Starting from 29 June this year, Archbishops will no longer go to Rome to receive the Pallium. Instead the ceremony of investiture of the Pallium will take place in the Metropolitan Archbishops home dioceses. Pope Francis has changed the ceremony to emphasize that the investiture is an ecclesial event of the whole diocese, and not merely a juridical or ceremonial event. Monsignor Guido Marini, Master of Pontifical Liturgical Celebrations, told Vatican Radio the ceremony will be celebrated in two significant moments:

'Ecclesial elites' who form cliques and scorn others are privatizing the faith and not following the way of Jesus, Pope Francis said during his homily at morning Mass on Thursday at Casa Santa Marta. Reflecting on the day's readings, Pope Francis said: “It’s true, Jesus has saved us all, but not in a general fashion. All of us, each one with their name and surname. And this is our personal salvation. I am truly saved, the Lord looked at me, gave his life for me.... But there’s a danger of forgetting that He saved us individually but at the same time as part of his people 

The Government laid the Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Mitochondrial Donation) Regulations on the 17th December 2014. The Regulations permit two new techniques which seek to replace diseased mitochondria while allowing a mother to have a genetically related child. The Regulations will be debated within the next couple of weeks. WHY ARE THESE TECHNIQUES OBJECTIONABLE?  The techniques permit: 1. The germ-line modification of human beings; 2. The creation of human life only to be destroyed;

Christian leaders have thrown their weight behind a new campaign for political parties to promise to act against tax avoidance if they get elected. Leading voices from Methodist, Quaker, Anglican, Catholic, Salvation Army and evangelical traditions have declared their support for the idea that a new law is needed to curb multinational tax avoidance in the UK and developing countries.  They are responding to a campaign calling on all political parties to pledge that if they win the coming UK election,  they will rapidly introduce 

“There is not a single day when Pope Francis doesn’t call us to go out to share our faith,” were the decisive words addressed to European delegates in The Vatican recently, meeting to identify effective ways to pass on the Catholic Faith. Speaking to around 40 representatives from 25 countries, including England and Wales, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelisation, said: “The Church transmits to all generations all that she is.

When it comes to the harsh difficulties many Native Americans face every day, the saying “out of sight, out mind” hits home. Many people have only a vague sense of the serious past and present injustices suffered by Native Americans. From the very beginning, starting with Christopher Columbus’ voyages to the Bahamas, we get a sad introduction of how Europeans, Americans and Canadians, would steal from, enslave and kill Native Americans largely for their land and natural resources.

Pope Francis called on fathers to be more present in the lives of their children pointing out that the absence of a ‘father figure’ can have grave consequences. Speaking to thousands of pilgrims gathered in the Pope Paul VI Hall on Wednesday for weekly General Audience, the Pope continued in his catechesis on the family, focussing on the dignity and role of fathers. He said that teaching us to call God our Father, Jesus gave new depth and richness to this relationship, so fundamental to the life of society.

The cause for the beatification of Chiara Lubich, founder of the international Focolare Movement, was opened on Tuesday. The official inauguration of the Diocesan Process of Inquiry into Lubich’s life, followed the praying of Vespers in the Cathedral of Frascati, near Rome. While Chara was born in the northern Italian region of Trento, she established the International Centre for the Focolare Movement, whose charism is the promotion of peace and the unity of all people, in Frascati.

Six out of ten people in the UK say they could not go a day without access to the internet, while the majority could not survive without their smartphones, according to a survey by the country’s leading fair trade organisation Traidcraft. The nationwide survey found that: • More than a third need a morning coffee to get them through the day • More than two thirds of 16-24 year olds listed their smartphone as their top necessity. Half of all Londoners quizzed listed their smartphone as their top necessity

An ethnic Chin elder is due to appear in court today on trumped-up charges which Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) believes are connected with his involvement in the planting of a cross on a hill in Hakha town, Chin State, in April last year. The Chin State government has ordered the 54 foot-high cross, which it argues has been erected illegally to be removed on 30 January. The Chin Human Rights Organisation (CHRO) reports that the elder, Tial Cem, has been accused of cutting down pine trees without official permission,

Bishop Declan Lang and other senior faith leaders are calling for David Cameron to increase the number of Syrian refugees resettled in the UK in response to ‘one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of our time’. In an open letter to the Prime Minister, Bishop Declan Lang, Chair of the Bishops’ Conference Department of International Affairs, joined the Anglican Archbishop of Wales Barry Morgan, Head of the Jewish Reform Movement, Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner, and Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra, Assistant Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain 

MSP Clare Adamson has given her backing to a campaign of solidarity with persecuted Christians spearheaded by a leading Catholic charity in Scotland. The Scottish National Party member for Central Scotland stated her support for Aid to the Church in Need’s Solidarity Campaign – which at a time of increased Christian persecution is calling on Scots to stand up for religious freedom. In a statement to ACN, Clare Adamson MSP said:  “The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 18 

American journalist Chris Hedges writes in Common Dreams: “American Sniper” lionizes the most despicable aspects of US society—the gun culture, the blind adoration of the military, the belief that we have an innate right as a “Christian” nation to exterminate the “lesser breeds” of the earth, a grotesque hypermasculinity that banishes compassion and pity, a denial of inconvenient facts and historical truth, and a belittling of critical thinking and artistic expression. Many Americans, especially white Americans 

Nominations have opened for the Catholic Women of the Year 2015. Any Catholic woman can be nominated. It only requires a letter listing the reasons why she should be put forward for this honour. The Committee is looking for the 'unsung heroines' - women who care for the frail and elderly, teach children the Catholic faith, visit prisons, raise funds for charity, or are involved in community projects... women who are good neighbours, who defend and uphold Christian values, care for the common good...women who are married or single, religious

Guidance for Catholic voters ahead of the forthcoming General Election will published by the bishops of England and Wales within weeks. The Rt Rev Mark Davies, the Bishop of Shrewsbury, told justice and peace activists that work on the document has been under way since the bishops announced its publication after they met in Leeds in November. “The bishops of England and Wales have drafted a statement for the General Election which

Pope Francis' Message for Lent 2015 was released by the Vatican today. In his letter the Holy Father invites all believers to open their hearts to God and to overcome a 'globalization of indifference' that, he said, is threatening to spread a feeling of distress and powerlessness and causing individuals and communities to withdraw into themselves, closing “the door through which God comes into the world and the world comes to him.” The full text of Pope Francis’ Message for Lent 2015 follows:

Bishop Liam MacDaid, Bishop of Clogher, has invited priests and parishioners of his diocese to take part in a diocesan-wide discussion in advance of the Synod on the Family in the Vatican in October on the theme 'The Vocation and Mission of the Family in the Church and Contemporary World'. In a letter to the priests and people of the diocese Bishop MacDaid invites the faithful to walk with Pope Francis saying: “Pope Francis has encouraged us to be honest and frank as we walk with him and he has stated his wish to hear and listen

Survivors of clerical sexual abuse and former clergy offenders have worked together for the first time at a ground-breaking meeting in Durham, held last week at Ushaw College. Alongside psychologists and lawyers, seminary rectors and theologians from Europe, North America and Australia, they attended a conference organised by Durham University's Centre for Catholic Studies and its Project for Spirituality, Theology and Health with the support of the UK Jesuits, Heythrop College, the English Benedictines, and the Marist Brothers, with St Patrick's College Maynooth

On Sunday, 25 January, York was the location for the first Carmelite friar to be ordained priest in the city since the Reformation. Father Gerard (Ged) Walsh was ordained priest by Rt Rev Terence Drainey, Bishop of Middlesbrough, at Our Lady’s Church in Acomb, during the parish celebration of Mass. This was an historic moment for the Carmelite Order which first came to York in 1250. Until the suppression of Catholic religious orders at the Reformation in 1536, York was the administrative and training centre for the Carmelite Order

In his diary written in the Warsaw Ghetto, Chaim A Kaplan wrote this entry for October 2nd 1940: Again: everything is forbidden to us; and yet we do everything! We make our "living" in ways that are forbidden, and not by permission. It is the same with community prayers: secret minyanim in their hundreds all over Warsaw hold prayers together and do not leave out even the most difficult hymns.…Near the main synagogue some side room is chosen with windows facing the courtyard, and there hearts are poured out to the God of Israel 

An archbishop from Kurdish northern Iraq grappling with the influx of more than 120,000 Christians fleeing ISIS,  is to come to London to plead their cause. Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil is due to give an address in the Houses of Parliament on Monday, 9 February amid increasing concerns about the future of Christians who escaped from Mosul and Nineveh with no more than the clothes they were wearing. At the House of Lords event sponsored by human rights campaigner Lord David Alton of Liverpool,

 CAFOD and its partners have intensified their Ebola response work in Sierra Leone, joining the international effort to reach zero new cases of Ebola in the coming months. Thanks to money donated by supporters to their Ebola crisis appeal - which raised over one million pounds - and funding from the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), CAFOD partners are scaling up distributions of food and household items to quarantined families, Outbreak Prevention kits (made up of protective clothing, bleach and cleaning materials) to places of worship,

The Parish of Our Lady and  St Thomas of Canterbury Harrow–on–the–Hill ( five minutes walk from Harrow–on–the– Hill Metropolitan Line Station) Is seeking to appoint an enthusiastic, innovative, creative pastoral assistant who has vision and dedication to work with the parish as they continue to develop their Mission.

The Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office (ACMRO) has expressed deep concern over desperate protests taking place on Manus Island - used as a detention centre for asylum seekers - and the government's lack of transparency. The office said in a statement: 'Since Tuesday, 13 January 2013, close to 700 asylum seekers have embarked on a hunger strike with 40 asylum seekers sewing their lips together and others swallowing razor blades. Asylum seekers on the Island resorted to such drastic measures after being told that they would 

In their joint declaration of November 30th 2014, Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew mentioned the ecumenism of suffering: ‘…we can say that there is also an ecumenism of suffering. Just as the blood of the martyrs was a seed of strength and fertility for the Church, so too the sharing of daily sufferings can become an effective instrument of unity. The terrible situation of Christians and all those who are suffering in the Middle East calls not only for our constant prayer,