The Rev. Wayne Lee leads an English-speaking church of second- and third-generation Chinese Americans in the heart of Philadelphia’s Chinatown. His 120-strong evangelical Christian congregation in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania is under the same umbrella as two other immigrant ...
By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press ROME — Debate was leaning away from allowing women to take on ordained roles in the Catholic Church as the second phase of Pope Francis’ reform project opened Wednesday with an agenda topped by calls for women to take up more positions of responsibility Francis presided over an opening Mass in St. Peter’s Square with the 368 bishops and laypeople who will meet behind closed doors for the next three weeks to discuss the future of the church and how to make it more responsive to the needs of Catholics today. Nearby, advocates for women’s ...
LUXEMBOURG — Pope Francis called for Europe to be a beacon of peace in war and a welcome home for migrants and refugees as he arrived in the heart of the continent on Thursday to encourage the dwindling Catholic flock in a onetime bastion of Christianity. Francis received a warm welcome as he landed in blustery weather that turned to rain in Luxembourg, the European Union’s second-smallest country and its richest per capita. The visit came after the 87-year-old pope canceled his audiences in recent days because of a slight flu. Francis seemed in good form, though he skipped his ...
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican on Thursday gave the green light for Catholics to continue flocking to a southern Bosnian village where children reported seeing visions of the Virgin Mary, offering its approval for devotion at one of the most contested sites of Roman Catholic practice in recent years. In a detailed analysis after nearly 15 years of study, the Vatican’s doctrine office didn’t declare that the reported apparitions in Medjugorje were authentic or of supernatural origin. And it flagged concerns about contradictions in some of the “messages” the alleged ...
SINGAPORE (AP) — Pope Francis on Thursday praised Singapore’s economic strength as a testament to human ingenuity but urged the city-state to look after the weakest, too, especially foreign workers, as he opened the final leg of his tour through some of Asia’s poorest countries in one of the world’s richest. Francis marveled at Singapore’s modern skyscrapers “that seem to rise from the sea” in both his opening speech to the city-state’s leaders and again in the afternoon, when he celebrated Mass before an estimated 50,000 people at Singapore’s national ...
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Pope Francis and the grand imam of Southeast Asia’s largest mosque vowed Thursday to fight religiously inspired violence and protect the environment, issuing a joint call for interfaith friendship and common cause at the heart of Francis’ visit to Indonesia. A second highlight of the trip came later in the day when Francis celebrated a jubilant afternoon Mass in Jakarta’s steamy stadium before an estimated 100,000 people who cheered wildly as he looped the track in his open-topped popemobile. In the morning event at Jakarta’s iconic Istiqlal ...
