An appeal to the Pope by a group of top German Catholics to relax the mandatory celibacy rule for priests has led to a public row between two cardinals and further calls for reform. In an open letter, Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, who received his red hat at the last consistory, attacked the politicians accusing them [...]

Anthony Ruff OSB – 14 February 2011 Your Eminences, Your Excellencies, With a heavy heart, I have recently made a difficult decision concerning the new English missal. I have decided to withdraw from all my upcoming speaking engagements on the Roman Missal in dioceses across the United States. After talking with my confessor and much [...]

This meeting today is born out of a conviction that a voice for priests is an urgent need, indeed a justice imperative for priests and for our Church now and (I think it isn’t too large a claim to make) for Irish society.

By John Andersen (a priest of the Archdiocese of Sydney, currently working in Peru) These are missionary jurisdictions in great need of help. Primarily, we need missionary priests and religious, as well as lay missionaries. The Apostolic Vicariate of Iquitos The Apostolic Vicariate of Iquitos is in the charge of Spanish Augustinians. The Vicariate extends [...]

As you are well aware 20 million people in Pakistan have been affected by the worst floods the country has seen in decades.

Caritas Australia has launched an appeal and will work with communities now and in the long-term to improve hygiene practices, provide access to clean water, repair community infrastructure and provide emergency shelter, to at least 60,000 people over the next 10 months.

The following excerpts come from an open and honest expression of the views Bishop Kevin Dowling on the current state of the Church. Bishop Dowling is a Redemptorist, who worked as the Roman base of his Order from 1988 to 1990, before returning to his native South Africa as a Bishop. This address was originally given on 1st July 2010, “off the record”, to a group of influential lay Catholics, but subsequently it became public news and was published online with Bishop Dowling’s permission by the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) on July 8th.

VENERABLE BISHOPS, Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, and I were the youngest theologians at the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965. Now we are the oldest and the only ones still fully active. I have always understood my theological work as a service to the Roman Catholic Church. For this reason, on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the election of Pope Benedict XVI, I am making this appeal to you in an open letter

At last weekend’s Kirchentag event in Munich, where Pope Benedict was once archbishop, there was disappointment that he did not attend. The massive interchurch gathering, for the second time in its history involving Catholics as well as Protestants, was a striking sign that ecumenism can still warm the blood in the land of Martin Luther, even if the impression is given that the Vatican has gone cold on the subject. The Pope was in Portugal, attending a big celebration at the shrine of Fatima. But it would be misleading to interpret this as a retrograde retreat into simplistic pieties. The Catholic Church in Portugal, as elsewhere in Europe, is struggling to come to terms with a pervasive spirit of secularism.

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin asked Timothy Radcliffe, former Master of the Dominicans, to lead the priests of Dublin in a day of reflection last December. Here are some of the challenging things he offered – they certainly warrant our reflection and discussion.