Archive

Rome, Italy, Jul 13, 2020 / 10:37 am (CNA).- According to Italy’s national statistics institute, the country is likely to see a significant decline in the number of babies born in the period following the COVID-19 pandemic. In their 2020 annual report, Istat, Italy’s national statistics institute, predicted that the climate of uncertainty and fear… Read More »

Rome Newsroom, Jul 13, 2020 / 08:30 am (CNA).- Mafia loan sharks have exploited the economic downturn creating a hidden “new slavery” of usury within communities, an Italian bishop said Sunday. Bishop Giovanni D’Alise of the southern Diocese of Caserta issued the warning following reports that some parents had been forced to send their children to… Read More »

Denver Newsroom, Jul 12, 2020 / 03:01 pm (CNA).- The fourth annual Quincy pilgrimage honoring Venerable Augustus Tolton, the first African-American priest, took place Thursday with the intention of overcoming racism. Fr. Daren Zehnle, the founder of the Quincy pilgrimage and pastor of St. Augustine parish in Ashland, Ill., said Tolton pastored beyond racial barriers.… Read More »

CNA Staff, Jul 12, 2020 / 01:01 pm (CNA).-   Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez has called for Catholics to find hope and a renewed sense of mission amid a “season of sickness and death.” Gomez preached a Sunday morning homily at the Chapel of the Annunciation, on the grounds of the historic San Gabriel Mission… Read More »

CNA Staff, Jul 12, 2020 / 10:50 am (CNA).- Boston police are investigating an arson attack on a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary Saturday night, the second attack in the U.S. on a statue of the Virgin Mary in two days, and during the same weekend in which two Catholic church fires are being… Read More »

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 12, 2020 / 08:00 am (CNA).- Tired and heartbroken at seeing statues get pulled down and vandalized, Canadian sculptor Timothy Schmalz wracked his brain to come up with a compromise that would both preserve the artwork, and acknowledge the flawed nature of many historical figures.  Schmalz has been a sculptor for… Read More »

Vatican City, Jul 12, 2020 / 06:30 am (CNA).- A Vatican cardinal urged Catholics Sunday to exercise a “preferential option for the poor” for seafarers serving on the front line of the coronavirus crisis.  In a July 12 message marking Sea Sunday, Cardinal Peter Turkson described how the pandemic had left hundreds of thousands of… Read More »

Vatican City, Jul 12, 2020 / 06:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis urged Catholics Sunday to reflect on whether they are receptive to the Word of God.  In his Angelus address July 12, he meditated on Sunday’s Gospel reading, in which Jesus recounts the Parable of the Sower. In the parable, a farmer scatters seed on… Read More »

CNA Staff, Jul 11, 2020 / 12:40 pm (CNA).-   A massive fire devastated an eighteenth century mission church in San Gabriel, in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, July 11. Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles called the fire at San Gabriel Mission church, founded by St. Junipero Serra, “devastating.” The fire began early Saturday morning… Read More »

CNA Staff, Jul 11, 2020 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- When the government permitted churches in England to resume public Masses July 4, Fr. Rick McGrath faced a difficult dilemma.  The pastor of St. Wilfrid’s, Burgess Hill, in the county of West Sussex, realized that in order to comply with social distancing requirements, numbers at weekend… Read More »