Quebec bishops reluctantly accept vaccine passports for Mass attendance (CNA) The Catholic bishops of Quebec, while registering their opposition to the province’s imposition of COVID-19 vaccine passports as a requirement to attend religious services, said this week that they accept the requirement for now, and continue to petition the government to end it. “[I]t seems reasonable to us in the present circumstances to accept certain compromises that contribute to the safety and health of all,” the bishops wrote in a Feb. 3 statement…
Egypt names first-ever Christian head of top court (AP) Egypt’s president on Wednesday swore in the first-ever Coptic Christian to head the country’s highest court. Judge Boulos Fahmy is the 19th person to preside over the Supreme Constitutional Court since it was established in 1969. President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi picked the 65-year-old Fahmy from among the court’s five oldest of 15 sitting judges, as is prescribed by law…
Benedict woes come as German church reform pressure rises (AP) A report on decades of clergy sexual abuse in Germany that shone an unflattering spotlight on retired Pope Benedict XVI has added to already strong pressure there for the church to reconsider Catholic rules on issues including homosexuality and women’s roles, creating a mounting sense of impatience. The latest flare-up of the sexual abuse scandal in the German church, one of the world’s richest, comes as a trailblazing reform process launched in 2019 in response to the abuse crisis begins to call for concrete changes…
Students stage walkout over Christian revival meeting at high school (NPR) Between calculus and European history classes at a West Virginia public high school, 16-year-old Cameron Mays and his classmates were told by their teacher to go to an evangelical Christian revival assembly. When students arrived at the event in the school’s auditorium, they were instructed to close their eyes and raise their arms in prayer, Mays said. The teens were asked to give their lives over to Jesus to find purpose and salvation. Those who did not follow the Bible would go to hell when they died, they were told. The Huntington High School junior sent a text to his father. “Is this legal?” he asked…
Meet Sister Andre, the oldest woman in Europe (AFP) Her 118th birthday wish is “to die soon”. But in the meantime, Lucile Randon, better known as “Sister Andre”, always keeps her door open for any visitor who might want to say hello. Sister Andre is the oldest-known woman in France and Europe, and the second-oldest in the world after Kane Tanaka, a 119-year-old who lives in Japan…
Archbishops place Super Bowl wager (CNS) Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles and Archbishop Dennis M. Schnurr of Cincinnati are rooting for their home team in Super Bowl LVI, but they also have placed a friendly wager on the outcome of the Feb. 13 showdown between the Rams and the Bengals. The prelates announced the wager in a joint video posted online Feb. 9. For his part, Archbishop Gomez offered baked treats from the City of Angels beloved Porto’s Bakery. On his end, Archbishop Schnurr offered a case of Cincinnati’s own Graeter’s ice cream…
