Vatican News

McCarrick abused youth during confession, lawyer charges

New York City, N.Y., Dec 28, 2018 / 03:55 pm (CNA).- A man who says he was serially sexually abused by Archbishop Theodore McCarrick testified Thursday as part of a Vatican investigation regarding the archbishop’s history of sexual abuse and misconduct.

James Grein testified Dec. 27 in a canonical deposition conducted by officials of the Archdiocese of New York, the Associated Press has reported.

St. Stephen’s Day connects Christ’s birth to his salvific mission, Pope Francis says

Vatican City, Dec 26, 2018 / 04:45 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The feast of the first Christian martyr, St. Stephen, falls the day after Christmas —  timing that contains an important spiritual lesson, Pope Francis said Wednesday.

“It might seem strange to approach the memory of St. Stephen at the birth of Jesus because the contrast between the joy of Bethlehem and the drama of Stephen, stoned in Jerusalem in the first persecution against the nascent Church, emerges,” Pope Francis said Dec. 26.

Pope’s Christmas Wish: Peace & brotherhood in world’s conflicts

Vatican City, Dec 25, 2018 / 05:34 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Christmas, Pope Francis prayed for peace and renewed brotherhood in Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and other parts of the world experiencing conflict.

“May all of us receive peace and consolation from the birth of the Savior and, in the knowledge that we are loved by the one heavenly Father, realize anew that we are brothers and sisters and come to live as such,” Pope Francis said from the center loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Pope Francis: Invite God to dwell in your heart this Christmas

Vatican City, Dec 24, 2018 / 02:22 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- God offers himself to us in the manger in Bethlehem, Pope Francis said in his Christmas homily Monday night, inviting each heart to welcome this heavenly gift.

“At Christmas, we on earth receive Jesus, the bread from heaven,” Pope Francis said Dec. 24 in St. Peter’s Basilica. “We discover that the life of God can enter into our hearts and dwell there.”

Pope Francis meets with Nobel Peace prize winner Nadia Murad

Vatican City, Dec 20, 2018 / 09:58 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis met Thursday with the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad, a survivor of ISIS enslavement and an advocate for human rights and persecuted Iraqi minorities.

Murad, who first met Pope Francis at a weekly general audience last year, returned to the Vatican for a private audience with the pope after receiving the Nobel prize in October for her “efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict."

Armenian Apostolic Church appoints first-ever representative in Rome

Vatican City, Dec 19, 2018 / 10:07 am (CNA).- The Armenian Apostolic Church, one of six in the Oriental Orthodox communion, will have a fixed representative in Rome, similar to the Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, and Methodists.

Bishop Khajag Barsamian was appointed in early September as representative of the Apostolic Armenian Church to the Holy See. His appointment is intended to strengthen friendship between the two entities.

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