Hong Kong’s new bishop wants plurality respected (AP) Hong Kong’s incoming Roman Catholic bishop Stephen Chow called for respect for different views as he prepares to lead a diocese that has been polarized by the city’s deteriorating political situation. Chow said while he had “no big plan” on how to unify a Catholic community divided since months of anti-government protests in 2019, he believed that God wanted them to be united. “Unity is not the same as uniformity,” Chow said at a news conference Tuesday, one day after Pope Francis named him to head the Hong Kong diocese. “One thing I’ve always mentioned recently in schools is unity is plurality. “We need to respect plurality,” he said…
Pelosi’s bishop hopes for ‘progress’ in dialogue on abortion (CNA) The Archbishop of San Francisco on Monday responded to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who said last week she was “pleased” with a recent Vatican statement on Communion. Pelosi, who is Catholic and pro-abortion, had claimed that a May 7 Vatican letter to U.S. bishops instructed the bishops not to be “divisive” on the matter of Communion for pro-abortion politicians. On Monday, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco – Pelosi’s home diocese – said that the Vatican actually supported “dialogue” between bishops and pro-abortion Catholic politicians “to help them understand the grave evil they are helping to perpetrate and accompany them to a change of heart…”
Brooklyn Diocese reports hate crimes directed at church property (CNS) Officials in the Brooklyn Diocese said May 17 they will be “notifying our churches to be on alert” to vandalism and hate crimes directed at Catholic church property following two such incidents in about a three-day period. “And we are asking the NYPD to increase patrols in and around the area of our churches,” the diocese said in a statement. Over the weekend of May 15 and 16, a statue depicting Mary holding her son, Jesus, was vandalized on the grounds of the diocesan administrative offices in the Windsor Terrace section of Brooklyn. The child Jesus was decapitated…
Ukraine Catholics fear Russian invasion (NCR) When Russians celebrated their traditional World War II Victory Day on May 9, there were fears of a new upsurge in fighting on Ukraine’s eastern border, where more than 100,000 Russian troops are currently deployed. Although clashes have been only sporadic, people are still dying across the embattled region and anxieties remain high — not least among its scattered Catholic communities…
Jerusalem’s patriarch asks for prayers for peace and justice (CNA) Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa has urged Catholics worldwide to pray for “peace and justice” as violence racks the Holy Land. The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem issued the appeal for prayers May 18 as the death toll mounts in the Israel-Gaza conflict. He told EWTN News: “It is important that all the Church will join the mother Church of Jerusalem in the prayer of intercession for peace and justice in the Holy Land…”
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