Catholic

Easter Sunday will carry unusual weight at the Vatican this year, as Pope Leo XIV prepares to mark the holiest day in the Christian calendar for the first time as pontiff while war in the Middle East darkens the celebration. The US-born pope, who has become one of the conflict’s most prominent critics, is due to celebrate mass in St Peter's Square from 9.30am Irish time before thousands of worshippers. The head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics will then deliver the traditional blessing at 11am Irish time, a moment likely…

ROME — The Vatican said more than 33 million pilgrims traveled to Rome during the 2025 Jubilee year as the final faithful crossed the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica, capping a yearlong Catholic celebration that doubled as a stress test for the Eternal City and a defining early chapter for Pope Leo XIV. Pope Leo is due to close the basilica’s ornate bronze doors in a ceremony, just over 12 months after they were opened by his predecessor, Pope Francis, who died in April. The rite formally concludes a Jubilee marked by…

Under the church’s roof in Gaza City: shelter, fear and a choice to stay On a cramped compound in Gaza City, a handful of nuns, a priest and 450 people — among them disabled children, the elderly and the wounded — are sheltering beneath the vaulted roof of the Holy Family Catholic Church. Father Carlos Ferrero speaks softly on the phone, his voice threaded with exhaustion and faith, and describes a place where the ordinary rhythms of worship have been folded into the thud of distant explosions and the constant calculus of…

The Benin priests are worried about the many arrests and climate of fear that prevails in Benin. The Bishops' Conference in Benin is expressed at the end of an ordinary session held from 18 to 20 May 2021, but especially before the investment of Patrice Talon, re-elected on 15 April with almost 87% of the vote. as reported from…