VCEA chief executive officer Prof Elizabeth Labone Photo: VCEA

Catholics are still growing in Asia, but priestly vocations decline further

The Pontifical Yearbook for 2022-2023 was released. The number of Catholics in the world is rising, to 1.406 billion. The number of bishops and priests is still growing in Asia (+1.6 per cent), but the number of seminarians is down by 4.2 per cent. Southeast Asia is one of the few regions where the number of women religious is increasing, slightly. About 30 per cent of all nuns and 18.2 per cent of all priests live in Asia.

Oxford study confirms that “sex change” operations increase suicide and depression

The study analyzed data from over 107,000 patients and found that individuals who underwent transition-related surgeries faced significantly higher psychological distress compared to those who did not. Men who had feminizing surgeries reported a 25.4% rate of depression—more than double the 11.5% seen in those who avoided surgery. Among women, the disparity was also evident, with 22.9% experiencing depression post-surgery compared to 14.6% of their non-surgical counterparts