Vatican

Once again this year, Fides publishes an annual document of all the pastoral workers who lost their lives in a violent manner over the course of the last 12 months.

According to information in our possession, during 2011, 26 pastoral care workers were killed: one more than the previous year: 18 priests, 4 religious sisters, 4 lay people. Read more »

Christianity continues to be the most widespread religion in the world.

Around one-third of the Earth's population - 2.18 billion people - are classified as "Christian" in a study by The Pew Forum, a prominent American research center. On the same date, Muslims totaled about 1.6 billion and represented 23.4% of the world's population. Read more »

Prayer should not centre just on asking God to fulfil one’s hopes and desires, but must include praise, thanks and trust in God’s plan which may not match one’s own, Pope Benedict XVI has said.

The way Jesus prayed to his Father “teaches us that in our own prayers, we must always trust in the Father’s will and strive to see all things in light of his mysterious plan of love”, he said during his weekly general audience. Read more »

Human beings have the right to freedom of religion and all people, in every part of the world, should be protected from every form of coercion by individuals, social groups, and every kind of human power," wrote John Paul II, Ecclesia in Europa. Read more »

The Vatican has called on the Chinese authorities to respect “the norms of the Catholic Church” at the ordination of Father Peter Luo Xuegang as coadjutor-bishop of Yibin diocese, southwestern China, on November 30.

In particular, it asks that the faithful be informed that he has the pope’s approval, and that no illegitimate bishop participates in the ceremony. Read more »

In rejecting research using embryonic stem cells, the Catholic Church is not trying to impede science or delay treatment that can save lives, Pope Benedict XVI said.

The church's opposition to the use and destruction of embryos flows from the conviction that all human life is sacred and that destroying the most defenseless will never lead to a true benefit for humanity, the pope said Nov. 12 to participants in a Vatican-sponsored conference on research using adult stem cells. Read more »

Pope Benedict XVI told pilgrims to Rome Nov. 6 that a loss of faith in Jesus Christ has led many people to despair in the face of death.
 
“If we remove God, if we take away Christ, the world will fall back into the void and darkness,” he said in his Sunday Angelus address in St. Peter’s Square.
 
 “And this is also reflected in the expressions of contemporary nihilism, an often subconscious nihilism that unfortunately plagues many young people.” Read more »

A Vatican document called for the gradual creation of a world political authority with broad powers to regulate financial markets and rein in the "inequalities and distortions of capitalist development."

The document said the current global financial crisis has revealed "selfishness, collective greed and the hoarding of goods on a great scale." A supranational authority, it said, is needed to place the common good at the center of international economic activity. Read more »

Taking 300 religious leaders with him on pilgrimage to Assisi, Pope Benedict XVI said people who are suspicious of religion cannot be blamed for questioning God's existence when they see believers use religion to justify violence.

"All their struggling and questioning is, in part, an appeal to believers to purify their faith so that God, the true God, becomes accessible," the pope said Oct. 27 during an interfaith gathering in the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels. Read more »

Pope Benedict XVI canonised three founders of religious orders as saints of the Catholic Church in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday in recognition of their missionary activity and social work.

“Christians can show the world God’s love by loving their neighbour. Today, the Church shows its members three new saints who let themselves be transformed by divine charity,” the pope told a packed square of pilgrims.

The new saints are two Italians, Guido Maria Conforti (1865-1931) and Luigi Guanella (1842-1915), and a Spaniard, Bonifacia Rodriguez Castro (1837-1905). Read more »