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December 15, 2016

The best films of 2016

December 15, 2016

Son of Saul, The Club and Anomalisa all helped make 2016 a fantastic year in cinema

December 15, 2016

Last week the Vatican issued a revised version of its “fundamentals of priestly formation”, which guide the training of clergy around the world. The text, known officially as the Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis, was last updated in 1985 – in the early days of St John Paul II’s pontificate. Introducing the new document, Cardinal Beniamino

The big story of the past seven days

December 15, 2016

✣ Pope defends Amoris as ‘a result of two synods’ What happened? Pope Francis has said that everything in Amoris Laetitia resulted from the synod. In an interview with the Belgian magazine Tertio, the Pope said the document was “the result of two synods, in which all the Church worked, and which the Pope made his

The best of the Catholic blogosphere

December 15, 2016

✣ Highlights from the week online Santa versus Arius: a myth we need to drop At the National Catholic Register, Steven Greydanus took aim at a favourite Catholic legend: that St Nicholas, the origin of Santa Claus, punched the heretic Arius in the face. For one thing, said Greydanus, the story is very doubtful: its earliest

BBC admits error over Pius XII and Nazis

December 15, 2016

The BBC’s internal watchdog has ruled that a BBC One news bulletin was wrong to accuse the Catholic Church of “silence” over the Holocaust. After Pope Francis’s visit to Auschwitz in July, BBC News at Six carried a report which said: “Silence was the response of the Catholic Church when Nazi Germany demonised Jewish people and

Scholars ask bishops to back ‘four cardinals’

December 15, 2016

Twenty-three Catholic scholars and pastors, three of them Oxford University academics, have given their names to a statement in support of “the four cardinals”, after the cardinals’ request to Pope Francis to clarify his apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia. The scholars include Dr Robert Beddard, the former vice-provost of Oriel College, Oxford, Professor Luke Gormally, a

Pope: make more room for God at Christmas

December 15, 2016

The Christmas tree and Nativity scene are symbols of God’s love and hope, reminding us to contemplate the beauty of creation and welcome the marginalised, Pope Francis has said. Baby Jesus, whose parents could find no decent shelter and had to flee persecution, is a reminder of the “painful experience” of so many migrants today,

Church bombed during clashes in Burma

December 15, 2016

A Catholic church has been bombed in the conflict-torn northern Shan state as renewed fighting intensified between the Burmese military and armed ethnic groups. St Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Mongkoe Township, near the Chinese border, was hit by airstrikes on December 3, the feast of St Francis Xavier. Ucanews.com reported that the parish priest,

Seminaries urged to teach climate change

December 15, 2016

The nurturing of holy, healthy and humble priests requires prayers for vocations and the careful selection and training of candidates, the Congregation for Clergy has said. Updating guidelines on preparing men for the Latin-Rite priesthood, the congregation released “The Gift of the Priestly Vocation”. The document draws heavily on St John Paul II’s 1992 apostolic

Scorsese’s new film ‘a pilgrimage’

December 15, 2016

Director Martin Scorsese has described his new film Silence as a major stage in his pilgrimage of faith, a pilgrimage that included dropping out of the minor seminary, investigating other religions and recognising that the Catholic Church was his home. Growing up in New York, “I was extraordinarily lucky, because I had a remarkable priest,

In brief

December 15, 2016

Catholic father of five to lead New Zealand The new prime minister of New Zealand, Bill English, is a practising Catholic. In 2008 he said: “It is very good for someone in public life to spend a minimum of an hour a week … going to Mass and hearing language like forgiveness, mercy, sinfulness, worship.”

A trip that could change Ireland

December 15, 2016

When John Paul II visited Ireland in 1979 more than 2.5 million people flocked to events across the country in an outpouring of support for their new Polish pope. Thirty-seven years later Ireland is bracing itself for another papal visit – expected in 2018, at the invitation of Prime Minister Enda Kenny – but it