1+ day, 3+ hour ago (1036+ words) Posted November 29, 2025 2:09 am. Leo took his shoes off and, in his white sock,s toured the the 17th-century mosque, looking up at its soaring tiled domes and the Arabic inscriptions on its columns as an imam pointed them out to him. The Vatican had said Leo would observe a "brief moment of silent prayer" in the mosque, but he didn't. An imam of the mosque, Asgin Tunca, said he had invited Leo to pray, since the mosque was "Allah's house," but the pope declined. Speaking to reporters after the visit, Tunca said he had told the pope: "It's not my house, not your house, (it's the) house of Allah," he said. He said he told Leo: "If you want, you can worship here,' I said. But he said, "That's OK." "He wanted to see the mosque, wanted to feel (the)…...

1+ week, 22+ hour ago (541+ words) Posted November 22, 2025 7:26 am. A one-line statement from the Vatican said Leo had accepted the resignation of C'diz Bishop Rafael Zornoza, 76. It didn't say why, but Zornoza submitted his resignation to the pope last year when he turned 75, the normal retirement age for bishops. The report, quoting a letter the former seminarian wrote the Vatican over the summer, said Zornoza fondled him and regularly slept with him from when he was 14-21 years old. The former seminarian's letter said Zornoza heard his confession and persuaded him to see a psychiatrist to "cure" his homosexuality. The diocese of C'diz denied the accusations against Zornoza but confirmed the investigation was being carried out by the church court in Madrid known as the Rota. In a Nov. 10 statement, the diocese said Zornoza was cooperating with the investigation and had suspended his agenda temporarily "to clarify…...

1+ week, 1+ day ago (1038+ words) By Nono Shen, The Canadian Press Posted November 22, 2025 4:00 am. When the Vatican announced this month that Pope Leo was giving a "gift" of 62 Indigenous artifacts to Canadian bishops, to be returned to their original communities, some Indigenous leaders celebrated it as a continuation of a reconciliation journey. While Nisga'a scholar Amy Parent said she was pleased for the communities involved, many questions are left unanswered, and the biggest one is: "Why did it take so long?" "I'm really happy for them, but also, again, it feels really bittersweet to know that one of the richest, wealthiest churches in the world has taken so long to do the right thing," said Parent, who is a UNESCO Co-Chair in transforming Indigenous knowledge research governance and rematriation. The Vatican said it had received the items " including an Inuit kayak, war clubs, a headdress,…...

1+ week, 1+ day ago (1234+ words) Posted November 22, 2025 12:16 am. Rosal'a, the global Spanish pop star loved by millions for fusing flamenco with Latin hip-hop and reggaeton, has amazed her fans with a radical shift. The singer and songwriter's new album, "Lux" ("Light" in Latin), is unabashedly spiritual. Fifteen songs, sung in 13 different languages, including fragments in Latin, Arabic and Hebrew, are laden with a yearning for the divine. And it is receiving praise from on high. Xabier G'mez Garc'a, bishop of Sant Feliu de Llobregat which includes Rosal'a's hometown of Sant Esteve Sesrovires near Barcelona, was one of the first church leaders to laud her work in an open letter to his flock. Rosal'a's grandmother regularly attends mass in Sant Esteve Sesrovires, according to the diocese. "When I listened to "Lux' and Rosal'a speaking about her the context of her album and the creative process, I…...

1+ week, 1+ day ago (570+ words) Posted November 21, 2025 7:44 am. Pope Leo XIV fixed a technical glitch on Friday in a Vatican law that became problematic after Pope Francis named the first-ever woman to head the Vatican City State administration. Leo amended the 2023 law to remove a reference that had said the president of the Vatican City State administration must be a cardinal. Francis in February appointed Sister Raffaella Petrini, a 56-year-old Italian nun, as president of the city state. The appointment was one of many Francis made during his 12-year papacy to elevate women to top decision-making jobs in the Vatican, and it marked the first time a woman had been named governor of the 44-hectare (110-acre) territory in the heart of Rome. But the appointment immediately created technical and legal problems that hadn't existed before because Petrini's predecessors had all been priestly cardinals. For example,…...

1+ week, 2+ day ago (602+ words) Posted November 20, 2025 2:12 pm. Sixty-two artifacts from various First Nations, Inuit, and Metis communities will be finally returning home to Canada, a century after being collected by missionaries and sent to Rome. Around 100,000 objects were collected and sent by missionaries to be a part of the Vatican Missionary Exhibition of 1925. "These items, they're not items, they're our grandmothers and our grandfathers," said author and storyteller, Tanya Talaga. "These are objects we've used in ceremony that were cared for by our elders and our ancestors for so long. To have them not with us, it really hurts." The artifacts are currently housed in the ethnological collection of the Amina Mundi Museum in Vatican City. "There are artifacts from all over the world, from Indigenous nations and some of the little cards attached to our grandmothers and grandfathers say where they're from but…...

1+ week, 5+ day ago (739+ words) Posted November 17, 2025 5:52 pm. In a video message played for religious leaders gathered in Belem, Leo said nations had made progress, "but not enough." "One in three people live in great vulnerability because of these climate changes," Leo said. "To them, climate change is not a distant threat, and to ignore these people is to deny our shared humanity." His message came as the talks were moving into their second week, with high-level ministers from governments around the world arriving at the edge of the Brazilian Amazon to join negotiations. Monday was dominated by speeches, with several leaders from Global South nations giving emotional testimony on devastating costs of recent extreme weather and natural disasters. Vulnerable nations have pressed for more ambition at these talks as world leaders have begun to acknowledge that Earth will almost surely go past a hoped-for…...

2+ week, 1+ day ago (678+ words) Posted November 15, 2025 5:31 am. Pope Leo XIV gave the artifacts, including an iconic Inuit kayak, and supporting documentation to a delegation of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops during an audience. According to a joint statement from the Vatican and Canadian church, the pieces were a gift and a "concrete sign of dialogue, respect and fraternity." The items were part of the Vatican Museum's ethnographic collection, known as the Anima Mundi museum. The collection has been a source of controversy for the Vatican amid the broader museum debate over the restitution of cultural goods taken from Indigenous peoples during colonial periods. Most of the items in the Vatican collection were sent to Rome by Catholic missionaries for a 1925 exhibition in the Vatican gardens that was a highlight of that year's Holy Year. The Vatican insists the items were "gifts" to Pope…...

3+ week, 22+ hour ago (1426+ words) Posted November 8, 2025 7:31 am. Vice President JD Vance recently told a packed college arena that he hopes his Hindu wife would someday convert to Christianity, thrusting into the spotlight the deeply sensitive challenges facing interfaith couples. Experts who have counseled hundreds of couples who don't share religious beliefs say the key is respect for each other's faith traditions and having honest discussions about how to raise their children. Most agree that pressuring or even hoping the other would convert could prove damaging to a relationship, and all the more so for a couple in the public arena. "To respect your partner and everything they bring to the marriage " every part of their identity " is integral to the kind of honesty that you need to have in a marriage," said Susan Katz Miller, author of the book "Being Both: Embracing Two Religions…...

3+ week, 4+ day ago (358+ words) By Miriam Lafontaine, The Canadian Press Posted November 5, 2025 4:00 am. SAINT-BASILE-LE-GRAND " A Roman Catholic diocese on Montreal's South Shore is expressing its regrets over a tombstone showcasing the logo of the Hells Angels outlaw biker gang at a parish cemetery. The Diocese of St-Jean-Longueuil says it was scandalized by the appearance of the tombstone. The diocese says the tombstone should not have been approved in the first place. It also says the local parish where the cemetery is located in St-Basile-le-Grand, Que., can remove any object that runs counter to Roman Catholic beliefs. The diocese says it will support the parish in efforts to remove the tombstone. The tombstone has drawn curiosity from media outlets and locals who have stopped by to visit, after Montreal news outlet La Presse first reported about the matter. The parish declined to comment about the…...