Kolbe Catholic College staff member, Leanne Joyce was holed up in Lourdes with her fellow pilgrims and City Beach parish priest, Fr Don Kettle when flash flooding hit the region on Saturday, October 20. It resulted in the first halting of processions to the shrine in 25 years. The pilgrim group began their pilgrimage at Fatima, and then went on to Montserrat. At the time of printin...

Proclaiming seven new saints - including St Kateri Tekakwitha and St Marianne Cope - Pope Benedict XVI said they are examples to the world of total dedication to Christ and tireless service to others. In a revised canonisation rite on October 21, the Pope prayed for guidance that the Church would not “err in a matter of such importance” as he used his authority to state that the seven are wi...

By Francis Rocca When Blessed John Paul II launched the project he called the new evangelisation, he made it clear that it was aimed above all at reviving the ancient faith of an increasingly faithless West: “countries and nations where religion and the Christian life were formerly flourishing,” now menaced by a “constant spreading of religious indifference, secularism and atheism.” T...

The increase of restrictions on religion are up worldwide – and, for the first time, those restrictions increased markedly in the US, according to a new report by a leading researcher of religious trends. For the US, it was the first time in the study’s four-year history that both government restrictions and social hostility were up by at least one point on a scale of 0 to 10, according ...

By John Thavis Fifty years after the close of the Second Vatican Council, the deep transformation it set in motion continues to reverberate through the Church at every level, from the halls of the Vatican to the pews of local parishes. The council’s four sessions from 1962 to 1965 and its 16 landmark documents modernised the liturgy, renewed the priesthood and religious life, enhanced...

The makers of a Bollywood film featuring scenes Indian Christians claimed were ‘blasphemous’ and ‘offensive’ have voluntarily agreed to remove them for its cinema release. The move follows protests and outrage from Christian leaders last week, coming a week after violent protests in the Islamic world in response to an American film which insulted the prophet Mohammed. Bishop of Vasai,...

By Doreen Abi Raad Christian and Muslim leaders in Lebanon called for the formation of a legal committee to protect all religions. In a statement following a Muslim-Christian summit on September 25 at Bkerke, the seat of the Maronite Catholic church, north of Beirut, religious leaders also condemned the “Innocence of Muslims” film. They denounced “violent reactions that led to inno...

By Cindy Wooden VATICAN CITY (CNS) - A three-judge panel of Vatican jurists found Paolo Gabriele, the papal butler, guilty of aggravated theft and sentenced him to 18 months in gaol for his role in leaking private papal correspondence and other confidential documents. The verdict was read on October 6 by Giuseppe Dalla Torre, president of the three-judge panel, just two hours after th...

  An Indian bishop has urged Christians to respond to a new Bollywood film denigrating the Christian faith with peaceful words and not violent protest. "We express with firm and unequivocal words, the disappointment of the Indian Church for this film considered offensive towards the Christian faith, but with peaceful words,” Bishop of Vasai, Mgr Felix Machado, the President for t...

Joondanna priest Fr Peter Porteous had no way of predicting the protests and bloodshed that have ripped through the Islamic world in the past two weeks. But it seems the information session on Islam he has helped to convene and will run at his parish this weekend, couldn’t have come at a better time. God calls on all Catholics to be peacemakers, both through Scripture and Church teach...