May 2, 2012

By Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A Vatican decree established new statutes and norms for Caritas Internationalis, giving Vatican offices, including the Secretariat of State, greater authority over the work of the Vatican-based umbrella group of Catholic aid agencies.

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May 1, 2012

By Sarah MacDonald, Catholic News Service

DUBLIN (CNS) — A series of censures has brought to the fore the divisions within the Irish church between those who seek a leaner and smaller church that adheres more strictly to the magisterium and those who seek space to discuss church issues.

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May 1, 2012

By Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Ten years after a historic papal response to clerical sex abuse, the Vatican urged priests to strive for greater holiness in their own lives so that they might effectively minister to others and reverse the tide of atheism.

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May 1, 2012

By Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI donated $250,000 to the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham to help support its clergy and work.

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April 30, 2012

By Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The co-founder of Wikipedia told a Vatican audience that his online encyclopedia could contribute to peace by promoting “a more thoughtful world,” even as the site was under fire for how it referred to those who oppose and support legalized abortion.

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April 30, 2012

By Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – God is always calling people to dedicate themselves fully to serving him, but they often don’t hear because they are either too distracted or afraid they would no longer be free if they answered the call, Pope Benedict XVI said.

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April 30, 2012

By Francis X. Rocca, Catholic News Service

ROME (CNS) – Of all the Catholic Church’s modernizing reforms that followed the Second Vatican Council, none was more evident to ordinary members of the faithful than changes to the liturgy. Latin gave way to local languages, women ceased to wear veils in church, and Gregorian chant, Renaissance polyphony and 19th-century hymns were replaced by devotional music in popular contemporary styles.

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April 27, 2012

By Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – As the Catholic Church increases its new evangelization efforts and works for justice and peace in the world, it would be wise to imitate the positive, prophetic approach taken by Blessed John XXIII in his encyclical Pacem in Terris, a French archbishop said.

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April 26, 2012

By Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Lay Catholics in China have been scandalized by priests who are ordained bishops without papal approval and by the participation of Vatican-recognized bishops in those ordinations, said the Vatican Commission for the Catholic Church in China.

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April 26, 2012

By Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) – Pope Benedict XVI told the German bishops that, as pope, he has celebrated Mass in different languages and “sometimes it is hard to find common ground” in the various translations.

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