Vatican News

Vatican: Catholic schools facing 'dramatic situation' amid pandemic

Vatican City, Sep 10, 2020 / 01:30 pm (CNA).- Catholic educational institutions are facing a “dramatic situation” as a result of the coronavirus crisis, a Vatican dicastery said Thursday.

In a circular letter dated Sept. 10, the Congregation for Catholic Education said that without government support Catholic schools “risk closure or a radical downsizing.”

Pope Francis: borders should be ‘windows,’ not barriers of division

Vatican City, Sep 10, 2020 / 08:30 am (CNA).- Pope Francis appealed Thursday for a fundamental change in the way the world sees migration. 

In an address to supporters of a new project called Snapshots From The Borders Sept. 10, the pope said that it was “vital to change the way we see and talk about migration: it is about putting people, faces, stories at the center.”

Newly arrived American seminarians meet Pope Francis after travel quarantine

Vatican City, Sep 9, 2020 / 09:00 am (CNA).- American seminarians met with Pope Francis this week after completing a 14-day mandatory quarantine upon their arrival in Rome.

For the 155 seminarians living at the Pontifical North American College (NAC) campus this year, the fall semester will be unlike any other in recent history due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“Thanks be to God everyone has arrived safely,” Fr. David Schunk, vice rector for the college told CNA Sept. 9.

Italian Cardinal Zuppi urges renewal of adult faith formation after pandemic

Rome Newsroom, Sep 9, 2020 / 07:46 am (CNA).- The archbishop of Bologna, Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, said he wants to renew adult faith formation in his archdiocese to reach more people and deepen relationships in the period following the coronavirus pandemic.

In a pastoral letter published last week, Cardinal Zuppi said “after the pandemic, it is necessary to start again with simplicity and confidence from the many questions that have emerged: the meaning of life, spirituality, fear, limits.”

Pope Francis: Promote the common good to heal wounds of coronavirus crisis

Vatican City, Sep 9, 2020 / 06:00 am (CNA).- The wounds inflicted by the coronavirus crisis will only be healed if we put the common good first, Pope Francis said at his general audience Wednesday.

“A virus that does not recognize barriers, borders, or cultural or political distinctions must be faced with a love without barriers, borders or distinctions,” the pope said Sept. 9 in the San Damaso Courtyard within the Vatican’s apostolic palace.

Pope Francis praises dialogue in conversations with agnostic Slow Food founder

Vatican City, Sep 8, 2020 / 07:30 am (CNA).- A book publishing conversations between Pope Francis and Carlo Petrini, the founder of the Slow Food organization, highlights the pope’s emphasis on dialogue with others.

Petrini, 71, is a well-known Italian gastronomist, agnostic, and ex-communist. It is in this context that the author introduces the three “dialogues” on integral ecology he had with Pope Francis between May 2018 and July 2020.

Attacks on French churches back to ‘normal’ level after lockdown, say young Catholics

Vatican City, Sep 8, 2020 / 06:30 am (CNA).- Attacks on churches in France are back to their “normal” level following a nationwide lockdown, according to an organization led by young Catholics. 

A spokesperson for the group Protège ton église (Protect Your Church) told CNA Sept. 6: “It is clear that the pandemic led to a decrease in attacks against churches, at least during the period of confinement.”

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