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Architecture Vatican

Canopy over main altar of St Peter’s Basilica to undergo restoration

The nearly 400-year-old sculpted canopy towering over the main altar of St Peter’s Basilica will be surrounded by scaffolding for most of 2024 as it is washed, repaired and restored. Source: CNS.

Pope Francis Vatican

Pope urges Vatican bureaucrats to resist ‘rigid ideological positions’

In his annual Christmas address to members of the Roman Curia, Pope Francis urged the Church’s governing bureaucracy to be open to change and to resist “rigid ideological positions” that prevent them from moving forward. Source: Crux.

Legal Matters Vatican

Convicted cardinal wants to ‘shout to the world that I’m innocent’

In his first major media appearance since being convicted of financial crimes by a Vatican tribunal and sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison, Cardinal Angelo Becciu said, “I want to shout to the world that I’m innocent”. Source: Crux.

Vatican

Vatican provides new definition of how and when gay couples can be blessed

A priest can bless gay and unmarried couples as long as it is not a formal liturgical blessing and does not give the impression that the Church is blessing the unions as if they were a marriage, the Vatican announced. Source: CNS.

Legal Matters Vatican

Court convicts cardinal in Vatican’s ‘Trial of the Century’

Judges delivered verdicts in the Vatican’s financial corruption trial on Saturday, sentencing Cardinal Angelo Becciu to more than five years in prison and convicting five other defendants for financial crimes. Source: CNA.

Religious Orders Vatican

Vatican closes women’s community co-founded by Fr Rupnik

The Vatican has ordered the dissolution of the Community of Loyola, a religious community of women founded in Slovenia with the assistance of Fr Marko Rupnik, who has been accused of abuse, including of women in the community. Source: OSV News.

Art Vatican

Visitors get backstage pass to discoveries of the Vatican Museums

The Vatican Museums has launched an initiative to give visitors – online and in person – a “backstage” peek into the secrets, curiosities and insights discovered by their art restorers. Source: OSV News.

Vatican

Vatican upholds ban on scattering ashes, allows preservation in sacred places

The Vatican has upheld a rule mandating that the ashes of the deceased be preserved in a consecrated place, but it also said family members could request “a minimal part of the ashes” be kept in a sacred place of “significance for the history of the deceased person”. Source: CNS.

Vatican

Vigilance needed in fight against Vatican corruption: Pope

In a meeting with the Vatican’s Office of the Auditor General yesterday, Pope Francis urged staff to fight the “insidiousness of corruption” in the Holy See and Vatican City State. Source: Vatican News.