BLOG: Vatican Connections
In a week when the media was focusing on bishops with lavish spending habits, and funeral rites for Nazi war criminals, Pope Francis was drawing people back to what matters: prayer. Pope Francis put prayer front and centre this week any chance he could get. On Thursday the official papal tweet read: “Our prayer cannot ...read more
    On the surface, it may appear that the theme of this week at the Vatican was “reform.” The Council of Cardinals appointed by the pope to help him study and find ways to fix the Roman Curia – among other things- met for the first time this week. The three days of meetings ...read more
Its finally here! The Season 2 premiere of Vatican Connections. To get back into things we’re taking a look at what’s been happening over the summer at the Vatican. There were new commissions created, important appointments made, and some blockbuster announcements. This week’s Roman Profile is an introduction to the figure of Cardinal Celso Costantini ...read more
  When Vatican Connections launched in January 2013, it was just an idea. Something we were testing out to see if it would fly. Then suddenly, everything changed. On February 11, 2013 Pope Benedict XVI announced to the Cardinals that was resigning from his Petrine Ministry. Overnight, Vatican Connections became the go-to source for information ...read more
By Carol GlatzCatholic News Service VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Helping the church get the Gospel message out to the digital world depends more on a loving passion for reaching out to others than being tech savvy or a verbal warrior, Pope Francis told Catholic communicators. “I believe that the goal is to understand how to ...read more
Fr. Antonio Spadaro’s interview of Pope Francis, published this week in Jesuit publications around the world, set people of all religious stripes talking. However, it soon became clear who read the interview carefully, in it’s entirety, and who focused on the headline worthy bits. How did it become clear? Throughout the interview Pope Francis used ...read more
In 2012 about 14 million refugees and 28.8 million internally displaced migrant were registered in the world. This week theVatican issued guidelines to for the pastoral care of Migrants and Refugees. The Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People released the document with guidelines for the providing pastoral care to ...read more
This week on Vatican Connections the Holy See says Pope Francis did not perform an exorcism after Pentecost Mass on May 19. The first of the new curial appointments are made, and our Roman Profile looks at the way past popes have left their mark on the Roman cityscape. ...read more
There were three popes in Vatican City on Friday May 10, 2013: Pope Francis, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Pope Tawadros II. The latter is the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, the largest Christian church in the Middle East. Pope Tawadros was making his first trip outside Egypt since he was enthroned in November ...read more
This week brought another historic moment in church history. As of Thursday, there are two popes living in Vatican City. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI returned to the Vatican after two months living in the papal residence at Castel Gandolfo. His helicopter left the papal estate at 4:30pm local time and arrived at the heliport in ...read more