The Group of Seven (G7) leaders are set to wrap up their annual summit on Friday, with discussions heavily centered on China before a historic appearance by Pope Francis to deliberate on artificial intelligence (AI). The inclusion of the Pope, alongside 10 other heads of state and government, including India’s Prime Minister and Jordan’s King, Read More…
Tag: Pope Francis
Gaza mourns as Israel’s deadly airstrikes continue on Christmas Eve
As the world celebrated Christmas Eve, Gaza witnessed one of its bloodiest nights in the ongoing 11-week conflict with Israel. Palestinian health officials reported that at least 78 people, many of them women and children, lost their lives in Israeli airstrikes that targeted several areas in the besieged territory. The attacks, which started late on Read More…
Human Rights Watch accuses Israel of war crime by starving Gaza Strip civilians
A global rights group, Human Rights Watch (HRW), has accused Israel of committing a war crime by starving people in the Gaza Strip, who continue to face relentless attacks in the war with Hamas militants. Despite rising global pressure to protect civilians, who have nowhere to go, Israel is bent on eliminating the Hamas group Read More…
Catholic institutions globally divesting from fossil fuels, U.S. dioceses yet to follow suit
Since Pope Francis’s influential 2015 encyclical on environmental stewardship, urging a departure from fossil fuels to combat climate change, hundreds of Catholic institutions worldwide have committed to divesting from oil, gas, and coal. However, despite this global trend, U.S. dioceses remain resolute in retaining their investments in fossil fuel assets. According to a Reuters review Read More…
Pope Francis cancels audiences due to mild flu
The Vatican announced that Pope Francis cancelled his Saturday morning audiences due to a mild flu, as stated in an official statement. Typically engaging in regular meetings on Saturdays with Vatican officials, including a weekly session with the head of the department overseeing the appointment of bishops, as well as private audiences, the 86-year-old pontiff Read More…
Vatican confirms ban on Catholics joining Freemasonry
The Vatican solidified its stance against Freemasonry, reaffirming the ban on Catholics joining the centuries-old secretive society. The Catholic Church, historically hostile towards Freemasonry, highlighted the irreconcilable differences between Catholic doctrine and Freemasonry, declaring it prohibited for faithful Catholics to be active members. “Incompatibility between Catholic doctrine and Freemasonry prohibits active membership by the faithful,” Read More…
Pope implicitly criticises Putin on invasion, considers Kyiv trip
Pope Francis said on Saturday he was considering a trip to Kyiv and implicitly criticised Russian President Vladimir Putin over the invasion of Ukraine, saying a “potentate” was fomenting conflict for nationalist interests. Francis made the comments, first to reporters on the plane taking him to Malta for a two-day visit, and then in a Read More…
“You caught me!” Pope congratulates reporter who saw him at record shop
Pope Francis has congratulated the reporter who caught him visiting old friends who run a Rome record shop this week, joking that it was his “bad luck” that the news got out. The visit on Tuesday night was to have remained secret but Javier Martinez-Brocal of the Rome Reports television news agency was in the Read More…
Pope removes legal privileges for Vatican cardinals, bishops
Pope Francis ruled on Friday that bishops and cardinals who work in the Vatican will be judged by the same lay tribunal that hears other criminal cases and no longer by an elite panel of prelates. Francis issued a decree abrogating a provision in the Vatican’s civil criminal code whereby bishops and cardinals were judged Read More…
Pope Francis remembers fellow Argentine Maradona affectionately
Pope Francis remembers soccer legend and fellow Argentine Diego Maradona with affection and is keeping him in his prayers, the Vatican said on Wednesday. Maradona, who died on Wednesday at his home in Argentina following a heart attack, met the pope several times at the Vatican after Francis was elected in 2013 as Latin America’s Read More…