With the Synod of Bishops wrapped up this week was rather quiet at the Vatican. One surprise did arrive: the Vatican announced that Pope Francis will be visiting Turkey at the end of November. He will fly to Ankara on November 28, where he will meet with government officials. From there he continues on to ...read more

Here’s what’s been going on in the church in Canada this week: National events have been obscured by the Synod of Bishops in Rome. Archbishop Paul Andre Durocher of Gatineau is there representing the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. He has been posting to his blog “Sing and Walk” on a daily basis. Check it ...read more

The first week of the Synod on the family has wrapped up in Rome. Participants have moved from general working sessions into small group sessions where they will go over the issues discussed “in aula” and work towards creating a unified document that can be presented to Pope Francis. While there has been unity among ...read more

Here’s a few things happening in the church across Canada: In Montreal, one family is fighting to stay in the country after their refugee claims were denied. The family’s parish has launched a campaign to raise public awareness about their case. The parish pastor calls the government’s reaction so far a “wall of indifference.” In ...read more

We are days away from the opening of the Extraordinary Synod of Bishop on the Pastoral Challenges to the Family in the context of Evangelization, and the already things are heating up…most of that heat, however, is being generated by the media publishing interviews with prelates with opposing opinions on the same issues. There are ...read more

Here’s what’s been going on across the country this week: Barely a week after being installed as Bishop of Victoria, B.C. Bishop Gary Gordon has launched a new blog on the diocesan website. He’s already making pastoral visits to the further reaches of his new diocese. Visit his blog to keep track of his visits ...read more

The third season of Vatican Connections has kicked off on our network, and just in time too! There were some notable Episcopal moves in the last couple of weeks, some late breaking announcements, and some surprises. You can hear all about those in this week’s edition of Vatican Connections. One event that came by surprise, ...read more

Vancouver’s Archbishop Michael Miller and Bishop Jean Louis Plouffe of Sault Sainte Marie visited the Philippines to personally witness the post-typhoon rebuilding projects assisted by Development & Peace. At the same time Vancouver’s vice-chancellor Barb Dowding was in Fredricton, taking the reigns as national president of the Catholic Women’s League. Dowding spoke to S+L earlier ...read more

With the pope’s one major summer trip over and done with, attention can now return to what we could call “housekeeping” matters: appointing new bishops to dioceses that have been awaiting appointments, and filling up the papal agenda for this fall. This week Pope Francis named the new Archbishop of Madrid, Spain. Cardinal Antonio Rouco ...read more

Most of the 80,000 Iraqi Christians forced out of their villages in recent days and weeks have taken refuge around the churches in Ain Kawa, a Christian neighbourhood of Erbil, according to aid officials in Iraq. A member of the Sant’Egidio Community in Iraq reported to the Catholic Near East Welfare Association that Christian churches ...read more