A Congolese cardinal is resisting calls to run for president Last month a coalition of Catholic groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) urged Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo of Kinshasa to run for president in December’s elections. The group, known as “Dynamique Chrétienne pour l’Unité et la Démocratie”, said the country had been “on

A priest who influenced Vatican policy on homosexuality is suspended When a prominent French priest was suspended from ministry this month, it dealt a new blow to efforts to mend the Church’s image over sexual abuse by Catholic clergy. Mgr Tony Anatrella, a 77-year-old psychoanalyst widely dubbed “the Church’s shrink”, had played an international role

As a spirit of revenge spreads, the bishops renew their call for peace When a senior priest was shot dead in the Central African Republic, the act was bitterly condemned by the country’s bishops. But they were no less adamant in deploring calls for Christians to rise up and take revenge against Muslims. “Such projects

Bishops are risking their safety as they try to head off a civil war When shots were fired one night in May at the residence of Archbishop Samuel Kleda, president of Cameroon’s bishops’ conference, the incident highlighted growing tensions in this west African state. The Actualité du Cameroun news agency branded the attack an “attempted

New Prime Minister intends to remove remains from the Valley of the Fallen this month

Spain’s new atheist prime minister spells trouble for the Church When a new Socialist premier took office in Spain on June 2, the Catholic Church was careful to emphasise its readiness to co-operate. Yet within barely a week, as tensions emerged over Pedro Sánchez’s policies, many Catholics were wondering whether the conflicts of past years

Pedro Sánchez has adopted an aggressively secular agenda

Independence movements remain a headache for the bishops  Did ETA, the Basque separatist movement, reflect a legitimate cause, or was it no more than a brutal and shameful group of terrorists? That question is difficult for the Church to answer – and last week, when ETA announced it was disbanding, Spain’s Catholic bishops had to confront it

In a quiet Sussex churchyard near the South Downs, a weather-beaten stone cross bears a faded inscription: “Caroline, wife of Henry Edward Manning”. To the right, along the flint boundary wall, the small red-tiled church of St Peter’s stands on a low embankment, overlooked by a Georgian mansion, now part of Seaford College. When an

Bishops urge emigrant Catholics to integrate more with Church in other countries

Young people are 'discouraged by policies which are hostile to the family,' the Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe said

Requirement for Church employees to have a ‘religious affiliation’ could violate anti-discrimination laws