Responding to an investigative report by AP, the Cardinal Pietro Parolin saidthere had been past problems at the hospital, but they were making a 'serious effort to resolve them'

Take a look inside this week’s Catholic Herald

Sometimes we all need a little encouragement to cultivate good habits

Two years ago Cardinal Vincent Nichols asked me to be his liaison and chaplain to the Farm Street LGBT group in central London

Christians could be victims of the government's crackdown on Islamism

Few dates can be said with certainty to mark a turning point in Church history. But July 7, 2007, is one of them. That was the day that Benedict XVI issued the apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum, sweeping away restrictions on the celebration of the older Mass. At a stroke, Benedict ensured that the Catholic Church

✣ Cardinal Pell to face trial over abuse claims What happened? Cardinal George Pell, appointed by Pope Francis to reform Vatican finances, will return to Australia to face charges of historic sex abuse. At a press conference at the Vatican, the cardinal said he was innocent and had faced “relentless character assassination”. Pope Francis has granted

✣ Highlights from the week online The time I yelled in the confessional At aleteia.com Elizabeth Scalia recalled the “strangest Confession of my life” – where she and her confessor both started yelling. “It got loud,” she wrote. “If people were waiting, I was pretty sure they could hear us hollering through the thick wooden doors.”

Doctors are boycotting the British Medical Association after it backed a campaign for “abortion up to birth”. A number of doctors have contacted the press to express their shock at a new policy in favour of stripping criminal sanctions from abortion law. “Motion 50” was adopted at a meeting in Bournemouth by a two-thirds majority

Pope Francis has said that Charlie Gard’s parents should be allowed to “accompany and care” for their child “to the end”. His statement, issued on Sunday, was widely seen as supporting the parents’ wish for him to receive experimental treatment abroad. Great Ormond Street Hospital, where Charlie was being treated, argued that this was not

Pope Francis has decided not to renew Cardinal Gerhard Müller’s term as prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), instead appointing Archbishop Luis Ladaria SJ, second in command at the CDF, as his successor. Some commentators saw the move as a “papal smackdown” against a cardinal who had insisted that

Three women have been consecrated as virgins in a rare ceremony in Detroit. Such a consecration had never taken place before in the archdiocese. As far as records show, it was the first time in the United States that three women had committed their lives at the same time in this way. The women, who