Is it right to fear God? What is the difference between a destructive fear and a “holy trepidation”? An Advent homily by Fr Stephen Wang: Look around you at the chapel walls. Look at the […]
Catholic Voices
These articles from Catholic Voices are re-posted here, with permission, from the Catholic Voices Comment website at http://cvcomment.org/
Catholic Voices's Latest Posts
Pre-synod jostling points to dynamism of Rome meeting on family
The Australian cardinal whom Pope Francis earlier this year put in charge of Vatican finances has added his voice to a large number of senior church figures warning against expecting changes to come from next […]
Pope Francis press conference on papal plane from Seoul: full transcript
On his flight back from Korea yesterday Pope Francis held another lengthy press conference, generating a series of stories today: He approved the idea of military intervention in Iraq to prevent the genocide now taking place at […]
Why the backers of assisted dying keep coming back
Lord Falconer’s Assisted Dying Bill had its First Reading in the House of Lords last week, and its second is expected on or close to 18 July. The Bill aims to change the law in order “to enable competent […]
The secret of what makes the two popes saints
Speaking this week at a Vatican press briefing entitled ‘Why Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II are saints’, Fr Giovangiuseppe Califano, the current postulator for John XXIII’s canonisation – the fourth since 1966 – said that […]
Pope Francis hosts trafficking conference organised by Church in England and Wales
Last Thursday the Vatican hosted an international conference on the scandal of human trafficking, deplored by Pope Francis as a “crime against humanity”. The two-day conference, organized by the Church in England and Wales and chaired by Cardinal Vincent Nichols, […]
The foetal body-burning scandal: facing the truth of a throwaway culture
An investigation by Channel 4’s Dispatches has revealed that the bodies of thousands of miscarried and aborted babies have been incinerated as chemical waste, with some used to heat hospitals in a waste-to-energy scheme. The programme can be […]
Mitochondrial transfer: science that crosses lines for no good purpose
Three-parent embryos are the most high-profile recent development in reproductive technology, and an area where the UK is striving to take a leading role — hence the government consultation on new rules to allow it. Scientists, […]
Catholic Voices National Speakers’ Training, London, Sept-Dec 2014
Applications are now open for the Fifth National Speakers Training, which is taking place in London between September and December 2014. Catholic Voices, originally created for the 2010 papal visit to the UK, is now […]
Pope Francis anniversary interview: highlights
Francis’s 5 March interview with Corriere della Sera — published simultaneously by La Nación in Argentina — contains fewer surprises than we have been used to in his previous ones, and has therefore attracted less attention than […]
In biggest reform yet, Pope Francis names Cardinal Pell to new ‘Economy Secretariat’
Pope Francis has announced the biggest shake-up in Vatican administration for years by creating a new Secretariat for the Economy which will have oversight of all economic and administrative activities within the Holy See and the […]
Pope Francis’s La Stampa interview: summary & highlights
The Pope’s Christmas interview to the Italian daily La Stampa shows, if nothing else, that Francis’s habit of allowing himself to be interrogated by the media is going to be a feature of his papacy, setting […]
Time Magazine names Pope Francis its ‘Person of the Year’
Reuters has the story, which begins: Time magazine named Pope Francis its Person of the Year on Wednesday, crediting him with shifting the message of the Catholic Church while capturing the imagination of millions of […]
The Joy of the Gospel: a summary and guide to Pope Francis’s Apostolic Exhortation
The first teaching document mainly authored by Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, is a bold and thrilling bid to send the Catholic Church worldwide on mission. Energetic, direct, lyrical, its language and style model the evangelisation to […]
Why western liberal adulation risks distorting the truth about Pope Francis
‘Pope idol’ is the headline above the Sunday Times‘ informative profile of the ‘Francis effect’ — the term the media are using to sum up the invigorating, renewing effect of his papacy. The headline captures his […]
The attempt to impose abortion-on-demand via Brussels
The European Parliament recently voted against an attempt to make abortion a ‘human right’ in the EU. So far, so reassuring. But the margin was narrow. And the debate exposed the growing hostility to freedom of conscience […]
Communion for the remarried: clarification and speculation from Archbishop Gerhard Müller at the CDF
An important statement by the head of the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation, the CDF, has reaffirmed existing church teaching on not admitting to the Eucharist Catholics who have remarried without first annulling their marriage. But in […]
Pope Francis hits ‘reset’ — but not the way some imagine
It is clear, six months into the heart-warming, unsettling whirlwind that is his papacy, that Francis is pressing the ‘reset’ button on the Church’s engagement with the world. It is an ambitious ‘reframe’, one allows […]
The decision not to prosecute gender-specific abortions shortens the path to a eugenic society
The early twentieth-century movement in favour of abortion was led by eugenicists — enlightened, progressive, scientifically-minded people who sought to create a society free from disability, racial inferiority and poverty by means of the selective […]
EU’s religious freedom guidelines need improving in key areas
Among the bodies welcoming the publication of the EU’s new religious freedom guidelines are COMECE, the Catholic Church’ Brussels lobby (its statement is here), and the campaign group Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW; its statement is here). Both recognise that the […]
Where the Strasbourg religious freedom judgement leaves the UK
The judgement handed down in January in four high-profile UK religious freedom cases by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has strengthened the freedom to manifest belief (Article 9). The judges disagreed with the UK courts in […]
