Worldwide Rosary campaign for Year of Faith

The Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and the Pontifical Mission Societies will launch a worldwide Rosary campaign for the Year of Faith, which commences on October 11 and concludes on the Solemnity of Christ the King in 2013. The Pontifical Mission Societies announced the campaign during a meeting with Pope Benedict on May 11. During his address to the...

Vatican News with a New Face

The ones that have the habit to access news services available on Vatican website now have a new feature. It is the News.va BETA. On its homepage, we can find this description: “News.va is a service provided by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, in cooperation with the media offices of the Holy See, including, Fides News Agency, L’Osservatore...

Pope meets with Swiss Guard

Pope Benedict on Monday received in audience members of the Pontifical Swiss Guard with their families. The meeting with the Holy Father comes after a ceremony on Sunday when 26 new recruits swore loyalty to Pope Benedict and his successors. The swearing in ceremony takes place each year on May 6, the anniversary of Sack of Rome in 1527, when 147 Swiss Guards gave their lives...

Vatican: Good bishops and a formed laity for China

China needs a deeply formed Catholic laity, called to offer their own contribution in wider society; it needs priests and religious men and women who give “luminous evangelical witness”, it needs “good bishops”. But the evangelization of China ” cannot be achieved by sacrificing essential elements of the Catholic faith and...

Pope: Prayer the breath of the soul

Pope Benedict XVI continued his series on the Christian school of prayer this Wednesday with a reflection on the importance of prayer and works of charity in the life of the Church. Speaking in Italian he said the Church has the “primary need” to proclaim the Word of God, but it also has “the duty of charity and justice”: between the two there is no...

Pope: to visit Lebanon in September

Benedict XVI will visit Lebanon from the 14th to the 16th September. The announcement was made in two separate statements by the Presidency of the Republic of Lebanon and the Lebanese Bishop’s Office for Communications on the very day the Pope appealed for peace in the Middle East and the Holy Land. A call to end the violence in the region the Holy Father made during the...

Pope: Easter Monday Regina coeli

Pope Benedict XVI prayed the Regina coeli with the faithful gathered in the courtyard of the Apostolic retreat in Castel Gandolfo on Easter Monday – a bright, crisp, clear day, with an April breeze stirring the air. Easter Monday – a day of rest and recreation in many countries, as the Holy Father noted at the beginning of his remarks to the gathered faithful ahead of the...