“It is clericalism that prevents the church today from being missionary,” Bishop Cipollini said. “I have great hope that the synod on synodality can make clericalism collapse—perhaps not entirely, but at least in its major strongholds.”
Filipe Domingues
Filipe Domingues is a Brazilian journalist who reports on religion, environment and economics.
Posted inDispatches, Faith
Brazil once depended on Europe for vocations. Now it sends women religious missionaries all over the world.
Besides taking up the challenge of exploring new frontiers of evangelization in Africa, Asia and Latin America, Brazilian women religious have also become evangelizers of the “old continent,” Europe, where female vocations have radically declined in recent decades.
Posted inDispatches, Faith
Blessed Rosario Livatino: the judge killed by mobsters who is on his way to sainthood
“Like Jesus, Judge Livatino died forgiving his murderers,” said Cardinal Marcelo Semeraro during the beatification ceremony of May 9, 2021, at the Cathedral of Agrigento in Sicily.
Posted inDispatches, Politics & Society
Catholic Church in Colombia calls for peace amid waves of anti-government protests
What began on April 28 as a public reaction to a tax reform proposal from President Iván Duque has expanded into a massive mobilization of broad discontent.
Posted inDispatches, Politics & Society
As the Covid-19 crisis continues, Brazil’s elderly rely on the church’s pastoral outreach
The Pastoral da Pessoa Idosa (“Pastoral Care for Elderly Persons”) reaches 170,000 seniors all over Brazil. The efforts and interventions of the ministry’s workers are built around monthly home visits.
Posted inDispatches, Politics & Society
Brazil plunges into Covid chaos while church fights the ‘hunger pandemic’
In Brazil under its Covid-19 lockdown: “At first, only the most vulnerable were starving, but the hunger queue is growing each day. It’s a hunger pandemic.”
Posted inDispatches, Politics & Society
Brazil has an ally in the fight against Covid vaccination disinformation: The Catholic Church.
Despite Brazil’s successes with vaccines, during the Covid-19 pandemic more Brazilians than ever have come to fear vaccination efforts because of disinformation campaigns.
Posted inDispatches, Faith
Carlo Acutis could become the first millennial saint. Here’s the story behind his first miracle.
Informally called “patron of the internet” for having published stories of Eucharistic miracles online, Blessed Carlo Acutis is now admired by thousands of Brazilians, young and old.
Posted inDispatches, Politics & Society
Insurgency threatens Mozambique. The church is helping the most vulnerable.
“This war destabilized not only our region, but all of Mozambique,” said Luiz Fernando Lisboa, C.P., bishop of the Diocese of Pemba, the province’s capital. “The church’s role has been to help victims. But we must also speak out.”
Posted inDispatches, Politics & Society
The Amazon faces two crises: Coronavirus and deforestation
Brazil’s ecological offenses have been overshadowed by an arguably graver crisis, according to members of the local church, the government’s disastrous response to the Covid-19 pandemic.