Catholic | Pakistan

Gunmen killed three people and abducted a Catholic priest and several others during an early morning attack on the clergyman’s residence in northern Nigeria’s Kaduna state, church and police sources said on Sunday. Saturday’s assault in Kauru district highlights persistent insecurity in the region, and came days after security services rescued all 166 worshippers abducted in attacks by gunmen on two churches elsewhere in Kaduna. Such attacks have drawn the attention of US President Donald Trump, who has accused Nigeria’s government of failing to protect Christians, a charge Abuja denies. US forces struck what they described as terrorist targets in northwestern Nigeria on December 25. The Catholic Diocese of Kafanchan named the kidnapped clergyman as Nathaniel Asuwaye, parish priest of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Karku, and said 10 other people were abducted. Three residents were killed during the attack, which began at about 3:20am (7:20 PKT, the diocese said in a statement. A Kaduna police spokesperson c...

A teenager who died of leukaemia in 2006 became the first Catholic saint of the millennial generation on Sunday, in a Vatican ceremony led by Pope Leo and attended by thousands of young worshippers from dozens of countries. Carlo Acutis, a British-born Italian boy who died aged 15, learned computer code to build websites to spread his faith. His story has drawn wide attention from Catholic youth, and he is now at the same level as Mother Teresa and Francis of Assisi. Leo, the first US pontiff, canonised Acutis on Sunday along with Pier Giorgio Frassati, a young Italian man who was known for helping those in need and died of polio in the 1920s. In impromptu remarks to crowds in St. Peter’s Square at the opening of the event, Leo said Acutis and Frassati were examples of holiness and of helping those in need. “All of you, all of us together, are called to be saints,” the pontiff told the young crowd, which had spilt out of the square down the main boulevard into the Vatican from Rome. Acutis’ canonisation had b...