Report: China says no to pope-appointed bishops

From Times of India:
China’s “official church” has rejected the Pope’s demand that Beijing should stop appointing bishops without approval from the Vatican. The Pope also said he is willing to sort out the differences between the Vatican and the Chinese government over restoration of diplomatic ties that were severed way back in 1949.
At the [...]

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Article: The Mother of All Churches

Benjamin Balint / Wall Street Journal:
Ever since it was built by the Byzantine Emperor Constantine in 335 on the hill of Golgotha, where his mother, Helena, claimed to have found the remains of the True Cross, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem’s Old City has enjoyed little peace. The historian Eusebius records that [...]

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Theme: Chronicling the “creeping Islamicization of a decadent Christendom”

Eurabia? Niall Ferguson, New York Times, April 4, 2004:
Even allowing for immigration, the United Nations projects that the population of the current European Union members will fall by around 7.5 million over the next 45 years. There has not been such a sustained reduction in the European population since the Black Death [...]

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Article: The Vatican’s changing relationship with Europe

John Allen / NCR (tip to Three Mass’keteers):
Some of you know that for the last two years, I’ve been working on a project to identify what I call “Mega-Trends in Catholicism,” meaning the most important forces shaping the Catholic future. For the sake of manageability, I’ve come up with a list of 10, which are:
1. [...]

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Article: Post-Trent Churches

Elizabeth Lev / ZENIT:
The liturgy and the Church worked together to emphasize the re-presentation of the sacrifice of Christ. At the altar, placed against the wall, the celebrant recited the Eucharistic prayer in silence. From the nave, the faithful saw the priest’s numerous gestures; 27 signs of the cross, five genuflections and most significantly, the [...]

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Report: Witchcraft is real, and it is destroying the church in Africa

From Catholic Online:
Scholars from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA) expressed concern that the church continued to dismiss the dark arts as mere superstition, thereby unwittingly helping the devil advance his reign.
For that reason, Christians who suffer because of witchcraft are often dismissed by priests as being superstitious, the scholars said. Because they [...]

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Report: Pope Benedict XVI urges an end to all wars

From AP/The Jerusalem Post:
Pope Benedict XVI said Sunday that wars were “useless slaughters” that brought hell to Earth, his latest in a string of peace appeals issued this year.
Benedict called for an end to all wars in this small mountain town in Italy’s Veneto region, where he has been vacationing. He recalled that 90 [...]

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Article: The Death of Iraq’s Christians

Doug Bandow / FrontPageMagazine.com:
Christian America may soon be the death of Iraqi Christians. Although Islam long has been in the ascendancy in Iraq, the so-called Assyrians, who speak a neo-Aramaic language, predate the rise of Islam. Today, however, the Iraqi Christian community faces possible extermination.
The irony is extraordinary: America, a nation with deep Christian [...]

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Report: Most Portuguese doctors refuse to perform legal abortions

From FIDES/CWNews:
More than 80% of Portugal’s doctors will refuse to perform abortions, as a new law legalizing the practice comes into effect, the Fides news service reports.
Portugal’s new law to depenalize abortion came into effect on 15 July. The law was approved in a February referendum, despite more than 50% public abstention. This revealed [...]

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Report: In Europe, God Is (Not) Dead

Andrew Higgins / Wall Street Journal:
After decades of secularization, religion in Europe has slowed its slide toward what had seemed inevitable oblivion. There are even nascent signs of a modest comeback. Most church pews are still empty. But belief in heaven, hell and concepts such as the soul has risen in parts of Europe, especially [...]

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