Sarah, the former prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, spoke to the Italian newspaper Il Giornale last week about the importance of the traditional liturgy, which dates back to the time of Pope Gregory the Great and earlier, and which was celebrated worldwide until the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965).

After the council, the old liturgy was abandoned, although some priests continued to celebrate it. The archbishop of Dakar, Senegal, Marcel Lefebvre, remained faithful to it and founded the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) under the claim of preserving the Traditional Latin Mass and in opposition to some reforms of the Second Vatican Council. The SSPX has twice been declared to be in schism, including in 2026, and its bishops excommunicated.

In the mid-1980s, the Holy See began to relax the de facto ban. In his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict XVI in 2007 authorized all priests to celebrate the old liturgy; in his view, strictly speaking, it had never been abrogated. He differentiated between the Traditional Latin Mass as the “extraordinary form” and the new Mass as the “ordinary form.”

Pope Francis revoked his predecessorʼs decision in 2021 and severely restricted the classical Roman liturgy with his motu proprio Traditionis Custodes.

“Among the effects of the liberalization of the extraordinary form was the positive influence — I would even say the correction — regarding possible abuses in the celebration of the ordinary form,” Sarah said. “These abuses are extremely serious acts, yet we must never equate the ordinary form itself with them. Many priests testify that discovering the extraordinary form helped them celebrate Mass better.”

“I think Benedict XVI also demonstrated on that occasion a deeply humble and democratic attitude,” the cardinal continued, recalling the 2007 decision. “He wanted to ensure the widest possible dissemination, so that the people of God could decide for themselves, over the decades, which form of living out the faith best suited them. All of this, however, was nullified by Traditionis Custodes, while the pope emeritus was still alive.”

“That did not seem to me a decision that was either sensible or respectful,” Sarah explained. “But Benedict XVI, a man as gentle as a lamb, allowed himself to be humiliated and thus offered his suffering to God in silence and prayer, so as to better identify with Christ’s pain for his Church and to purify it.”

Sarah said that “access to ritual forms that have been recognized and in existence for centuries must never be artificially restricted by means of decrees. If a rite did not serve the faith, it would disappear on its own; if, conversely, it preserves and fosters the faith, we must by no means restrict it, for in doing so we would be restricting the very preservation and spread of the faith.”

This story was first published by ACI Digital, the Portuguese-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

Bishop Ramón Castro Castro of Cuernavaca, president of the Mexican Bishops’ Conference (CEM, by its Spanish acronym) was the main celebrant of the Mass. Concelebrating alongside various priests, along with Flores, were Bishop Oscar Cantú of San José, California, chairman of the USCCB Subcommittee on Hispanic/Latino Affairs; and Bishop Pierre Goudreault of Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière, president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

In a brief message, Flores expressed gratitude for “Bishop Ramón’s inspiration in inviting us to this gathering to strengthen this ecclesial communion.”

“In the times we are living through, it will become increasingly important — indeed, urgent — for the Catholic Church in the Americas to speak with one voice, defending the honor of Our Lord and the dignity of the human person — especially the poor and immigrants, who often have nowhere to lay their heads, just like the Lord Jesus himself,” he said.

“We need to preach together and united as one Church, under the guidance of our Holy Father, Pope Leo, and in communion with all the bishops of the world,” he added.

3 distinct countries ‘but one and the same faith’

In his homily, Castro highlighted that this meeting of leaders from North American episcopal conferences is “the first of its kind in our history.”

“We are three distinct countries. We are three Churches with different histories and realities, yet we share one and the same faith, one baptism, one Eucharist, and one mission,” the Mexican prelate affirmed.

Regarding the role of bishops, Castro emphasized that “before being leaders, we are disciples,” and “before having responsibilities, we are men called by the Lord.”

“Perhaps this can be the profound spirit of this gathering of the Church in North America: for all of us to place ourselves once again behind Jesus.”

‘Enormous challenges’

The president of the CEM emphasized that “our peoples face enormous challenges, particularly Mexico,” and pointed to issues such as “violence, demagoguery, corruption, loneliness, secularization, individualism, materialism, polarization, wounded families, and young people seeking reasons for hope.”

He further noted that “perhaps one of the most common themes among the three of us as countries and conferences is migration.”

“Over the coming days, we will have the opportunity to share our perspectives on these realities, not in a spirit of judgment or confrontation but rather out of the pastoral responsibility that falls to us as shepherds,” the bishop of Cuernavaca said.

“We want to better understand the lives of our people. To what end? To be able to serve them better,” he stated.

Castro emphasized that “migration must not be reduced to statistics, public policies, or economic obligations,” because “behind every migrant there is a face, a story, a family, a hope, and, unfortunately, often many wounds.”

“The Church must view these people as brothers and sisters whose dignity must be recognized and protected,” he said.

The Mexican bishop also expressed his wish “that from Cuernavaca we might send a simple yet powerful sign to our churches, churches on pilgrimage in Canada, the United States, and Mexico.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

Families in Fairfield County, including those in Danbury and Stamford, “have lived through moments of real fear as immigration enforcement activity has intensified in our area,” Caggiano said in a statement.

Caggiano urged federal officials to respect human dignity no matter one’s country of birth. Regardless of immigration status, each person “is made in the image and likeness of God and possesses a dignity that no earthly power may set aside,” he said.

The bishop’s Aug. 30 statement followed local reports of heightened immigration enforcement throughout local communities.

Gov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut released a statement in July about the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the state. It reported that there would be coordination with community organizations and advocates regarding increased ICE activity.

“Connecticut has some of the lowest crime rates in the country, thanks to the excellent work our state and local police do to keep violent criminals off our streets. Rounding up people at random to fill a quota does not lower crime. It traumatizes families and communities,” Lamont said.

Caggiano detailed some of the specific instances in the diocese.

“I have heard of husbands and fathers taken from their cars on the way to work, of spouses unable to find where a loved one has been brought, and of neighbors who no longer feel at ease walking to the store, dropping off a child at school, or simply going about the ordinary business of the day,” he said.

“Whatever one believes about the just enforcement of our nation’s laws, no person of faith can look upon this kind of suffering with indifference,” he said.

“I do not write to make a political statement, nor is it the place of a Bishop to dictate the particulars of civil policy that belong properly to lawmakers and to citizens acting according to their conscience,” he said.

“But I write as a pastor who cannot remain silent while members of our human family are suffering, while families are separated, and while fear has entered our schools, our workplaces, and our streets,” Caggiano said.

Local parishes are ‘places of welcome and refuge’

Caggiano called on parishes in the diocese to support immigrant families and anyone affected by enforcement actions.

“To our immigrant brothers and sisters throughout Fairfield County, whether or not you are Catholic, whether or not you have ever set foot in one of our parishes, please know that the Church stands with you,” he said.

“Our parishes, our Catholic Charities, and our Office of Hispanic Ministry remain, as they have always been, places of welcome and refuge, and no one need fear that the doors of our churches will ever be closed to them,” he said.

The bishop asked parishes to include a prayer for immigrant families and those affected “at every Mass in the days ahead.” He also urged the community to remember the words the Lord spoke in Scripture: “Do not be afraid, for I am with you.”

“Fear is real, but it does not have the final word,” he said. “Christ walks with every suffering family in Fairfield County each day, and He asks each of us, as His Church, to walk with them as well.”

Caggiano called on Our Lady of Guadalupe, mother of the migrant and consolation of the afflicted, to “wrap her mantle around every family who suffers in this hour.”

A panel discussion held on Aug. 21, the opening day of the Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples, titled “The Freedom to Believe: A Human Right at the Center of Geopolitical Challenges,” explored the role of religious freedom in contemporary geopolitical dynamics, with particular attention to minorities in crisis areas and the contribution of faith communities to reconciliation processes. It also examined the responsibilities of the European Union, Italy, and international cooperation in strengthening diplomatic and political instruments to defend this fundamental right.

Following introductory remarks by Maria Cristiana Mele, Italy’s special envoy for the promotion of religious freedom and the protection of religious minorities worldwide, speakers included Cristina Duranti, director of the Good Shepherd International Foundation; Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of the Diocese of Sokoto, Nigeria, who said: “In Nigeria, if you ask someone whether he is Christian or Muslim, he will answer: I am hungry”; Mairead McGuinness, the European Union special envoy for the promotion of freedom of religion or belief; and Andrea Avveduto, journalist and spokesman for the Italian Committee for Freedom of Religion or Belief, who moderated the discussion. Daniela Canclini, president of the Italian Committee for Freedom of Religion or Belief, delivered the concluding remarks.

In his remarks, Kukah highlighted the "actions" of terrorist groups in Nigeria: "Islamic extremism has changed over time. If 15 or 20 years ago Boko Haram persecuted only Christians because it aimed to convert the population to Islam at gunpoint and establish a caliphate in which sharia would be imposed; the groups operating today have no contact with the population. They live in hiding and emerge only to kill, loot, and rape. They do not kill on a confessional basis, so it is inaccurate to say that today they persecute only Christians.

“Their attacks make no distinction based on belief: They kill people on farms, in churches, in mosques, at home, everywhere. There are also several groups affiliated with ISIS but divided among themselves, so if you are killed, you do not even know who did it. The situation is extremely complicated. The only thing that unites these groups with one another and with Boko Haram is violence and the mineral trade.”

He also described the difficulties involved in combating terrorist groups: “The situation is extremely difficult to contain, and the government is present only through the military, which nevertheless allows things to happen. Nigeria is a corrupt state. It has lost the ability to enforce the laws, which do exist, just as there is a constitution. At every political election the same thing happens: There is a suitable candidate, capable, the ideal person to have a positive impact on the government of the country. He will not be elected, because another, wealthier candidate will buy the election with money.”

At the conclusion of the meeting, ACI Stampa, the Italian-language sister service of EWTN News, asked Avveduto to explain why the freedom to believe is increasingly under threat.

ACI Stampa: Why is the freedom to believe increasingly under threat?

Avveduto: We are living in a time in which faith has once again come to be perceived as a problem rather than a resource. On the one hand, there are authoritarian regimes and totalitarian ideologies, which see in the believer someone who obeys an authority higher than the state and therefore fear him; on the other, there is the growth of extremisms that exploit religion to justify violence and the seizure of power.

In between is the fragility of many states: Where institutions collapse, religious freedom is the first to fall, because minorities are left without protection. And there is also a more subtle threat, typical of our secularized societies: the temptation to reduce faith to a purely private matter, expelling it from the public sphere. The freedom to believe is threatened wherever the person is not recognized in his or her entirety, which also includes the spiritual dimension.

Why are more and more Christians under threat?

The numbers are striking: According to Open Doors' World Watch List 2026, the number of Christians exposed to persecution worldwide has risen to 388 million, 8 million more than the previous year — a record year. One Christian in 7 globally suffers persecution. The reasons are different and intertwined: the expansion of Islamist extremism, especially in sub-Saharan Africa; regimes that see Christians as a foreign body or ideological enemy; organized crime that targets Christian communities because they are defenseless.

The center of gravity of Christianity has shifted to Africa, and it is precisely there that it is principally under attack: Christians are often visible minorities, communities that educate, provide care, and build social cohesion; precisely for this reason, they become targets of those who want chaos or a monopoly on power. The paradox is that Christians are persecuted not despite the good they do but often because of it.

Another region is the Middle East. The conflict between Israel and Iran is affecting Lebanon: How are Christians living through it?

Lebanon is once again paying for wars decided elsewhere. Since the beginning of March, the bombings have caused more than 2,000 deaths and over 1 million displaced people, and Christians have not been spared: Members of the community who have nothing to do with Hezbollah have been killed in the attacks. And yet, amid all this, the faith endures: In Christian villages in the south, such as Rmeich, Debel, and Ain Ebel, priests say that daily Mass and the rosary prayed together are what sustain the people under bombardment.

Lebanese Christians are experiencing a double suffering: the material suffering of war and the moral suffering of a country held hostage, whose sovereignty is contested among outside powers. But they also remain bearers of a vocation: As the Maronite patriarch recalls, echoing the words of the popes, “Lebanon is more than a territory; it is a message of freedom, dignity, pluralism, and coexistence.” For this reason, supporting the Christians of Lebanon means supporting the very idea of a pluralistic Middle East.

Another difficult situation is found in Nigeria, as Bishop Hassan Kukah described, and in Sudan: How can Christians be supported?

Nigeria today is the deadliest place in the world for Christians: It alone accounts for about 3,490 victims, 70% of the global total of Christians killed for their faith, amid attacks on villages, burned churches, kidnappings of priests, and even schoolchildren. Sudan, devastated by civil war, is also among the countries experiencing extreme persecution. How can they be supported? First of all, by not forgetting them: The first persecution is silence.

Then through concrete closeness: supporting the local Churches, schools, clinics, and projects that allow communities to remain in their own land rather than flee. There is also the level of political and diplomatic pressure, so that governments are called to their responsibility to protect. And finally prayer, which for the persecuted themselves — they always say this — is not a symbolic gesture but the sign that they belong to a larger body that does not abandon them.

Why is religious freedom a good for everyone, as the Church emphasizes in its magisterium?

Because it is the mother of all freedoms. It concerns the most intimate core of the person: conscience, the relationship with truth, and with the ultimate meaning of life. A state that respects this inner sanctuary will also respect freedom of thought, expression, and association; a state that violates it will sooner or later violate everything else.

This can be seen empirically: The countries where believers are persecuted are the same countries where all human rights are trampled upon. Religious freedom, moreover, does not protect only believers: It also protects those who do not believe, because it affirms that no power may impose or prohibit a worldview. It is the foundation of a truly pluralistic society, where diversity is not merely tolerated but recognized as a source of richness.

So why does the Church fight for religious freedom for everyone?

Because it does not ask for privileges but for a right that arises from the dignity of the person created in the image of God, a dignity that belongs to every human being, Christian or not. This is the teaching of the Second Vatican Council through the declaration on religious freedom, Dignitatis Humanae: Truth imposes itself solely by virtue of its own truth, never through coercion. Faith, to be authentic, must be free; an imposed faith is not faith.

For this reason, the Church defends with the same voice the persecuted Christian in Nigeria, the discriminated-against Muslim, the threatened Jew, the massacred Yazidi: because defending religious freedom only for oneʼs own people would deny its very foundation. And it is also a matter of credibility: The Church knows that the strongest witness is that of those who defend the rights of others, not only their own.

A few months ago in Italy, the Pact among Religions was signed. Can it be a first step toward cooperation and dialogue among faiths?

Yes, and it is a significant step precisely because it is not a declaration of intent but a public and structured commitment. On June 25, at the Ara Pacis in Rome, the leaders of religious confessions present in Italy signed the pact “The Italian Way of Interreligious Dialogue,” which was then presented to Italian President Sergio Mattarella: 15 religious confessions, from the Catholic Church to Muslim, Jewish, Orthodox, Protestant, Buddhist, Hindu, and Baháʼí communities, the fruit of three years of joint work.

The document contains nine commitments and nine concrete actions: educating communities in dialogue, working together for the common good, and promoting a culture of peace. It is important for two reasons. The first is because it shows that religions are not the problem but part of the solution and, as Mattarella said, dialogue pursued sincerely produces understanding and cooperation, and gives life to forms of coexistence that are essential for banishing all intolerance.

The second is this: In a world where religion is exploited to fuel conflicts, a pact among different faiths is the most eloquent refutation of that exploitation. Of course, a document is not enough: It will be everyday practice — in cities, in schools, among young people — that will show whether this first step becomes a journey. But the direction is the right one, and beginning in Italy it can become a model elsewhere.

This story was first published by ACI Stampa, the Italian-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

Tammy Ben-Haim, head of religious and interfaith affairs at Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told EWTN news that a May meeting in Washington, D.C., with CCAA Director Simone Rizkallah, a first-generation American of Egyptian-Armenian descent, convinced her of the importance of engaging the organization and its supporters.

“I was so impressed by Simone and the vision she had for the organization to combat antisemitism,” including CCAA’s network of key influencers throughout the American Catholic world, Ben-Haim said.

Signatories to the CCAA’s “Statement of Solidarity and Action,” a statement developed in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack against Israel that also affirms the above-referenced right of the Jewish people “should not jeopardize the right of Palestinians to also live in safety and security,” include dozens of the country’s top Catholic thought leaders and personalities.

“When Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) decided to begin engaging Catholics more proactively and wanted to design a trip specifically for Catholic leaders, it made sense that they would reach out to us,” Rizkallah said.

As a result, the MFA organized a government-sponsored weeklong trip for 13 American Catholic influencers (including EWTN News) that addressed firsthand both concerns for the security of Israelis in the country’s Gaza and Lebanon border regions as well as honest discussions with Israeli Arab and Palestinian Catholics about the conditions and challenges they face.

Signaling the importance of the initiative, the government of Israel highlighted the group’s visit on social media, noting that the journey of the American Catholic community leaders was one of “friendship and solidarity” that served to both “deepen their commitment to standing against antisemitism and strengthening the bonds between Christians and Jews.”

Instagram post

During the visit, the group, which included representatives from various U.S. Catholic educational institutions, media, think tanks, and lay apostolates, came face-to-face with the existential threats Israel has faced in recent years. The group visited sites of the Oct. 7, 2023, invasions into Israel by thousands of Hamas militants from Gaza, meeting with survivors of the attacks that killed over 1,000 Israelis.

From a mountaintop overlooking Israel’s border with southern Lebanon and as multiple explosions could be heard in the distance, the group received a sobering briefing on Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operations to neutralize the threat from Hezbollah in the neighboring country.

In addition, the Government of Israel facilitated the group’s direct interaction with various Christians in the disputed lands internationally known as the West Bank (known in Israel by their biblical names of Judea and Samaria) as well as in Haifa, in northern Israel. To varying degrees, these Christians also see themselves as facing existential threats.

The group’s guide in Bethlehem, the Palestinian-controlled West Bank town of Jesus’ birth, lamented that just in recent weeks the town has lost several large, leading Christian families, who have emigrated to Greece.

Bethlehem continues to experience a devastating loss of its Christian population. From once having constituted a robust majority, the percentage of Christians there is now estimated in the single digits, with conditions for those remaining further exacerbated by the dearth of pilgrims and severe limitations, since the atrocities of Oct. 7, on permissions for Palestinians to enter Israel for work.

In Haifa, the group met with Archbishop Youssef Matta of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, Israel’s largest Christian community. Melkite Greek Catholics represent nearly 40% of Israel’s total Christian population of 185,000. Nazareth, Haifa, and Jerusalem, respectively, are the country’s largest Christian population centers.

In a meeting also attended by Ben-Haim and Cesare Marijeh, senior director of the Christian Department of Israel’s Ministry of Interior Affairs, Matta addressed several challenges facing his community, including alleged extortion rackets by Muslim and Jewish organized crime families as well as discrimination in government subsidies for the Church’s schools, of which there are five under his jurisdiction.

At a luncheon with the delegation, Monsignor Simon Khoury, a Melkite Greek Catholic priest who serves a parish in Cana, asserted that the government has deliberately turned a blind eye to the criminal extortion rackets faced by Christians, as he believes such crimes align with the agenda of certain sectors of Israeli society that favor the displacement of the country’s non-Jewish population.

From the beginning to the end of the trip, members of the delegation pressed Israeli authorities to provide necessary assistance to and security for the country’s Christian population, contending that such actions will go a long way toward bolstering goodwill toward Israel among hundreds of millions of Catholics worldwide.

At a meeting of the group with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ director of the Department for Combating Antisemitism, Arezoo Hersel-Rohila, and the Anti-Defamation League’s Israel director, Carole Nuriel, EWTN News asked them to identify and address the principal antisemitic narrative that the country is currently facing at the international level.

Both women agreed in answering that it is equating Israel’s policy in Gaza to that of the Nazis, i.e., the charge that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The officials vigorously contested this widespread allegation, citing that by definition genocide requires intent and that in contravention of such intent, Israel’s military has repeatedly sought to relocate Palestinian civilians within Gaza to get them out of harm’s way as it targets Hamas’ terrorist infrastructure. 

Other organizations that also address this question, such as the American Jewish Committee (AJC), assert that the IDF “still endeavors to warn Gazans prior to attacks and has allowed humanitarian aid for civilians to be delivered under arrangements intended to prevent Hamas from diverting aid or controlling its distribution to reinforce its authority.”

Israel’s government also answers the charge by pointing to evidence that Hamas has repeatedly called on Palestinian civilians to ignore Israel’s warnings about impending strikes, in effect using them as human shields. Defenders of Israel’s actions in Gaza, like the AJC, also contend that “international law does not prohibit Israel from undertaking legitimate actions that will likely result in civilian harm unless the expected civilian harm will clearly exceed the anticipated military advantage from the attack.”

As the ADL and much of the Jewish community worldwide see it, the propagation of antisemitic narratives around Israel’s operations in Gaza have particularly proliferated among social media influencers, including some Catholics.

This also explains in part why a wide range of U.S. Catholic influencers who personally stand in support of the CCAA’s statement of solidarity, including participants affiliated with EWTN News, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Institute on Religion and Democracy, the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, the Family Research Council, the GIVEN Institute, Tepeyac Leadership, Benedictine College, and Franciscan University of Steubenville, among others, were invited to engage firsthand with these ongoing issues.

Ben-Haim, who accompanied the delegation on the Stations of the Cross route in Jerusalem’s Old City, told EWTN News that going forward, she would like to see more such visitors, especially “young up-and-coming Catholic leaders and influencers” have similar experiences.

“No amount of explaining or telling our story equals one visit to Israel,” Ben-Haim explained. Noting that terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah are right at the country’s borders, she insisted that “all that I believe Israel and Israelis want is for people around the world to understand this; we want to live in a county and in a region that is peaceful and quiet. We cannot afford to have the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre happen again; we cannot allow our borders to be crossed and our children and families to be murdered for being Jews and Israelis.”

The principal resources used by Menezes are the message for the 60th World Communications Day and the encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, both by Pope Leo XIV, regarding the safeguarding of the human person in the age of artificial intelligence; the document Antiqua et Nova, a joint note from the Holy See’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and Dicastery for Culture and Education, signed by Pope Francis concerning the relationship between artificial intelligence and human intelligence; and a reflection by Father Doriano Vincenzo De Luca, head of the social communications service for the Archdiocese of Naples, Italy.

“The starting point for all the Church’s reflection on artificial intelligence is the unconditional defense of the dignity of the human person,” the archbishop of Aracaju explained. The prelate highlighted that the note Antiqua et Nova “places human dignity at the center of discernment regarding artificial intelligence and reminds us that technology must be guided by the good of the person and of society” and that “human intelligence must guide the use of technology for the sake of the ‘authentic good of the person.’”

Therefore, “in light of the guidelines of the Church’s magisterium and with the aim of guiding discernment regarding the proper use of artificial intelligence tools, ensuring respect for the principle of human dignity by ‘preserving faces and voices,’ and ensuring these tools serve as an aid rather than replacing the responsible work that only a human being can perform, we hereby establish” certain guidelines within the territory of our Archdiocese of Aracaju, the bishop said.

Review and transparency

Menezes mandated that “all art produced with the aid of artificial intelligence” within the archdiocese must “undergo a mandatory human review before publication” and that “any and all content generated or manipulated by artificial intelligence” must also “be labeled and clearly distinguished from content created by humans, especially when the use of AI could affect the perception of the reality being presented.”

Prohibited uses for clergy

Regarding the clergy, Menezes directed that “generative artificial intelligence must not be used to reconstruct or simulate the appearance of a bishop, priest, or deacon when the result replaces their actual photograph or could be interpreted as an authentic representation of their appearance or of a situation they experienced.”

He also established that “generative artificial intelligence must not be used to reconstruct or simulate the voice of a bishop, priest, or deacon in a message or speech not originally delivered by them” and that “one must not attribute to a real person an appearance, speech, action, or situation that does not correspond to reality.”

In addition, the archbishop prohibited the use of artificial intelligence to “reconstruct a real person’s face, replacing their photograph”; to “significantly modify a real person’s features”; to “create an artificial appearance presented as their actual appearance”; to “produce images placing a member of the clergy in situations that did not occur”; to “produce a synthetic representation that could be mistaken for a real photograph”; and to “create audio files attempting to simulate a person’s voice in a message or speech not actually delivered by that person.”

AI as an auxiliary tool

According to the archbishop of Aracaju, “artificial intelligence can be used as an auxiliary tool” in nine situations: creating backgrounds, creating textures, generating abstract elements, creating illustrations, suggesting layouts, working with colors, assisting with composition, assisting with editing, and helping to create visual concepts.

“These guidelines are based particularly on the message from Pope Leo XIV for the 60th World Communications Day, in which the Holy Father warns that the simulation capabilities of artificial intelligence can fabricate ‘parallel realities,’ usurp faces and voices, and make it increasingly difficult to distinguish between reality and fiction,” Menezes explained.

According to the archbishop, “the same document” also “draws attention to the need to protect people’s images, photographs, audio recordings, faces, and voices, preventing harmful uses such as digital fraud, cyberbullying, and deepfakes that can violate privacy and personal intimacy without consent.”

At the end of the decree, Menezes exhorted “all pastoral workers, communicators, and the faithful to act with prudence, always consulting their respective ordinaries and respecting current regulations, so that technology may serve the mission and never distort it.” He further emphasized that “everything the Church communicates must be truthful in content and responsible in its manner of representation.”

The archbishop ended his directive with the prayer “May Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, patroness of our archdiocese, intercede for us and help us preserve, in every communication, the dignity and beauty of human faces and voices called to reflect Christ.”

This story was first published by ACI Digital, the Portuguese-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

The official death toll of the deluge, provided by authorities, has climbed to 919, and 4,793 people are still missing. More than 930 hydropower workers remain unaccounted for, LiCAS News reported. Many are feared to be trapped in hydro tunnels along the Bhote Koshi-Trishuli river system.

In a situation report shared with EWTN News on Aug. 30, the president of Caritas Nepal, Father Silas Krishna Bogati, confirmed that the Catholic Church’s response is fully operational. Emergency shelters and hygiene kits have reached over 1,000 households. A cash assistance payment of 15,000 Nepali rupees (roughly $110) is being distributed to 750 of the worst-affected families.

The priest, who also serves as apostolic administrator of the Apostolic Vicariate of Nepal, added that more than 50 community kitchens run daily to feed 300 families.

Operations supported by China and India

The full scale of destruction is yet to be accounted for. Reuters reported that the flood destroyed 19 bridges, roadways, and other crucial infrastructure, hampering emergency aid and the search for survivors.

As rescue operations, supported by China and India, continue amid the risk of landslides and more flooding, aid workers are already flagging a second looming emergency: winter. Displaced families sheltering in high-altitude areas will require thermal gear and winter-proof shelter within weeks, Bogati shared with EWTN News.

Nepal Red Cross has formally asked Caritas Nepal to source more than 1,000 body bags, with decomposition already becoming a public health concern, the president of Caritas Nepal wrote.

To avoid future catastrophes, Nepal and China are expected to improve communication on real-time glacier data, avalanche risks, and water levels.

International pledges for help and support exceed $200 million, with commitments from the United States, Europe, Canada, and the World Bank.

Pope Leo XIV again prayed on Sunday for the flood victims. “Let us pray for those who have lost their lives, for the injured, those missing, for the families and rescue workers,” he said. “May the concern of everyone help to alleviate the suffering and provide the necessary aid to the people affected.”

In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, U.S. bishops called for international mobilization and “long-term efforts to help affected communities rebuild their homes, livelihoods, and critical infrastructure.”

The Holy See said Pope Leo XIV appointed Liu bishop of Datong on Aug. 10 after approving his candidacy under the mechanisms established by the Vatican’s agreement with Beijing on the appointment of bishops.

This marks the third episcopal ordination since June 15 and the seventh episcopal consecration during the pontificate of Leo XIV, although not all episcopal appointments are linked to the current pontiff. Excluded from the seven are two bishops who had already received episcopal consecration but belonged to the underground Church — that is, the Church not recognized by China — and were ultimately validated by the authorities of the communist regime.

A life of pastoral service

Liu was born Nov. 2, 1970, in Wufuying village near Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province.

He began his priestly formation at the Fenyang seminary, where he studied from 1988 to 1992. He later attended the National Seminary in Beijing from 1992 to 1996, earning a bachelor’s degree in theology.

He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Datong on Nov. 24, 1996.

Following his ordination, Liu served as pastor of Zhangguantun from December 1996 to 1999, Xubao from 2000 to 2003, and Xihehe from 2003 to 2005.

He had served as diocesan administrator of Datong since March 15, 2005.

Appointments under Leo XIV

The process leading to Liu’s appointment and episcopal ordination took place entirely during Leo’s pontificate, providing another sign that the pope intends to continue dialogue between Rome and Beijing.

Several episcopal appointments and recognitions have taken place in China since Leo’s election.

On June 11, 2025, the Vatican announced the Chinese government’s civil recognition and installation of Bishop Giuseppe Lin Yuntuan as auxiliary bishop of Fuzhou in Fujian province.

Lin, however, was not ordained a bishop during Leo’s pontificate, having received episcopal ordination in 2017. Pope Leo XIV appointed him auxiliary bishop of Fuzhou on June 5, 2025, before Chinese authorities granted him civil recognition.

On July 8, 2025, Leo suppressed the Dioceses of Xuanhua and Xiwanzi, which had been established by Pope Pius XII in 1946, and erected the new Diocese of Zhangjiakou as a suffragan see of Beijing.

Two months later, on Sept. 10, Father Giuseppe Wang Zhengui, whom the pope had appointed to lead the new diocese, was ordained a bishop.

Recognition of 2 ‘underground’ bishops by China

Separately, on Sept. 12, 2025, the Chinese government recognized two “underground” bishops — that is, bishops loyal to Rome and appointed by the pope.

They are Bishop José Ma Yanen, 65, formerly the underground bishop of Xiwanzi, who is now the auxiliary bishop of the new Diocese of Zhangjiakou in Hebei province; and Bishop Agostino Cui Tai, 75, previously the bishop of Xuanhua — the other diocese suppressed by Pope Leo XIV to create the Diocese of Zhangjiakou. As he is over 70 years old, the Vatican considers Cui Tai to be a bishop emeritus.

2026 appointments

In 2026, Father Francesco Saverio Duan Yongkun was ordained coadjutor bishop of Bameng in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region after Leo appointed him on June 15 under the Provisional Agreement between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China.

The pope also appointed Father Giuseppe Chang Yanfeng on June 15. Chang was subsequently ordained bishop of Chifeng, another diocese in Inner Mongolia.

Tensions during the sede vacante

Chinese authorities unilaterally selected two bishops during the sede vacante following Pope Francis’ death, including one for a diocese already headed by a bishop recognized by the Holy See.

Father Ignatius Wu Jianlin was ordained auxiliary bishop of Shanghai on Oct. 15, 2025, after Pope Leo XIV formally appointed him to the post on Aug. 11.

Chinese authorities had previously announced Wu’s election by an assembly of priests and laypeople on April 28, during the sede vacante.

The Holy See’s later announcement revealed that Leo had approved the nomination Aug. 11. Although the appointment was not immediately made public, the Vatican announcement indicated that the case was ultimately brought within the framework of the Holy See-China agreement.

Francis Li Jianlin was likewise ordained bishop of the Apostolic Prefecture of Xinxiang in Henan province on Dec. 5, 2025, after Leo formally appointed him Aug. 11.

Li was the second bishop whose candidacy had been advanced by Chinese authorities during the sede vacante.

17 bishops ordained under Vatican-China agreement

With Liu’s ordination, 17 Catholic bishops have now been ordained in China under the Provisional Agreement first signed between the Holy See and China during Pope Francis’ pontificate.

The bilateral agreement, first signed in 2018, regulates the process for selecting and recognizing Catholic bishops in China.

The Holy See and China have not maintained formal diplomatic relations since 1951, following the communist takeover under Mao Zedong. Chinese Catholics subsequently became divided between the state-controlled Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and an underground Catholic community that remained loyal to Rome.

The full text of the agreement has never been made public.

It was renewed every two years until 2024, when the two sides extended it for four years, through 2028.

According to publicly known elements of the agreement, the pope retains the final authority over episcopal appointments in China, including the ability to reject candidates proposed by Beijing. The Holy See, meanwhile, has agreed not to make episcopal appointments without prior consultation with the Chinese government.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

In the world of video games, “farming” means collecting points toward a goal. Under the Merriam-Webster Dictionary’s “Slang and Trending” category, aura farming means “the act of doing something to look cool, impressive, stylish, etc.” To “farm aura,” the dictionary further explains, means to “do something in order to enhance one’s coolness.”

The expression spread rapidly on social media platforms like TikTok, sparking curiosity and a following, primarily among Gen Z youth. However, the phenomenon’s viral nature quickly moved from screens to the streets.

Through specific gestures that have become hallmarks of the trend, young people gather to “farm aura” and even hold competitions featuring distinctive poses, facial expressions, or ways of walking, with the surrounding crowd deciding who performed best.

Reflecting on this trend, Cardinal Fernando Chomali, archbishop of Santiago, Chile, has observed that "‘Aura farming’ is a desperate cry from young people to be seen, heard, valued, loved, and acknowledged.”

“It’s a different version of the ‘therian’ trend [a person who psychologically identifies with an animal], reflecting the same worrying phenomenon: Many young people feel lonely! And, regrettably, little is said about that," Chomali commented on X.

In another post, the cardinal advised young people: “The best way to aura farm is to approach life with hope and joy. I invite you to study assiduously and to prepare your body and soul well to serve others. What better way to aura farm than by thinking big and building a more just country! Aura for and by Chile!” he encouraged.

Towards that end, on Aug. 27, the cardinal highlighted a relevant social service in Santiago: “The Franciscans of Recoleta, day after day, provide lunch for 150 people. The soup kitchen is very orderly and has a wholesome atmosphere.” The stories the guests “tell of so many people without a home, without family, with nothing, except a lunch served with love by the friars and their collaborators. I love the Church and am happy to have given my life to it! Purely aura farming with Christ,” Chomali indicated.

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This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

The term “cenotaph” comes from a Greek expression meaning “empty tomb” and traditionally refers to a monument built to honor a person whose remains are buried elsewhere.

It is common to find these small structures on streets, sidewalks, medians, and highways in countries such as Peru, Colombia, or Mexico, usually placed to mark the location where a person lost his or her life.

In an interview with ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News, Father Roberto Delgado Suárez, a priest of the Diocese of Nezahualcóyotl  in Mexico specializing in grief ministry and palliative care, explained that through Christ’s sacrifice, the cross was transformed from “a sign of condemnation into a sign of salvation.”

He noted that such memorials can help people reinterpret the site where their loved one died, turning a space associated with sorrow into “a sacred place.” He pointed out that, especially for families, the cenotaph serves as a way to express “This is where I last saw my son; this is where my son was — here in this world.”

On the other hand, Delgado noted that for some people, a cenotaph can represent a “call for justice,” as is the case with “mothers or families searching for their children.” In this way, the memorials can take on a dual meaning: an expression of faith, but also “a sign [calling for] justice.”

Although the cenotaphs are neither cemetery monuments nor crypts, the priest urged people to show them due respect, as they are “signs that point us toward God.”

The memorials are built in a variety of ways. Some consist solely of a cross and a plaque bearing the deceased personʼs name; others include photographs, flowers, candles, or religious images. In some cases, families erect larger structures resembling a cemetery monument along the roadside.

Guillermina Hernández Martínez, a psychologist and specialist in thanatology (the study of death, dying, loss, and grief), said the significance of these memorials varies.

In an interview with ACI Prensa, she noted that “sometimes, out on the streets, the crosses are now forgotten,” while others remain tended for years.

Hernández warned that in some cases, too much of a bond to the location of the memorial could hinder emotional healing, as “people often continue to idealize [the deceased] and do not allow themselves to process their grief.” She emphasized the importance of psychological and thanatological support, particularly in the wake of a violent death.

Grief, she explained, is a process requiring time and support, yet one must always remember that “it is part of life,” and for Catholics it is “another step toward being with God.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

During a meeting between Argüello and the minister of culture, tourism, and sport, Alberto Díaz Pico, the regional government expressed its “interest in promoting the commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the birth of Philip II (in 2027), as well as highlighting the beatification cause of Isabella, the Catholic Monarch, and its historical and cultural significance,” according to an Aug. 27 statement issued by the government.

Isabella and her husband, King Ferdinand, were given the title “the Catholic Monarchs” by Pope Alexander VI through the papal bull Si Convenit for their defense of the Catholic faith.

“Furthermore, the commitment to continue collaborating with the Church on the conservation, protection, and enhancement of the ecclesiastical heritage of Castile and León has been reaffirmed, with a view to exploring ways to expand and strengthen existing support measures,” the statement added.

The statement also highlighted “the good rapport and the determination to maintain close collaboration on matters of mutual interest regarding the culture, heritage, and history of Castile and León.”

Isabella, the Catholic Monarch

Isabella I of Castile was born in Madrigal de las Altas Torres on April 22, 1451, Holy Thursday that year. After being recognized as Princess of Asturias in 1468, she married Ferdinand of Aragon in 1469 and had six children, two of whom predeceased her. Upon the death of Enrique IV, she was proclaimed queen in 1474, according to the Archdiocese of Valladolid.

During her reign, she championed the reconquest of Granada from the Muslims and the voyage of Christopher Columbus, which led to the discovery of the Americas in October 1492. She also promoted the evangelization and protection of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, going so far as to ban their enslavement. She died on Nov. 26, 1504, from uterine cancer.

The cause for her beatification was initiated in Valladolid in 1958; the diocesan phase concluded in 1990, after which the process moved to Rome.

Historians have already favorably reviewed the documentation, but the theological assessment regarding the heroic nature of her virtues is still pending. Once that takes place, and following the popeʼs approval, she may be recognized as venerable, awaiting a miracle for her beatification.

Enraizados (the “Rooted in Christ and in Society Association”) has an annual Mass celebrated in memory of Isabella. In the manifesto the group published in 2026, it included a prayer by the queen: “I am afraid, Lord, of being afraid and not knowing how to fight. I am afraid, Lord, of being afraid and being capable of denying you. I ask you, Lord, that in your greatness, you do not forget me. And that, with your love, you grant the strength to die for you.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

Speaking after the Angelus in Castel Gandolfo on Aug. 30, the pope said he had received “tragic reports” from Haiti about a massacre in Kenscoff.

“Tragic reports are emerging from Haiti of the horrific massacre carried out in Kenscoff, in which numerous people have lost their lives and others taken hostage,” Pope Leo said. “I express my spiritual closeness to the victims and their families and call for the immediate release of all hostages.”

“I make a heartfelt appeal to all those in positions of authority to take concrete steps in order to ensure the safety of the population and put an end to all forms of violence,” he added.

The pope also renewed his prayers for those affected by flooding in Nepal and Tibet.

“Let us pray for those who have lost their lives, for the injured, those missing, for the families and rescue workers,” he said. “May the concern of everyone help to alleviate the suffering and provide the necessary aid to the people affected.”

Pope Leo then broadened his appeal, urging Christians to continue praying for peace and recalling the words of St. Augustine, whose feast the Church celebrated Aug. 28.

“Let us continue to pray for peace,” he said. “St. Augustine, whose feast we celebrated a few days ago, said that peace ‘is like the miraculous bread multiplied in the hands of the disciples as they broke it and distributed it.’”

“May there be an increase in the world of those who courageously break and share the bread of peace, overcoming divisions, promoting justice, and practicing forgiveness for the good of all,” the pope said.

Leo also noted that the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation will be celebrated Tuesday, marking the beginning of the ecumenical Season of Creation, whose 2026 theme is “Living Water.”

“I invite everyone to join in prayer and action, that we may become channels of the living water of God’s peace, refreshing our wounded world,” he said.

Understanding and accepting God’s ways

Before the Angelus, Pope Leo reflected on the Gospel account in which Jesus tells his disciples of his coming passion, prompting Peter to reject what he hears.

The pope noted that Peter had only shortly before recognized Jesus as “the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” but was shocked when Christ explained that he would go to Jerusalem, suffer, be killed, and rise on the third day.

Peter’s reaction, Leo said, was “an outburst of zeal, certainly motivated by sincere love, and yet it gives us something to consider.”

“For us, too, in fact, it is not always easy to understand and accept God’s ways, especially when they are very far from our own,” the pope said. “Then the temptation arises — against all the reasoning of faith — to think that the Lord is the one who is wrong, or worse still, that he is not listening to us or is not concerned about us.”

Peter, despite his impulsiveness, offers Christians two lessons in such moments, Leo said.

“The first is, even in such moments, never to cease our dialogue with the Lord,” he said. “Instead, we are confidently to tell him our difficulty in understanding what he is asking of us.”

“The second is never to judge God’s work but rather humbly and prayerfully to listen to what he is revealing to us through his actions, even when they do not meet our expectations.”

“The greatness of the first of the apostles is also evident in this,” the pope said.

Jesus responded to Peter with the words, “Get behind me, Satan!” before teaching the disciples that following him means denying themselves, taking up their crosses, and following him.

Peter would eventually accept that challenge, Leo noted, remaining faithful to Christ “for the rest of his life, even unto martyrdom.”

The pope concluded his reflection by asking the Lord to give Christians Peter’s sincerity in prayer as well as his willingness to accept God’s will.

“Let us therefore ask the Lord that we, too, in our life of faith and in our prayer, may have the same sincerity as Peter, humbly telling Jesus what we truly feel, even when our hearts are confused,” he said. “At the same time, may we cultivate Peter’s own docility in accepting what Jesus asks of us beyond our expectations.”

This story was first published by ACI Stampa, the Italian-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

In his address during the launch of a six-week formation program that seeks to explore priestly life in Nigeria, Archbishop Fortunatus Nwachukwu reflected on cases of mental health struggles among the members of the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life (ICLSAL), noting that priests should embrace rest just as Jesus himself did during his ministry.

“Rest, then, is not a luxury in priestly life; it is necessary for physical and mental health,” the archbishop said, noting that the recent news of the resignation of German Bishop Karl-Heinz Wiesemann after a period of serious psychological strain is “a timely reminder that priests and bishops are not immune to exhaustion, depression, or burnout.”

“We need proper rest, healthy boundaries, supportive relationships, and, when necessary, professional help. Caring for oneself is not stepping away from ministry; it helps us remain well enough to serve,” the Nigerian-born Vatican official emphasized during the launch, which was held virtually on Aug. 26.

Organizers of the program seek to explore priestly life, starting with Nigeria, amid mounting mental health concerns among Catholic priests.

According to organizers, participants in the program will look at “the quality of life, service, joy, aspirations, fears, and anxieties” that they say are “gradually pervading the cycle of a priestʼs life and ministry.”

Guided by the theme “Fully Alive in Christ: Caring for the Self — The Priest as a Living Gift,” the program also seeks to explore priestly self-care, spiritual renewal, emotional well-being, burnout, healthy relationships, and living out the Church’s mission with confidence and joy.

Participants in the formation will have access to training materials and will also receive a certificate of participation.

In his presentation, Nwachukwu recalled the situation in the Diocese of Aba, where he said the age at which many priests have died points to the need for greater attention to the well-being of clergy.

“Each time I visit the priests’ cemetery of the Diocese of Aba, close to the cathedral, I am struck and left sad by the age bracket of the colleagues whose remains are already lying there,” said the Vatican official, who also serves as the representative of the Holy See to the United Nations and Specialized Institutions in Geneva following his December 2021 appointment.

Many of the priests, he added, died before reaching the age of 50. “Only very few crossed the bars of 60 and 70 years,” he said.

Beyond the premature deaths of priests, Nwachukwu noted the growing number of young priests experiencing mental health challenges, raising the question of what can be done to address the situation.

He said the concern was not about questioning God’s will but about examining how seriously the Church takes Jesus’ teachings and example regarding the self-care of those entrusted with ministry.

Nwachukwu reflected on Mark 6:31-32 as a guiding text for understanding the importance of rest in priestly ministry. In the passage, Jesus tells his disciples: “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.”

The Nigerian Church leader explained that Jesus invited his disciples to take a pause from their ministry and join him in a period of rest. He noted that Jesus himself demonstrated the importance of taking a break — particularly after receiving news of the death of his cousin, John the Baptist.

The archbishop said the Gospel accounts show that Jesus’ decision to withdraw was connected both to grief and to the demands of ministry.

He said St. Matthew presents the withdrawal after Jesus receives news of John the Baptist’s death, while Mark and Luke place the invitation to rest after the disciples returned from a successful missionary assignment.

The disciples had been so occupied with their mission that “many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat,” he noted, adding that their missionary work had included casting out demons as well as anointing the sick with oil and healing them.

Nwachukwu said the experience offers an important lesson for priests who devote themselves intensely to ministry.

“God-given energy needs God-given direction,” he said, explaining that strength, passion, and drive must be directed toward one’s vocation and mission. Otherwise, he warned, such energy can easily be spent elsewhere.

He said this spiritual energy, when properly directed, can lead a person to Christ and enable him or her to bring others to Christ.

He recalled Pope Benedict XVI’s homily at his episcopal ordination on Jan. 6, 2013, in which the late pontiff described the spiritual restlessness of the Magi as the force that led them from the East in search of the newborn Jesus.

According to Nwachukwu, such restlessness finds its fulfillment in Christ.

The archbishop also reflected on Jesus’ invitation in Matthew 11:28: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

He cautioned that rest detached from Christ can be harmful to priests, emphasizing that the rest Jesus offers is not simply an escape from work but a source of renewal.

He explained that the Greek expression used in the passage, “kagō anapausō humas,” means “and I will give you rest.” The verb “anapauō,” he noted, conveys the idea of an elevating or renewing rest.

For priests, Nwachukwu said, this kind of rest should include periods of detachment from routine activities to allow for physical renewal and to strengthen relationships with God, fellow priests, family members, and the faithful.

He added that physical refreshment should include ordinary needs such as taking adequate time to eat and drink, while mental and spiritual renewal should involve learning how to direct one’s energies toward Christ through prayer and genuine charity.

This story was first published by ACI Africa, the sister service of EWTN News in Africa, and has been adapted by EWTN News.

Nothing happened the way either of them had imagined.

They arranged to meet on a Wednesday at 3 p.m., the Hour of Mercy, at the very spot where they had courted years before. When Mariela appeared, Harold frantically searched for the sheet of paper containing his complaints. It had vanished.

“I was expecting a war. She opened her arms to embrace me, and I realized that I was the only one who wanted to fight,” Harold recalled in an interview with ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News.

Mariela said she made that gesture because she had already begun a process of conversion and was holding onto one last hope.

That embrace did not immediately restore the marriage, however. It would still be nearly a month before he ended the other relationship he was in and decided to return to his family. But on that day, they both attest, Jesus won the first great battle.

A marriage marked by woundedness

Harold and Mariela met in 1998 at the Venezuelan College of Engineers. He worked in systems; she was a young lawyer running a legal consultation firm with dozens of professionals under her supervision.

While Mariela had grown up in a Catholic family and frequently prayed the rosary, Harold was completely indifferent to the faith.

“I used to make fun of priests. For me, getting married in the Church was simply a matter of fulfilling a social formality,” he admitted.

They were married in a civil ceremony and on Sept. 2, 2000, received the sacrament at marriage at St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Barranco, Peru. However, they acknowledged that they came to the altar without truly understanding the meaning of the vocation of marriage.

“We began our life together without God at the center. That was the first major mistake,” Harold explained.

Over the years, deep-seated wounds began to surface: abandonment, loneliness, pride, an inability to communicate, and unrealistic expectations about love. Venezuela’s economic crisis further aggravated the situation. Harold traveled constantly between the two countries until, one day, he simply stopped coming back.

Mariela was left alone in Lima with her young daughter.

‘Mom, teach me to pray’

Paradoxically, the restoration did not begin when Harold changed. It began when Mariela got down on her knees.

Estranged from the Church and filled with resentment, the young mother had abandoned the practice of her faith after being hurt by a bad experience at a parish. Everything changed thanks to an unexpected request from her 7-year-old daughter: “Mom, grandma says you know how to pray. Teach me the rosary.”

Mariela agreed, more out of a sense of obligation than anything else. Shortly after that, her daughter insisted on making her first Communion and said something that pierced her mother’s heart: “You know what it’s like to have Jesus in your heart… so why don’t you [go to Communion]?”

Those words led Mariela back to the confessional.

From then on, she began a routine that would change her life: daily Mass before work, Eucharistic adoration at midday, and the rosary every night with her daughter.

“I was looking for God to change my husband. The Lord ended up changing me,” she related.

‘Look at me’

During Eucharistic adoration, an experience occurred that would, years later, give its name to the retreat the couple now leads as part of the Peruvian Catholic movement “Jesus and Mary Are Restoring My Family.”

Mariela was praying, seeing herself as the victim in her story: “Lord, look at me. Look at how good I am. Look at what he did to me.”

Then, she raised her eyes toward the monstrance.

“I no longer saw the monstrance. I saw Jesus, wounded and bloodied. And he said to me only: ‘Look at me.’”

In that moment, she experienced a personal encounter with Jesus. She began to recall her own sins from childhood and realized that, for years, she had been unable to recognize her own wounds.

“I realized that God wasn’t going to ask me about Harold’s sins. He was going to ask me how much I loved my husband within the sacrament.”

Her prayer changed completely, and she no longer asked for Harold to return. She only prayed: “Lord, bring him back to you.”

The hell of the occult

While Mariela was deepening her prayer life, Harold was heading down a completely opposite path.

Seeking better financial prospects, he began consulting tarot cards. Next came syncretist Santería practices, and finally Palería, a witchcraft practice involving human remains and animal sacrifices.

“I entered a dark room containing skeletal remains. I felt an indescribable fear, yet I kept looking for answers where they weren’t to be found,” Harold recalled.

Amid that emptiness, he began to notice something strange. Mariela kept calling him, but no longer to get him back.

One afternoon, in a mocking tone, he asked her: “What’s wrong? Don’t you need me anymore?”

Her answer baffled him.

“No. Whatʼs going on is that I have someone here who loves me.”

Harold thought she had another romantic partner, but today he knows his wife was speaking of Christ himself.

Welcomed back with love

After that encounter with his wife in Venezuela, Harold eventually returned to Peru.

He admitted he was terrified of facing Mariela’s family and above all, their daughter. He imagined reproaches, humiliation, and rejection. Yet, he found exactly the opposite.

“They all hugged me as if I had just stepped out to buy bread,” he recounted.

A few days later, he accompanied Mariela to the Oblate Fathers’ church in the Barranco neighborhood of Lima. He had no thought of even going inside. He was standing near the doorway when, as he tells it, he felt an inner impulse that led him straight to the confessional.

“I told the priest: ‘Father, I’ve been separated from my wife for five years, and I don’t know why I’ve come back.’”

The priest invited him to attend a spiritual retreat. It was there that Harold experienced his own conversion.

Before the Blessed Sacrament, after resisting for hours, Harold looked up: “I no longer saw the monstrance. I saw two honey-colored eyes that pierced my heart. I began to weep as I never had in my life.”

From that moment on, he abandoned the occult and began a journey of faith that continues to this day.

An ongoing miracle

More than 15 years have passed since that reconciliation.

Harold and Mariela maintain that the true miracle was not simply living together again but discovering that marriage is a daily path to holiness.

“Restoring the marriage takes your whole life. It doesn’t stop when the husband returns. It begins there,” Mariela said.

That experience gave rise to the “Jesus and Mary Are Restoring My Family” movement, an initiative that supports spouses who are separated or on the verge of divorce. The path they propose begins with oneʼs own conversion rather than an attempt to change oneʼs spouse.

Those who come to the mission begin with what’s called “Mary’s Workshop,” a preparation for consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary that focuses on the sacrament of marriage. There, the aim is for each person to acknowledge his or her own wounds and receive the tools to discern how to handle their issues as a family.

However, Harold and Mariela noted that not all journeys end the same way. Some married couples manage to reunite, while others go their separate ways, including through the process of a declaration of nullity. What remains, they maintain, is the call to conversion and to seek God’s will.

“The Lord wants us to be holy,” Mariela explained. She said that even when a person goes through a process different from what she or he hoped for, suffering can become an opportunity to draw closer to Christ and offer that pain for the holiness of the Church.

Today, when they look back, the couple no longer see themselves as the same people who had separated. Mariela describes Harold as a man more committed to knowing Godʼs love and capable of giving of himself to his family.

For his part, he acknowledged that the woman he reunited with after five years was no longer the same one he had left behind.

For this reason, their testimony does not aim to offer a formula for restoring a lost marriage. It is, above all, the story of two people who discovered that, before asking God to change the other person, they had to allow themselves to be transformed by him.

“Many people come saying, ‘I want my husband to come back.’ We tell them: First, let Jesus return to the center of your heart,” Harold explained.

Their message to couples in crisis stems from that experience: Don’t hide your wounds, don’t let shame defeat you, and don’t confuse restoration with a simple return to the life you had before.

For as they discovered that Wednesday afternoon in 2009, some marital battles are not won by defeating the other person but by allowing oneself to be conquered by God’s merciful love.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

The town of Castel Gandolfo has been home to the papal summer residence since the early 17th century. The papal palace there overlooks Lake Albano, a roughly 2-square-mile lake in a volcanic crater.

The pope traveled by boat across the lake after Mass at the Church of Maria Santissima del Lago. The papal procession was accompanied by a statue of Our Lady of the Lake.

Such restrictions on federal funding are made “without any compelling government interest,” the Justice Department said in an Aug. 25 memorandum opinion issued to the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services.

In its 2004 decision Locke v. Davey, the U.S. Supreme Court held that public authorities are free to withhold funding from programs and activities that are explicitly religious in nature.

In its memorandum, however, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel said restricting federal funding based on either the religious status of an organization or the use of funds for religious purposes is “not required” under the U.S. Constitution.

Such restrictions “discriminate based on anticipated religious use without any compelling governmental interest,” the memorandum said, and as a result they “violate the Free Exercise Clause.”

“Use-based religious restrictions on generally available federal funding programs are presumptively unconstitutional,” the document said.

The memorandum specifically addressed programs administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which controls billions of dollars in federal funding. It was not immediately clear if the directive applied to other federal departments. A spokesman for the Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The religious freedom legal group First Liberty, meanwhile, hailed the memorandum as “a major victory for religious liberty.”

Faith-based organizations and schools “can now apply for and utilize federal grants without scrubbing the religious aspects of their programs,” the group said.

First Liberty argued that opinions from the Office of Legal Counsel “serve as binding legal guidance for the executive branch,” meaning the memo “effectively instructs all federal agencies to rewrite their grant-making rules to align with this new standard.”

The group noted that one of its network attorneys is Joshua Davey, part of the namesake of the 2004 Supreme Court case that established the precedent of restricting federal funds for religious activities and groups.

That decision “has never been formally overturned,” First Liberty said, but “that could change in the very near future.”

The pope made the declaration in an apostolic letter issued motu proprio titled Mutua Concordia. The letter modified canons 106 and 126 of the Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium.

The pope in the letter said the “mutual concord” between the head of an Eastern Church and the church’s bishops “is the soul of communion of the Eastern ecclesiastical hierarchy.”

If the “sacred bond” between the two “were to be irreparably compromised, this would constitute a grave wound requiring a remedy,” the pope said. In such situations, the bishops in question “must be able to exercise canonical authority” to remedy the crisis.

Synods will thus have the power to “[remove] their own Patriarch from office for a grave cause,” the pope said. Such a procedure would still guarantee the patriarch in question “a full defense before the synod,” the pope noted.

The pope, however, will retain “the sole concession of consent to the synodal decision,” Leo wrote. That provision will ensure “that the full freedom of the Fathers in expressing their choice is guaranteed, sheltered from any possible internal or external undue pressure.”

The order comes into effect “immediately,” Leo wrote in the letter.

In June Leo emphasized the “great gift” the Eastern Catholic Churches offer to the universal Church, which he said is “often unaware of the diverse ecclesial traditions within its ranks.”

“The Christian East can only be preserved if it is understood: to lose that understanding is to impoverish the Church,” the pope told the Reunion of Aid Agencies for the Oriental Churches at the time.

The manufacturers are not fulfilling their obligation to oversee prescribers while making tens of millions of dollars each year, according to the report, released by U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana.

The investigation also found that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s “lack of guardrails ensuring a sufficient provider-patient relationship creates accountability gaps for a product that carries risks of significant adverse health outcomes,” according to the report.

Three companies, Danco Laboratories, GenBioPro, and Evita Solutions, reportedly did not provide details on how they followed existing federal regulations, according to the report.

Among its findings, the report cited an undercover investigation that found that a girl as young as 13 years old could buy abortion pills.

Cassidy, a doctor and the chairman of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, headed the investigation.

“Abortion drug companies are putting mothers at risk through their failure to properly oversee the prescription and distribution of their products. We are seeing that the explosion in online sales of chemical abortion drugs has opened the door to coercion and abuse of women,” Cassidy said in a statement.

“FDA and the sponsors of these drugs have a responsibility to the American people to crack down on these prescribers that violate the prescribing requirements and reinstate the safeguards that keep mothers and babies safe,” he continued.

40 Days for Life says it will cover legal fees for arrests over New Jersey protest law

The pro-life group 40 Days for Life says it will cover legal fees if protesters are arrested under New Jersey’s new abortion clinic buffer zone law.

A new law signed by New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill on Aug. 20 could lead to legal crackdowns on protests near abortion clinics. The law criminalizes “interference” with “reproductive” or “gender-affirming” care.

The law further criminalizes inflicting “emotional harm” against those seeking or providing “reproductive health care services.” It also bans filming and sharing videos within 100 feet of an abortion clinic.

40 Days for Life, a group that organizes prayer vigils outside abortion clinics, has pledged to cover legal fees for peaceful protesters should the law be used to target them.

“If New Jersey — or anywhere else — targets a 40 Days for Life participant for peacefully and lawfully praying in public, our Institute of Law & Justice will have your back,” the group said on Aug. 28.

The group’s CEO Shawn Carney told the New York Post, meanwhile, that the services would be covered “at no cost.”

Catholic Virginians launch campaign against abortion ballot measure

Catholic leaders in Virginia are launching a campaign to oppose a ballot measure that would enshrine a right to abortion in the state.

The Protect Virginia 2026 campaign urges Catholics to vote against the state’s “Right to Reproductive Freedom” amendment, which will be on the ballot in November.

Richmond Bishop Barry Knestout voiced opposition against the “radical” amendment in a letter to Catholics in the state.

“Every life is sacred,” Knestout said. “The Church has always taught that abortion is an intrinsic evil. It takes one of God’s greatest gifts — a human life.”

“No law can ever make right what is intrinsically wrong,” he continued. “Let us pray for the courage to confront this evil that threatens to destroy life, to be persistent yet compassionate in our advocacy, and to vote so that we stand up for the great good that God has given us.”

“Let us commit ourselves to defending those who cannot speak for themselves and to witnessing to the Gospel of Life in both word and deed.”

Written by journalist Regina Statkuvienė and published by the DONUM Foundation, “In the Light of the Altar” draws on recent interviews she conducted with Tamkevičius. The book also includes his letters and diary entries alongside accounts of his childhood, priesthood, underground activities, imprisonment, exile, and later episcopal ministry.

Tamkevičius was arrested in 1983 and sentenced to six years in a strict-regime labor camp followed by four years of exile in Siberia.

His story offers an insight into the experience of Catholics who resisted the Soviet Unionʼs efforts to suppress religious life and impose state atheism.

Catholic resistance in Soviet-occupied Lithuania

Founded by Tamkevičius in 1972, the Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania (“Lietuvos katalikų bažnyčios kronika,” or “LKB Kronika”) was an underground publication documenting religious persecution and human rights abuses in Soviet-occupied Lithuania.

The Kronika recorded arrests and interrogations of clergy and lay Catholics, confiscation of Church property, restrictions on religious practice, and attempts by Soviet authorities to infiltrate the Church. It was a strictly factual catalog of human rights violations, not a literary magazine or a platform for theological commentary.

Its reports were secretly typed and reproduced, with editions being smuggled to Western diplomats and foreign journalists in Moscow, with activists often microfilming the pages and hiding the negatives inside everyday objects like book covers or flashlights.

Once in the West, the material was translated and disseminated internationally, including through Vatican Radio and Radio Free Europe, directly challenging Soviet claims that religious freedom existed behind the Iron Curtain.

In the bookʼs foreword, Archbishop Petar Rajič, current prefect of the Papal Household and former apostolic nuncio to Lithuania, described Tamkevičius as one of the most prominent witnesses to the Soviet era.

“Every Catholic who loves the Church should read the Chronicle,” Rajič wrote, calling it a testimony to the spiritual strength and resistance of the Lithuanian people, rooted in the victory of the cross of Christ and offering lessons for Catholics today and future generations.

Arrest and KGB interrogation

The Kronika not only exposed Soviet religious persecution to the outside world but also strengthened the underground Catholic resistance within Lithuania. The KGB consequently intensified efforts to identify and suppress those involved in producing and distributing the publication.

Since Tamkevičius openly preached against state atheism and challenged Soviet restrictions on the Church, he was seen as a visible figure within the Catholic resistance movement.

The Soviet authorities eventually arrested Tamkevičius in May 1983 and charged him with “anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.” After six months of pretrial detention in the KGB isolation prison in Vilnius, he was sentenced in December to six years in a strict-regime labor camp in the Ural Mountains, followed by four years of exile in Siberia.

During his detention, Tamkevičius recalled psychological pressure from KGB interrogators. On one occasion, an interrogator offered him tea and biscuits. He drank the tea at around 2 p.m. and soon became extremely dizzy.

His next clear memory came hours later, when he heard the interrogator angrily questioning him about a document concerning the underground seminary. He was then told that it was already 10 p.m. “Only then did I realize that after drinking the tea I had lost consciousness,” he recalled.

Tamkevičius believed he had been drugged to extract information from him. The attempt failed. “Seeing how angry the interrogator was, I understood that he had managed to extract nothing from me,” he said.

Life in the labor camp

Tamkevičius recalled that his first assignment in the labor camp was peeling potatoes. “Each potato had to be taken out of almost ice-cold water,” he recalled. He feared that doing this for six years would make him ill, but after two weeks he was transferred to a metalworking workshop, where he collected metal shavings from lathes and carried them to containers.

Prisoners worked eight hours a day and were allotted another eight hours for sleep. The food was poor, consisting largely of “thin soup and watery porridge.” Later, after Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985, Tamkevičius was assigned to the camp kitchen and had to rise at 4 a.m. to prepare breakfast.

The ingredients were often badly preserved. Fish, he recalled, could be heavily salted and stored for years. He learned to make the most of what was available, washing the fish overnight and frying it separately so that prisoners could have a more edible meal.

During more than five years in captivity, Tamkevičius was transferred under guard seven times and encountered prisoners ranging from teenagers to murderers. The experience became for him a reflection on human nature and the consequences of abandoning moral law.

“A life without God, without the commandments of the Decalogue, a life without love,” he wrote, describing the selfishness, pride, lust, and greed that shaped much of prison life. His reflections ultimately turned toward his own imprisonment and vocation.

“Lord, what was it that brought me behind bars and barbed wire?” he asked. “The affairs of the Church? Yes. Concern for people’s moral lives? Yes. Living according to my conscience? Yes. Thank you, Lord, that the answer was ‘yes.’” For Tamkevičius, imprisonment was ultimately the consequence of refusing to compromise his faith in the face of communist oppression.

From persecution to freedom

Tamkevičius was released in 1988 as Soviet repression began to weaken. He returned to Lithuania as the country moved toward independence, restored on March 11, 1990.

Tamkevičius' story offers a firsthand account of the cost of defending the faith under communism and the role of ordinary believers in preserving the Church through decades of persecution.

The annual “Top Gun Father and Son” camping event welcomes dads and sons for a mission to grow closer, strengthen their relationships through challenges and reflections, and partake in faith-filled adventures.

Encounters, Convictions, and Your Decisions (ECYD), an international Catholic association of adolescents with the Legionaries of Christ and Regnum Christi, hosts the annual weekend at Camp Castleton in Virginia for boys in fifth to eighth grade and their fathers.

The event is only one of the fruits of ECYD, which also carries out other youth clubs, camps, leadership trainings, and gatherings.

Father Vito Crincoli, LC, the director of the ECYD Leadership Training program in D.C., told EWTN News the ECYD ministry is “based on the spirituality of Jesus calling you to be his friend.”

“Itʼs an international movement,” he said. “In Washington, D.C., in particular, weʼve been putting a lot of emphasis on forming dads to be mentors for our clubs.”

“One is because we donʼt have as many priests as we would like to run the youth ministry. But also, above all, we want to create vibrant apostles, vibrant laypeople, to run youth work. And because men really want to be mentors.”

“Weʼve noticed in these past years of our ministry that thereʼs been such a desire for the men to want to be involved. And we saw that precisely through the father-son weekends we do. It awakens something in them.”

Men “want to do more,” Crincoli said. “They want to give more.”

Finding unexpected inspiration from film

While the camp grew out of the desire to minister to Catholic men, it was ultimately a fictional adventure film about U.S. Navy aviators that set the idea into motion.

After noticing a “father and son tone” in the 2022 film “Top Gun: Maverick,” Crincoli was inspired to bring together families for the event, which now welcomes anywhere from 20 to 40 fathers and sons.

Crincoli was inspired by the relationship between the film’s characters Pete Mitchell and Bradley Bradshaw, better known by their call signs “Maverick” and “Rooster.”

While the two Top Gun pilots are not related, Crincoli noticed a bond between them that is unique to a father and his son.

In the movie, “Maverick is trying to be the best dad he could be for Rooster. Experiencing his own limitations, but also just trying,” Crincoli explained. “And then Rooster is looking for the type of dad he wants: ‘I need a role model in my life. Someone who can guide me.’”

“Weʼre really trying to tell the dads: ‘Be a dad as a mission.’ Itʼs a mission of love. The whole idea of Top Gun Father and Son is that you and your son are a team. Youʼre preparing your son for life.”

“Thatʼs what Maverick was doing with Rooster. He was preparing him for battle.”

Top Gun Father and Son

While at the camp, the group has previously been joined by members of the U.S. Naval Academy, including a Catholic former Top Gun pilot who “gave a talk to the dads about learning to fly with your kids — learning to fly with them through life.”

A pivotal part is the “moment where the dads earn their wings,” he said. “We had somebody donate real Navy wings to us.”

“Itʼs a ceremony. Weʼll have the wings on the table, the flag, the dads line up and then … the dads become ‘Top Gun dads’” and “they get their wings.” It “begins the mission of the weekend.”

To help the participants live out the mission, the dads have “a training camp,” Crincoli said. “In that training camp we have different activities.”

The activities include anything from dodgeball and nighttime “missions” to quiet time in prayer. The weekend includes “different dynamics and different adventures” to create fellowship and teamwork between the fathers and sons.

During dodgeball, “itʼs the fathers and sons as teams against each other,” Crincoli explained. “But then, if their son gets hit with the ball, the dad has to go and rescue his son.”

“Thereʼs even a night mission that the son and the dad have to do together. There was one year that we did a mission where the dads and kids had to crack codes and to find the missing pilot. But they have to do it together — the son and dad.”

The event also includes father and sons giving each other their own call signs and explaining why they chose them for each other. Itʼs a “dynamic of ‘How well do you know your son, and how well does your son know you?’”

Along with the mission-center games, the group most importantly spends time in prayer throughout the weekend.

The “most beautiful” part of the event is when “we have the adoration — father-son adoration together,” Crincoli said. “The dad and his kid, they both come up to receive the blessing with the Blessed Sacrament. Itʼs a very intimate moment.”

“Then we have the finishing Mass. And after the Mass, the dads and the kids are together,” and “itʼs the award ceremony.”

Then, “the dads give their wings to their sons” and “as theyʼre pinning the wings to their son, theyʼre praying over their kids. Theyʼre blessing them. Theyʼre encouraging them.”

The many ‘lights’ that come from the event

The last day includes “a debriefing with the dads,” Crincoli said. “We sit down with the dads and we start asking them, ‘What has this weekend been for you?’”

“The dads begin to express different comments,” Crincoli said. He further reflected on some of the past insights he has heard from fathers. 

“The men say, ‘It is great to be with men that believe what I believe.’”

“Another, he goes, ‘Itʼs beautiful, itʼs great, to be with men who are strongly Catholic, who are bonded by their sons, and that we could be a community.’ One of the dads said, ‘I really want to be a mentor in this because ... this is an extension of my fatherhood.’”

After the weekend, “they come back,” Crincoli said. They come back as mentors for ECYD clubs or take part in its other camps.

“There are so many different lights that come from this,” he said.

The next annual Top Gun Father and Son will be held the weekend of Oct. 17–18. It will include the presence of members of the U.S. Naval Academy and a former Navy Seabee chief who will support the weekend with leadership and inspiration.

West was sued by the couple for not adhering to the terms of the surrogacy contract, which included a clause allowing them to request abortion of the baby if it were found to have fetal abnormalities.

The mother sought refuge in Texas and gave birth there to the baby, whom she named Gabriel; the state ordered a hospital system to provide the baby life-giving care.

The controversial case has generated significant commentary around gestational surrogacy, the practice in which a woman is paid to grow and birth a baby for the parents.

The Catholic Church explicitly opposes surrogacy, describing it as a comprehensively immoral practice that offends the dignity of everyone involved. But why specifically does the Church so strongly forbid this arrangement?

Practice is ‘contrary to the unity of marriage’ and of human dignity

Joseph Meaney, a senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, described surrogacy as an arrangement in which “a woman agrees to carry a child for another — either a couple or another individual — with the express purpose of giving that child to them.”

“Traditional” surrogacy involves using the birthing mother as the biological mother, Meaney said. One example of this, he said, can be found in the Bible, in the Book of Genesis’ account of Sarai allowing her servant Hagar to serve as a surrogate with the former’s husband, Abram.

The “modern version” of surrogacy, meanwhile, involves impregnating a surrogate using in vitro fertilization (IVF) either via a donor or using gametes from the “intending parents.”

The Catholic Church has condemned and prohibited this practice for decades.

Meaney pointed to the 1987 instruction from what was then the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith known as Donum Vitae, which describes surrogate motherhood as “contrary to the unity of marriage and to the dignity of the procreation of the human person.”

The practice of surrogacy, according to the instruction, “represents an objective failure to meet the obligations of maternal love, of conjugal fidelity, and of responsible motherhood; it offends the dignity and the right of the child to be conceived, carried in the womb, brought into the world and brought up by his own parents; [and] it sets up, to the detriment of families, a division between the physical, psychological, and moral elements which constitute those families.”

Meaney summed up the instruction’s claims on surrogacy as: “It’s bad, bad, really bad, worse than bad.”

Joe Zalot, the director of education at the Catholic bioethics center, told EWTN News that the dispute in Texas over baby Gabriel is a “textbook example” of what is wrong with surrogacy.

That case, he said, demonstrates “how commercial surrogacy denigrates the surrogate, seeking to reduce her to a subservient role viz-a-viz the genetic ‘parents,’ as well as how surrogacy contracts denigrate the dignity of the preborn child through the demand that it be killed if a prenatal anomaly is diagnosed.”

Catholic opposition to surrogacy has become more outspoken in recent years. Both Zalot and Meaney pointed to Pope Francis’ January 2024 address to the Holy See’s diplomatic corps; in those remarks Francis decried surrogacy as “deplorable.”

The practice “represents a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child,” the pope said. He expressed hope for an international ban on the procedure.

In the United States, meanwhile, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) says in its ethical guidance for Catholic healthcare that Catholic health providers may not participate in surrogacy arrangements.

The bishops in that directive cite “the dignity of the child and of marriage” as well as “the uniqueness of the mother-child relationship.”

In an August 2025 essay, Meaney further argued against “altruistic surrogacy” in which a woman agrees to carry a child for someone else with no monetary reimbursement.

The intentions of these women, he acknowledged, “seem … frequently generous” and compassionate. Yet such arrangements retain “most of the unethical qualities” of commercial surrogacy, he said.

He further noted that the biblical account of Sarai’s arrangement with Hagar functions as “a cautionary tale of how badly such arrangements can go,” insofar as Hagar and her child Ishmael “ended up banished and almost died in the wilderness.”

The practice is widely legal in the U.S. Only one state, Louisiana, outlaws commercial surrogacy entirely; more than a dozen states broadly allow it, while a majority of states are at least generally permissive of it.

Meaney said the matter “really does come down to ethics. There’s what can be done, and what should be done; there’s the technically possible, and the moral. And the two are not coterminous.”

“One’s reproductive capacity should be reserved for the sacred purpose of bringing a new life into the world, not a commercial contract with strangers,” he said.

The National Legal Foundation, Claybrook LLC, Troutman Pepper Locke, First Liberty Institute, and Alliance Defending Freedom filed the petition on Aug. 11. The filing follows a May 13 ruling by a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel that rejected Hall’s attempt to sue Virginia officials for blocking her from using a $5,000 Virginia Tuition Assistance Grant for a youth ministries degree, citing the 2004 Supreme Court decision Locke v. Davey.

“It is odious to our Constitution for a state to fund a degree in music but refuse to fund a degree in music & worship,” Steven Fitschen of National Legal Foundation said in a press release announcing the petition. “The Free Exercise clause is meant to encourage and even prefer religion. But Virginia’s decision to deny funding based upon religious use is the type of hostility toward religion rejected by the First Amendment.”

Diocese of Scranton reopens St. Pius X Seminary after over 20 years

St. Pius X Seminary in the Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania, has been reestablished 22 years after its closure in 2004 due to a declining number of vocations to the priesthood.

Bishop Joseph Bambera presided over the seminary’s official opening on Aug. 23, welcoming four seminarians to the freshly renovated building that was formerly the Cathedral Convent building, according to a press release from the diocese.

“As we re-establish the ministry of Saint Pius X Seminary, what an incredible gift this is,” Bambera said during his homily at the seminary’s first Mass, according to the release. Bambera had been a seminarian at St. Pius X Seminary in Dalton 48 years ago.

The release noted that the decision to reestablish the seminary came from Bambera’s wish “to make the first stage of priestly formation more closely connected to the Diocese of Scranton and the people the seminarians may one day serve.”

“We are excited because it’s going to give these men, as they start seminary, an opportunity to get to know the Diocese better,” Father Alex Roche, diocesan secretary for clergy formation and rector of St. Pius X Seminary, said in the release. “It’s also going to give the people of the Diocese a chance to get to know our seminarians before they go elsewhere to continue their studies in theology.”

Justice Barrett to speak at Benedictine College’s library dedication

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett will deliver a speech at the upcoming dedication of Benedictine College’s Independence Hall-inspired library on Sept. 26.

“This is an exciting milestone for Benedictine College,” Benedictine College President Stephen D. Minnis said in a press release on Aug. 25. “The library will not only demonstrate our commitment to academic excellence and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition, but it will also be a symbol of our love for this great country of ours.”

“The college is pleased to have Justice Barrett as part of the dedication ceremony,” the press release said, noting that the dedication for the Moritz Library in D’Aniello Hall will be free and open to the public.

Barrett earned her bachelor’s degree from Rhodes College and her law degree from the University of Notre Dame.

Students revive 1982 robotic arm at Catholic University despite lost documentation

A group of students from The Catholic University of America have brought to life a robotic space arm built in 1982 after documentation for the piece of technology has been lost for years.

Originally developed by Engineering Dean Emeritus and Ordinary Professor Charles Cuong Nguyen, the arm had been part of a pioneering technological effort to build the International Space Station, according to the university’s press release on Aug. 12.

The project to revive the arm, which is capable of a wide range of precise movements within a thousandth of an inch, was carried out by three students, including a high school Da Vinci Scholar, and was led by Nguyen. 

The students included Saliha Kavafogolu, an undergraduate intern from Yale University; Nathan Arega, a high school Da Vinci Scholar; and Ha (Jessica) Ngo-Tang, a biomedical engineering doctoral candidate.

California parents ask Supreme Court to overturn ruling excluding them from state program

Three California parents have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to exclude them from a state program over the religious materials they chose to home-school their children.

“The Ninth Circuit declared the homes of these parents to be ‘public school programs’ in order to justify the state’s religious discrimination,” Hiram Sasser, executive general counsel for First Liberty Institute, said in an Aug. 20 press release. “Parents should not be punished for choosing quality religious curriculum meeting the state’s standard that they teach to their own children in their own home just because it’s religious.”

The state of California’s tuition-free charter schools allow parents to home-school their children and have access to state funds to purchase curriculum. However, the press release notes, parents “can’t select a religious curriculum, even if they purchase it with their own funds, and their children’s work samples are rejected if they include religious wording or derive from materials created by religious publishers.”

The petition states that “California’s policy singles out parents who wish to give their children a faith-based education and excludes them from homeschooling benefits and support extended to other California families.”

“Few Catholic communities in Southeast Asia still possess such a rich heritage,” Joseph Christopher Nguyen Thien Tuan Hoang, the leader of a Latin Mass community in Vietnam, said in an Aug. 25 UCA News report.

While there is no established parish dedicated to the Latin Mass according to the report, traditional communities are able to attend the liturgy when approval is granted and with the help of foreign visiting priests.

“Our biggest challenge is not hostility, but misunderstanding,” Hoang said. “If more Church leaders understood why some young Catholics are drawn to the older liturgy, I believe more people would have the opportunity to experience this part of the Churchʼs tradition.”

From Gaza to Taybeh, priests call for living Christian presence in Holy Land

Father Gabriel Romanelli of Holy Family Parish in Gaza City discussed the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza during a video appearance at the Rimini Meeting, a signature event hosted by the Catholic movement Communion and Liberation.

Romanelli described Gaza as a devastated territory where water, electricity, and basic necessities remain scarce. The priest said his decision to stay was rooted in pastoral duty: the parish could not abandon children, people with disabilities, or struggling families.

ACI MENA, the Arabic-language sister service of EWTN News, reported Aug. 26 that Gaza’s Christian community now numbers 541 Catholics and Orthodox, and 60 members have died since the war began.

Father Francesco Ielpo, custos of the Holy Land, also spoke at the event, turning attention to the attacks facing the Christian town of Taybeh and called for concrete protection of fundamental rights. He also encouraged pilgrims to return, noting that their presence supports local Christians and strengthens their calling to care for the holy sites.

10 Catholic dioceses in the Philippines call for end to mining agreement

Bishops representing 10 Catholic dioceses in the Philippines have issued a joint pastoral statement addressed to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Environment Secretary Juan Miguel T. Cuna calling for an end to mining in the island of Sibuyan.

The letter, titled “Let Sibuyan Live: A Joint Call to Initiate the Cancellation of APMC’s Mining Agreement,” urges political leaders to carry out a comprehensive review of a mining agreement with Altai Philippines Mining Corp (APMC) in Sibuyan to ensure compliance with environmental laws, according to an Aug. 24 report from Inquirer.net.

The bishops expressed concern over the mining agreement’s threats to the island’s mountains, watersheds, rivers, coral reefs, and species unique to the island.

Recently appointed apostolic nuncio to Germany makes first visit

The recently appointed apostolic nuncio to Germany, Archbishop Hubertus van Megen, completed his inaugural visit to the headquarters of the German Bishops' Conference (DBK) in Bonn this week, CNA Deutsch, the German-language sister service of EWTN News, reported Aug. 28. 

During the meeting, van Megen presented his official assignment letter as nuncio to the DBK chairman signed by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin. "It was the first visit of an apostolic nuncio to the Secretariat of the German Bishops' Conference in more than 13 years,” the DBK noted in its announcement on social media.

Van Megen has served as nuncio to Kenya and South Sudan and held various positions within United Nations institutions.

UK member of Parliament calls for reforms before considering assisted suicide

Member of Parliament Zubir Ahmed, a former health minister in the British Labour Party and National Health Service doctor, has backed calls from Prime Minister Andy Burnham, a Catholic, to carry out health reforms before considering legislation on assisted suicide.

“What kind of society are we building if, before we’ve fixed the systems designed to care for people, we introduce a system designed to help them die?” Ahmed asked in an Aug. 25 op-ed in The Guardian. “As a former health minister who has seen the system from the inside, I am able to say it is not ready or equipped to answer this question.”

Ahmed’s remarks come after the prime minister said in July that debates on assisted suicide should be delayed until the country’s palliative and social care systems have been reformed.

Syria’s Catholic schools seek to remain both strong and compassionate

With another school year approaching, Syria’s Christian schools are struggling to keep tuition affordable while covering salaries, taxes, electricity, books, and other rising expenses.

Father Fadi Najjar, secretary-general of Catholic educational institutions in Syria, said no child should be forced out because a family cannot pay, ACI MENA reported Aug. 27. At the same time, he cautioned that schools cannot fulfill their educational mission if they are treated solely as charitable institutions. Najjar appealed to churches and aid organizations to support families in genuine need and help protect the future of Christian education in Syria.

Catholic priest in Ghana suspended for ‘abandoning’ pastoral ministry

Ghana’s Diocese of Konongo-Mampong has imposed an indefinite canonical suspension on a priest of the diocese for taking a leave of absence and “abandoning his pastoral ministry” without legitimate permission.

Bishop John Opoku-Agyemang announced the suspension of Father Samuel Adapore on Aug. 24, ACI Africa, the sister service of EWTN News in Africa, reported. The priest has been barred from administering any of the sacraments publicly, including the celebration of Mass, or officiating any other liturgical services.

The bishop said he made the decision “with a heavy heart but a great sense of duty to Holy Mother Church” to suspend the priest, who he noted had left his parish without telling anyone where he was going, including immediate family members.

Sierra Leonean priest cautions religious against shunning help for mental health struggles

The president of the Regional Union of Priests of West Africa has told members of the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life not to be ashamed of seeking psychological support, stressing that “mental-health struggles do not cancel their vocation,” ACI Africa reported Aug. 25.

“Our priests and religious spend their lives caring for others. We must also care for them. They need trusted friends, safe spaces for honest conversation, regular medical and psychological support, sufficient rest, and communities that listen without judgment,” Father Peter Konteh said following the resignation of Bishop Karl-Heinz Wiesemann of German’s Speyer Diocese over mental health struggles.

Christian city of Qamishli, Syria, turns 100

The city of Qamishli marked its centennial with a Christian community far smaller than the one that helped build the northeastern Syrian city.

Founded in 1926 after Christians fled Ottoman-era massacres, the city once had a population that was nearly 90% Christian, ACI MENA reported Aug. 25. Father Samir Kanoun, priest of the church of St. Yacoub Al-Nusaibini in Qamishli, said decades of migration, intensified after the Syrian crisis began in 2011, have reduced that share to about 20%, leaving roughly 2,000 Christian families.

Despite the decline, Qamishli retains a rich mix of Syriac, Armenian, Chaldean, Assyrian, and Protestant churches. Their cooperation grew stronger during the war through shared prayer, security coordination, and charitable work.

Kanoun remains hopeful, pointing to the city’s active young Christians and the Church’s efforts to preserve their faith, heritage, and sense of belonging to Syria.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, Aug. 26, the bishops expressed deep sorrow over the recent abduction of more than 60 worshippers from a mosque in Borgu, Niger state, and the killing of 47 people in Ukum, Benue state.

Seventeen others were critically wounded in the Benue attack, according to the CBCN members.

“With heavy hearts and deep sorrow, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) once again decries the unabated trail of blood and terror across our nation which has reached an intolerable crest,” the statement said.

The bishops reiterated the fact that Nigerians continue to be killed, traumatized, and displaced regardless of where they live or worship.

“Whether in a mosque, a church, a marketplace, or the quiet of their homes, Nigerians are still being slaughtered, traumatised, and displaced with impunity,” they said in the statement.

The CBCN members expressed condolences to the families of those killed in Benue and prayed for the recovery of those critically wounded.

They also expressed solidarity with Muslims following the abduction of worshippers in Niger state, calling for their immediate and safe release.

“We stand in firm solidarity with our Muslim brothers and sisters in Niger State, and all over Nigeria, praying for the immediate and safe release of all 60 abducted worshippers,” they said.

The bishops emphasized that violence against places of worship affects society as a whole.

“An attack on any place of worship is an attack on our collective humanity,” they said.

The bishops also acknowledged efforts being made by government authorities but urged political leaders and security chiefs not to relent until Nigerians can live in safety.

“To those in government at all levels, security chiefs, and political leaders, while we commend some efforts being made, we urge that you do not give up on this responsibility until the security and welfare of the citizens are guaranteed,” they said.

The CBCN members called for proactive, intelligence-led security operations capable of identifying and dismantling criminal networks before they launch attacks.

They further called for the swift prosecution of those responsible for violence, including their sponsors, irrespective of their status or affiliations.

“Impunity fuels repetition,” the bishops warned.

The CBCN members also addressed those who commit violence and sponsor it. “To the bandits, terrorists, kidnappers, and their sponsors, we plead that you stop the bloodshed!” they said.

The bishops underscored the sanctity of human life and rejected any justification for the killing of innocent people.

“Human life belongs to God alone, and no cause justifies this cruelty. You cannot build a future on the tears of innocent persons,” they said, warning perpetrators that their actions carry consequences. “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.”

The CBCN members urged those involved in violence to lay down their arms, abandon evil, and respect human life.

In the face of deteriorating security, the Catholic leaders urged Nigerians not to lose hope in their country, calling on citizens to remain steadfast in prayer for peace, security, and divine intervention.

“May the God of peace restore order to our nation, comfort those who mourn, and touch the hearts of those who inflict pain,” the CBCN members implored.

This story was first published by ACI Africa, the sister service of EWTN News in Africa, and has been adapted by EWTN News.

Until his election, Maroun was protosyncellus of the eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles of the Maronites in the United States since 2020 and served as pastor of St. Maron Maronite Parish in Minneapolis for more than 35 years — the third-oldest Maronite parish in the U.S.

In a statement released Friday, Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis said he was “thrilled” to learn of the pope’s assent and said Maroun is beloved in the archdiocese by priests and faithful alike.

“It is wonderfully providential that our Archdiocese has already been in a partnership with the Archeparchy of Damascus since 2017,” Hebda’s statement said. “It is my hope that the relationship will only grow stronger in the days ahead.”

Hebda called outgoing archbishop Nassar “a beacon of hope to the faithful of his flock as he guided them through the challenges of civil war.” 

Sharbel Ghattas Maroun was born in 1962 in Kfarselwan, Lebanon. Shortly after working for a bank, he left with his family in 1983 for the United States, fleeing the civil war raging in his home country.

The following year he entered the seminary of the Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles of the Maronites in Washington, D.C. After completing his studies in philosophy and theology, he was ordained a priest on his 27th birthday, Jan. 6, 1989, and appointed vicar of the Maronite Parish of St. Anthony in Danbury, Connecticut.

In 2015 he was invested as chorbishop.

As protosyncellus of the Maronite Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles, Maroun has also held the following positions, according to the Holy See Press Office: parish vicar of St. Maron in Minneapolis, director of youth pastoral care, representative for ecumenism and interreligious dialogue, director of vocational pastoral care, protopresbyter of the deanery of Mid-America, administrator of the St. Sharbel Mission in Milwaukee, syncellus for the eparchal clergy, member of the Presbyteral Council and the College of Consultors, representative for new evangelization, and chair of the board of Télé Lumière International.

According to ACI MENA, the Arabic-language sister service of EWTN News, Maroun prefers to be called “Abuna” — the Arabic word for “Father” — as a reflection of his Eastern identity and his desire to keep his heritage alive.

The proposed bill, AB 1709, is scheduled for its third reading in the state Senate on Aug. 28. The amended measure originally would have prohibited “anyone under the age of 16 from having a social media account,” as the conference’s action alert still asserted as of Aug. 28.

However, the bill was amended over the summer to simply restrict “addictive features” for youth under 16.

The Catholic conference wrote in its alert that studies “repeatedly show that social media is damaging to young kids.” The bishops said mental illness and self-harm have “skyrocketed” among youth since 2007, the year the iPhone was first released.

“Young people self-report feeling addicted, experiencing damaging messages to their body image and self-esteem from the comparisons and endless scrolling, receiving unwanted contact by strangers, and exposure to harmful content including eating disorders, suicidal ideation, violence, pornography, and drug use,” the conference wrote.

On Aug. 26, tech company Meta — the creator of Facebook and Instagram — agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion in a settlement after 29 states sued the company in a consolidated federal case. The settlement resolved claims that Meta’s platforms fueled addictive and harmful social media use among young people.

A much larger bipartisan coalition of 47 states, the District of Columbia, and several U.S. territories signed the settlement itself. Florida and New Mexico did not participate in the settlement.

“Children have a right to be children and to parental protection from harmful materials,” the California bishops said.

Apparently still referring to the original bill — which was introduced in February and would have banned social media outright for youth under age 16 — the alert continues: “Establishing the age of receiving a social media account at 16 helps preserve childrenʼs social and emotional development and parents' rights to safeguard their children from such harms.”

About 20 U.S. states have enacted social media and minor-safety laws, but so far enforcement is a patchwork: Some laws are in force, some are partly blocked, some are fully enjoined, and some have not taken effect yet.

Texas did not join the multistate Meta lawsuit. Instead, state Attorney General Ken Paxton announced a separate settlement the same day, under which Meta will pay the state more than $1 billion, or up to about $1.335 billion if YouTube and TikTok adopt similar teen-safety terms.

The Texas payout is larger than almost every other state’s share of the national deal; only California could receive more, up to $2.2 billion. The settlement is supposed to fund youth mental health services, crisis resources, digital literacy, after-school programs, and school grants in the state.

In addition to the payouts, both deals require Meta to verify users’ ages, cap most minors at two hours a day on Facebook and Instagram (with messaging exceptions), block overnight access and many nighttime notifications, set school-hour notification limits, hide likes and reactions by default, and restrict addictive features and inappropriate content for users under 18.

Parents will also have the option to permanently make their children’s Facebook news feeds “chronological” rather than algorithmic, meaning the feeds will simply display posts in chronological order rather than in an order selected by Facebook’s algorithm.

Australia became the first country to ban social media accounts for youth under 16 when the rule took effect in December 2025. France later became the first EU country to pass a similar ban, but for children under 15. The measure was approved in July and will be phased in beginning in September.

The DOJ and the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, a religious freedom advocacy group, held the meeting in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 27 to address the rise in attacks against houses of worship and faith-based communities.

Participants consisted of leaders from diverse faith backgrounds, including Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

The leaders spoke with Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights at the DOJ, and Karen Schneier Dresbach, executive vice president of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation — a coalition of business and religious leaders working worldwide on behalf of religious freedom, human rights, and the protection of houses of worship.

“No American should ever fear violence for simply practicing their faith," Dhillon said in a statement.

"The Department of Justiceʼs Civil Rights Division has zero tolerance for attacks on houses of worship, and we will continue to investigate and prosecute those who target Americans because of their religion,” Dhillon said.

The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division has zero tolerance for attacks on houses of worship, and we will continue to investigate and prosecute those who target Americans because of their religion.”

Harmeet Dhillon

assistant attorney general for civil rights for the Department of Justice

“Iʼm grateful to the Appeal of Conscience Foundation and the faith leaders gathered here today for their partnership in this work. Protecting religious liberty is a fundamental American value, and this Department will keep fighting to defend it,” Dhillon said in a statement.

The event also included a panel discussion among leaders and the presentation of a statement by participating groups read by Serbian Orthodox Bishop of Eastern America Irinej Dobrijevic and Archbishop Elpidophoros of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, according to a press release.

The statement called for stronger legislation to protect houses of worship and for the establishment of an ongoing body of religious leaders to monitor threats. The leaders asked that the DOJ work in tandem with the groups to help ensure that people of faith can worship safely.

The gathering comes amid rising concerns over attacks against houses of worship across the U.S. The meeting was held on Aug. 27, the first anniversary of the fatal shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis in which two children were killed.

Bishops’ concern about religiously motivated violence continues

In 2026, “the Committee for Religious Liberty continues to be concerned about politically and religiously motivated violence,” the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) said.

The U.S. bishops previously laid out “areas of critical concern” in their 2026 religious liberty report, including threats of political and anti-religious violence.

“In recent years, the USCCB has expressed concern about politically motivated violence. The polarization that has long been the subject of commentary by religious leaders appears to be devolving into a cycle of attack and retribution,” the bishops said in the report.

“Polarization is not simply a phenomenon ‘out there.’ It names a tendency within many people to turn away from truth in order to remain loyal to their political tribe. But Catholics are called to be conformed to Christ, not to partisan political leaders, media personalities, and social media influencers,” they said.

The bishops called for expanded federal support for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, which funds security upgrades for houses of worship. They said funding is insufficient because fewer than half of applicants receive grants, despite rising threats.

“As we learn more about the devastating flashfloods in Nepal, I offer the prayers and solidarity of the Catholic community in the United States for our brothers and sisters impacted by this disaster,” Bishop Elias Zaidan said in an Aug. 27 statement. “I also encourage long-term efforts to help affected communities rebuild their homes, livelihoods, and critical infrastructure.”

The floods began after a glacier collapse triggered catastrophic flooding along the Nepal-Tibet border. The casualty count continues to rise, as hundreds of people remain missing.

Zaidan, chair of the USCCB Committee on International Justice and Peace, said Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. Church’s international aid agency, is tracking the situation closely and working with Caritas Nepal and other local partners to identify urgent needs and plan the most effective support.

“We appreciate the partnership of the U.S. government in supporting CRS’ essential work in these communities. We are also grateful to hear that the U.S. Department of State is closely monitoring the situation and deploying key personnel to support response efforts,” said Zaidan, Maronite Catholic bishop of the Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles.

The U.S. Department of State said it is sending disaster advisers to help with rescue and cleanup efforts. The government said it also would distribute $500,000 in assistance via Catholic Relief Services.

“I exhort the international community to mobilize greater humanitarian assistance support for vulnerable families and communities in Nepal,” Zaidan said. “May the Immaculate Heart of Mary provide consolation and shelter to all those affected by this disaster, and may she inspire the international community to work together, as one family, to address the urgent needs of the Nepalese people.”

Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the Rimini Meeting in northern Italy on Aug. 26, the cardinal said the West Bank “has become a no-man’s land — or rather, a lawless land — where everything that happens goes unchecked, with no safeguards in terms of security or the rule of law.”

Asked about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement that he would continue to open settlements in the occupied land, Pizzaballa said: “This isn’t the first time he’s said that.”

“The government has stated very clearly that this is their intention, even though it makes a political solution in the near future increasingly difficult,” the cardinal continued. “I hope that all this drift — this political confrontation, including in language and positions — will moderate over time, because the Palestinian population is truly very tired and can no longer bear all of this.”

Pizzaballa explained that the situation in Gaza, from this point of view, is more stable than the West Bank, even while it continues to deteriorate.

“While there is a great deal of political debate, on the ground the human toll remains devastating,” he added.

The Rimini Meeting, officially named the Meeting for Friendship Among the Peoples, is an annual cultural festival organized by the Catholic lay movement Communion and Liberation. The 47th edition took place near the city of Rimini, Italy, from Aug. 21–26, and included a visit from Pope Leo XIV on Aug. 22.

Pizzaballa, a frequent speaker at recent editions of the gathering, participated in a dialogue with three young people on the final day of the 2026 meeting, touching on the topics of hope, suffering, and interreligious dialogue.

He also urged people to “listen to multiple voices,” including those with whom they do not agree, to understand and assess the events taking place in the Middle East.

“This is a task that must be undertaken continually in the Middle East,” he said, where “nothing is as it appears and everything is very complicated.”

In a conversation with the journalist Alessandro Banfi during the meeting, Pizzaballa underlined that “to assume that an agreement alone is enough to put an end” to what is happening in the Middle East “is presumptuous; it is an illusion.”

“Now, of course, we need agreements; we need to pursue political paths — but these must also be accompanied by educational, formative, human, and religious initiatives, which play a very important role in the Middle East in healing, in processing grief, and in addressing everything that has affected both the Israeli and Palestinian populations. And this doesn’t happen in the blink of an eye,” he said.

“One of the serious problems today is the fact that decisions concerning human life are being entrusted to machines,” Pope Leo XIV said Aug. 28 during an audience with members of the International Institute of Administrative Sciences.

“The speed at which innovations in AI, in artificial intelligence, are developing prompts us to ask whether, in the future, we will be able to control these machines and whether humanity runs the risk of becoming victim of its own inventions,” he said.

The International Institute of Administrative Sciences, of which the Holy See is a member, was founded in 1930 in the aftermath of the Great Depression. It works to help public authorities adapt governance to the changing needs of society.

Pius XII addressed the institute in 1950, highlighting the responsibility of public administration to serve society in accordance with the Creatorʼs wisdom.

Pope Leo XIV said the theme of the instituteʼs conference represented “a powerful appeal to our world in the digital age” to maintain a proper balance in the use of digital technologies.

He said the appeal echoed his recent encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, on safeguarding the human person in the age of artificial intelligence.

The pope said the rapid development of digital technology is a reality that directly affects peopleʼs way of life and “permeates every level of social life.”

Against that backdrop, he praised the instituteʼs effort to reaffirm “the irreplaceable nature of human intelligence in the face of these technological tools” and to help public authorities make decisions “for the good of humanity.”

Pope Leo XIV also called for an ethical framework to guide the use of artificial intelligence and other digital tools, noting that such technologies are increasingly concentrated in the hands of major economic and technological actors while governments struggle to exercise effective oversight.

“We must ensure that the good of the human family is not sacrificed to private interests,” he said.

The pope encouraged the instituteʼs members to continue studying ways public administration can help keep technology centered on the human person.

“I encourage you to continue your research in order to find the ways and means of contributing to public administration in the humanization of digital technologies, so that they may serve life and peace,” he said.

Pope Leo XIV also recalled Pope Francis' 2024 World Day of Peace message, in which Francis called for scientific and technological research to be directed toward peace and the common good and placed at the service of the integral development of individuals and communities.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

The Justice Department on Aug. 28 released an extensive report on the memo, which was drafted out of the FBI’s Richmond, Virginia, field office and leaked in early 2023.

Upon its leak the memo drew immediate criticism from Catholics and religious liberty advocates around the country. The FBI quickly retracted the document after the leak, with the bureau claiming that it did “not meet our exacting standards.”

On Aug. 28 FBI Director Kash Patel described the contents of the memo as “unacceptable.” He said the release of information “about what occurred under [the Biden administration] is an important part of the process” of ongoing investigations into alleged government weaponization.

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, meanwhile, described the memo as “a clear abuse of power,” one that targeted “conservative and religious beliefs disfavored by agents of government.”

Memo arose from 2020 investigation into violent extremist

The Aug. 28 report — released by the Department of Justice’s Weaponization Working Group — said the Catholic memo arose out of an FBI investigation that began in 2020 regarding an individual who moved to Virginia from New York and began writing “violent and racially-motivated” posts on the internet.

Richmond Domain Perspective Report

That individual was ultimately sentenced to two separate prison terms on vandalism and weapons charges. Prior to his second imprisonment, he reportedly began attending a Virginia chapel run by the Society of St. Pius X.

Federal agents began investigating the chapel and a priest associated with it; their investigation expanded to include another priest connected to the so-called SSPX Resistance, a breakaway group that the FBI alleged has neo-Nazi sympathies.

Based on those investigations, starting in late 2022 the Richmond field office began developing a “domain perspective” on the alleged “increasing intersection” of “radical-traditional Catholics” and “domestic violent extremists.”

Subsequent research turned up “only two additional cases,” the working group report said, and FBI investigators found “nothing linking Catholics or groups not in full communion with the Catholic Church to domestic extremism.”

The investigation progressed to the point where analysts were preparing to develop a high-level executive report of the inquiry to present to senior FBI officials. Yet after the leak of the memo on Feb. 8, 2023, that report was never developed.

The working group report described the FBI memo as using a “sweeping generalization” of “radical-traditionalist” Catholics. Internal FBI presentation materials obtained by EWTN News identify the “core ideology and beliefs” of such Catholics as including “conservative family values/roles” and a “tendency toward isolationism.”

The memo further identified such Catholics as believing in the “creation of a totalitarian, anti-pluralist Catholic nation” as well as the “rejection of religious neutrality and right to religious freedom.”

The document drew a distinction between “radical” Catholics and so-called “traditionalist Catholics” who prefer the Traditional Latin Mass and pre-Vatican II traditions yet do not adhere to “the more extremist ideological beliefs and violent rhetoric” of the “radical” group.

An internal review of the memo found no “constitutional concerns” related to the analysis, the working group report said. Yet the memo spawned “significant internal criticisms” in the FBI after its leak, the report said.

In particular, an agent with the bureau’s counterterrorism division said the unit found no “significant linkage” between violent extremists and “radical traditionalist” Catholics.

Bureau leadership ultimately ordered the deletion of the memo, though the working group report said the memo was still being worked on more than a month after that order came down.

Later in the year the bureau’s inspection division found that the drafters of the memo demonstrated a lack of “professional judgment” and that they “failed to adhere to FBI standards.” The division ordered “all individuals” involved in the memo’s production to be “admonished” and be subject to additional training.

The working group report noted that the personnel involved in the production of the memo “have been terminated from their positions.” It argued that “history” will “rightly judge the Richmond Catholic Memo as a grave failure of the FBI Richmond Field Office” to uphold First Amendment rights.

The controversial memo has generated sustained criticism from religious liberty advocates as well as numerous responses from lawmakers in Washington since it was leaked.

In March the conservative legal group Judicial Watch was in federal court arguing for the release of un-redacted files related to the memo. Attorney Meredith DiLiberto expressed disappointment at the time that heavy redaction practices had continued from the Biden administration to the Trump administration.

In December 2024 Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, warned the government to not destroy federal records including documents related to the FBI investigation. Hawley said at the time that he had received reports of employees “destroying records and other documents in an effort to conceal widespread misconduct that took place under the [Joe] Biden administration.”

The working group report released on Aug. 28 did not mention any reports of records destruction. But Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Justice Department “will not tolerate a weaponized bureaucracy that chills First Amendment activity.”

The working group’s investigations into alleged government weaponization “will continue,” Blanche said.

In an article titled “Hope Demands Action” released on Aug. 21, the patriarchate said restrictions on movement, the cancellation of work permits, and the paralysis of the tourism sector have exacerbated the conditions of Christian families in Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and the villages scattered in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and affected their ability to work and secure their needs.

The Catholic diocese — whose territory includes Cyprus, Jordan, Israel, and Palestine and is supported by six vicariates — highlighted that the unemployment rate in Christian communities in the Holy Land is 54%, which is about double the national average.

The patriarchate also pointed out that artisans, hotel workers, shopkeepers, tour guides, drivers, and restaurant owners rely heavily on pilgrims and visitors, which have significantly declined over the years, threatening livelihoods.

The patriarchate said the repercussions of the crisis extend to the younger generations, as limited job opportunities after university or vocational training may push young people to migrate, raising concerns for a generation that believes its future may be outside the land of its ancestors.

Gaza at the heart of the crisis

According to the patriarchate, only 541 Christians remain in the Gaza Strip, while others have been forced to flee and still others were killed in the war or lost their lives amid the collapse of medical care and lack of basic supplies.

The patriarchate said the possibility that no more Christians will be left in the Holy Land does not represent just a demographic change but a “crisis in history, identity, and faith,” stressing that a living Christian presence should remain in a land where Christianity originated.

The article called for international Christian solidarity to go beyond responding to emergency needs, including education, vocational training, special projects, and support for community institutions, allowing families to build a decent and sustainable life in their homeland.

In this context, the article referred to a back-to-school initiative to cover basic educational expenses for children and families most in need, stressing that keeping schools open — and reopening them where possible — represents a message that destruction will not have the final say.

The patriarchate stressed that the Christians of the Holy Land do not want to be a part of the past but desire the opportunity to live, work, raise their children, and exercise their faith in dignity in the land where Christianity began.

This story was first published by ACI MENA, the Arabic-language sister service of EWTN News, and has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority said a lake at the flood site was rising and at risk of bursting, raising the prospect of another deadly disaster.

China’s Minister of Water Resources said the lake had formed inside Nepal and was already overflowing. A further 3 million cubic meters could flow in over three days, the ministry said, raising the risk of a breach during that window to a high level. Rain is forecast across the coming days.

Catholic relief agencies immediately responded to the unfolding disaster, linking their efforts to the urgent needs created by the floods.

Caritas Nepal said it had mobilized teams and begun operating community kitchens in areas where people lost their homes, while also distributing immediate relief supplies. Some Catholics who had been working in tourist areas remain unaccounted for, the agency said.

Catholic Relief Services launched an emergency appeal, saying it was coordinating with Caritas Nepal and local partners to assess urgent needs and support affected communities.

Caritas Australia launched an urgent flood appeal, confirming teams are on the ground assessing the scale of the disaster and the needs it has created.

The needs will most likely include emergency shelter, clean water and sanitation, food, and immediate and long-term recovery, the aid agency noted.

The apostolic administrator of Nepal told Fides news agency on Thursday this was “the worst disaster in the country’s history.”

“It was terrible. A flood coming from the mountains, and directed violently towards the valley, overwhelmed everything: people, homes, bridges, structures. Villages, markets, and roads were swept away. It is a serious wound for the nation,” Father Silas Krishna Bogati said.

“We have about 25 Catholic families in the disaster area; they appear to be safe, but we are very worried about them,” he said. “We entrust them to God, we pray for their safety, and we will do everything we can to help them.”

Bogati noted that Nepalese, as well as foreigners and tourists, were in the area at the time of the disaster.

At least 392 people have been killed, 389 of them in Nepal and three in Tibet, according to Nepali authorities and Chinese state media. More than 900 remain unaccounted for in Nepal and more than 550 in Tibet; 466 people have been rescued.

Pope Leo sent his condolences and offered prayers for the victims on Thursday, expressing solidarity with those affected by the floods. In an Aug. 27 telegram sent on behalf of Leo, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said the pope was “saddened to learn of the loss of life and devastation” caused by the floods.

“Commending the souls of the deceased to the clemency of the Almighty, His Holiness sends heartfelt sympathies to the bereaved, with the assurance of his spiritual closeness to those affected by this tragedy,” the telegram said.

This story was updated at 3:15 a.m. on Aug. 28, 2026, with details from Caritas Nepal and Catholic Relief Services.

A Requiem Mass for King Harald will be celebrated at St. Olavʼs Cathedral in Trondheim on Aug. 29 at noon, and lauds and vespers will also be offered for the late monarch.

EWTN Norway is streaming the services on its website and YouTube channel.

Within hours of the kingʼs death, Bishop Erik Varden of Trondheim published a tribute on behalf of Norwegian Catholics. He commended Harald to Godʼs mercy and offered prayers for Queen Sonja, the royal family, and the new King Haakon VIII.

Varden, a Trappist monk who also serves as apostolic administrator of Tromsø and president of the Nordic Bishops' Conference, opened his reflection with the ninth-century “Commendatio Animae” — the Churchʼs prayer for the dying.

“Go forth, Christian soul, from this world in the name of God, the Almighty Father, who created you; in the name of Jesus Christ, the living Son of God, who suffered for you; and in the name of the Holy Spirit, who was poured out upon you,” the prayer begins.

Varden wrote that the prayer reminds the faithful that death is a transition “from life to Life.”

Prayers for the new king

Varden described Harald as a monarch who embodied the nation in an exemplary way, giving Norwegians a sense of being seen and cared for.

“He was so completely and utterly king, devoted to the people, that it was as if no ego stood in the way,” the bishop wrote. “In this way, he drew near to us in a comforting way.”

Harald “has spoken wisely to us, with a subtle sense of humor that we will miss,” Varden added.

The bishop placed the kingʼs passing in the context of the ancient acclamation “The King is dead; long live the King,” and wrote that the monarchy stands as “a stable pillar in society” that represents continuity.

“In a time as uncertain as ours, that is a comfort,” he wrote.

Varden called on Norwegian Catholics to pray for King Haakon VIII. He asked the faithful for “blessings and wisdom” and called on Catholics to stand loyally by the new sovereign.

Closing his tribute, the bishop invoked the intercession of St. Olav, Norwayʼs patron saint.

King Haraldʼs reign

Harald V was born on Feb. 21, 1937, and ascended the throne on Jan. 17, 1991, succeeding his father, King Olav V. He reigned for 35 years.

A three-time Olympic yachtsman, Harald modernized the Norwegian royal house. Later in his life, he refused to abdicate, saying he had taken a lifelong oath before the Norwegian Parliament.

He had experienced multiple health problems in recent years.

Harald is survived by Queen Sonja, 89, his wife of 57 years, and their two children: Princess Märtha Louise, 54, and the new King Haakon VIII, 53. His granddaughter, Princess Ingrid Alexandra, is now next in line to the throne.

This report draws on coverage by EWTN Norway and reporting by Pål Johannes Nes.

Five Catholic colleges and universities told EWTN News they are crafting classroom AI policies in light of the pope’s encyclical, as the University of Chicago moves — as first reported by the student newspaper The Chicago Maroon — to make social sciences classes fully analog this fall.

Belmont Abbey College

“The Chicago response in their core classes resonates strongly with where our thoughts are going, although theyʼre a bit ahead of us in formulating a general policy,” David Williams, dean of arts and sciences and professor of theology at Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, North Carolina, told EWTN News.

“Discussions on the pedagogical response to AI have been ongoing for some time now, with new impetus as we absorb Pope Leoʼs encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas,” Williams said. “There’s a significant contingent among the faculty who prefer the all-analog approach, at least in our core curriculum classes, and are teaching accordingly as a matter of individual choice.”

According to Williams, a faculty-led committee is expected to deliver a report to the university’s president and provost by the end of the fall 2026 semester.

“I wouldnʼt be surprised at all to see a recommendation similar to Chicagoʼs for all our core curriculum courses; the core here is a substantial part of the overall degree program, so that would be more than 40% of a graduateʼs coursework,” he said.

Ave Maria University

Daniel Davy, dean of faculty and associate professor of history at Ave Maria University in southwest Florida, told EWTN News that Pope Leo’s “concern for preserving genuine human formation, rather than outsourcing it to a machine, is at the heart of AMUʼs approach to teaching and learning” but noted that the university does not have plans to institute a university-wide AI ban.

“AMU approaches AI with what Pope Leo XIV calls in the encyclical a spirit of ‘prudence, rigorous evaluation and even, at times, a slower pace’ (par. 106), rather than either uncritical adoption or blanket prohibition,” Davy said in an email.

“AMU does not have a university-wide AI ban comparable to the University of Chicagoʼs Social Sciences Core policy; academic policy here is set at the course and department level, since pedagogical needs vary by discipline,” he continued, noting that the university’s academic honor code bans use of generative AI in any part of the writing process and in all freshmen- and sophomore-level courses.

“We are far less concerned with whether a student turns in a perfectly polished paper than with how the student grows through the act of trying to communicate an idea,” Davy said. “This is where generative AI poses its deepest danger, because it offloads the process of thinking onto a machine that cannot, in fact, think. Outsourcing that struggle diminishes a studentʼs own capacity to encounter truth more deeply in each discipline, and through that truth, ultimately, Christ, to whom every field of knowledge points.”

University of Mary

“Here at Mary, one of our charisms is Friendship with Truth,” David Echelbarger, vice president for academic affairs at the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota, told EWTN News. “Because we are made in the image of a Triune God who is himself a communion of Persons,” he said, “we are not made to arrive at the truth alone. We come to it through dialogue and conversation with other people.” 

“One concern with AI, then, is that it turns learning into an isolated, impersonal endeavor,” he said. “To counter that, many of our professors are incorporating into their courses activities that require hard and rigorous thinking together.”

Additionally, he said, all faculty members have been asked to place an AI policy on each of their assignments, clarifying the degree to which the technology is permitted for each individual assignment, “which is meant to help students understand when the use of AI is a hindrance to their intellectual formation and when it is a helpful learning tool.”

Benedictine College

Mariele Courtois, assistant professor of theology and director of the Center for Technology and Human Dignity at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, told EWTN News that the college’s “Academic Misconduct” statement was recently updated “to clearly state that AI cannot be used ‘in place of a student’s own effort,’ in order to respect the learning process and the special connection between students and their academic work, which should reveal the students’ own personalities and convictions.”

“While some classes, especially in the STEM fields, may utilize or learn about AI — including its function, risks, dangers, and potential promises — many professors choose to make their classes AI-free both in the lecture hall and for homework, especially in Theology and the humanities,” Courtois said in an email. “Benedictine College respects the prudential judgment of professors to make the pedagogical choices that are best suited to their particular class goals and the aims of their respective disciplines.”

Courtois noted the college’s Center for Technology and Human Dignity was recently founded “to help guide discussions about rising biomedical and digital technologies in light of Catholic moral teaching.”

In addition, she said, the theme of the college’s annual Symposium on Transforming Culture on Sept. 4–5 will be “The Church in an Algorithmic Age” and “will bring together intellectuals and students from many fields and business sectors to discuss the ethical questions and social implications for transformative technologies such as AI.”

University of St. Thomas

“With Pope Leo XIV, UST is alive both to the ways in which AI can serve the human and the ways in which the human can be made to serve the work of His hands,” Thomas Harmon, professor of theology and director of the University of St. Thomas’ honors program special projects, told EWTN News.

Harmon said the university, located in Houston, does not have a blanket ban on artificial intelligence but noted that many core courses prohibit screens and emphasize developing students’ own skills rather than relying on AI.

“We regard AI as an important and potentially very useful technology that needs to be utilized in ways that serve rather than replace human excellence, which requires training, formation, practice, and guidance by faculty mentors who themselves have already cultivated the habits we want our students to develop,” he said.

“Since it is so new, the ways in which it can be responsibly integrated into an excellent liberal education are not all clear yet, but we are confident that we will be able to integrate this new technology analogously to the ways in which we have integrated other useful technologies like books, pencils, white boards, and computers,” Harmon said.

“Iʼm very impressed with her credentials and her pro-life heart,” Dannenfelser said in an Aug. 26 interview with “EWTN Pro-Life Weekly” anchor Abigail Galván. “She, behind the scenes, was working very hard to make sure that the FDA was moving in the right direction on a new study to base further action on.”

The position became vacant after Dr. Marty Makary was fired and is currently filled by acting commissioner Kyle Diamantas, whom Dannenfelser also described as “a very strong pro-life person.”

“We’ve been extremely disappointed from the beginning of the administration with the direction of the FDA and the inaction from the Department of Justice, or the undermining of the pro-life priorities at the Department of Justice,” Dannenfelser said. “What I think is that her naming is an indication of the right direction that … this administration is now taking.”

Confirmation hearings will begin as soon as the Senate is back in session. Dannenfelser said she anticipates the hearings “will probably go pretty well.”

“Now, it doesnʼt mean that the hard questions shouldnʼt be asked,” she said. “They must be asked, and one of those questions would be the direction of the study: How long it will take? What do you see about preliminary findings come out that the court has ordered to be communicated in early October? And do you support the Department of Justice doing what it can to settle this case and get the drugs immediately out of the mail?”

“Because there is a challenge from the state of Louisiana, representing many states, that are saying what we all know: They have basically nullified those state laws,” she continued. “Theyʼve put a burden on states to help women that should never have been in a horrible situation. So while itʼs a question about the Department of Justice, one should not claim that the FDA is the only entity that can do something about fixing this horrific problem that is occurring for children and women in this nation.”

Dannenfelser called for a return to the first Trump administration policy on abortion drugs.

“Weʼve been battling for quite some time from the beginning of this administration to get these drugs out of the mail, and all weʼre hoping for, and what all any sane voter wants to see, is that on the at least on the Republican side, that we return to the first Trump administration policy on the distribution of these drugs, that only in a Biden administration that put on an emergency cloak around the distribution around the COVID moment,” she said.

“Itʼs time to restore the first Trump administration rules — no reason why we shouldnʼt,” she said. “The DOJ can act now and should.”

But unlike most people, she had another set of refrigerators to worry about — the commercial ones at the food pantry she coordinates at her parish, St. Mary of the Lake in Gary.

“I have two or three freezers full of meat. I have two refrigerators full of refrigerated items. Panic sets in, because I do not have a generator there,” Simon told the National Catholic Register, the sister partner of EWTN News.

Not having an alternative power source, Simon was able to secure alternative storage options for the food, allowing St. Mary’s to continue serving the poor as some in the region enter their third week without electricity.

The outages began on Aug. 11, when 100 mph wind gusts and heavy rain blew through northwest Indiana and east Chicago. Numerous municipalities in northern Indiana including Gary, Portage, Lake Station, and Munster suffered widespread power outages, with as many as 400,000 customers affected at the peak.

Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO) announced that power would be restored for nearly all of its customers in the area by Aug. 25. But more than 7,000 customers in Gary were without power for two weeks. The outages heavily affected the predominantly African American city of about 70,000 people, which has a poverty rate of about 33%, more than three times higher than the national average.

Indiana’s Republican governor, Mike Braun, called for an investigation into NIPSCO over the lengthy outages.

‘Trying to meet the need’

While conditions were extremely difficult, they also fostered solidarity.

When Simon was searching for alternative options for storing St. Mary’s perishable food pantry items, she started calling around to other ministries around Gary that the Catholic food bank works alongside. Many of them were also struggling due to the lack of electricity, but a nearby Christian church that still had power offered to keep 100 containers of milk cold, while the local secular food bank was able to keep the meat frozen.

Last Saturday, the volunteers at St. Mary’s loaded up their cars and distributed nonperishable food to 200 households in a local housing complex, including for several people with disabilities who were trapped with nonfunctioning elevators amid the blackout. Other parishes around Gary, along with local Knights of Columbus councils, also stepped up to offer food and other aid to their neighbors.

Bishop Robert McClory of the Diocese of Gary said in an Aug. 14 social media message that the trying times in the region are an “opportunity for us ... to be attentive to each other’s needs, to check in on your neighbors."

“I know many of us have already experienced a certain solidarity coming together with our neighbors during this time of need,” McClory continued. “Now is our opportunity to allow our Christian witness to shine forth. Know that you’ll all be in my prayers, and as we work together to navigate through this, we trust in the Lord, and we seek, as St. Paul says, to bear each other’s burdens.”

Terry Seljan, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Gary, told the Register that while roughly 99% of those who had lost power have now had it restored, significant needs remain among residents recovering from the recent storms.

Many people had to throw away food from refrigerators and freezers and are seeking assistance to restock their food, he explained. Others whose sump pumps stopped working during the heavy rain lost appliances, mattresses, and other belongings due to water damage. Additionally, some people who were unable to work while local businesses were shut down are seeking help with rent, while others need building supplies to make home repairs they cannot afford to address through insurance.

Seljan said the organization is focusing primarily on providing financial assistance and is asking those who want to help to donate through its website.

Prayers are ‘greatly appreciated’

With the help of roughly 60 regular volunteers, the St. Mary of the Lake pantry normally distributes mostly nonperishable food on the third Monday of each month. Normally at this time of year, the pantry serves about 155 households, or roughly 450 individuals.

Amid the power outages, St. Mary’s also donated some 1,400 pounds of fresh produce grown at a massive community garden associated with the parish to the local fire station for further distribution.

Father Jayababu Nuthulapati, rector of the Cathedral of the Holy Angels in Gary and pastor of two other parishes, including St. Mary of the Lake, told the Register that prayers for their community are greatly appreciated.

“[The storm] was very devastating,” he said, but “we never stopped feeding the poor.”

“We continue doing that even in the difficult moments, because we want to be out there for the people. And I’m very grateful for the volunteers,” Nuthulapati said.

Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago and Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Gary have also been highly engaged, addressing the immediate and ongoing needs in the communities affected by the blackouts, including food, clothing, and housing assistance. 

On Aug. 22, the Chicago Bears announced a donation of $100,000 to the Chicago and Gary Catholic Charities to help them in this work. 

While St. Mary of the Lake’s pantry is managing with the help of the wider community, the church is currently seeking the donation of a backup generator to protect the investment of its food in the case of another emergency like this, Nuthulapati added.

For Simon, the experience has been a heartwarming show of community cooperation and a chance to practice gratitude.

“Thank God that we have what we have,” she said. “It could be worse. It could be a lot worse.”

This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, the sister partner of EWTN News, and has been adapted by EWTN News.

“I am very sorry to hear of her passing, and I am praying for those who are mourning her loss,” said Bishop Mark Beckman of Knoxville in a statement. "She made a wonderful contribution to our world and our community, and she will be greatly missed.”

The artist passed away on Aug. 25 at the age of 80 following a brief battle with cancer. Parton is being remembered across the world for her work as a singer, songwriter, actress, businesswoman, and philanthropist whose career spanned over 60 years.

“East Tennessee knew Dolly Parton as more than a world-famous star. We knew her as one of our own,” the diocese said in a statement.

“She was shaped by these hills and these churches. Her life shows what can grow from faith, perseverance, imagination, and love for oneʼs neighbors — even from humble beginnings,” the statement said.

Parton, who was not Catholic, sang and spoke frequently about her Christian faith and love for Jesus. Some of her public views — including her support for same‑sex marriage — differed from Catholic teaching. She was publicly silent on her views about abortion.

“She first sang in a small Pentecostal church, long before the world knew her name,” the diocesan statement said. Parton included the Southern Gospel Music Hall of Fame in her Dollywood theme park.

“She never hid her faith. It showed up in the hymns she recorded across six decades, in how openly she talked about God, and in the millions of free books her Imagination Library has placed in childrenʼs hands,” the statement said.

Parton’s “life carried the spirit of our mountain home far beyond the Smokies,” the statement said.

“As Catholics, we entrust her to the mercy of Almighty God. We pray that Jesus, who is the resurrection and the life, will receive her into His eternal kingdom,” the statement said.

Remembering Parton’s ‘generosity’

Father Jim Sichko, a papal missionary of mercy who has repeatedly referred to Parton as a friend, also mourned the artist’s passing, calling her “a woman whose extraordinary gifts reached far beyond the stage.”

“As a Papal Missionary of Mercy, I will remember Dolly not simply as an icon of American music, but as a woman who understood that blessings are meant to be shared,” Sichko said in a statement.

Sichko, a priest of the Diocese of Lexington, said he “had the privilege of welcoming Dolly to my church on several occasions.” He added: “She generously used her presence and influence to help raise money to support my ministry and its work of mercy.”

Parton “never forgot where she came from, and she never seemed to forget the people who needed a helping hand,” Sichko said.

“Her faith, generosity, humor, and unmistakable spirit touched millions,” he said.

"My faith impacts everything that I do because I do believe that, through God, all things are possible,” Parton said in a 2023 interview with Fox News. “And so I always ask God to bless everything that I do and the people that I work with and to bring all the right things and right people into my life and to take the wrong ones out.”

“So, I try to just live through love as much as I can,” Parton said.

The flooding disaster was driven by what the U.S. Geological Survey said was a glacial collapse near the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu, one that displaced huge volumes of water and generated catastrophic flooding downstream.

Videos circulating on social media from closed-circuit camera footage showed massive waves of water rushing across the landscape and overtaking entire structures as local residents ran for their lives.

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In an Aug. 27 telegram sent on behalf of the Holy Father, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said the pope was “saddened to learn of the loss of life and devastation” caused by the floods.

“Commending the souls of the deceased to the clemency of the Almighty, His Holiness sends heartfelt sympathies to the bereaved, together with the assurance of his spiritual closeness to those affected by this tragedy,” the telegram said.

“Likewise offering prayers for the emergency personnel engaged in the ongoing rescue efforts, [the pope] invokes upon all divine assistance and protection,” the message continued.

The tragedy has resulted in a global outpouring of support, with governments and humanitarian organizations mobilizing to respond to the catastrophe with resources and assistance.

The U.S. Department of State said it was deploying a “disaster response advisor” to the region to help manage rescue and cleanup efforts. The government said it would also distribute $500,000 in assistance via Catholic Relief Services.

The United Nations, meanwhile, said it had released $2 million from its Global Emergency Fund to provide emergency medical care, water, and shelter to those affected by the flooding.

Workers with the U.N. World Food Programme and the U.N. Children’s Fund were also being deployed to the region with supply trucks.

The convocation for “Nurturing Unity Through Communication” will be hosted by the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome from Feb. 2–4, 2027. Typically held every two years, it will be the 15th edition of the Professional Seminar for Church Communications Offices.

The event is being organized in collaboration with the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication and is expected to draw over 500 participants, including Catholic communications professionals from dioceses, religious orders, and episcopal conferences.

Conference sponsors also include EWTN News, Rome Reports, and the Pontifical Mission Societies.

According to the event website, the gathering will invite participants to reflect “on the role of institutional communication as a path toward fostering unity and concord both within and beyond the Church.”

The seminar is also inspired by Pope Leo XIV’s call for Catholic media professionals to strive for peace in their work.

“Addressing communicators in his first public audience as pope, Leo XIV reminded them: ‘Peace begins with each one of us: with the way we look at others, listen to others, speak about others; and, in this sense, the way we communicate is of fundamental importance: We must say ‘no’ to the war of words and images; we must reject the paradigm of war.’”

The conference will include plenary and parallel sessions covering topics ranging from social media to encouraging diversity rather than promoting division in the Church through media.

EWTN Chairman and CEO Michael Warsaw will speak on the topic “Leading Through Digital Disruption: Building Community in a Changing Media Landscape.” EWTN Vice President and Chief Global Officer Andreas Thonhauser, meanwhile, will moderate a discussion of “AI and Magnifica Humanitas: Reflections One Year On.”

Registration for the conference is open until Dec. 1 and can be made through the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross by clicking here.

The pontiff made these remarks during a private audience on Aug. 27 with participants in a conference on drug abuse, promoted by the Pontifical Commission for Latin America (CAL). According to Vatican News, the conference is being held from Aug. 25–27 and focuses on preventing drug addiction and the criminal recruitment of young people in Central and South America.

Leo will make his first apostolic journey to South America from Nov. 6–17, visiting 10 cities across Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru. He previously served as a missionary and bishop in Peru.

Families can help those suffering from drug addiction

In his address, Leo discussed the challenge of drug addiction in young people and its consequences for the family.

“Today, we bear witness to the pain of many broken families, whether due to drug use, violence, the criminal recruitment of a child, poverty, or the lack of opportunities that push people to the margins of society,” Leo explained.

To solve this, the pope said, would require reemphasizing the family as the “domestic church.”

“St. John Paul II asked us to make the Church ‘the home and school of communion.’”

“The family, which the Second Vatican Council rightly called the ‘domestic church,‘ is the place where life is nurtured, cared for, and planned. There is no better defense against drugs than a good family,” Leo said.

Inspiration by Pope Francis

According to Vatican News, the conference drew inspiration from the actions of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who would later become Pope Francis. As the former archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina, he supported the project “Familia Grande del Hogar de Cristo,” a network of community centers that supports people battling drug addiction and social vulnerability.

Shortly after being elected pope in 2013, Francis traveled to Brazil for that year’s World Youth Day. During a visit to a hospital in Rio de Janeiro, he sharply criticized drug traffickers as “dealers of death.”

“How many ‘dealers of death’ there are that follow the logic of power and money at any cost,” Francis lamented in his address. He would echo those sentiments again in a general audience in June 2024, calling drug traffickers “murderers.”

Leo cited Francis in his address, reminding those present that Jesus wants the Church “to touch human misery, to touch the suffering flesh of others.”

“As representatives of the people, your mandate is clear: You must champion an immediate, binding international ban on fully autonomous lethal weapons,” the cardinal and archbishop of Yangon, Myanmar, said in Assisi, Italy, on Aug. 24.

“To automate the battlefield is to lower the moral threshold for violence, stripping conflict of human conscience and turning our sons, daughters, and citizens into bloodless data points,” he added.

Bo addressed lawmakers during a one-day peace summit organized by the International Catholic Legislators Network (ICLN) on Aug. 24. The summit immediately followed the group’s annual meeting in Rome Aug. 20–23, which included a private audience with Pope Leo XIV.

Bo — whose country has been suffering for years under unrelenting violence, economic collapse, and dramatic humanitarian concerns — gave a strong warning about AI’s “potential to amplify human conflicts and malice.”

“Human conflicts alone resulted in the deaths of 135 million people in the 20th century,” he said. “Now, we have a new lethal actor: AI in the hands of a few, in some countries, who perceive AI as the bride of geostrategic power games.”

The cardinal sounded the alarm about “a terrifying marriage of autocratic monopolies and automated surveillance” that replaces human freedom; he urged legislators not to give in to the pressure to adopt a “There Is No Alternative (TINA) narrative.”

“As lawmakers and Christians, we are called upon to embrace a different TINA: ‘There Is a New Alternative.’ This alternative involves human-led AI that would bring greater prosperity and ultimately lead to durable peace for all,” he said.

‘Christ is our model’

Acknowledging that his prognosis about AI may appear pessimistic or even dystopian, Bo recalled that the objective is to shape a society grounded in lasting peace.

“Between dystopian reaction and utopian celebration, humanity requires a guiding beacon in its journey. For men and women of faith, Christ serves as that beacon, the savior sent to remind humanity of its earthly and heavenly path,” he said.

“Christ is our model,” he continued. “Christ’s warning in Matthew 26:52 rings across history: ‘Put your sword back in its place... for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.’ When you delegate lethal force to an autonomous weapon system, the concept of a ‘moral agent’ collapses entirely. A machine cannot possess a right intention; it cannot comprehend grief, mercy, or the sacred value of a human life. It can only execute statistical optimization.”

The cardinal reminded Christian lawmakers of their responsibility to the people who elected them.

“Your faith is not a private luxury to be hidden away; it is a public covenant to build peace in a world tearing at the seams,” he said.

“We live in an era uniquely troubled by global war, civic unrest, and crushing economic upheaval, but Christ calls Christian leaders to a radically different, courageous path,” he added, quoting Christ’s words in Matthew 5:9, that “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

“Notice carefully that he does not bless the ‘peace-lovers’ or the ‘peace-wishers.’ He blesses the peacemakers — those who actively build bridges, enforce structural justice, and cultivate narrative empathy across bitter political and social divides,” he said.

True leaders in AI regulation

Bo noted the presence of Christopher Olah, a co-founder of Anthropic and machine learning researcher, at the May presentation of Pope Leo’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, and called it a sign that “the architects of our digital future are begging for governance. They are confessing that while they understand the code, they do not have the answers for human dignity.”

“If you refuse to regulate, if you accept the myth of technological inevitability, you are abdicating your sovereign duty to the people who elected you,” he said.

“In the words of St. Francis of Assisi, remember that ‘all the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle,’” the cardinal said. “Let your governance be that candle. Stand up as true leaders. Establish binding legal guardrails, demand corporate transparency, reject the automation of human slaughter, and ensure that technology remains entirely subservient to the magnificent humanity that God has entrusted to our care.”

The meeting highlights deepening ecumenical ties as Norway prepares to mark the 1,000th anniversary of its Christianization. The upcoming 2030 millennium commemorates 1,000 years since the pivotal Battle of Stiklestad in 1030, where King Olav Haraldsson was martyred. His death ultimately cemented the nation’s conversion to Christianity and established St. Olav as Norway’s patron saint.

Norwegian Catholic leaders greeted the historic Vatican encounter with great joy. “We have excellent ecumenical relations with the Church of Norway and are pleased that the bishops have an opportunity to meet Pope Leo XIV,” Bishop Fredrik Hansen of Oslo said. “We look forward to the millennium of Norway’s conversion and hope this jubilee will give occasion for broad ecumenical collaboration.”

Before visiting Rome, Presiding Lutheran Bishop Olav Fykse Tveit announced he would use the papal audience to invite Pope Leo XIV to the upcoming jubilee celebrations in Norway.

The pope closed the meeting by praying that Catholics and Lutherans live “ever more truly as brothers and sisters” and give “common witness to our savior, Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

A petition for a special year of jubilee

To mark this national milestone, Norway’s Catholic leadership, represented by Hansen and Bishop Erik Varden of Trondheim, formally petitioned Pope Leo XIV to declare a special year of jubilee for the Catholic Church in Norway running from July 29, 2030, through Aug. 3, 2031.

Explaining the significance of the dates, Varden explained that St. Olav is the centerpiece of the upcoming millennium. “29 July 2030 will mark the millennium of his martyr’s death at Stiklestad; 3 August 2031 will mark the millennium of his exhumation, when his body was found incorrupt,” he noted. “On that day he was proclaimed a saint not just for Norway, but for all of Christendom.”

For Catholics, a jubilee year serves as a period of special grace centered on prayer, pilgrimage, and reconciliation.

Hansen highlighted that the year will allow local Catholics and international pilgrims to walk in St. Olavʼs footsteps while renewing their faith “in gratitude for the Christian patrimony with which Norway has been blessed.” He added that the celebration will help the faithful keep “their eyes set on the Church’s present and future task in this country.”

A model of conversion and national identity

Speaking to EWTN News, Varden noted St. Olav’s life as a compelling witness for people who feel alienated from organized religion. Rather than viewing the saint as an untouchable historical figure, Varden pointed to his personal transformation.

“What attracts us in the life of any saint is to see how grace works over time and gradually transforms a person,” Varden said, describing the young king as “headstrong, ambitious, self-assured, [and] proud.”

Yet Olav was “increasingly drawn into Christ’s gentle mystery, fascinated by the all-reconciling love displayed in the cross,” making him “a model of conversion” for modern believers. Varden also noted that at the end of Olav’s life, Christ’s love was “the only thing that really mattered to him.”

Looking ahead to the jubilee’s pastoral impact, the prelate noted that his diocese began preparations years ago, choosing to use the millennium as “an opportunity to renew our baptismal promises.”

“We want to re-root ourselves in the essence of our faith,” he explained, adding that he hopes visiting pilgrims will discover the “fascination and freeing power” of Nordic Christianity. He noted Norway’s patrimony expressed across liturgy, literature, and architecture, which represents a “flowering of sanctity” that the Nordic Church is eager to share with the world.

This vision could also pave the way for a potential papal visit during the jubilee period.

Restoring Nidaros and looking toward 2033

Nidaros, the medieval name for present-day Trondheim, was one of northern Europe’s most important Christian pilgrimage centers. The city became the focal point of devotion to St. Olav, whose shrine at Nidaros Cathedral drew pilgrims from across Scandinavia and beyond.

“The cult of St. Olav spread with great speed in the 11th century,” Varden said, noting that it “nurtured apostolic efforts and the founding of churches throughout northern Europe.” He sees the revival of the pilgrimage as a means of recovering that Christian heritage, calling it “an aid to rereading the Christian history of our continent” and a source of inspiration for “endeavors of new evangelization.”

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“Unfortunately, too often Catholics and Catholic leaders are acting more like thermometers instead of thermostats,” Jonathan Lewis, mission strategy officer for the Paulist Fathers and co-director of the Communion Project, told EWTN News.

“Weʼre reading the temperature of the room or the culture, instead of setting the temperature according to our values and the truths of the Church,” he said.

“So, part of what this effort is aimed to do is to lower the temperature of division and distrust, starting with those of us Catholics who call ourselves brothers and sisters, who are a real spiritual family,” Lewis said.

“As we approach any election season, thereʼs always a need to help lower the temperature, have more thoughtful conversations, discern our Catholic values,” he said.

The Catholic initiative hopes to heal toxic polarization in the Church by creating dialogue, providing resources, promoting unity through national communication methods, and by aiding local communities to create unification at their level, organizers said. Exact plans are still being formed.

“Weʼre just beginning … and trying to share,” Lewis said. “Weʼre starting with a lot of resources” and “adapting resources that already existed.”

“Then weʼre planning, over the next year or two years, to develop programs for dioceses and organizations and religious communities, students in Catholic schools.”

The movement to start the project began in 2022 at the Paulist Fathers’ general assembly.

“One of the priorities of the Paulists is to read the signs of the times, like the Second Vatican Council tells us to do, so that we can respond in a spirit-filled way,” Lewis said.

At the gathering, they discussed “the realities of the United States and the Church in the United States today that we need to respond to or engage,” he said. “And thatʼs when the topic of toxic polarization emerged.”

"The polarization affecting the U.S. Catholic Church is not merely a matter of policy dispute or partisan loyalty,” said Father Ricky Manalo, CSP, co-director of the Communion Project. “It is a deeply spiritual and relational rupture, shaping how Catholics imagine moral life, celebrate the sacraments, interpret tradition, and remain in communion amid difference.”

“Within Catholic life, polarization is more than disagreement; it is the loss of our capacity to remain in relationship, even amid difference, as one body in Christ,” he said.

Inspired by Pope Francis, the group founded The Paulist Initiative on Polarization as a national partnership of Catholic leaders committed to strengthening unity across political, theological, and cultural divisions.

In 2025, the effort was renamed the Communion Project following Pope Leo XIV’s public commitment to building communion in the Church.

“This is really a priority of Pope Leo,” Lewis said. “In his first inaugural Mass, Pope Leo said his first great desire would be for a unified Church in communion. We really see this as an initiative that is trying to live out the message and the priority of the Holy Father.”

Polarization in the U.S.

When people think of polarization, they usually first think of “left and right politics, Republicans, Democrats,” Lewis said. “And certainly thatʼs one area, but I really see polarization showing up in a lot of different ways.”

“This isnʼt only in public life or in politics, where one might expect, itʼs also in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States,” Lewis said.

It can come up due to division surrounding the liturgy, or cultural or generational differences, but ultimately the goal is to remind Catholics of shared beliefs and values.

The project hopes to help the faithful “see that while people might prioritize different dimensions of our Catholic social teaching, thereʼs unity within that work, and we need to bring people together,” Lewis said.

For example, the Church has a mission to protect human dignity, and “some people focus on ending the death penalty,” while “other people might focus on ending abortion and the work of the pro-life movement,” Lewis explained. “Even if weʼre working in different areas, those areas are not in conflict.”

Connection through communication

The initiative’s resources and formation experiences are organized around three interconnected dimensions: the head, the heart, and the hands.

The project offers a “development of resources that impact our head, meaning our knowledge and our self-awareness,” and “also our hearts in terms of our prayer and discernment,” Lewis said.

There are also resources that impact “our hands,” which focus on “building skills and building relationships,” Lewis said.

“So we want to help organizations and churches work with leaders in particular, to equip them with the resources and programming to help them make a positive impact in their local community,” he said.

The resources can be found in the Communion Project’s “resource library” on its website, which offers a number of options for people to independently utilize or bring to a group. It also offers gatherings and workshops to aid its cause.

In the online library, people can find upcoming events, online courses, prayers for communion, articles, learning sessions to be used in small groups, and a Communion Project podcast.

It also has educational videos provided by outside organizations including Georgetown University, University of Notre Dame, and Boston College.

So far the podcast has included conversations with Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore on what happens when the faithful stop seeing one another as brothers and sisters, and University of Notre Dameʼs Tim O’Malley on liturgical division and what it means to live in communion with people.

The first episode featured a conversation “with Tim Busch, founder of Napa Institute, and Father James Martin from America Media, two people who speak to very different parts of the Church … but have developed a personal friendship,” Lewis said.

“It was a great opportunity to put people in the same place to talk about their friendship, of their shared faith, realizing that what unites us is so much stronger than what divides us,” he said.

“What matters most is gathering around a particular Eucharistic table and a particular family table and having hard conversations or sitting in discomfort, because love compels us to do hard things,” Lewis said.

The initiative is only “just beginning in terms of programming and trying to share.” But since starting, “thereʼs a great interest” among local communities wanting to be involved.

“The path of healing begins not in dominating strength, but in shared vulnerability. When both Church and nation dare to move toward one another — wounded yet willing — they may discover that grace lives precisely in the places we thought were beyond repair,” Manalo said.

While the event has captured the attention of the Catholic community in the country, the Church has urged the faithful to exercise “prudence and restraint.”

A consecrated host that reportedly failed to dissolve

The Niño Dios (Child God) Cathedral of the Diocese of Santa Rosa de Lima announced in a statement that the occurrence took place on July 30 during a Mass for Eucharistic Missionary Week held at a private school in Cuilapa, a city located approximately 40 miles southeast of Guatemala City.

According to the statement, during Communion, the priest celebrating the Mass noticed that one of the young people who had received the Eucharist “was taking the sacred host out of his mouth; he quickly approached him and was able to prevent him from discarding it on the floor.”

“Following the guidelines for such cases, the priest placed the sacred host in a glass vessel containing water in the rectory chapel,” the statement explained.

The intention was for the host to dissolve naturally. However, according to the statement, “the following Thursday [Aug. 13], while cleaning the chapel, a parish volunteer noticed that the host had not dissolved and bore red stains that could be blood.”

The discovery was reported to the parish priest, who questioned and took a statement from the volunteer who had noticed the situation. Subsequently, the matter was reported to Bishop José Cayetano Parra Novo of the Diocese of Santa Rosa de Lima.

‘Prudence and restraint’

The cathedral explicitly urged the faithful to exercise “prudence and restraint.”

“Throughout history, the Church has received testimony regarding the real and substantial presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, under this unique form of manifestation,” the cathedral noted in its statement, cautioning that such cases “have been neither common nor easy to discern; therefore, they cannot be called miracles until a full investigation, which must be carried out and will take time, is concluded.”

The cathedral also announced that the host is being reserved “in a special place and will not be on public display,” while Parra Novo is providing “guidelines for the necessary discernment and to enable a study of this possible Eucharistic manifestation” of the Real Presence.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

Now, Our Lady of Grace is memorializing that connection in a fresco by Minnesota-based artist Mark Balma.

Balma is in the process of painting two large frescoes at the altar of Our Lady of Grace. On the right, already finished, is an image of Mary and the angel at the Annunciation. Green and blue ribbons painted in the bottom-right corner pay tribute to the school and the community.

“In the centuries-old tradition of Catholic sacred art, images have always carried more than beauty — they carry the prayers, memories, and stories of the communities who create and encounter them,” Rámond Mitchell, director of liturgy for Our Lady of Grace, told EWTN News.

“Sacred art has a unique ability to hold memory, communicate faith, and invite people into prayer,” Mitchell continued.

“Because our two communities had walked so closely with one another through such a difficult time, we wanted to create a lasting remembrance within our own sacred space as a reminder of the people we accompanied, the lives that were forever changed, and the hope and faith that sustained us,” Mitchell said.

Meaning of the ribbons

Balma painted blue-and-green ribbons onto a vase within his Annunciation fresco as a tribute to the community of Annunciation Church and School.

Mitchell explained how blue-and-green ribbons were an important symbol to the community after the shooting.

“Following the shooting, people throughout the surrounding community tied blue-and-green ribbons to doors, trees, lampposts, fences, and other places as a visible sign of solidarity and remembrance,” Mitchell said.

“In the fresco, the ribbons are tied around a water jug beside Mary. We wanted the ribbons to feel integrated into the scene rather than separate from it,” Mitchell continued. “The water jug is an ordinary object, much like the ordinary details of daily life that surrounded Mary when the angel appeared to her.”

“In that way, the ribbons become part of an ordinary moment that has been transformed by the presence of God and a reminder of the Annunciation community and of the sacredness of their lives and stories,” Mitchell continued.

Balma, who was in the Twin Cities at the time of the shooting, was asked to “find a way to honor the Annunciation community.”

“This tragedy really touched me and I prayed for guidance at how to best honor the children and families,” Balma told EWTN News.

“As a painter I try to find within Scriptures a word or concept that might help me unlock a vision to reveal a fresh way to transform the words into images,” Balma said. “For instance in the Annunciation fresco, the line ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord’ became the focal point of the imagery.”

“My concept for the Annunciation fresco is different than most historical depictions. They usually place an older-looking Mary in a room or cloister visited by Gabriel and the Holy Spirit,” Balma said. “As I studied the Scriptures, I found no reference to her being in a room.”

Balma pointed out that at the time of the Annunciation, Mary “was not that much older than the children” of Annunciation School.

“I imagined the 14-year-old Mary as carrying on her daily chores like going to the well for water,” Balma said. “So full of beautiful symbolism, the water vase then became the place I could attach the ribbons that were placed in the community in remembrance of the children.”

“Water is healing, and tying the ribbons around the vase seemed to be the heartfelt way to honor the children,” Balma said.

Sister communities

The community at Our Lady of Grace stepped up after the shooting; it was a tragedy that struck them deeply.

“Annunciation is not far from Our Lady of Grace, and there have long been many connections between our two communities,” Mitchell said. “Some of our parishioners attended Annunciation themselves, while others have children or grandchildren who attended the school. Our teachers knew teachers there, and some members of our parish community were neighbors or friends of students, staff, and families affected by the shooting.”

“Because of those relationships, the tragedy was felt very deeply at Our Lady of Grace,” Mitchell said. “In the aftermath, our parish and school community was able to offer a place of safety, hospitality, prayer, and support. Our campus became a place where members of the Annunciation community could simply be together when so much of their world had been disrupted.”

The principal of Annunciation was present at the live painting session when Balma painted the ribbons into the fresco, which was a particularly significant moment, Mitchell said.

“Having members of the Annunciation community participate in and witness the creation of the work has made the memorial even more meaningful,” Mitchell said.

In an interview with EWTN News reporter Valentina Di Donato, two Augustinian priests living in Rome explained why the woman they refer to as their “grandmother” continues to be a source of hope and inspiration, especially for Catholic wives and mothers.

Augustinian Father Angelo Di Berardino, who has worked and lived at the Augustinian International College of Santa Monica in Rome for 50 years, said St. Monica had a great interior strength that influenced all members of her family.

“Respecting her husband, she was able to convert him,” Di Berardino told EWTN News. “Then, she was a strong woman to educate her three children, especially Augustine.”

“I think she was so strong in her life, in her prayer, that she had a great influence on the great theologian Augustine,” he added.

According to Augustinian Father Edward Daleng Daniang, vice regent of the Prefecture of the Pontifical Household and former general counsellor and procurator general of the Order of St. Augustine, St. Monica is the saint to turn to for spouses who feel alone in their desire to create a Christian family home.

“St. Monica did not have it easy with her husband Patrick,” he said. “She tried to win him with her love, with her patience and endurance and tolerance and, above all, bringing her husband to God through prayer.”

Describing the ancient saint as a “living example” of a mother who does not give up on her children, Daniang said those struggling with their children can have hope that their prayers, and tears, are never wasted.

“St. Monica was struggling with her son St. Augustine who wandered away from home,” he said. “He left Monica, his mother, to come to Italy in those days and Monica did not give up.”

“He left the faith which she tried to transmit to him but she did not give up,” he emphasized.

Following her son to Italy, Daniang said her main intention of leaving Africa was not to bring her son back home but to lead her son to Jesus Christ for the salvation of his soul.

“St. Monica stands as someone who led her husband to God, to Christ, and also brought her son St. Augustine to Christ,” he said.

“That’s bringing the unity of family together,” he added.

This story was first published on Aug. 27, 2025, and has been updated.

Jerusalem Magistrate Court Judge Ophir Tischler acquitted Yona Schreiber citing an assessment from a district psychiatrist that found Schreiber was experiencing a psychotic episode during the attack and could not be found criminally responsible, according to The Jerusalem Post.

The Aug. 26 ruling ordered Schreiber to be committed to an inpatient treatment facility for a maximum six years, though he may be released early if a psychiatric council determines his mental condition to be improved.

The psychiatric assessment further diagnosed Schreiber with schizophrenia, media reports said. The assessment noted that a lack of conclusive evidence showing how Schreiber’s mental state led him to carry out the attack on the religious sister but said the illness influenced his actions nonetheless.

Schreiber was arrested and charged in April with assault and hostility toward a religious group for pushing a Catholic sister to the ground and kicking her in the head. The April 28 assault took place on Mount Zion near King David’s Tomb, steps from Dormition Abbey.

Videos of the attack circulated on social media, fueling a backlash and further outrage over persistent attacks against Christians in Israel and the West Bank.

At the time, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said it strongly condemned Schreiber’s actions, writing in an April 29 social media post: “Israel remains firmly committed to safeguarding freedom of religion and freedom of worship for all faiths, and to ensuring that Jerusalem remains a city where every community can live, pray, and practice its faith in safety and dignity.”

In December 2025, the pope was named one of Vogue magazine’s 55 best dressed people of 2025.

Style correspondent José Criales Unzueta told The New York Post: “The reality is that everyone has a personal style, and this list celebrates people whose style we find most compelling, inspiring, idiosyncratic or a combination of those traits.”

“In the case of Pope Leo, we are drawn to his innate Americanness — the way he will pair a baseball cap or a pair of Nikes with his vestments, which speaks to the great tradition of American sportswear,” he said.

When Leo first appeared on the balcony of St. Peterʼs Basilica to the thousands of faithful gathered in the square after his election, many noticed the return of several papal vestments that were not used during Pope Francis’ pontificate.

So what are some of the papal garments Pope Leo has been wearing and what do they symbolize?

The papal mozzetta

One of the most obvious vestments that Pope Leo has brought back into use is the red papal mozzetta, reviving a long-established tradition.

The mozzetta is a nonliturgical garment worn by the pope, cardinals, bishops, abbots, and certain priests, including canons of a cathedral chapter. It is normally worn over the cassock.

The history of this garment dates back to at least the 14th century, shortly after the papacy returned to Rome from Avignon, France. Initially, it was worn by the popes in Avignon to adapt to the colder French climate. Eventually, it became part of the popeʼs ceremonial dress around 1400, initially reserved for the pope but later extended to all cardinals and bishops.

The mozzetta, in the case of a prelate, symbolizes his spiritual authority and rank within the Church hierarchy. For a pope, it is normally worn with the papal stole as a sign of his universal jurisdiction over all Catholics.

The mozzetta a pope wears is different from those worn by cardinals and other clerics. While the mozzetta for cardinals is red and for bishops purple, the pope has five versions of the mozzetta. The most commonly worn by the pontiffs is the red satin mozzetta, usually with an embroidered stole.

The white cassock

The white cassock is probably one of the most recognizable pieces of papal attire. It’s a long-sleeved, ankle-length garment and is tailor-made from 100% wool or a wool blend. White has a long Christian association with purity, innocence, holiness, and the glory of Christ.

Cassocks, which have historical links to the Roman robe known as the “caracalla,” are traditionally made with 33 buttons to represent the 33 years of Jesus’ life before his resurrection and ascension into heaven.

The white cassock became part of the papal vestments during the pontificate of Pope Pius V (1566-1572), who was a Dominican friar and continued wearing the white habit of his religious order after becoming pope.

A white sash

The white sash around the popeʼs waist, another traditional piece of papal attire, is called the fascia. It is essentially a wide, ceremonial band worn with the cassock and is made of linen or silk. It represents the pope’s devotion, dedication, and submission to Jesus Christ’s call to serve and look after his Church. The fascia is a symbol of readiness to minister to the people of God.

A red stole

The stole is a liturgical vestment worn by priests and bishops as a sign of their ordained ministry. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal explains that a priest wears the stole around his neck, while a deacon wears it over his left shoulder and across the chest.

Pope Leo has made consistent use of the stole since his election in 2025. He typically wears a deep burgundy or scarlet silk stole with ornate gold embroidery during public and formal duties. However, he has also been seen wearing other stoles including a white one with gold embroidery.

Some instances in which the Holy Father has worn a stole include during his apostolic journeys, diplomatic audiences, state visits, major liturgical feasts, and ecumenical meetings, among others.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) explains that the stole symbolizes the authority and responsibility to serve in imitation of Christ, connecting it with Jesus' words: “For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

The tradition of red leather shoes

Red leather shoes have been used by several popes over the centuries and have their origins in the early Church and the ancient Roman Empire.

In the Catholic faith, red symbolizes martyrdom and the passion of Christ.

Pope Benedict XVI’s red shoes became a bit of a trademark during his pontificate, with ABC News calling him a “fashionista” and Esquire naming him “accessorizer of the year.”

At another point, his loafers sparked controversy after false rumors claimed they were crafted by the high-end Italian fashion house Prada.

Benedict’s choice of shoes stands out because his predecessor and successor — St. John Paul II and Pope Francis — opted for alternatives. But popes have walked in red for centuries.

While Pope Leo has not yet been seen in red shoes, the Holy Father has made headlines for photoshares of him sporting a pair of white Nike sneakers around the Vatican grounds before he became pope.

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The archbishop made the remarks during a press conference following his Aug. 25 meeting in Moscow with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

As the Vatican Secretariat of State reported Tuesday on X, the men discussed “topics of mutual interest and current international issues, with particular attention to the war in Ukraine and prospects for peace.”

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During the event, Gallagher stated that “the Holy Seeʼs position is clear: The conflict cannot be resolved by military means,” adding that “it is essential to create the conditions for a political and diplomatic process.”

“To be clear: This war must end,” he said, noting that “it is urgent and necessary to end the hostilities and plan future relations so as not to remain prisoners of the wrongs of the past.”

He stated that “any concrete result in the humanitarian sphere will contribute to alleviating suffering and help restore a minimum level of trust between the parties to the conflict.”

Lavrov expressed appreciation for the Holy Seeʼs openness to dialogue with Russia and its commitment to peace, Vatican media reported. He also agreed with his Vatican counterpart on the need to step up cooperation on humanitarian issues.

On Aug. 26, Gallagher was scheduled to meet with Yuri Ushakov, foreign policy adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Vatican representative will return to the Vatican on Aug. 28.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.