Political events and news in effecting Catholics and Catholic concerns in Europe.
July 22, 2020
VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican distanced itself again from any involvement in the Spanish government's decision to exhume the remains of the country's late dictator, Gen. Francisco Franco.
Government authorities in Shanxi, China, are ordering people who receive government assistance to replace religious symbols in their homes, including pictures of Jesus, with pictures of Chairman Mao and President Xi Jinping. Refusal to comply results in the assistance being taken away.
July 21, 2020
VALLA BEACH, Australia -- China has announced that Bishop Paul Ma Cunguo of Shuozhou, a Vatican-recognized bishop, has joined the official state-run Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.
VATICAN CITY -- When Zoe, 10, showed up late for summer camp at the Vatican, she did not expect to see Pope Francis there.
MIAMI -- The beheading of a statue of Christ at a Catholic church in the Miami Archdiocese has saddened the parish community of Good Shepherd Church and prompted Miami Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski to call on law enforcement to investigate the incident as a hate crime.
July 20, 2020
VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis expressed his concern over escalating hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan, prompting renewed fears of war in the Caucasus region.
VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican's Congregation for Clergy issued a new instruction on pastoral care that specifies the role of lay men and women in the church's mission of evangelization and offers guidance in parish reforms and restructuring.
NANTES, France -- French police have opened an arson investigation into a fire at a Gothic cathedral in Nantes.
Fr. Frank Freitas, a priest in Waterloo, Ont., has been suspended from priestly ministry after a “substantiated allegation of professional misconduct.”
OTTAWA -- The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the “heartbreaking” neglect that many elderly Canadians and other vulnerable people have been facing in modern Canadian society, but that exposure can also be an opportunity for Catholics and other Canadians to reassess our “values and lifestyle” in a meaningful way, say Canada’s Catholic bishops.