Vatican City, Holy See | AFP | Pope Francis on Wednesday compared having an abortion to hiring a “contract killer”. “Interrupting a pregnancy is like eliminating someone,” Francis said in an address to worshippers in the Vatican. “Getting rid of a human being is like resorting to a contract killer …
Read More »North Korea wants Pope to visit, South to tell Vatican
Seoul, South Korea | AFP | North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has invited Pope Francis to visit, saying he would be “ardently welcomed”, South Korea’s presidency said Tuesday, adding it would pass on Pyongyang’s message to the Vatican. South Korean President Moon Jae-in will have an audience with the …
Read More »Pope fears for Christian presence in Mideast
Bari, Italy | AFP | Pope Francis on Saturday voiced concern that Christians will disappear from the Middle East amid “murderous indifference” as war rages on. “The Middle East has become a land of people who leave their own lands behind,” Francis said. He was addressing the leaders of almost …
Read More »Pope says ‘very worried’ by Mideast violence
Vatican City, Holy See | AFP | Pope Francis said Wednesday he was “very worried” by escalating violence in the Middle East after 60 Gazans were shot dead by Israeli troops while protesting the US embassy’s move to Jerusalem. “I am very worried about the escalation of tensions in the …
Read More »Sexual abuse victims call for Vatican to crack down on Chilean cardinals
Vatican City, Holy See | AFP | Three victims of a Chilean paedophile priest on Wednesday demanded the Catholic Church force tougher sanctions on complicit cardinals after meeting Pope Francis. The calls by Juan Carlos Cruz, James Hamilton and Jose Andres Murillo come a day after Australian authorities ordered the …
Read More »Pope praises Korea leaders’ ‘brave commitment’ to peace
Vatican City, Holy See | AFP | Pope Francis on Sunday praised North and South Korean leaders for their “brave commitment” to peace after they agreed to work towards the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. The pontiff hailed the “positive outcome” of their historic summit in Seoul on Friday, when Kim …
Read More »Did Pope Francis deny existence of hell?
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Vatican communications department has been working overtime the past few weeks. They are scrambling to contextualize a remark attributed to Pope Francis by an Italian journalist at the newspaper La Repubblica that hell does not exist. Speaking to the newspaper’s founder, journalist and atheist …
Read More »Pope shows support for terminally-ill British toddler
London, United Kingdom | AFP | Pope Francis has stepped in to the case of a seriously ill British toddler who is being kept alive on a ventilator. Alfie Evans, who is 22 months old, has a rare degenerative neurological condition which has not been definitively diagnosed. His parents, Tom Evans …
Read More »Pope celebrates Easter under sunny sky, tight security
po Vatican City, Holy See | AFP | Pope Francis celebrated Easter mass under tight security and a sunny sky on Sunday in front of tens of thousands of pilgrims gathered in a flower-bedecked St Peter’s Square. Under a longstanding tradition, the Netherlands donated some 50,000 tulips, daffodils, roses and …
Read More »Pope ‘ashamed’ young to inherit fractured world
Rome, Italy | AFP | Pope Francis on Friday said he was “ashamed” that younger generations would inherit a world “fractured by divisions and wars”. Speaking in Rome at the end of the traditional Good Friday Stations of the Cross procession, the pontiff said the world was “devoured by egotism …
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