For the first time, both the Sistine Chapel tapestries by Raphael and the artist’s cartoons (designs upon which the tapestries were based) will be on exhibition side by side at London’s Victorian and Albert Museum on September.
The tapestries, which were commissioned by Pope Leo X, are 500 years old. They depict scenes from the book of Acts in the lives of Peter and Paul, and are Vatican properties which are displayed at the Arazzi Gallery, the Catholic Herald said.
A new study shows that the ‘global south’ is gaining more power in Christianity and may redefine Christian culture in the 21st century.
The study by Oxford Analytica says that church leaders from the global south, namely Africa, Latin America and Asia, are becoming more outspoken and have gained more influence in Protestant and Catholic churches globally, according to their website.
The study also notes that the global south is more traditional, and has been outspoken against liberals and progressives in both churches, their website says.
The newly revised in-house rules on sexual abuse that were issued by the Vatican recently have been viewed by some as falling short and by others as bizarre.
The rules were the Vatican’s response to a worldwide clerical sex abuse scandal that even knocked on the door of Pope Benedict XVI concerning an accusation of intervention in a cover up when he was a Vatican official in the 1990s, the Daily Mail said.
The revisions target, among others, priests who use child pornography materials, and those who molest children and mentally disabled adults, the AP said.
Pope Benedict XVI announced recently that a new office will be opened to re-evangelize parts of the world, including Europe, where Christianity is being overtaken by secularization, the Associated Press reported.
Benedict announced the opening of the new office on the feasts of Saints Peter and Paul, which is a feast day that by tradition is celebrated together with the Orthodox church, the AP said.
Although there is no confirmed head of the new office, media in Italy have said it may be Monsignor Rino Fisichella. Conservatives criticized Fisichella last year when he pleaded mercy in defense of Brazilian doctors who performed an abortion on a 9-year-old. The child was raped by her stepfather and pregnant with twins, the AP said.
It is now technically and liturgically apropos to use the iPad in church. The Vatican has approved the use of an iPad on the altar, in lieu of the normal Catholic missal, the Associated Press said.
The free application was the handiwork of Rev. Paolo Padrini, who also developed the iBreviary two years before. The latter is the Catholic book of daily prayers that priests have used on their iPhones. It has gotten some 200,000 downloads, the AP said.
The iPad will be launched in July and will contain a full Catholic missal which is used every Sunday during mass. It will have translations in English, Italian, French, Spanish and Latin, the AP said.
Pope Benedict XVI released recently a Vatican document that criticized Israel, Egypt, Islam and Christian fundamentalists.
The 46-page text, “The Catholic Church in the Middle East: Communion and Witness,” will serve as the working document for an October meeting at the Vatican about the Middle East, Fox News said.
Benedict held mass in a sports arena near the Cypriot capital where he prayed for the success of the October synod of Middle Eastern bishops, which will focus on the issues outlined in the document, according to the AFP.
Pope Benedict XVI called the church of Cyprus a “bridge between east and west” recently and pushed for reconciliation and peace in that country.
The Pope is in Cyprus for a three-day visit to address the Christian presence in the Middle East, and to release the working document for an October meeting of the Synod of Bishops dedicated to the Middle East, CatholicCulture.org reported.
However in a meeting, Cypriot president Demetris Christofias told Benedict, “It is …disturbing that for 36 years our cultural and religious heritage in the occupied areas is being destroyed,” referring to the portion of the island that falls under Turkish control, Reuters reported.
Catholics came in full force at Saint Peter’s Square Sunday in a show of support for Pope Benedict XVI amid sex clerical abuse scandals rocking the church, VOANews.com reported.
The people amassed in tens of thousands early in the morning, many carrying large banners declaring solidarity, as families and children shouted slogans of support. The crowd was composed of dozens of lay movements and voluntary associations who organized this meeting to back the pope, according to VOANews.com.
Such large crowds as this are often reserved for holiday Masses and canonizations, rather than for Pope Benedict’s brief weekly prayer. However, the church was also marking the World Day for Social Communications, VOANews.com said.
The recently announced plans by the Vatican to designate a papal envoy to head the Legionaries of Christ renders this powerful, conservative Catholic order directly under Vatican control.
The Vatican made this move after an eight-month inquiry by five Vatican investigators who reported directly back to Pope Benedict XVI about the double life of its late founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the Associated Press reported.
The Vatican report said Maciel had been sexually assaulting minor seminarians and fathered at least three children from two different women—a daughter from what was described as a “stable relationship”, and two sons who are now grown, who admitted to being his children with another woman, according to CNN.
Amid mounting extremist attacks, the Christians of northern Iraq unveiled recently a statue of Jesus modeled after the giant Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro.
Although it is only a 10th of the size of the 130-foot statue in Brazil, it has become a popular shrine for Christian believers in beleaguered Hamdaniya, northern Iraq’s largest Christian town.
The statue stands at Baghdeda’s check point No. 1 at the entrance to the town.
Najib Attallah, head of the checkpoint where the statue stands, said the idea came from his security guards.