Vatican's chief astronomer states that belief in alien life does not conradict faith in God. Fr. José Gabriel Funes, a Jesuit preist and chief astronomer for the Vatican, stated in an interview in L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's official newspaper, that, "Just as we consider earthly creatures as 'a brother,' and 'sister,' why should we not talk about an 'extraterrestrial brother'? It would still be part of creation."
posted on May 14, 2008 - View this thread

After breaking the ice with his video message to all Americans, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Washington, D.C. this afternoon for the initial part of his first Papal visit to the United States of America. Watch it all live.
posted on Apr 15, 2008 - View this thread

The most challenging scenario(video) of communion distribution in the upper deck of Yankee Stadium. See the Pope on 5th Avenue or vote for your favorite papal skateboard design. Other activities. Itinerary. Security. Via.
posted on Apr 12, 2008 - View this thread

"Ratzinger is an Evolutionist, which by definition makes one an athiest", is one of the reasons that this website, in which the "true" catholic faith (different [?] from the other catholic faith) is promoted, gives as to claiming Benedict XVI isn't the true pope. And to make their point they have elected a "real" pope themselves: Pope Pius XIII His real name? Lucian Pulvermacher (wikipedia) (previously)
posted on Jan 31, 2008 - View this thread

Rick Majerus has always been a bit controversial, but this has been a bad month.
posted on Jan 23, 2008 - View this thread

On October 28, the Pope will beatify (certify as Blessed) several martyrs of the Spanish Civil War, among them Gabino Olaso Zabala. Only thing is, Zabala is known to have participated in the torture of a fellow priest. Disturbingly, some Catholics are rallying behind a man who never publicly regretted his abusive past.
posted on Oct 17, 2007 - View this thread

The Catholic Church is traditionally not seen as a progressive institution, but when it comes to global warming, Vatican City is aiming to become the worlds first fully carbon-neutral state, and the Pope is expected to use his first address to the United Nations next April to deliver a powerful warning over climate change in a move to adopt protection of the environment as a "moral" cause for the Catholic Church and its billion-strong following.
posted on Sep 22, 2007 - View this thread

Dante's The Divine Comedy (trailer/text) has inspired an opera by the Vatican's music administrator, the choirmaster of St John Lateran, Monsignor Marco Frisina. The premiere is scheduled for fall of 2007. Although traditional orchestral music predominates, Monsignor Frisina says that he is using punk, rock and jazz to represent the Devil because its "violent and rebellious tones help create a hellish atmosphere" (The Clash, Straight To Hell YouTube).
posted on May 19, 2007 - View this thread

Jesus of Nazareth - a theological biography by Pope Benedict
posted on May 13, 2007 - View this thread

Rev. Robert F. Drinan, first priest to be a voting member of Congress died Sunday He was 86. In his time, Father Drinan was a priest, law professor and human rights advocate. He was also controversial.
posted on Jan 29, 2007 - View this thread

Sam Harris, an atheist, and Andrew Sullivan, a Catholic, debate whether moderate religion makes any sense. Harris: "Religious moderation is the result of not taking scripture all that seriously." Sullivan: "Blogger, please."
posted on Jan 25, 2007 - View this thread

St. Patrick's Catholic parish of Iowa City had a lovely old church until last year on Holy Thursday when the building was destroyed by a tornado. The church ruins were demolished yesterday. Here is the heart-wrenching (and related!) saga of Ricky the Flying Raccoon.
posted on Jan 19, 2007 - View this thread

Pope Benedict XVI wants to bring back the latin mass. This could be the start of a return to the old Catholic traditionalism and the undoing of Vatican II.
posted on Oct 23, 2006 - View this thread

A collection of American Catholic paraphernalia, including mysterious (for me, a non-Catholic) objects like; aspergills, clappers and Sick call sets. There are also more rosaries, medals and pins than you can shake a stick at.
posted on Oct 20, 2006 - View this thread

Mexican government bans American Catholics who sued Mexico City Prelate The Mexican government took the unprecedented and controversial step of banning Dave Clohessy of SNAP and Jeffrey Anderson, a lawyer specializing in abuse cases, from entering the country for five years. The men had filed a lawsuit against Mexico City Archbishop Norbeto Rivera, who they allege covered up sex abuse in his diocese.
posted on Oct 16, 2006 - View this thread

Pope Benedict XVI makes his usual Sunday address during Italy's National August Holiday and about two-thirds in points out that "excessive activity" can lead to "hardness of heart", specifically recommending taking time out for prayer. It becomes the highlight of the speech, gets picked up all over, by Reuters and AP, and suddenly he's the Patron Saint of Slackers. Huh? Maybe that's why it's called The Protestant Work Ethic. Meanwhile, Americans are 'giving up' on vacations (voluntarily?) and in parts of Turkey a Muslim Protestant Work Ethic is emerging. And whatever happened to the Hacker Ethic?
posted on Aug 20, 2006 - View this thread

Is Catholic-Anglican Reconciliation the only way forward? The Anglicans aren't Protestant, they're Catholics! In 1920 the Church of England - Anglicans - called for its reconciliation with the Catholic Church, and in 1925 the Catholic Ecumenical movement sought to make the Anglicans an autonomous Catholic church with the Archbishop of Canterbury as its patriarch. It would have been similar to the Coptic and Syro-Malabarese churches. The move was quashed by Pope Pius XI, who ended the ecumenical movement there and then. If conservative Anglicans chose this third way, instead of infighting over sexuality and gender issues or establishing a new model for membership, it could keep its married priests, its land, its churches, it's membership, and the Archbishop of Canterbury would still have a job.
posted on Jul 7, 2006 - View this thread

Priest convicted in 1980 nun-slaying. The 71-year-old nun was found on Good Saturday 1980 strangled to death, stabbed 27-32 times, wrapped in an altar cloth with her under-garments around her ankle. Abuse victim Jane Doe re-opens 1980 case with account of childhood Satanic ritual abuse. Was there a cover up by the diocese?
posted on May 11, 2006 - View this thread

'This is a difficult and sad day for Catholic Charities," says a representative of the church, who announced their decision to stop helping all foster children find homes rather than allow any of them be adopted by gay parents. After one hundred three years of service, Catholic Charities of Boston is exiting the adoption assistance arena because state anti-discrimination laws force them to allow same-sex couples to adopt children (despite the fact that the church considers this to be a sin).

While adoptions in progress will not be affected, on or about June 30, the group that proffers a "just and compassionate society rooted in the dignity of all people" will make chrystal clear who is included in that definition of "all." (Of the 720 children placed in homes through CCAB, 13 of them were placed with "same-sex families" [sic].)
posted on Mar 11, 2006 - View this thread

Newsfilter: Vatican rejects Intelligent Design. The Vatican has stated that Intelligent Design is not, in their opinion, science and they do not support it. Their announcement is a part of the effort to end the "mutual prejudice" between science and evolution.
posted on Nov 7, 2005 - View this thread

"If we can get kids to hang a picture of a priest in their room, we've done something huge for vocations." The associate director of youth and young adult ministry for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis is using a Matrix-style poster to drum up enrollment in the priesthood...and exponentially increase bad Photoshop pranks, if I know the internets at all. Oh well. At least it's not as bad as using video games to recruit soldiers! (Hat tip to NSFW-SG!)
posted on Sep 22, 2005 - View this thread

What the co-inventor of the Pill didn't know about menstruation can endanger women's health: "The passion and urgency that animated the birth-control debates of the sixties are now a memory. John Rock still matters, though, for the simple reason that in the course of reconciling his church and his work he made an error. It was not a deliberate error. It became manifest only after his death, and through scientific advances he could not have anticipated. But because that mistake shaped the way he thought about the Pill--about what it was, and how it worked, and most of all what it meant--and because John Rock was one of those responsible for the way the Pill came into the world, his error has colored the way people have thought about contraception ever since."
posted on Sep 20, 2005 - View this thread

Catholic rebels with a cause Two days ago, on a boat on the St. Lawrence River, nine Catholic rebels did something in direct defiance of the Vatican and now face the real prospect of excommunication by the Inquisitor Cardinal Formerly Known as Ratzinger. What crime did they commit, you might ask? Were they participant in something blackhearted, vile and fully deserving of society's wrath, like, say child abuse or pedophilia? Heck no. The white-haired guys at HQ in Rome will look the other way on that business. They might even reward duplicitous attempts to cover up that sort of thing. These malcontents did something much, much worse in the eyes of the Holy See, among others. These are Catholic women, you see. And they had themselves ordained, some as priests and some as deacons. If you've followed Ratzinger's career, you'll recall his response the last time this issue surfaced, so the conclusion to this saga is all-but-foregone.

At least he's consistent in what he thinks ought to be the correct response of an individual in the face of a rigid, autocratic institution bent on order.
posted on Jul 26, 2005 - View this thread

Oriana Fallaci back in the soup. She's being sued in Italy for defaming Islam in her last book, The Rage and the Pride, and faces up to two years in prison. The suit was brought by President of the Italian Muslim Union, Sig. Adel Smith, a fellow who's activism even other Muslims sometimes profess to find a bit much.) And now, as if this makes things right, he's gone to jail for defaming Catholicism. Ms Fallaci's most recent book, The Force of Reason, as radioactive as her last, is due out in America later this year. The free speech in Europe thing is interesting, if crazy making, but does it distract us from the issues that dare not speak their names? Is she right, can East and West survive together? Or are we really best advised to go our separate ways?
posted on Jun 24, 2005 - View this thread

"In those days, there wasn't a lot of talk about gay priests. People didn't want to believe it." On Dec. 4, 1982, a deeply suntanned man, about 40 years old, walked into the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Boise, Idaho, and readied himself for confession. As he waited, the man swallowed a cyanide capsule. A few minutes later, he was dead. He had no identification, and a note in his pocket said only that the $1,900 he carried should be used for his burial, with any remainder donated to the church. The note was signed with what turned out to be a false name. To this day, no one has been able to identify the man, nor to determine why he had come to the church to absolve himself of his sins. On the answers to that mystery may hang the fate of a small, quiet, meticulous man who now lives in South Austin, and who spent 20 years in a Texas prison for a murder he says he did not commit, but which investigators believe may be connected to the dead man at the Boise Sacred Heart Catholic Church. More inside.
posted on Jun 22, 2005 - View this thread

Some MeFites have expressed an interest in learning more about the Catholic Church's positions on abortion, the death penalty, and other issues. I hope you will all find these links interesting and enlightening. The people and the Church. But, what about how other Christians see Catholics? Can Catholics respond to these claims? Of course, some claims have to be taken with a very large chunk of salt. Some Christians are even changing their minds. Though there is no single kind of Catholicism. Finally, here is a source for further research.
posted on Jun 21, 2005 - View this thread

Mary, quite contrary The Christianity Today weblog offers a fabulously dense post (pegged to this recent UK news story) about the Protestant embrace of Mary. Lots of fascinating links - including one from the blog of the President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary - will bring you up to speed on "the 'Protestants and Mary' deluge of the last three years." Hours of provocative reading for anyone interested in Christian sects.
posted on May 23, 2005 - View this thread

Protesting church policy by wearing rainbow-colored sashes resulted in more than 100 people being denied communion in a Catholic church in St. Paul.
posted on May 16, 2005 - View this thread

Articles of Faith "By inviting articles that covered different sides of disputed issues, Father Reese helped make America Magazine a forum for intelligent discussion of questions facing the Catholic Church and the country today." Thomas J. Reese's policy -- to present both sides of the discussion -- apparentlly "did not sit well with Vatican authorities". Reese, a Jesuit and a political scientist, had made a point of publishing both sides of the debate on a range of subjects, some of them quite delicate for a Catholic magazine -- gay priests, stem-cell research, the responsibility of Catholic politicians confronting laws on abortion and same-sex unions and a Vatican document (the Dominus Iesus declaration) which outlined the idea that divine truth is most fully revealed in Christianity and the Catholic Church in particular.
Reese, who had described last month the Vatican as behaving like the cranky owner of a good restaurant, resigned yesterday as editor of the magazine. More inside.
posted on May 9, 2005 - View this thread

Did the new Pope swing the Presidential election last year? After brown-nosing the Vatican on the grounds of being pro-life President Bush convinced then-Cardinal Ratzinger to work on the American Catholic Church on his behalf. Ratzinger's response? This memo where Ratzi claimed that anyone (especially a Catholic politician - like Kerry) who campaigned and voted pro-choice was not only on the side of evil but was unworthy of receiving Communion and Americans probably shouldn't vote for him. According to Salon, this was perhaps what was behind Bush's 6 point increase in Catholic support from 2000, and the difference in the 2004 election.
posted on Apr 21, 2005 - View this thread

BenedictXVI.com registered a few weeks ago by our very own rcade. He hedged his bets by registering six domains in all, and now is being called out for popesquatting.
posted on Apr 19, 2005 - View this thread

The conclave of cardinals will soon start the process of choosing a new pope. Have you filled in your brackets yet?
posted on Apr 6, 2005 - View this thread

Pope John Paul II has had a heart attack. Soon, the College of Cardinals will assemble to choose his successor. Even in death, however, this pontiff will exert extraordinary control over the process, having elevated an unprecedented number of clerics to this body.

The choice of Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino, archbishop of Havana, would continue John Paul II's legacy of opposition to communism and totalitarianism. Another frontrunner is the socially conservative Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze. Arinze would continue John Paul II's cultural legacy while recognizing the demographic reality of modern global Catholicism. Also mentioned as a frontrunner is Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras, a strong proponent of third world debt relief. Progressives would welcome the elevation of German Cardinal Walter Kasper, an advocate for religious tolerance and pluralism, or the moderate Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, a frequent stand-in during the Holy Week ceremonies. Conservatives favor Columbian Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos. Hoyos shares the Pope's traditionalist vision of a church at odds with modernity. But the smart money, is on Dionigi Tettamanzi.
posted on Apr 1, 2005 - View this thread

Missing Friends - Information Wanted - a Database of Advertisements For Irish Immigrants Published in the Boston Pilot.
Boston College has posted more than 31,000 historical entries of Irish Immigrants who were looking to reunite with family and friends between 1831 to 1921 in a searchable database. The ads were published originally in the Boston Pilot.
posted on Mar 17, 2005 - View this thread

Behzti (Dishonour) a play by sikh author Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti has been dropped because of violent protests from members of the birmingham sikh community.

Catholic archbishop feels that violation of the sacred place of the Sikh religion demeans the sacred places of every religion.

As an aside at least enoch was wrong.

Once again folks - in the right corner it's religion , erm.. running round in circles like a scared fool its freedom of expression.
posted on Dec 21, 2004 - View this thread

The real Vatican is in Kansas. "On July 16, 1990 the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church elected David Bawden as Pope Michael, ending an almost 32 year long interegnum."
posted on Sep 21, 2004 - View this thread

Catholic church invalidates girl's first communion because she used a gluten free wafer. Haley Waldman has celiac disease which prevents her from eating wheat. It will also prevent her from receiving one of the most important sacraments of her church. Apparently, this has happened before. According to church canons wafers must be made only from wheat. Despite the Catholic Church's apparent inflexibility, an extremely low gluten wafer has been approved, but still may not be safe for some celiac sufferers.
posted on Aug 13, 2004 - View this thread

No Communion for Pro-Choice Politicians
Apparently they have some issue with women having control over their own bodies so they'll deny communion to pro-choice politicians.
Hey, isn't John Kerry a pro-choice Catholic? This couldn't have anything to do with him could it?
Isn't a divisive move like this more likely to result in more people leaving the "faith"?
posted on Apr 23, 2004 - View this thread

U.S. Catholic priests abused 10,600 children The SNAP network exposes myths about priest pedophilia. Perhaps we'd be better off if Mel Gibson made movies about the real victims of Xtianity.
posted on Feb 27, 2004 - View this thread

Richard Roeper tells it like it is: Catholics are being persecuted. "And no other religious group gets bashed with such frequency."
posted on Feb 10, 2004 - View this thread

Another Worlds AIDS Day, another statement from the Vatican saying you should never use a condom. [via rc3]
posted on Dec 1, 2003 - View this thread

The value of disobedience. [note: nytimes] "Ignoring the reactionary policies of the Vatican, some local priests and nuns quietly do what they can to save parishioners from AIDS." So: when and why do people choose to quietly disobey, rather than leave and promote change from outside their social institutions...or vice versa? Should dissenters just leave, or stay and fight? Anecdotes from Republicans and NRA members are especially welcome ;-)
posted on Nov 26, 2003 - View this thread

The Catholic Church settles for 85 million over pedophilia accusations. Yet, most priests and all of the Church leaders who admittedly moved pedophiles from parish to parish to protect them will be NOT be facing criminal charges. Is this justice? What if NAMBLA was caught doing the same thing? I would think there would be criminal charges all around.
posted on Sep 10, 2003 - View this thread

Patron Saints Index Topic List. Because you never know when you might need the Patron Saint of Haemorrhoids or Gravediggers. This actually is a very nice resource for the history of the Saints, their (known or presumed) backgrounds, and when and why they were beatified. Enjoy.
posted on May 19, 2003 - View this thread

The annual pilgrimage to the Sanctuario de Chimayo and Tome Hill. Here in New Mexico, this week Catholic pilgrims walk to Chimayo and Tome Hill. The Penitente, a long-excommunicated Catholic cult began by a wayward Jesuit in the late 1600's, hold their mock-crucifixion rituals this week as well, but the secret society doesn't encourage visitors. Are there more pilgrimages that happen Easter Week?
posted on Apr 18, 2003 - View this thread

The Vatican's publishing a new 900-page dictionary of "Ambiguous and Colloquial Terms about Family Life and Ethical Questions," such as "reproductive health" and "conjugal love." Some groups are looking forward to the tome...I personally would like to look up "pedophilia" in it.
posted on Apr 1, 2003 - View this thread

Hey, It's Not Enough We Die Of Obesity without having to go to Hell too? Some enlightened Frenchmen are bending the Pope's ear, trying to spring Gluttony from the Deadly Sins blacklist. Well, even clever old Thomas Aquinas did his damnedest to narrow the seven buggers down. So: which sins would you excuse today's poor sufferers from and which ones would you insist on keeping, if any? [Something tells me MetaFilter is ideally suited to put in a good word for Sloth. I wonder why? Speaking of which, NYT reg. is required but you can read about it here instead. Via Arts and Letters Daily.]
posted on Mar 12, 2003 - View this thread

Shawn Fanning - Patron Saint of the Internet? Fed up with hackers, a flood of spam and lousy connections, a group of Roman Catholics have launched a search to determine the Patron Saint of the Internet. Actually, I vote for Danni Ashe. I can't wait to see what her miracles are like...
posted on Jan 31, 2003 - View this thread

Christians become aquainted with the Almighty. "When the Wheat Ridge man got laid off from his computer-programming job in June, his friends and family asked what they could do to help. He asked them to pray for him and offered a daily reminder: an automated text message on cellphones and pagers. Now, Wostenberg, a devout Catholic, is offering that same technology to anyone who wants a psalm sent to him each day at 3 p.m. He's selling the service online at PsalmWeaver.com He charges $19.95 a year, plus a $4 setup fee."
posted on Dec 16, 2002 - View this thread

Mother Teresa fingered This is actually a rather shocking story because the criteria for a miracle at Lourdes, for example, are very strict. That's why there are so few of them.
posted on Oct 15, 2002 - View this thread