Vatican News

Fr. Piero Gheddo, envoy to the peripheries, dies at 88

Vatican City, Jan 3, 2018 / 07:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- One of the Church’s great media missionaries of the 20th century, Fr. Piero Gheddo, died last month at the age of 88. Gheddo died on Dec. 20, after more than half a century of work in Catholic media apostolates.  

An Italian member of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME), Gheddo was the editor of missionary magazines, a founder of communications agencies, and a prolific author, whose books were translated into 30 languages.

Pope Francis: Sin separates us from both God and neighbor

Vatican City, Jan 3, 2018 / 03:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Wednesday Pope Francis emphasized how sin breaks our relationship with God and with our community, which is why at the beginning of every Mass we pause to recognize our sinfulness and ask for forgiveness.

“Sin severs: Severs the relationship with God and severs the relationship with our brothers, the relationship with family, with society, with the community: Sin always severs, separates, divides,” the Pope said Jan. 3.

Kazakh bishops affirm indissolubility of marriage – and its implications

Astana, Kazakhstan, Jan 2, 2018 / 12:42 pm (CNA).- Three Kazakhstani bishops signed a statement on Sunday confirming that it is not licit to admit to sacramental communion Catholics who are divorced and illictly remarried, if they are not living according to the long-standing teachings of the Church.

The statement was released in response to norms issued by several groups of bishops since the promulgation of Amoris laetitia.

Pope on New Year’s Day: Devotion to Mary is a must

Vatican City, Jan 1, 2018 / 03:55 am (CNA/EWTN News).- At the start of the new year, Pope Francis said that having a devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary isn’t just something that is nice or good to do, but is an obligation in the life of a Christian.

“Devotion to Mary is not spiritual etiquette; it is a requirement of the Christian life,” the Pope said Jan. 1. “The gift of the Mother, the gift of every mother and every woman, is most precious for the Church, for she too is mother and woman.”

Our response to the gift of Jesus? – ‘Thank you,’ Pope says New Year’s Eve

Vatican City, Dec 31, 2017 / 09:20 am (CNA/EWTN News).- At Vespers for the close of 2017, Pope Francis said that the only adequate response to God’s gift of His Son Jesus is one of profound gratitude for the many graces we’ve been given, particularly in the last year.

From Mary “the Church has inherited and continuously inherits this inner perception of fullness, which nourishes a sense of gratitude, as the only human response worthy of the immense gift of God,” the Pope said Dec. 31.

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