Pope Francis: Family is the ‘first and essential place of education (CNA) Pope Francis said Thursday that, among other global goals for education, he wants the world “to see in the family the first and essential place of education.” The pope spoke in a video message to participants in the Oct. 15 launch of the Global Compact on Education. The conference, held at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome, was organized by the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education…
Freed missionary priest recounts harrowing tale of kidnapping (CNS) With his feet chained during two years of captivity somewhere near the Sahara Desert, Father Pierluigi Maccalli said he found new hope on Pentecost Sunday as he huddled near a shortwave radio to listen to Mass celebrated by Pope Francis. In an interview Oct. 15 with Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, Father Maccalli, a member of the Society of African Missions, remembered the joy he felt at hearing the first celebration of Mass since his kidnapping in 2018…
Byzantine priest who made up hate crime ordered to life of penance (CNA) A Byzantine priest in Indiana has been ordered to a life of prayer and penance two years after he was placed on administrative leave for a credible accusation of sexual abuse. The priest made headlines in 2018 when he claimed to have been attacked in his parish church; a claim the eparchy said later had been fabricated. After a period of “appropriate due process according to canon (Church) law” Fr. Basil Hutsko has been ordered to live a life of prayer and penance by Bishop Milan Lach, S.J. of the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Parma, the eparchy said in an Aug. 17 letter posted online, that was first reported this week by the Chicago Tribune…
Women religious working to register voters (CNS) The sisters’ efforts range from small voter registration efforts to large get-out-the-vote ones. The Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia, Kansas, are working to register voters in their small, rural town and another nearby — they set up a table and register everyone they can..
Barrett nomination fight leaves some progressive Catholics feeling unseen (RNS) This week’s Senate hearings may have the effect of centering Judge Barrett’s conservative Catholicism, which is strongly anti-abortion and opposed to same-sex marriage, as the “true Catholicism.” That’s a notion that Dr. Daisy Vargas, a University of Arizona professor who specializes in Catholicism in the Americas, said erases the “diversity of Catholic communities and their experiences…”
