Pope Requests Prayers for Vocations
At the Angelus on Sunday 3rd May, World Day of Prayer for Priestly Vocations and the Consecrated Life, Benedict XVI asked the faithful to pray for vocations in his message “Faith in the Divine initiative – human response”.
Benedict XVI acknowledges that “in some areas of the world there is a worrying lack of priests and [...]
Benedict XVI Proclaims a Special Sacerdotal Year
On 16th March last, the day before leaving for Africa, Benedict XVI gave an audience to the members of the plenary assembly for the Congregation for the Clergy, and declared: “As Church and as priests, we proclaim Jesus of Nazareth Lord and Christ, Crucified and Risen, Sovereign of time and of history, in the glad [...]
Poland: Vocations Keep Dropping
14-08-2009
Filed under DICI, The Church in the world, Year 2009, web
On April 28, the Polish Council for Vocations published their report on vocations for 2008. The Catholic Church in Poland, which for many years witnessed a rising curve in priestly vocations, has recorded another fall in the number of new seminarians in 2008: to the preceding decline of about 25% observed in 2007 can be [...]
Germany: Priestly Ordinations in Significant Decline
14-08-2009
Filed under DICI, The Church in the world, Year 2009, web
For the first time since 1962, the number of ordinations to the priesthood in Germany fell below 100 in 2008. Peter Birkhofer, the director of the Center for Vocations Pastoral speaks of a “massive decline.”
In 2008, the 27 dioceses of Germany registered 93 ordinations to the priesthood, compared with 110 in the previous year. Over [...]
United States: Parishioners Appeal to Vatican
14-08-2009
Filed under DICI, The Church in the world, Year 2009, web
The parishioners of eight American dioceses have united to ask the Vatican to intervene against the closure of their parishes. Peter Borre, the co-president of the American Council of Parishes in Boston – an organization founded in 2004 to oppose the closure of parishes – has presented Rome with an 18-page document which has been [...]
Editorial : Place Vauban
14-08-2009
Filed under DICI, From Tradition, Year 2009, web
The city council of Paris will no longer allow traditionalist Catholics in the square where the annual Pentecost pilgrimage has been coming to its close at the foot of the Sacré-Cœur of Montmartre, for almost twenty years now. This year, we shall be at the heart of the capital, in Place Vauban, in the shadow [...]
Dossier: First Part of Pope’s Pilgrimage to Holy Land
At the time we are writing, the visit of Benedict XVI in the Holy Land is coming to a close. We will give a report of the last days of his pilgrimage, and our comments on them in the next issue. In the present issue, we relate his visit to Jordan and his first days in Israel.
Analysis: Benedict XVI and Interreligious Dialogue
To shed light upon the stand taken by Benedict XVI concerning interreligious dialogue, it is useful to refer to the letter of encouragement he wrote, in November 2008, to Italian philosopher and politician, Marcello Pera, as foreword to his book Perche dobbiamo dirci cristiani. Il liberalismo, l’Europa, l’etica (Why should we call ourselves Christians. Liberalism, [...]
In brief
14-08-2009
Filed under DICI, The Church in the world, Year 2009, web
The first social encyclical of Benedict XVI expected at the end of June
“June 29 – the feast of Sts Peter and Paul – could be the definitive date” for the publication of Benedict XVI’s first social encyclical, stated Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, on April 23, 2009.
In [...]
Before the Pope’s Pilgrimage to the Holy Land
Benedict XVI will visit the Holy Land from May 11 to May 15. We must take cognizance of the political and religious context into which this visit will take place. The power of the fundamentalists in the Israeli society, the role of the ultranationalists in the government, the juridical and economic agreements never brought to [...]
