News in Activities

Ampleforth faces possible closure if it fails to improve standards.

Ampleforth College, one of the country’s top Catholic schools, faces possible closure if it does not improve standards including the safeguarding of pupils and the rigour of its checks on staff. The Department for Education has written to Ampleforth College warning that “the Secretary of State is satisfied…. that any one or more of the independent school standards is or are not being met in relation to the school.”

Pope Francis urges Europe to rush to aid of migrant-laden boats

Pope Francis has called the drowning of migrants in the Mediterranean after a spate of shipwrecks in recent months regrettable and has urged countries in Europe and elsewhere to rush to their aid.

Italian bishops champion ‘voiceless’ migrants

'We feel responsible for this army of the poor, victims of war and hunger, of deserts and of tortures' the bishops wrote. The leadership of the Italian bishops’ conference has pledged its support for migrants arriving in the country while warning against a growing culture of xenophobia across Europe.

Croatia: Where Football Is Much More Than A Game

Despite the many disappointments in between these heroics, football has remained sacred in Croatia. As well as being staunch Catholics – 86 per cent of the total population – Croats worship football. And while church attendance is in decline mobilisation for football games remains massive. Football is breakfast, lunch and dinner; alpha and omega.

Time and space in the Eternal City

In a series of meetings ranging from the Vatican to the Lateran Emmanuel Macron showed he understood how to communicate a message at the level of this unique world city. In particular, he displayed a keen awareness of the current situation of a Europe that is continuing to tear itself apart over the issue of migration.

Laudato Si' - Major new research institute at Campion Hall

The Jesuits in Britain have announced that a new research institute called the Laudato Si' Institute (LSI) is being established at Campion Hall, the Jesuit permanent private hall of the University of Oxford. The LSI will be established during the academic year 2018-2019 and will formally open in September 2019.

Increase in number of Catholics worldwide, according to Vatican stats

The newly released Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae 2016 reports a 1.1 per cent increase in absolute Catholic numbers between 2015 and 2016. In 2015 there were 1,285 million baptised Catholics and in 2016 1,299 million. However the world population increased by 1.14 per cent (from 7.383 billion to 7.467 billion) meaning that as a proportion of world population the proportion of Catholics fell, from 17.73 per cent of the world’s population in 2015 to 17.67 per cent in 2016.

Dictatorships begin with taking over media, warns Pope

Cardinal Nichols: Church and police working well together to fight human trafficking

The collaboration between the Catholic Church and law enforcement officers to tackle modern slavery is starting to work. Cardinal Vincent Nichols told a UN conference this week that the collaboration between the Catholic Church, through the Santa Marta group, and law enforcement officers to combat human slavery around the world, is starting to work. 

Hebei Diocese bans pilgrimage reports as China steps up repression

A source who asked to be unnamed told ucanews.com that Hebei Provincial Ethnic and Religious Department had given the company verbal notification that neither its newspaper nor website should report pilgrimages in May. Webmasters in other dioceses told ucanews.com that they had submitted articles on local or inter-provincial pilgrimages to Faith Weekly but none had been published.

Harsh new rules in the classroom: the cap on faith-based admissions

The decision to keep the cap marks a crossroads for Catholic education. The Catholic community should be proud of its schools, but if it is to secure their future it has to recognise the new and more hostile political reality. Most crucially, it must make the most of its assets – the communities of people in each school who make them the success they are.

The church should rethink its Sunday rituals

For example, it can propose contemplation sessions, a very open prayer with a ritual gesture, where families would be welcomed just as they are today. The spiritual demand is enormous. The need for a break, too.

Chinese-state Protestants plan 'socialist' Christianity

More Indian or more Christian?

There is of course no need for Catholic leaders in India to actively proclaim a refusal to participate in nationalist projects; this would be a foolhardy venture in the current climate. But there is similarly no need for us to contribute to nationalist rhetoric by asking that we become more Indian. Our call is to be more Christian, loving all without distinction.

Why Amoris Laetitia is radical and revolutionary – but does not change doctrine

At the heart of the opposition to Amoris Laetitia is the fear that, in opening the door to the readmission of divorced and remarried Catholics to Holy Communion in some circumstances, the Pope is changing traditional Church teaching. I don’t think that, strictly speaking, this does amount to a development of doctrine. 

Vietnam War vets donate bikes to ease kids' plight

Bishop pays first Easter visit to remote area in Vietnam

A bishop visited Catholics — many whom were from ethnic minorities — in a mountainous part of north-western Vietnam over the Easter triduum, a first since Catholicism was introduced to the area over a century ago. Accompanied by two priests and two seminarians, Bishop John Mary Vu Tat of Hung Hoa paid pastoral visits to nine parishes, subparishes and mission stations in Yen Bai province March 28-April 1.

A Woman’s Voice: Conversations of Discernment and Grace

“A Woman’s Voice: Conversations of Discernment and Grace” is a very important and timely documentary, to premiere on Easter Sunday 2018 on Salt and Light TV, Canada’s Catholic Television Network. The date was no coincidence: for what better launch date could there be for a documentary about some outstanding and astounding women than Easter? 

China bans online Bible sales.

On Holy Saturday, China's communist government, deep in talks with the Vatican on a deal to appoint bishops, issued a ban on internet sales of the Bible. Four days later, it issued its first white paper on religious freedom in 21 years, only a week after hauling Bishop Vincent Guo Xijin of Mindong away from his diocese for a few days during Holy Week.

The untold story of the role of Catholic nuns during the Troubles in North Ireland

Sr Kathleen is one of 20 or so religious sisters who took part in an oral history project – the Witness seminars – initiated by independent scholar Dr Dianne Kirby and Lisa Isherwood, professor of feminist liberation theologies at the University of Winchester. The seminars record the largely untold story of the role of Catholic nuns during the Troubles.