German bishop institutes lay ministers, including 17 women, to perform baptisms (AP) The Roman Catholic Diocese of Essen has become the first in Germany to allow women to perform baptisms, citing a lack of priests. The diocese said in a statement Monday that Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck tasked 18 lay ministers —17 of them women — with conferring the sacrament of admission into the Church at a ceremony over the weekend…
Detroit’s Archbishop Vigneron has COVID (Detroit Free Press) The head of the Catholic Church in metro Detroit said he has tested positive for COVID-19 and has “very mild” symptoms. Archbishop of Detroit Allen Vigneron, the religious leader of 1.2 million Catholics in southeastern Michigan, said Monday afternoon he tested positive in the morning. “I am fully vaccinated and boosted, and grateful to report that my symptoms are very mild,” Vigneron wrote on Twitter in a thread. “I would like to take this opportunity to offer my prayers for members of our community who have been affected by this virus – particularly those who have died, suffered serious illness, or lost loved ones…”
Polish convents open their doors to Ukraine refugees (CNA) Almost 1,000 Catholic convents in Poland are helping refugees from Ukraine. The Council of Major Superiors of Congregations of Women Religious in Poland said on March 15 that sisters in 924 convents in Poland and 98 in Ukraine were offering “spiritual, psychological, medical, and material help…”
St. Brigid captivates Ireland (The New York Times) A renewed cult of Saint Brigid is thriving in Kildare, even at a time when the Roman Catholic church is in retreat in Ireland, weakened by clerical sex abuse scandals, growing secularism and — Catholic feminists say — by its refusal, despite a collapse in the numbers of its all-male priesthood, to give equal status to women…
