Catholic numbers on the rise in Africa, Asia
The number of Catholic priests and believers in the world is on the rise, a Vatican report showed on Monday, with gains in Africa and Asia offsetting a slump in Europe and the Americas.
The number of Catholic priests and believers in the world is on the rise, a Vatican report showed on Monday, with gains in Africa and Asia offsetting a slump in Europe and the Americas.
Ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia will retain its longstanding ban on non-Muslim places of worship, Justice Minister Mohammed al-Issa said in comments reported by the Saudi media on Wednesday.
“One unique gift that Pope Francis will bring (to the papacy) is personal encounter, which is really important for the Church. The Church is, in the end, a communion, a relationship in faith. I think that aspect will become stronger,” Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle said.
The Philippines’ top Roman Catholic leader says Pope Francis’ acts of reaching out to the masses will strengthen a church endangered by secularism.
Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle and Cardinals Gaudencio Rosales and Ricardo Vidal arrived on Thursday from the Vatican where they witnessed the inauguration of Pope Francis.
Shun those SUVs. The election of Pope Francis is a sign that Church people in the Philippines should shun “luxurious” and “scandalous” lifestyles, the executive secretary of the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines (AMRSP) said Thursday.
On the eve of the papal conclave, Catholics rooting for Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle got an unexpected boost with the release of the Italian translation of his 8-year-old book intended to re-ignite the “value of community in a divided world.”
Cardinals moved into the Vatican on Tuesday as the suspense mounted ahead of a secret papal election with no clear frontrunner to steer the Catholic world through troubled waters after Benedict XVI’s historic resignation.
Asia’s most prominent Roman Catholic leader knows how to reach the masses: He sings on stage, preaches on TV, brings churchgoers to laughter and tears with his homilies. And he’s on Facebook.
It’s an election but there are no campaign posters, no official candidates and even the people who might get voted in to the Vatican’s top job protest they absolutely do not want it.
Catholic cardinals began talks on Monday ahead of a conclave to elect a new pope after Benedict XVI’s resignation, as an absent British cardinal admitted to sexual misconduct with priests.
