Changing landscape: As churches shrink and pastors retire, creative workarounds are redefining ministry
As older clergy get set to retire in the US, there are few younger seminarians to replace them – and few churches that can afford to pay them. ELIZABETH E EVANS reports for Religion News Service…
Sight-Seeing: Change is not easy in the Catholic Church, whether Vatican II or Pope Francis
US Catholic commentator THOMAS REESE, in an article first published on Religion News Service, says his heart goes out to the Catholic seminarians who are going through the current trauma of change under Pope Francis, because he went through the same trauma after Vatican II…
Beyond the pandemic, reimagining Italy’s Catholic clergy
AP When coronavirus struck inside Europe’s largest diocesan seminary, it upended the intense educational routine and spurred soul-searching among the nearly 130 young men studying to become Catholic priests. At Seminario di Milano in northern Italy, which has been preparing clergy since the mid-1500s, communal life turned into strict confinement to individual rooms, classes and […]
Forty Catholic priests, seminarians and lay people killed in 2018, says Agenzia Fides
Some 40 Catholic priests, seminarians and lay people were killed during 2018, almost double the previous years total, according to figures collated by Agenzia Fides. The Catholic news agency data shows 35 of those killed were priests, one was a seminarian and four were lay people. Africa, where 21 were killed, supplanted the Americas, where […]