Catholic News
- Learn from St. Augustine's City of God, Pontiff tells Catholic lawmakers (CWN)
Pope Leo XIV received members of the International Catholic Legislators Network on August 23 and encouraged them to learn from St. Augustine’s The City of God, in which the “Church Father taught that within human history, two ‘cities’ are intertwined: the City of Man and the City of God.” - Pope Leo: Jesus challenges the presumption of those who think they are saved (Dicastery for Communication)
Reflecting on the Gospel reading of the day (Luke 13:22-30), Pope Leo XIV said on August 24 that Christ’s image of the narrow gate is “meant primarily to challenge the presumption of those people who think they are already saved, who perform religious acts and feel that is all that is needed.” Jesus “tells us that it is not enough to profess the faith with words, to eat and drink with him by celebrating the Eucharist or to have a good knowledge of Christian doctrine,” Pope Leo told pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his Sunday Angelus address. “Our faith is authentic when it embraces our whole life, when it becomes a criterion for our decisions, when it makes us women and men committed to doing what is right and who take risks out of love, even as Jesus did.” “Jesus is the true measure of our faith; he is the gate through which we must pass in order to be saved (cf. Jn 10:9) by experiencing his love and by working, in our daily lives, to promote justice and peace,” the Pope continued. “There are times when this involves making difficult and unpopular decisions, resisting our selfish inclinations, placing ourselves at the service of others, and persevering in doing what is right when the logic of evil seems to prevail, and so on.” The Pontiff concluded, “Let us ask the Virgin Mary to help us find the courage to pass through the ‘narrow gate’ of the Gospel, so that we may open ourselves with joy to the wide embrace of God our loving Father.” - Cultivate the spirit of the Holy Family, Pope tells women religious (Dicastery for Communication)
On August 23, Pope Leo XIV received members of the general chapters of four women’s religious institutes: the Missionary Daughters of the Holy Family of Nazareth, the Daughters of Nazareth Institute, the Apostles of the Holy Family Institute, and the Sisters of Charity of St. Mary. “There is an aspect that unites many of you: the desire to live and to transmit to others the values of the Holy Family of Nazareth, the hearth of prayer, forge of love and model of holiness,” Pope Leo told the religious sisters, who had gathered in Consistory Hall of the Apostolic Palace. “More than ever, the family needs to be supported, promoted and encouraged, through prayer, example and attentive social action.” “Continue the works entrusted to you by ‘being family’ and by remaining close to those you serve—with prayer, listening, counsel, and assistance—so as to cultivate and spread, in the various contexts where you work, the spirit of the home of Nazareth,” the Pope added. - Amazon region's bishops lament clericalism, fear of synodality (CEAMA)
At the conclusion of a five-day meeting in Bogotá, Colombia, the bishops of the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA) issued a Spanish-language message entitled “CEAMA, a sign of hope: Five years after the Amazon Synod.” CEAMA stated that the bishops “pointed out certain resistances present in this process: fears of change towards a synodal Church, attitudes of clericalism, authoritarianism, or lack of missionary audacity. Faced with these challenges, they reaffirmed their desire to continue building a prophetic, close, and missionary Church.” “The meeting renewed CEAMA’s commitment to be a Church centered on baptism, walking alongside the peoples, listening to their ancestral wisdom, and decisively taking on the care of our common home in the face of the climate crisis,” CEAMA added. At the beginning of their meeting, the bishops had received pointed guidance from Pope Leo XIV, who asked them to announce Jesus Christ “with clarity and immense charity.” - Commission finds 'alarming rise of violence' against religious minorities in Pakistan (Human Rights Commission of Pakistan)
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan published Streets of Fear, a report on religious freedom in the Islamic republic. “The report highlights an alarming rise in violence against religious minorities, including targeted killings of Ahmadis and the demolition of protected places of worship,” according to the commission. “In a chilling development, two individuals accused of blasphemy were extrajudicially killed by the police while seeking protection from hostile mobs.” The report also highlighted “persistent forced conversions and underage marriages of Hindu and Christian girls in Punjab and Sindh, exposing the systematic failure to enforce child marriage restraint laws.” Islam is the official religion of the South Asian nation of 252 million (map), the fifth most populous in the world. 95% of Pakistan’s people are Muslim, 2% are Christian, and 1% are Hindu. - Papal prayer for peace in Mozambique, Ukraine (Dicastery for Communication)
At the conclusion of his August 24 Angelus address, Pope Leo XIV requested prayers for peace in Ukraine and in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province, where a brutal Islamist insurgency began in 2017. “I express my closeness to the people of Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, who have become victims of an unsecure and violent situation that continues to cause death and displacement,” Pope Leo said to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square. “In asking you not to forget these brothers and sisters of ours, I invite you to pray for them, and I express my hope that the efforts of the country’s leaders will succeed in restoring security and peace in that territory.” The Pope added: This past Friday, 22 August, we accompanied with our prayers and fasting our brothers and sisters who are suffering because of wars. Today, we join our Ukrainian brothers and sisters who, with the spiritual initiative “World Prayer for Ukraine,” are asking the Lord to grant peace to their tormented country. - Leo XIV marks day of fasting, prayer for peace (@Pontifex)
On August 22—the day on which he invited the faithful to pray for peace, justice, and the victims of war—Pope Leo XIV tweeted, “Today we celebrate the memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven, also invoked as Queen of Peace.” “Let us fast and pray to implore the Lord for the gift of peace,” Pope Leo continued. “Let us pray together that hearts may be freed from hatred, that we may move beyond the logic of division and retaliation, and that a shared vision inspired by the common good may prevail.” - USCCB, CHA express 'strong support' for palliative care bill (USCCB)
The chairmen of two committees of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, joined by the president of the Catholic Health Association, expressed “strong support” for the Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act, sponsored by Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI). “Despite growing recognition of the value of hospital-based palliative care, there remain three major barriers to broader access: a shortage of trained professionals in palliative care; limited research funding to advance best practices in symptom management, communication, and care coordination; and low public and professional awareness of what palliative care is and when it should be utilized,” Archbishop Borys Gudziak, Bishop Daniel Thomas, and Sister Mary Haddad wrote in a recent letter to the leaders of a senate committee. “Importantly, the bill includes essential language affirming that all supported programs must comply with the Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction Act of 1997 and may not be used to cause or assist in causing a patient’s death under any circumstance,” the signatories added. - Vatican spokesman reflects on Algerian martyrs' witness (Vatican News)
Andrea Tornielli, editorial director of the Dicastery for Communication, wrote an editorial for Vatican News on Pope Leo XIV’s reference to the Algerian martyrs in a recent message. “The Church dies when it drifts away from the cross of Jesus, when it becomes worldly and turns itself into an NGO [non-governmental organization], when it chases political and economic power, when it relies on numbers, when it imagines that evangelization is simply repeating the name of Jesus Christ at every opportunity, instead of taking up the challenge of following him in the concreteness of life, in radical choices, in service to the least,” said Tornielli. - Longtime lay official of Roman Curia writes memoir (L'Osservatore Romano (Italian))
Guzmán Carriquiry Lecour, a Uruguayan layman who worked in the Roman Curia from 1971 to 2019, has published a memoir, Il testimone: [The Witness]. Carriquiry, now Uruguay’s ambassador to the Holy See, was the first lay undersecretary of a Vatican dicastery (the Pontifical Council of the Laity). Pope Benedict XVI appointed him secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. “Carriquiry certainly doesn’t depict an idealized Vatican,” journalist Lucio Brunelli wrote in his review of the book. “He recalls what a wise German monsignor told him at the beginning of his work in the Curia: ‘here there are 10% saints, 10% demons, and 80%—’like you and me,’ he told me—poor sinners begging for God’s mercy.’ ‘But be careful,’ he concluded, ‘the saintly 10% are great saints, and the [other] 10% are terrible demons.’” - UN agency classifies Gaza food crisis as famine (Vatican News)
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, set up by the UN to assess the severity of food shortages, has officially classified the situation in Gaza as a famine, putting it in the highest level of emergency. Israeli government officials have dismissed the appraisal as unreliable, while UN officials insist that the evidence of catastrophic food shortages is conclusive. The report warns that 500,000 people are suffering famine, with another 1 million people in Gaza facing insecure food supplies, and shortages spreading. The report says that 132,000 children under the age of 5 are in danger of death by malnutrition in coming months. - Pope Leo encourages moral theologians to follow example of St. Alphonsus Liguori (CWN)
Pope Leo XIV encouraged moral theologians to follow the example of St. Alphonsus de Liguori, the patron saint of moral theologians. - Christian unity needed in a divided world, Pope writes (Vatican News)
Pope Leo XIV strongly reaffirmed the commitment of the Catholic Church to ecumenical progress, in a message to the 2025 Ecumenical Week in Stockholm. The Pope wrote that Vatican II offered “an early witness to the conviction that our shared confession can overcome division and foster communion.” He said that Christian unity is particularly necessary “in our world bearing deep scars of conflict, inequality, environmental degradation and a growing sense of spiritual disconnection.” - Independence and peace are precious, Ukraine's leading Latin-rite bishop says (L'Osservatore Romano (Italian))
The president of the Latin-rite Ukrainian Episcopal Conference expressed gratitude for Pope Leo XIV’s request for prayer and fasting on August 22 for peace, justice, and the victims of war. Bishop Vitaliy Skomarovskyi of Lutsk told the Vatican newspaper that “prayer and fasting are a force that has a great impact on what happens, on history.” “Throughout the war, we saw that placing our hope in people can lead to great disappointment,” Bishop Skomarovskyi continued. “On the contrary, hope in God never disappoints.” The prelate mused: When Ukraine gained independence in 1991, I remember the mood that prevailed then: great happiness that it had happened almost without bloodshed ... But as time has shown, independence is a very precious thing, and now we see how high the price to pay for independence is. ... I think the war also taught us how important it is to appreciate peace. We have always prayed for peace, but I don’t think we were fully aware of how great a gift it is to live in peace, to live without war. - Vatican newspaper publishes 50,000th edition (L'Osservatore Romano (Italian))
The August 21 edition of L’Osservatore Romano was the 50,000th, the newspaper’s director noted in a front-page editorial. “Issue one was published 164 years ago, on July 1, 1861,” recalled Andrea Monda, only the twelfth director in the newspaper’s history. The paper, he wrote, originally bore the subheading “Political-Moral Newspaper,” later be replaced by the current “Political-Religious Daily Newspaper”—and thus it is “a political and religious newspaper, aiming to narrate simultaneously the city of God and the city of man.” From the first issue, L’Osservatore Romano has had two Latin phrases on its masthead: Ulpian’s “Unicuique suum” [to each his own], and “Non praevalebunt” [will not prevail], from Christ’s words to St. Peter, that the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church (Matthew 16:18). - Swedish cardinal rebukes SSPX bishop (CNA)
Cardinal Anders Arborelius has issued a rebuke to Bishop Bernard Fellay, the former superior of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) for exercising episcopal ministry in the Swedish archdiocese “without our bishop’s knowledge.” The cardinal’s statement warned that the unauthorized actions of the traditionalist prelate could cause “division and discord” in the archdiocese, and urged the faithful to maintain the unity of the Church. The statement underlined the irregular canonical status of the SSPX. The Vatican recognizes the bishops of the SSPX as validly ordained, but without properly assigned ministry. - USCCB urges Trump administration to rescind reinterpretation of HHS benefits (USCCB)
In a ten-page public comment, attorneys for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops urged the Department of Health and Human Services to rescind its revised interpretation of “federal health benefit” in a 1996 law. In July, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) stated that a 1998 HHS interpretation of the law “improperly extended certain federal public benefits to illegal aliens.” Attorneys for the bishops’ conference commented: The USCCB believes that the [July HHS] Notice was issued in an arbitrary and capricious manner. We urge the Department to rescind the Notice in its entirety ... The USCCB also urges the Administration to avoid limiting lifesaving benefits, including nutrition assistance, for those at the margins of society. - African Catholic journalists call for regulation of AI (SACBC)
At the conclusion of their triennial meeting, members of the African Catholic Union of the Press adopted ten resolutions and recommendations. The conference was devoted to the theme of “Balancing Technological Progress and Preserving Human Values in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.” The Catholic journalists called for regulation of AI to “prevent the erosion of truth, manipulation of consciences, and invasions of privacy.” The journalists also called on media organizations to “adopt editorial policies to ensure that AI tools do not replace human judgment, conscience, or responsibility.” - Holy See willing to help broker peace in Haiti, Vatican diplomat says (Vatican News)
The Holy See is willing to collaborate in any way to help foster peace in Haiti, a Vatican diplomat said. Msgr. Juan Antonio Cruz Serrano, the Holy See’s Permanent Observer to the Organization of American States (OAS), made his remarks on August 20, as the OAS secretary-general presented a peace proposal. Over 20,000 have been killed, and 1.3 million displaced, in the Haitian conflict, which began in 2020. - Former Chicago cathedral rector cleared of abuse allegation (Chicago Sun-Times)
The Archdiocese of Chicago’s independent review board (IRB) cleared Msgr. Daniel Mayall, rector of the cathedral from 2002 to 2016, of an abuse allegation. Earlier this year, the priest was accused of committing abuse in the 1990s, when he was assigned to another parish. Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago wrote on August 20 that the board “determined that there is not a reasonable cause to believe Monsignor Mayall sexually abused the person making the accusation.” “In addition, the IRB recommended that Monsignor Mayall be reinstated to ministry,” Cardinal Cupich continued. “I have accepted their recommendation effective immediately.” - More...