Tag Archives: Vatican

Lebanon’s most senior Christian cleric said on Thursday he hoped for an improvement in ties with Saudi Arabia, which has withheld support for the crisis-torn Lebanese economy because of the rising influence of its arch-enemy Hezbollah. Lebanon is battling an economic meltdown that poses the worst threat to its stability …

Pope Francis has called on Lebanon’s leaders to put aside partisan interests and work to restore peace and stability in the crisis-hit country. The pontiff made the appeal at the end of a day-long summit with Lebanese Christian leaders in the Vatican on Thursday. Earlier Francis welcomed the Christian patriarchs …

Pope Francis on Sunday met the father of Alan Kurdi, the boy whose body washed up on a Turkish beach six years ago became an image of the suffering of Syrians trying to escape war. The pontiff, winding up a historic trip to Iraq, met Abdullah Kurdi at the end …

Pope Francis headed to Iraq on Friday for his most risky foreign trip since his election in 2012, and said he felt duty-bound to make the “emblematic” visit because the country had suffered so much for so long. An Alitalia plane carrying him, his entourage, a security detail, and about …

Pope Francis has called for the war in Syria to end, noting that 2021 marks its 10th anniversary. In an audience with the diplomatic corps accredited to the Vatican, the leader of the Catholic Church also confirmed that his visit to Iraq, beginning on March 5, will mark the restart …

Pope Francis is set for an historic meeting with Iraq’s top Shi’ite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, during a trip to Iraq planned for March, the patriarch of Iraq’s Chaldean Catholic Church said on Thursday. The visit, which eluded Francis’s predecessors, takes place amid deteriorating security in some parts …

Pope Francis said he is not sure if his trip to Iraq in March can take place because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He cast doubt on the trip, which would be the first by a pope to the country, in an interview with Italy’s Canale 5 broadcast on Sunday night. …

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan reconverted the historic Chora church, one of Istanbul’s most celebrated Byzantine buildings, into a mosque on Friday, a month after opening the famed Hagia Sophia to Muslim worship. The mediaeval Church of the Holy Saviour in Chora, built near the ancient city walls of Constantinople, contains …

Pope Francis appealed on Sunday for both sides in the Libyan civil war to seek peace, urging the international community to facilitate talks and protect refugees and migrants he said were victims of cruelty. In an impassioned plea during his noon address in St. Peter’s Square, Francis said he was …

Pope Francis has expressed concern for the humanitarian situation in northwestern Syria and urged a negotiated end to years of fighting, in a letter delivered on Monday to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Vatican said the letter was handed over by Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, who heads the Vatican …

If anyone had any doubts how Pope Francis feels about people who always complain, the answer is now tacked to the door of his frugal suite in a Vatican residence: “No Whining”. Under the explicit warning, the red-and-white Italian language sign goes on to say that “violators are subject to …

In a major shake-up of the Vatican’s administration on Saturday, Pope Francis replaced Catholicism’s top theologian, a conservative German cardinal who has been at odds with the pontiff’s vision of a more inclusive Church. A brief Vatican statement said Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Mueller’s five-year mandate as head of the Congregation …

Australian police charged a top adviser to Pope Francis with multiple historical sex crimes on Thursday, in a case that poses a dilemma for a pontiff who has vowed zero tolerance for such offences. Cardinal George Pell is the Vatican’s de facto treasury minister and is the highest-ranking Vatican official …

China said on Tuesday it opposed outside interference in its internal affairs after the Vatican expressed concern about a Chinese bishop it said had been “removed”. Pope Francis would like to heal a decades-old rift with China, where Catholics are divided between those loyal to him and those who belong …

The Levant – – Pope Francis met Cuba’s revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on Sunday hours after warning Cubans to beware the dangers of ideology and the lure of selfishness as their country enters a new era of closer ties with the United States. Latin America’s first pope and Castro, the …

The Levant – – “There are wars, refugees who are escaping in this wave of migration away from wars,” Pope Francis on Saturday told reporters aboard the plane taking him from Rome to Havana to start his nine-day trip to Cuba and the United States. Pop described how he became emotional …

THE LEVANT EXCLUSIVE – Holy See spokesman Federico Lombardi confirmed this Saturday that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will meet with the Pope on Monday on what will be Egypt’s president first visit to the Vatican in eight years. The Vatican also confirmed that President al-Sisi will be accompanied  by …

THE LEVANT – By Robert Bridge – A high-ranking Israeli official on Sunday slammed a statement from Catholic bishops, who called for international organizations to lead the cause of Palestinian statehood. Greek-Melchite Archbishop Cyrille Bustros sparked an interreligious firestorm when he suggested that Israel was “using Scripture” to continue its …