Page 15 - Catholic Difference News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

The list of grave issues that must be addressed during a future papal interregnum, and by the cardinal-electors in a conclave, continues to grow. The finances of the Holy See are arguably in worse shape than at any time since the papal interregnum of 1922; then, money had to be borrowed to pay for the conclave as Benedict XV had virtually bankrupted the Vatican in his efforts to aid refugees and POWs during World War I. Notwithstanding the reforms Pope Francis has put into place, the Holy See now faces a vast, unfunded pension liability; incompetent investment management (and worse) has done ...

Echoes is the opinion section of TheBostonPilot.com. The Boston Pilot is a daily news Catholic newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts, covering news and opinion about the Catholic Church and Catholic life. We carry daily news from Boston, New England, US, the Vatican, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Central and Latin America. The Boston Pilot is part of the Pilot Media Group, America's oldest Catholic newspaper and the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston.

A wretched year came to a sorrowful end when Father Maciej Zieba, OP, died in his native Wroc?aw, Poland, on December 31. The birthplace of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Wroclaw was also the home of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, who grew up there as Edith Stein when the city was known as Breslau. Unlike those great Christian witnesses, Maciej Zieba was not a martyr; but he, too, gave his life for Christ and the Church, and he bore more than his share of suffering in doing so. His life was dramatically changed by John Paul II's first pilgrimage to Poland in June 1979. Hearing the pope's eloquent s...

In 2007, the bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean completed their fifth general conference with a final report, known from the Brazilian city where they met as the "Aparecida Document." Its principal authors included Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, SJ, then the archbishop of Buenos Aires. Thanks to the efforts of the future pope and others, the Aparecida Document remains an exemplary description of what it means to be the Church of the New Evangelization -- and not only in Latin America. Paragraph 436 of the Aparecida Document is of particular interest in the United States today: We hop...