Hawaii Catholic Herald

Newspaper of the Diocese of Honolulu

Pope decides women will be voting members of synod

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  By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY — At least three dozen women will be voting members of the assembly of the Synod of Bishops in October, Pope Francis has decided. In a decision formalized April 17, “the Holy Father approved the extension of participation in the synodal assembly to ‘non-bishops’ — priests, […]

True faith is open to others, Pope Francis repeatedly says in Hungary

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  By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service BUDAPEST, Hungary — Praising the piety and charity of Hungarian Christians and their commitment to supporting traditional family life, Pope Francis said Christ also calls them to open their hearts — and perhaps their borders — to others in need. When it comes to the church or to […]

Exorcism is a hot topic for film, books this Eastertide

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By Carol Glatz Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY — Just as Catholics worldwide commemorated Jesus’ resurrection and his triumph of good over evil on Easter Sunday, theaters across the United States were preparing for the release April 14 of the latest “supernatural horror thriller” of good versus evil with “The Pope’s Exorcist.” And bookstores around […]

Vatican sends relic of the true cross to coronation of King Charles

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By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY — As Britain’s King Charles III walks into Westminster Abbey for his coronation, he will walk behind a processional cross containing a relic of Christ’s cross given to the king by Pope Francis. While the Vatican provided no official details of the gift April 19, an official […]

Pope prays that Easter joy breaks through gloom of sin

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          By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY — On a bright spring morning, Pope Francis prayed that Christians would experience the joy of Easter and allow Christ’s resurrection to be “the light that illumines the darkness and the gloom in which, all too often, our world finds itself enveloped.” […]

Responding to Indigenous, Vatican disavows ‘doctrine of discovery’

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  By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY — The Catholic Church formally “repudiates those concepts that fail to recognize the inherent human rights of Indigenous peoples, including what has become known as the legal and political ‘doctrine of discovery,’” a Vatican statement said. Issued March 30 by the dicasteries for Culture and Education […]

Leaving the hospital, pope comforts couple whose daughter died

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By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service ROME — “I’m still alive,” Pope Francis joked to reporters who asked how he was doing as he left Rome’s Gemelli hospital April 1. The 86-year-old pope, who had been hospitalized since March 29 for treatment of bronchitis, stopped his car and got out to greet well-wishers and reporters […]

Vatican hands Parthenon pieces to Greek representatives

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By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY — The Vatican officially signed the papers transferring to the Orthodox Church of Greece three marble fragments from the Parthenon in Athens, Greece; the fragments had been in the Vatican Museums’ collection for about 200 years. As he prepared to sign the papers, Cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, […]