Düsseldorf, Germany (Image: Deniz Fuchidzhiev/Unsplash.com)
CNA Newsroom, Apr 12, 2024 / 14:00 pm (CNA).
German authorities have reported the arrest of four suspects allegedly planning terror attacks in Germany. According to Bild newspaper, the group intended to target Christians attending church services and police stations with knives and Molotov cocktails.
The Düsseldorf public prosecutor’s office revealed that the suspects, who are between 15 and 16 years old, were apprehended over the Easter weekend.
“The suspects are strongly suspected of having planned an Islamist-motivated terrorist attack and of having agreed to commit it,” authorities stated, as reported by CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.
The arrests were conducted following an investigation by the Public Prosecutor General’s Office and the anti-terror unit, ZenTer NRW. North Rhine-Westphalia’s interior minister, Herbert Reul, detailed the case at a press conference in Düsseldorf on Thursday, noting that the suspected terror plans were “quickly and purposefully thwarted.”
Reul mentioned that it took only five days from the initial findings by German security authorities to the arrest. “We succeeded in preventing worse things from happening,” he stated, as quoted by FAZ newspaper.
These arrests are not isolated incidents. In November 2023, two teenagers, aged 15 and 16, were arrested on suspicion of terrorism. They reportedly sympathized with the Islamic State and were believed to have planned a Christmas market attack using a vehicle, CNA Deutsch reported.
In December and early January, several of Europe’s most renowned cathedrals, including those in Cologne and Vienna, were on high alert due to concerns about a planned attack for New Year’s Eve. Authorities detained but later released three suspects; the men were reportedly members of the Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K), the same group linked to the March 25 Moscow concert hall attack.
In July 2023, German police arrested seven members of an alleged Islamist terror cell in the same region. According to public broadcaster ZDF, similar arrests were made simultaneously in the Netherlands. The men of Tajik and Turkmen origin reportedly traveled to Western Europe via Ukraine.
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Pope Francis and King Philippe listen to a speech by Belgium Prime Minister Alexander De Croo during the pope’s trip to Belgium in late September 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media
CNA Deutsch, Oct 4, 2024 / 11:50 am (CNA).
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo criticized Pope Francis for comments the pope made on abortion last week when he was returning to Rome from Belgium. The apostolic nuncio in Belgium and Luxembourg, Archbishop Franco Coppola, is being officially summoned to discuss the matter.
“It is absolutely unacceptable for a foreign head of state to make such statements about democratic decision-making in our country,” De Croo said on Thursday.
During the in-flight press conference on the way back from Belgium on Sunday, Pope Francis emphasized: “Women have a right to life, to their lives, and to the lives of their children. Let us not forget to say that.” He then added: “Abortion is a homicide. … It kills a human being. The doctors who carry it out are contract killers. … And there is no debate about that.”
The pontiff emphasized that he was specifically talking “about abortion, and you can’t discuss that. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth.”
In contrast, De Croo said that Belgium “does not need lessons on how our parliamentarians pass laws democratically … Fortunately, the time when the Church dictated the laws in our country is long gone.”
Belgium has a population of less than 12 million people and at least 16,000 children are killed in the womb every year, according to official figures. A peak was reached in 2011 with almost 20,000 deaths by abortion.
The Belgian Parliament is currently debating whether abortion should also be legal after the 12th week of pregnancy. Specifically, it is about extending the limit to 18 weeks, which means that even unborn children older than 4 months could be killed.
During his visit, Pope Francis on Sept. 28 described laws legalizing abortion as “murderous” and “criminal” when he visited the tomb of Belgian King Baudouin in the royal crypt of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Brussels.
King Baudouin refused to sign a law allowing abortions in Belgium in 1990. He was therefore — with his consent — declared unfit to govern for a day by the government, which then enacted the law. He was then reinstated as king.
Against this backdrop, Pope Francis said that Baudouin decided to “leave his office as king in order not to sign a murderous law.”
As prime minister of Belgium, De Croo is a member of the Open Vlaamse Liberalen en Democraten (Open VLD) party. In the elections in June, the party only won 5.5% of the vote. Open VLD also won just 8.5% of the vote in 2019. After more than a year of negotiations, a coalition government consisting of seven parties was finally formed, with De Croo at the helm.
This story was first published by CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner, and has been translated and adapted by CNA.
This painting of St. Peter visiting St. Agatha was created by Federico Zuccari between 1597 and 1599 for the altar of Sant’Agata in the Milan Cathedral. It was directly commissioned by Milan native Federico Borromeo, a cousin of St. Charles Borr… […]
Archbishop Dermot Farrell of the Dublin Archdiocese holds up the decree on Nov. 14, 2025, that Pope Leo XIV sent him granting his request that St. Mary’s Pro Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Dublin be designated as the cathedral Church of the archdiocese. / Credit: John McElroy/Dublin Archdiocese
Dublin, Ireland, Nov 21, 2025 / 12:09 pm (CNA).
There was immense joy among Catholics in Dublin following a decree from Pope Leo XIV formally designating St. Mary’s Pro Cathedral as the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Dublin, ending 200 years of the cathedral’s “temporary” status and giving the capital its first official Catholic cathedral since the Reformation.
Speaking at Mass in the cathedral to mark the bicentenary on Friday, Nov. 14, Archbishop Dermot Farrell of the Dublin Archdiocese told the faithful of Dublin: “I am pleased to announce that the Holy Father, Pope Leo, has consented to my request and has approved by decree that St. Mary’s be designated as the cathedral church of our archdiocese.”
Speaking at Mass in the cathedral to mark the bicentenary on Nov. 14, 2025, Archbishop Dermot Farrell of the Dublin Archdiocese told the faithful of Dublin: “I am pleased to announce that the Holy Father, Pope Leo, has consented to my request and has approved by decree that St. Mary’s be designated as the cathedral church of our archdiocese.” Credit: John McElroy/Dublin Archdiocese
Farrell added that the timing could not have been better as it coincided with the cathedral’s bicentenary celebrations.
“It is appropriate that this announcement should be made in the context of our celebration of the exemplary service which St. Mary’s has given to our diocese over 200 years, but also at a time when we are renewing our focus on our mission as a diocesan family, ‘Building Hope and Proclaiming Good News,’ affirming the faith of our people and reaching out to the city and beyond,” the archbishop said.
The following Sunday, Auxiliary Bishop Paul Dempsey of Dublin warmly welcomed the news and told the faithful gathered in St. Mary’s: “In the Catholic tradition, over the centuries, many beautiful places of worship have been built. It is important to return to why they were built. They are not built as tourist attractions or museums; they are places where the Church community gathers to worship the Lord. The beauty and aesthetics are there to help raise our minds and hearts to God and to draw us into the mystery that is God’s love,” he said.
Catholic faithful gather on Friday, Nov. 14, 2025, in St. Mary’s Pro Cathedral to celebrate two milestones: a decree from Pope Leo XIV formally designating St. Mary’s Pro Cathedral as the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Dublin and the cathedral’s bicentenary. Credit: John McElroy/Dublin Archdiocese
St. Mary’s opened on Nov. 14, 1825. From around that time onward and following Catholic Emancipation, the Irish Church entered a period of strong growth. Many of the churches, parochial houses, and religious houses in Ireland were built in the middle of the 19th century symbolizing the strong presence of the Catholic Church in Irish society.
“It continued for about 150 years or so. Then we saw the beginnings of change, something that has escalated over the last two to three decades. We find ourselves in a very different place today,” he said.
“There can be a temptation to look to the past with rose-tinted glasses when the churches were full, but as we know not all was well and serious issues needed to be faced. This process has been disconcerting for some who have a nostalgia for the past and want to go back to the way it was. However, nostalgia could be described as a looking into the past with the pain taken away.”
He continued: “So today, as we reflect upon 200 years of St. Mary’s we are left with a choice: Do we lament the past and wish for its return or seek ways of looking forward with hope-filled hearts, responding to the new questions we face in a complex and changing culture? When I reflect upon the life of Jesus in the Gospels, I see someone who was always looking forward! As his disciples we need to do the same, while always learning from the past.”
Bishops in Ireland gather on Friday, Nov. 14, 2025, in St. Mary’s Pro Cathedral to celebrate two milestones: a decree from Pope Leo XIV formally designating St. Mary’s Pro Cathedral as the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Dublin and the cathedral’s bicentenary. Credit: John McElroy/Dublin Archdiocese
As the penal laws persecuting Catholics were relaxed in the later 18th century, the Pro Cathedral site was bought in 1803. The completed building was dedicated 200 years ago on Nov. 14, 1825, the feast day of St. Laurence O’Toole, who was canonized 800 years ago and who is the Dublin Archdiocese’s patron.
A boy’s choir sings for the bicentenary Mass at St. Mary’s Pro Cathedral on Friday, Nov. 14, 2025, where a decree from Pope Leo XIV was announced, formally designating St. Mary’s Pro Cathedral as the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Dublin. Credit: John McElroy/Dublin Archdiocese
The Pro Cathedral was always a “provisional” cathedral; the intention was to build a “proper” one when time and money allowed. In the past, both the Church of Ireland and Catholic archbishops extended claims of ownership over St. Patrick’s and Christ Church — the city’s two other cathedrals that, since the Reformation, have not been Catholic places of worship.
You’ve actually met “people in the Church” who are comfortable with beheading children of other religions or crucifying them simply because they are of other relitions and believe it to be mandated by their religion? Tell us where?
I am in favor of migration of peoples from one country to another. That said, a country is identified by the laws governing its people and, in a democracy, those laws are enacted by the elected representatives of the people. Countries have a right to establish the parameters of those allowed to enter that country – parameters established by the laws of that country.
When the laws of a country are permitted to be flouted – whether by its own citizens or those outside that country, you are asking for the demise of said nation. Opening borders in contradiction to that country’s laws is pure insanity and will end with the elimination of that country. Is that what Germans want? Is that what Americans want? Current immigration policies are nothing short of an invasion of the Germanic tribes into the West beginning in the 5th c. and continuing for hundreds of years. My friends: don’t surrender your guns, you’re going to need them.
Immigration should be lawful, controlled and those wishing to enter a country must be vetted. No one should be welcome into homes where are housed vulnerable women and children without husbands knowing who they are. Real men don’t expose those who depend on them for protection to any who might do them harm. But, then again, otherwise real men have left the room – they are busy “doing sports”, playing video games, or occupying themselves with pornography.
Shows that the so called religion of peace is not of God but from the bowels of Hell! Via Christo Rey!
My friend we must be careful not to “broad brush “, we also have violent people in the Church.
You’ve actually met “people in the Church” who are comfortable with beheading children of other religions or crucifying them simply because they are of other relitions and believe it to be mandated by their religion? Tell us where?
I am in favor of migration of peoples from one country to another. That said, a country is identified by the laws governing its people and, in a democracy, those laws are enacted by the elected representatives of the people. Countries have a right to establish the parameters of those allowed to enter that country – parameters established by the laws of that country.
When the laws of a country are permitted to be flouted – whether by its own citizens or those outside that country, you are asking for the demise of said nation. Opening borders in contradiction to that country’s laws is pure insanity and will end with the elimination of that country. Is that what Germans want? Is that what Americans want? Current immigration policies are nothing short of an invasion of the Germanic tribes into the West beginning in the 5th c. and continuing for hundreds of years. My friends: don’t surrender your guns, you’re going to need them.
Immigration should be lawful, controlled and those wishing to enter a country must be vetted. No one should be welcome into homes where are housed vulnerable women and children without husbands knowing who they are. Real men don’t expose those who depend on them for protection to any who might do them harm. But, then again, otherwise real men have left the room – they are busy “doing sports”, playing video games, or occupying themselves with pornography.
One way or another, the enemy must be delt with.
Peace is anathema to them.