VATICAN CITY — The Roman Catholic Church will allow priests throughout the world to grant absolution for abortion, the Vatican said on Monday, making permanent a policy that Pope Francis announced a year ago.
In a document marking the conclusion of the church’s yearlong Jubilee of Mercy, the pope extended a policy of allowing priests — and not only bishops or special confessors — to grant forgiveness for abortion, which the church considers a sin. The announcement was a signal of the pope’s vision of a more welcoming, merciful and inclusive church.
While firmly restating his opposition to abortion as “a grave sin, since it puts an end to an innocent life,” the pope affirmed that “there is no sin that God’s mercy cannot reach and wipe away when it finds a repentant heart seeking to be reconciled with the Father.” The document, an apostolic letter, was signed on Sunday after a Mass denoting the end of the jubilee year. It was made public on Monday. Continue reading
“Most of the incidents on the SPLC list, while deplorable, crude and vile if they actually happened, have not included physical violence and hence the use of the term “attack” is misleading. Most involve uncorroborated assertions of verbal threats or racist comments that, while mean and nasty, don’t appear to pass the smell test required of a crime. For example, a Muslim Uber driver from Morocco, now a U.S. citizen, was “verbally assaulted” in Queens, New York City, on Nov. 17 by a man who yelled, “Kiss your visa good-bye,” among other slurs, 
“A new report on lawmakers in Canada endorsing a ban on “Islamophobia” warns that it is just a stepping stone to what Islamic supremacists ultimately want. And how is that known? The Islamists themselves said so. At the Gatestone Institute, 
“When terrorists or world powers persecute Christian minorities or Christians”, he observed, “they do not ask: ‘Are you Lutheran? Are you Orthodox? Are you Catholic? Are you Reformed? Are you Pentecostal?’ No. ‘You are Christian’. They recognise one only: the Christian. The enemy is not wrong: he recognises where to find Jesus. And this is the ecumenism of blood. Nowadays we are witnesses to this, and I think of the Orthodox brethren beheaded on the beaches of Libya, for example: they are our brothers. They gave witness to Jesus and they died saying, ‘Jesus, help me!’. With His name: they confessed the name of Jesus.” “Therefore, ecumenism in prayer, ecumenism in our journey, and the enemy teaches us the ecumenism of blood.” –
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Francis is firing back at foes of his efforts to make the Catholic Church more open and pastoral in its ministry, telling an interviewer that “they are acting in bad faith to foment divisions.”
WORCESTER, Mass. – A retired Roman Catholic priest has pleaded guilty to his role in an international online dating scam.
ROME- Pope Francis on Sunday called for the faithful not to be driven by end-times curiosities or apocalyptic preachers, urging them to focus on what is truly important: “The Lord and our neighbor.”
(RNS) The alliance between Roman Catholics and evangelical Protestants on a range of issues dear to social conservatives has been one of the biggest storylines in religion and politics in recent decades.
(RNS) The day after President-elect Donald Trump appointed a man accused of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia as his chief strategist, two of the nation’s largest Jewish and Muslim advocacy groups formed an unprecedented partnership to fight bigotry.