditionally recognised site of Jesus’s birth, as a …
Read More »Egypt police officer killed defusing church bomb: security source
Cairo, Egypt | AFP | A policeman was killed while trying to dismantle an explosive device outside a Coptic church in Egypt on Saturday, a security source said. Two other officers were also wounded in the explosion as security personnel attempted to defuse the device in Nasr City on the …
Read More »Egypt’s Sisi to inaugurate Coptic cathedral after bomb blast
Cairo, Egypt | AFP | Egypt’s president will inaugurate the country’s biggest cathedral on Coptic Christmas Eve Sunday, a day after a deadly bomb blast near a church in a country where jihadists have repeatedly targeted Christians. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Saturday’s explosion on the eastern …
Read More »Marketing cannot restore church image after abuse crisis: pope
Vatican City, Holy See | AFP | Pope Francis issued a warning to US bishops on Thursday, saying in a letter that using marketing tricks or flow charts would not restore trust in the Catholic church following the sex abuse crisis. “Loss of credibility calls for a specific approach, since …
Read More »Conditions for papal visit to Iraq ‘not yet met’: Vatican
Vatican City, Holy See | AFP | The conditions for a possible visit to Iraq by Pope Francis have not yet been met, the Vatican number two said on Wednesday, citing concerns about the possibility of a terrorist attack targeting the pontiff. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, …
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