A priest armed with several weapons and dressed in a cassock tried to enter St. Peter's Square in the Vatican to participate in the Regina Caeli prayer with Pope Francis on Sunday, May 5. According to the Italian news agency ANSA, the priest, who is from the Czech Republic, tried to pass through the metal detector carrying an air pistol, two knives, a cutter, and a screwdriver. After being arrested, the priest was reported to the authorities for illegal possession of weapons. When questioned, the priest said he carried the weapons for personal defence. According to the Italian newspaper La Rep ..read more

A Wellington retailer has become the target of online abuse and harassment since speaking out about an incident with Green MP Julia Anne Genter. Nicola Cranfield alleged Genter grabbed her arm, giving it "quite a strong shake" after she approached the MP in Midland Park late last year to discuss plans by the council to remove public parking in the CBD. The claim followed other allegations of what's been described as "bullying" by Genter recently — initially in the House when she crossed the floor to remonstrate with National's Matt Doocey last week, then by a Newtown florist claiming a heated ..read more

An issue that refuses to hide its face is the continuing fall in the number of priests serving our parishes. We should be considering this question as a matter of some urgency if we are to maintain our present diocesan structures at anywhere near their present level, let alone seek to become a Missionary Church. Factors behind the problem A number of factors might be considered that have given rise to our present predicament. The age profile of serving priests continues to rise. Parishes with more than one priest are rare so the return alone to an empty house is uninviting. Above all, the ques ..read more

It took a little more than a day for Father Justin, an artificial intelligence (AI) avatar posing as a priest, to be defrocked. Defrocking Justin After Catholic Answers, a site devoted to evangelising for Catholicism, introduced the character to answer questions about the faith, Catholics on social media called the character a "scandalising mockery of the sacred priesthood". It only offers "a substitute for real interaction," they said. On April 24, Catholic Answers apologised for the experiment, and Justin was reintroduced as a lay theologian. What's wrong with AI evangelisation Catholics clo ..read more

Calls for hope in times like these can seem like toxic positivity — or like a slur. Urging hope seems to ignore charred bodies in a kibbutz and bombed refugee camps, to mock victims of hate crimes, to disregard the failed peace agreements and war machines that crisscross the sky. Countering rhetoric and policies At the Shoulder to Shoulder Campaign, we have worked for 13 years to counter the rhetoric and policies that demonise American Muslims and others perceived to be Muslim — Arab, Palestinian, Sikh and South Asian Americans. Our coalition draws people of faith and goodwill beyond the Musli ..read more

As global fertility rates continue to decline, even majority-Catholic and historically Catholic countries aren't free from the demographic collapse. That collapse increasingly threatens to shrink the populations of countries below the necessary rate of replacement. Global fertility falling Global fertility has been falling for decades, with the problem often most acute in industrialised nations with higher standards of living. At the same time, the fertility rates in many developing nations with strained resources, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, continue to climb. Many of the world's most d ..read more

More than 1.5 million couples globally have transformed their marriages after attending The Marriage Course, a marriage boot camp. Recently, fifteen couples marked the end of their transformative journey as they received blessings and celebrated the culmination of the seven-week course at Ryde Gladesville Catholic Parish near Sydney, Australia. Led by parish priest Fr Greg Morgan and assistant priest Fr Dan Drum, the Mass and dinner honoured the couples' commitment to revitalising their relationships through The Marriage Course. The marriage boot camp, developed by Alpha International, origina ..read more

Amidst the ongoing Gaza conflict, a parishioner at the region's sole Catholic parish has illuminated the daily challenges faced by the community. In a letter published in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Suhail Abo Dawood emphasised the significance of practices like daily Mass and the Rosary amidst the backdrop of war and food scarcity. "We parishioners, refugees in the church of the Holy Family, are getting used to the current condition of war, reconstructing our lives in a situation where everything has been destroyed. The war put an end to freedom, comfort and unity" wrote Dawoo ..read more

A parish priest from the Czech Republic was detained at the Vatican entrance as he attempted to enter St Peter's Square and take part in Pope Francis' Regina Caeli prayer. The 59-year-old priest, identified as Father Milan Palkovic, was found carrying an air pistol, two knives, a cutter and a screwdriver. The weapons were identified during a routine screening by the metal detectors. St Peter's Square visitors must pass through the detectors before entering the square. Palkovic claimed the items were for personal defence and belonged to another man accompanying him, who was also detained. Both ..read more

Police in Indonesia have arrested four men for attacking Catholic students praying the rosary. The alleged Muslim attackers and others mobbed 12 students while they were conducting a traditional house-to-house rosary service on 5 May. For many Indonesian Catholics the month of May is special, a time to visit Marian grottos and shrines to pay their respects to the mother of Jesus. Pray at home The man at the head of an Islamic extremist group said Christians should gather in church. If you perform any praying, do it in your church as we local Muslims are used to in our mosque; not in a resident ..read more