St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church and Divine Infant of Prague Mission

The childhood home of Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, in Dolton, Illinois. / Credit: Michael Howie, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons

CNA Staff, Jun 20, 2025 / 14:41 pm (CNA).

The auction for the childhood home of Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, has been extended by a month and will now close on July 17, according to the auction house selling the home. 

The extension comes as the village of Dolton, Illinois, continues its efforts to acquire the 1,050-square-foot home located at 212 E. 141st Place in Dolton.

Dolton village attorney Burt Odelson told CNA on June 19 that the auction has been extended because the city has not finalized negotiations with the home’s owner, Pawel Radzik, to purchase the home but expects to close the deal “very soon.”

Odelson told CNA that on the chance the deal falls through, however, the village of Dolton is still prepared to seek ownership of the house through eminent domain.

Steve Budzik, the house’s listing agent, told the Chicago Tribune this week neither the owner nor the auction house would publicly disclose the number of bids received thus far.

Meanwhile, a federal judge declined to block the village of Dolton from purchasing the house after a former Dolton city employee filed a lawsuit on Sunday.

Lavell Redmond, a former employee who is involved in a wrongful termination suit against the city, asked the judge for a temporary order to prevent the city’s purchase of the pope’s childhood home, calling the city’s actions an “endeavor with substantial cost to taxpayers with no compelling governmental necessity.”

U.S. District Judge Mary Rowland denied Redmond’s request this week, citing lack of standing.

Odelson called the suit “absurd,” saying Redmond had no right to tell the village what it can and cannot do.

Odelson acknowledged that Dolton is an “economically deprived” community, however, and said once the house has been purchased, the village will set up a nonprofit charity to help fundraise for the preservation of the house and the revitalization of the neighborhood.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to preserve what many people believe is a sacred” place, Odelson told CNA about the pope’s former home. “We need to do it right and we don’t have the funds to do it right. We have to lean on others.” 

People from “all over the U.S. have already offered to help preserve the house,” Odelson said, “and the charity will enable them to do so.”

While the Archdiocese of Chicago did not respond to CNA’s requests for comment, Odelson told CNA he has been in touch with someone “high up” there who has expressed an interest in helping guide the village of Dolton in the house’s preservation. 

Ward Miller of the group Preservation Chicago, a nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to preserving historic sites in Chicago and encouraging landmark designations in the city, told CNA on June 20 that even though the house is outside Chicago city limits, he hopes to assist the village once it acquires the property.

Odelson said Dolton, just like the city of Chicago, has the power to declare the house a village historic site and plans to do so. 

A few blocks from the house, but within Chicago city limits, is St. Mary of the Assumption, the church and school that Pope Leo attended as a child, which has been vacant since 2011 and is now privately owned. 

The property’s current owner, Joel Hall, said in May he is open to a landmark designation by the city, and Preservation Chicago presented its case to make it so at a meeting in May of the Commission of Chicago Landmarks.

While the commission has not yet come to a decision, Miller said he is confident it will do so.

He told CNA that after 11 years of advocacy led by Preservation Chicago and supported by the Archdiocese of Chicago, he was thrilled that the Chicago City Council voted to preserve another historic church, St. Adalbert’s Parish, this week.

“One can’t help but feel that the new American pope may have influenced the idea that everyone should work together to preserve these historic treasures,” Miller said.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, chair of the United States’ recently created Religious Liberty Commission, talks with Raymond Arroyo on “The World Over” on June 19, 2025. / Credit: “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo”/Screenshot

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 20, 2025 / 14:11 pm (CNA).

As the work of the presidential Religious Liberty Commission gets underway, the commission’s chairman, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, said he sees two major sets of domestic threats to religious liberty in the United States.

The first set of threats, he said, has its origins in several mid-20th-century court decisions, while the second set of threats is due to apathy by people of faith, “because if you don’t fight for it, you can lose it.”

Patrick made these observations during a June 19 interview on “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo” following the commission’s opening June 16 hearing in Washington, D.C.

Patrick said the commission’s inaugural convocation addressed a range of topics including the intent of the country’s founders, “what the establishment clause was about … and how we lost it in this country through court decisions.”

He explained that the courts, “particularly the Warren court and Hugo Black,” took religious liberty away, “and now we’re fighting to bring it back. Because if you lose religious liberty … all the other liberties fall by the wayside quickly.”

Patrick said he and his 13 fellow commissioners, which include Bishop Robert Barron and Cardinal Timothy Dolan, received expert legal input on a number of religious liberty cases and the feedback included that “the Supreme Court needs to take up more cases, and they need to quit kicking them back down to the lower courts.”

“We have to get the courts at every level to take more cases on these big decisions,” Patrick said. During the commission’s initial hearing, the U.S. Department of Justice, under which the commission operates, was also called upon to take a more proactive role in religious liberty cases.

Patrick indicated that the commission plans to hold another seven or eight hearings over the next year and then will deliver to President Donald Trump “a report on what he can do in executive orders or maybe legislation he’ll recommend to Congress to take up,” Patrick said.  

Discussing the origins of the commission, Patrick said that “when I talked to the president about this last November, and he had already talked about religious liberty in his first four years, I said, ‘I think the timing is right now.’ And he just loved the idea.” 

Patrick said that “we have to be very smart about how we walk down this path with the president” and expressed his confidence that “we have a president who believes in God, who believes in Jesus Christ, and who has said, ‘I want my government to reflect the values of where I know most of the country is.’”

The full “World Over with Raymond Arroyo” interview with Patrick can be viewed below.

The Catholic bishops in Nigeria’s Onitsha ecclesiastical province have condemned recent attacks in Benue state that reportedly resulted in the death of some 200 people and called for fasting and prayer in honor of the victims. / Credit: Nigeria Catholic Network

ACI Africa, Jun 20, 2025 / 13:41 pm (CNA).

The Catholic bishops in Nigeria’s Onitsha ecclesiastical province have condemned recent attacks in Benue state, which reportedly resulted in the death of some 200 people, and called for fasting and prayer in honor of the victims.

In a statement issued June 18, the bishops denounced the “almost daily bloodshed” in the West African nation, including the recent gruesome killing of civilians by suspected herdsmen on June 13 and similar attacks on June 15.

“We are deeply anguished and shocked by this relentless shedding of innocent blood in different parts of our beloved country, Nigeria. We describe these acts as inhuman, barbaric, and a gross violation of the sanctity and dignity of human life,” the bishops said.

They called on the Nigerian government to fulfill its duty of protecting citizens and demand that the state take urgent action. 

“We call on the Nigerian government to immediately put an end to the almost daily bloodshed … and restore security, justice, and peace in Nigeria,” they said.

The bishops of the Onitsha Archdiocese and the Dioceses of Abakaliki, Awgu, Awka, Ekwulobia, Enugu, Nnewi, and Nsukka said that as spiritual leaders, they want the people of God under their pastoral care to seek divine intervention amid the violence and killings.

“God is our hope and our hope cannot disappoint us,” they said, alluding to the ongoing 2025 Jubilee Year, which the late Pope Francis officially launched on Christmas Eve 2024 with the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

In their statement, the bishops declared June 20 as a special day of prayer and fasting, particularly for peace in the Benue and Enugu states, and other regions in the West African nation suffering from violence.

“We invite all priests and religious in our province to observe the day of fasting … and dedicate their holy Masses, rosaries, and Divine Office for this noble intention,” the bishops said.

On June 13, Islamist Fulani militants attacked the town of Yelewata in Benue state, killing at least 200 people in what international aid organizations have termed the “worst killing spree” in the Nigerian region.

In the widely condemned attacks, with Pope Leo XIV extending his spiritual closeness to victims of the massacre, the attackers reportedly targeted Christians living as internally displaced people (IDPs), setting fire to buildings where families were taking shelter and assaulting with machetes anyone who attempted to flee.

Meanwhile, bishops in Nigeria’s Abuja ecclesiastical province have conveyed condolences to Bishop Wilfred Chikpa Anagbe of the Diocese of Makurdi and the people of Benue state following the killings.

“We have been deeply saddened… and express our condolences to the bereaved families. These kinds of attacks… will only intensify fear, hatred, and polarization in society. The attacks against innocent people are a sin against God, who offers life as a divine gift,” the bishops said in a statement issued June 18.

The bishops, who include the ordinaries of the Abuja Archdiocese and its counterparts of Gboko, Idah, Katsina-Ala, Lafia, Lokoja, Makurdi, and Otukpo, call on the “relevant authorities to ensure that the perpetrators of these heinous crimes are brought to justice.”

The bishop of the Lagos Archdiocese declared Sunday, June 22, a day of prayer for peace and protest against the killings, particularly those in Benue and Enugu states.

In a letter to institutions in his metropolitan see issued June 18, Archbishop Alfred Adewale Martins directed all priests in Lagos to celebrate Mass on June 22 for this intention. 

Additionally, he said, rosary processions are to beheld in church compounds in the evening, led by Marian devotional groups, to invoke the intercession of Mary, Queen of Peace.

The bishop of the Lagos Archdiocese emphasizes that the day of prayer and protest is a peaceful expression of outrage and a cry for government accountability.

“The earth is tired of drinking innocent blood,” he said in his June 18 statement, adding: “The conviction of being deliberately targeted is thick in the air. People need to be reassured that they are safe and secure, irrespective of where they live within the borders of our country.”

He joined his voice to that of Pope Leo XIV, who, during his Sunday, June 15, Angelus, condemned the killings and prayed for the victims.

“We thank our Holy Father … for calling the attention of the world to the Benue massacre … Let us all, with one voice, call on the security agencies and governments … not to look away from the suffering of the people of Benue,” Adewale said.

Amid the bloodshed and public frustration, Benue state Gov. Hyacinth Iormem Alia, the priest whom Bishop William Amove Avenya of the Gboko Diocese suspended in May 2022, has rejected growing calls for citizens to arm themselves in self defense.

Speaking in an interview on AIT News on June 17, Alia acknowledged that the temptation to take up arms might appear logical. 

“Each time I speak about this, I get very passionate about it. But I’m cautiously guiding citizens,” he said. “It is not just advisable for you to say we’ll pick out knives, machetes, and sticks and get out there to fight. That’s not good.”

He continued: “Where you have people who decide to just wake up because of sentiments, emotions attached to what is happening to us and within us, I think we will be rendering ourselves more vulnerable. So, I wouldn’t advocate self-defense,” he said.

Instead, he urged citizens to focus on community policing, which he described as the “only way” to address local security threats effectively. 

The governor emphasized: “I would encourage us to keep calling for community policing. There are conversations around community policing. I’m one of the governors who accepted it. If it is community policing, the full power resides with those who understand the terrain where we are attacked, who know the length and breadth of our borders.”

This story was first published by ACI Africa, CNA's news partner in Africa, and has been adapted by CNA.

Pope Leo greets pilgrims during the Jubilee of Families, Children, Grandparents, and the Elderly on Sunday, June 1, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Jun 20, 2025 / 13:11 pm (CNA).

Members of Italy’s local and national governments will be the main participants in events for the Catholic Church’s Jubilee of Government Leaders on June 21–22, part of the wider Jubilee of Hope.

According to the Vatican, the weekend’s events mix government and Church initiatives, including a pilgrimage through the Holy Door on June 21 followed by a meeting on “ecological debt” hosted by Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri at city hall. The event will include a keynote by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

The Vatican has not yet confirmed if Leo will hold a jubilee audience with participants on Saturday morning, as he did last weekend, and as Pope Francis did twice before his hospitalization in mid-February.

In addition to members of Italy’s Chamber of Deputies and Senate, Italian mayors and regional counsellors are expected to participate in one or more events. Ambassadors to the Holy See and representatives from other countries will also attend.

The area just outside St. Peter’s Square will transform into an open-air concert venue on the evening of June 21. The “Harmonies of Hope” concert will feature musicians from the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Venezuela, Switzerland, Italy, and Japan.

The U.S. musician taking part is Brad Mehldau, a 54-year-old jazz pianist and composer from Jacksonville, Florida.

On Sunday, June 22, jubilee participants will be able to attend Pope Leo XIV’s Angelus from a reserved area. Attendees are also invited to join the pope’s Mass for the solemnity of Corpus Christi to be celebrated at the Basilica of St. John Lateran and which will be followed by a Eucharistic procession through the streets to the Basilica of St. Mary Major.

During the Jubilee of Government Leaders, one of the largest groups to participate in the Holy Door pilgrimage will be employees of Italy’s national welfare agency, INPS (Istituto Nazionale Della Previdenza Sociale).

The paragovernmental entity, which employs approximately 25,000 people throughout Italy, is participating in the Catholic Church’s jubilee year with a pilgrimage through the Holy Door and Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on June 21 as an event to bring employees together.

Diego De Felice, the institute’s director of communications, told CNA around 4,000 INPS employees and their family members will participate.

According to De Felice, the welfare agency “espouses a positive vision of the intervention of the state for the purposes of social justice,” and this approach, even though secular, is “close to what the social doctrine of the Church professes.”

This week, in anticipation of the jubilee, the Italian Parliament hosted a conference on interreligious dialogue with the participation of religious and civil society leaders, and delegations from 60 countries. Archbishop Rino Fisichella, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, spoke at the opening of the conference on June 19.

Pope Leo XIV delivers his homily during the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity and the Jubilee of Sport on June 15, 2025, in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Vatican City, Jun 20, 2025 / 12:41 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Friday declared 174 new martyrs, including 50 French Catholics who died in Nazi concentration camps during World War II and more than 100 Spanish priests killed during the Spanish Civil War.

In a decree signed on June 20, the pope also recognized a medical miracle that occurred in 2007 in a Rhode Island hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit through the heavenly intercession of a 19th-century Spanish priest, Father Salvador Valera Parra, making possible his future beatification.

Faith and resistance: The young French martyrs of World War II 

The French martyrs declared Friday died between 1944 and 1945, many after being arrested by the Nazi regime for their ministry and resistance efforts under German occupation.

Among them were Father Raimond Cayré, a 28-year-old diocesan priest who died of typhus in Buchenwald in October 1944; Father Gerard Martin Cendrier, a 24-year-old Franciscan who perished in the same camp in January 1945; Roger Vallée, a 23-year-old seminarian who died in Mauthausen in October 1944; and Jean Mestre, a 19-year-old lay member of the Young Christian Workers, who was killed in Gestapo custody in May 1944.

They were part of a broader network of clergy, religious, and Catholic laity (particularly laity affiliated with Catholic Action movements) who clandestinely accompanied French forced laborers into Germany after the Vichy regime’s Service du Travail Obligatoire was enacted in 1943. Some were tortured and killed by the Nazis because of their apostolate in Germany, while others died “ex aerumis caceris,” or because of their suffering in prison.

Most of the 50 martyrs died in camps like Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Dachau, and Zöschen, often succumbing to typhus, tuberculosis, or brutal execution. They included four Franciscans, nine diocesan priests, three seminarians, 14 Catholic Scouts, 19 members of the Young Christian Workers, and one Jesuit.

The majority of these French martyrs (more than 80%) were under the age of 30 when they died. The youngest of the Catholics Scouts, aged 21 and 22, were both executed — one by gunfire at Buchenwald and the other by beheading in Dresden in 1944.

According to the Vatican, their persecution was rooted in “odium fidei,” or hatred of the faith. The martyrs’ “apostolic action” and their willingness to die rather than abandon their spiritual duties were seen as a direct affront to the totalitarian and anti-Christian ideology of the Nazi regime.

The martyrs of the Spanish Civil War 

The pope also declared 124 martyrs from the Spanish Civil War, all from the Diocese of Jaén, killed between 1936 and 1938. They included 109 diocesan priests, one religious sister, and 14 lay Catholics.

The Vatican Dicastery for the Causes of Saints divided them into two martyr groups for their records: Father Manuel Izquierdo Izquierdo and 58 companions and Father Antonio Montañés Chiquero and 64 companions.

Their martyrdom occurred in the context of widespread anticlerical violence during Spain’s civil war, when many revolutionaries, fueled by atheist propaganda, desecrated churches and executed religious leaders. According to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, their deaths, marked by “anti-religious and anti-Christian sentiments” of the guerrillas, fit the Church’s criteria for martyrdom in “odium fidei.” 

In response to the news, Bishop Sebastián Chico Martínez of Jaén said: “These lands have been blessed and watered throughout the centuries of Christianity by the blood and witness of martyrs … their sowing has been fruitful in new Christians and will continue to be so.” 

The martyrs from the Diocese of Jaén are the latest of a total of more than 2,000 martyrs from the Spanish Civil War already recognized by the Church and beatified under the pontificates of John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis.  

The new Spanish martyrs’ beatification ceremony will take place in Jaén on a date to be determined.

Miracle in Rhode Island opens path to beatification 

The pope also approved a miraculous healing attributed to the intercession of Father Salvador Valera Parra, a 19th-century Spanish priest known for his charity during epidemics and natural disasters in Almería. He can now be beatified, thanks to an inexplicable healing that occurred in Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 2007. 

Born in 1816, Valera Parra had a childhood marked by profound faith. When his father died, 13-year-old Salvador was seen kneeling before the body reciting the Divine Office alone. The Spanish diocesan priest is remembered for many works of charity, including founding, along with St. Teresa Jornet, a home for the elderly.

The miracle involved a premature infant named Tyquan who was delivered by emergency cesarean section after complications during labor in 2007. Born without signs of life and suffering from severe oxygen deprivation, the baby showed no improvement after an hour. The attending Spanish physician, a devotee of Servant of God Salvador Valera Parra, prayed for his intercession. Moments later, the child’s heart began to beat.

Despite doctors’ expectations of lifelong neurological damage, Tyquan developed normally, growing into a healthy, active child.

4 declared venerable for heroic virtue 

In the audience with Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, the prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, Pope Leo XIV also recognized the heroic virtue of four individuals, declaring them venerable. They are:

— João Luiz Pozzobon (1904–1985), a Brazilian deacon and father of seven known for his Marian devotion and founding the Schoenstatt Movement’s Pilgrim Mother Rosary Campaign, which is now present in more than 100 countries

— Anna Fulgida Bartolacelli (1923–1993), an Italian laywoman who suffered from dwarfism and rickets and was a consecrated member of the Silent Workers of the Cross, living a life of hidden sanctity and service to the sick

— Raffaele Mennella (1877–1898), a young Italian cleric of the Missionaries of the Sacred Hearts, who died of tuberculosis at the age of 21

— Teresa Tambelli (1884–1964), a Daughter of Charity known for her long ministry to the poor in Cagliari, Italy

Sister Maria Zhang made her perpetual vows as an Augustinian Recollect on May 13, 2025. / Credit: Diocese of Salamanca

Madrid, Spain, Jun 20, 2025 / 10:29 am (CNA).

Sister Maria Zhang Yue Chun made her perpetual vows on May 13 at the convent of the Augustinian Recollects in Vitigudino, Salamanca province, Spain. Her prioress, Sister Berta, said she is “an example” for her community.

Born in Shangqiu, Henan province, China, Maria lived without any connection to Catholicism. She was married and took care of her five children. During a serious illness, however, the support provided to her by a community of active Augustinian Recollects opened her eyes to the faith.

On July 1, 2007, she was baptized along with her four daughters. Her husband and son followed in her footsteps at Christmas that year. The following year, Maria was widowed. One by one, her daughters joined a community of Augustinian nuns who have had a presence in the Asian country since 1931. This past April 25, her only son was ordained an Augustinian priest.

Ever since her husband’s death, Maria felt a strong calling to live her faith more radically as a contemplative nun. However, in China, the Augustinian nuns do not have a community of this nature.

Thus, in 2015, Maria left her native country ready to fulfill the vocation to which she was being called. She was especially helped in this endeavor by one of her daughters, who is also part of an Augustinian community in Spain.

But it wasn’t easy. Despite her family background full of considerable and evident spiritual merits, various communities turned her down, primarily due to her age (56 at the time) and because she didn’t know Spanish.

However, with the support of a Chinese priest and making use of an electronic translator, she arrived at the Vitigudino convent. The prioress, Sister Berta Feijó, recounted to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, what that first contact was like when she was allowed to experience religious life within the convent.

“Little by little, she learned the essentials for our contemplative life and adapted,” Sister Berta said. “What we observed in her is that she was always smiling and happy.”

The prioress, originally from Peru, said Sister Maria “is an example for the community of a dedicated life, of recollection, of a sisterhood also because she is eager to serve,” especially the older sisters of the convent, all of whom are in their 90s.

The community currently consists of 16 sisters from four different continents: Five are Spanish, seven are from Tanzania, and the rest are from Guatemala, Peru, Venezuela, and China.

Despite the obvious language difficulties, Sister Berta recalled that Sister Maria was determined: “She never flinched, she never seemed sad, nor did she ever complain about anything, always happy to this day.” So much so that the first thing she learned to say in Spanish was that “she’s happy.”

Maria took the white veil for novices in 2017 and three years later made her temporary vows in a ceremony accompanied by one of her daughters, Sister Maria Sun Shen, who sang to the Virgin in her native language at the end of the Mass.

This past May 13, after publicly expressing her total devotion and invoking the saints with the litany, Sister Maria prostrated herself on the floor as a sign of humility while two sisters covered her with rose petals.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Bishop Anthony Ireland was appointed the new archbishop of Hobart in Tasmania, Australia, on June 20, 2025. / Credit: Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference

CNA Newsroom, Jun 20, 2025 / 09:29 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV has appointed Bishop Anthony Ireland, auxiliary bishop of Melbourne, Australia, as the new archbishop of Hobart, marking the second major Australian archdiocesan appointment this week following the naming of Bishop Shane Mackinlay to Brisbane on June 19.

The 68-year-old Ireland will succeed Archbishop Julian Porteous, who is retiring after nearly 12 years leading Tasmania’s Catholic community.

The appointment was announced Friday by the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference.

“With a heart full of quiet joy, I have received the news of this appointment, humbled and grateful for the trust placed in me to shepherd a diocese,” Ireland said in a statement.

“As a parish priest, I found deep fulfillment in the pastoral relationships formed through shared faith and mission. I now look forward with great hope to walking that same path of grace with the people of Tasmania.”

Born and raised in Melbourne, Ireland studied for the priesthood at Corpus Christi College, a regional seminary. Ordained in 1987, he served across several parishes in the Melbourne Archdiocese.

The archbishop-elect pursued advanced theological studies in Rome beginning in 1990 and earned higher degrees in both moral and spiritual theology. He completed doctoral studies at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas.

The Australian prelate held teaching roles at Catholic Theological College in East Melbourne, where he lectured in moral theology and served as head of the Department of Moral and Practical Theology for eight years. 

Archbishop Timothy Costelloe, SDB, president of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, praised the appointment, highlighting Ireland’s “considerable experience also in parish ministry and the ministry of health care” as well as his academic and spiritual formation roles.

“The archbishop-elect’s experience in the Archdiocese of Melbourne will stand him in good stead as he takes up the new challenge of pastoral leadership in the Archdiocese of Hobart,” Costelloe said, noting that Ireland’s episcopal motto — “Confirm, strengthen, and support” — would be warmly welcomed by Tasmania’s Catholic community.

While an official installation date has not been announced, sources in the archdiocese indicate Ireland will be installed as archbishop in the coming weeks.

The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Linz, Austria, is the largest church building in that country. / Credit: Dein Freund der Baum, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 20, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Here’s a roundup of Catholic world news from the past week that you might have missed:

Austria to ordain more priests in 2025 than in previous years

The Catholic Church in Austria is recording a positive trend in priestly ordinations for 2025, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.

At least 26 men have been ordained priests across Austrian dioceses, a Kathpress survey estimated, though the number could be much higher. Over the past decade, the average number of ordinations has been 22 per year. 

Christians in Holy Land face ‘systematic displacement’ amid war, collapse

The Christian presence in the Holy Land, already a dwindling minority, is under unprecedented threat amid ongoing regional conflicts, reported ACI MENA, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner. With the Gaza war still raging and tensions between Israel and Iran escalating this month, Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem, East Jerusalem, and Gaza are facing mounting hardship. 

According to ACI MENA, Bethlehem’s economy has cratered, forcing dozens of hotels and shops to close, while in Gaza, the Christian population has halved since October 2023, with churches damaged and civilians killed while sheltering inside. Church leaders warn of a “silent, systematic displacement” as political instability and economic collapse push Christian families to emigrate. Sami El-Yousef of the Latin Patriarchate said remote operations have resumed post-crisis, but the humanitarian need has soared. 

Bishop Thabet, defender of Iraq’s Christians, dies at 52

The passing of Chaldean Bishop Paul Thabet Habib Yousif Al Mekko of Alqosh, Iraq, has brought renewed focus to the suffering of Iraq’s Christian population, ACI MENA reported. A steadfast spiritual leader during ISIS’ occupation in 2014, Thabet returned to his hometown of Karamles after its liberation in 2017, where he discovered the desecrated statue of the Virgin Mary, later restored and blessed by Pope Francis in Erbil during his historic 2021 visit.

Thabet was deeply committed to helping displaced Christians return home, leading rebuilding efforts and blessing fields as symbols of resilience. His work featured in international exhibitions spotlighting Christian persecution. A scholar and writer on Chaldean liturgy, he was mourned as both a religious and national figure. “We lost a man of peace and coexistence,” said Nineveh Gov. Abdel Qader Dakheel, echoing the sentiments of many Christians across Iraq.

Ecumenical group in India discovers 2 Christians are attacked every day

The United Christian Forum (UCF), an ecumenical group that monitors incidents of religious persecutions, has found that more than two Christians per day are attacked in the country, according to a UCA News report. 

UCF recorded 313 incidents from January to May. “If this trend is not stopped immediately, it will threaten the identity and existence of the Indian Christian community in its motherland,” UCF’s national convenor A.C. Michael told UCA. The organization recorded a total of 834 incidents throughout last year. 

Kenyan archdiocese launches rosary marathon for respect for human life

The Catholic Archdiocese of Nairobi, Kenya, has initiated a three-day “marathon of rosaries,” interceding for respect of human life in the East African nation after protests earlier in the week culminated in violent clashes with Kenyan police.

“We are calling on all Catholics in our Archdiocese of Nairobi and beyond to pray the rosary, a marathon of rosaries for the next three days for the respect of human life and dignity,” Archbishop Philip Subira Anyolo said in a statement on June 18. The protests erupted after the murder of a teacher and blogger, Albert Ojwang, in police custody, reported ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa. 

Corpus Christi processions unite East and West

Catholic churches across the Middle East and beyond are celebrating Corpus Christi — also known as the feast of the Body of Christ — with processions that reflect both Eastern and Latin traditions, ACI MENA reported. 

Syriac Catholic priest Father Boulos Affas explained to ACI MENA that, although street processions are rare in urban Iraq, rural Christian villages still observe the tradition with solemn rituals, crosses, incense, rose petals, and hymns accompanying the Blessed Sacrament. 

The Chaldean Church has also added a distinctive nine-day novena honoring the Eucharist, featuring penitential prayers and adoration rites. Father Antoine Zeitouni of Qaraqosh told ACI MENA this tradition symbolizes the deep reverence for the Eucharist in Eastern liturgy.

Yaron Sideman is Israel’s ambassador to the Holy See. / Credit: “EWTN News Nightly”/Screenshot

CNA Staff, Jun 19, 2025 / 21:33 pm (CNA).

In a June 19 interview with EWTN News, Israel’s ambassador to the Holy See, Yaron Sideman, defended his country’s attacks on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, saying Israel is preventing World War III.

Speaking with EWTN News correspondent Colm Flynn, Sideman said Israel attacked Iran last week in what felt like the “eleventh hour,” saying the country had no choice but to protect itself by destroying Iran’s weapons programs.

When asked if he thought Israel’s attacks on Iran are bringing the world closer to a third world war, Sideman responded emphatically: “We are preventing a World War III.”

“We are preventing further escalation by depriving … the most dangerous regime on earth from the most dangerous deadly weapon on earth.”

“If we do not eliminate the nuclear program, it will eliminate us,” he said.

In recent months, Sideman said, Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs “accelerated to an unimaginable degree.” He said Iran has enriched uranium to 60% U-235, a level close to weapons-grade, “enough for nine nuclear bombs,” and was producing ballistic missiles to carry the bombs at a rate of 300 missiles per month.

Sideman said that according to the nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran is in severe noncompliance regarding its nuclear program because the levels to which it has enriched its uranium far exceed the levels necessary for the nuclear energy program Iran has claimed its uranium enrichment is for.

Asked how Israel sees this conflict with Iran ending, Sideman said: “One way or another, militarily or voluntarily, it will end with the elimination or at least the significant skating back of the Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile program.”

According to Sideman, Iran is the only U.N. member country that has repeatedly threatened to eliminate another country. He recalled that Iran has fired 400 rockets and drones into Israel unprovoked over the last year “to prove that it means what it says.”

Message to Iranians: ‘Our fight is not with you’

Asked what he has to say to the citizens of Iran who may not support the radical ideologies of the government and who are living through the violence, Sideman replied: “I will say to them, ‘Our fight is not with you.’ We have the utmost respect for the … people … and we sympathize with their suffering.”

But he blamed their suffering on the “brutal regime that has taken them hostage,” saying he hopes the outcome of this conflict will be a “return to the friendly, cordial, peaceful relations that existed before,” recalling that until 1979, the two countries had a “peaceful,” even “friendly,” relationship. During World War II, for example, Iran was one of the few countries that welcomed Jews escaping Nazi persecution.

After the Islamic revolution in 1979, however, Sideman said the new Iranian government then “made it its business to annihilate the state of Israel.”

Pope reiterates call for dialogue

In Rome on Thursday, Pope Leo XIV reiterated his urgent call for peace between Israel and ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Iran. “I would like to renew this appeal for peace, to seek at all costs to avoid the use of weapons, and to seek through diplomatic instruments, dialogue,” the pope said, decrying the deaths of “many innocents.” 

Sideman indicated that he has not yet spoken to the Holy Father, other than during a brief interaction prior to the outbreak of the latest conflict in which he invited him to visit Israel. 

Sideman added that as ambassador, a top priority for him is to engage the Holy See “in every which way to help facilitate” the release of the 53 hostages who have been held captive for 622 days by Hamas.

In relation to Gaza, he said, “the suffering will end the moment Hamas ceases to exist as a military and governing force in Gaza,” Sideman said. “The moment that happens, and our hostages return … that is when there will be no need” for Israel’s continued military presence in Gaza.

“We want peace,” Sideman concluded. “Even a cold peace is better than war.”

Watch the full “EWTN News Nightly” interview with Sideman below.

Los Angeles Archbishop José Gómez. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 19, 2025 / 18:53 pm (CNA).

In an op-ed criticizing the current U.S. administration’s mass deportation efforts and immigration raids, Los Angeles Archbishop José Gómez urged the federal government instead to take a case-by-case approach on how it handles immigrants who are in the country illegally.

Gómez, who is himself an immigrant from Mexico and a naturalized citizen of the United States, penned the op-ed in the archdiocese-run Angelus News, in which he argued that the country needs “a new national conversation about immigration.”

According to Gómez, the conversation should be one that is “realistic and makes necessary moral and practical distinctions about those in our country illegally.”

The archbishop wrote that he is “deeply disturbed by the reports of federal agents detaining people in public places, apparently without showing warrants or evidence that those they are taking into custody are in the country illegally,” which he argued is “causing panic in our parishes and communities.”

“People are staying home from Mass and work, parks and stores are empty, the streets in many neighborhoods are silent,” Gómez indicated. “Families are staying behind locked doors, out of fear.”

Although the archbishop said “we may agree” that the previous administration in Washington “went too far in not securing our borders” and allowed “far too many people to enter our country without vetting,” he contended that the Trump administration “has offered no immigration policy beyond the stated goal of deporting thousands of people each day.”

“A great nation can take the time and care to make distinctions and judge each case on its merits,” the archbishop wrote.

Gómez stated that deportations for “known terrorists and violent criminals” are proper and that “we can tighten border security” and work to help employers ensure “the legal status of their employees.”

The archbishop went on to call for reforming the legal immigration system “to ensure that our nation has the skilled workers it needs” and maintains a “commitment to uniting families.” He further argued the government “should restore our moral commitments to providing asylum and protective status to genuine refugees and endangered populations.”

In addition, Gómez wrote that the solution should include a way for people “who have been in our country for many years” to obtain legal status. He noted that two-thirds of immigrants who are in the country illegally have been here for more than a decade and some were brought here as small children.

“The vast majority of ‘illegal aliens’ are good neighbors, hardworking men and women, people of faith,” the archbishop wrote. “They are making important contributions to vital sectors of the American economy: agriculture, construction, hospitality, health care, and more. They are parents and grandparents, active in our communities, charities, and churches.”

Gómez, who has been critical of the Trump administration’s mass deportation plans since the president took office, published the June 17 op-ed amid ongoing protests against immigration enforcement raids in Los Angeles, the country’s second most populous city. 

The protests started on June 6 after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested more than 40 immigrants in Los Angeles who were in the country illegally.

In an interview with CNA, Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge who is now resident fellow in law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), disputed some of the archbishop’s characterizations of the Trump administration’s deportation efforts. CIS, which refers to itself as a “low-immigration, pro-immigrant” think tank, has been closely aligned with many of the Trump administration’s immigration initiatives.

Arthur, who is Catholic, noted that ICE arrested fewer than 50 people in Los Angeles on June 6 in a city where there are more than 900,000 immigrants who are in the country illegally. He noted that the arrests represented .004% of that population.

As Arthur sees it, the ICE raids in Los Angeles were focused on “businesses that are exploiting workers” and “individuals who have criminal histories.”

“Respectfully, I think that the bishop is working off of a misinformed belief of what’s happening,” Arthur said.

“Many of these reports are overblown,” he said. “Some of them are erroneous and some of them are just downright lies.”

Arthur argued that “statements like this feed the very panic that he’s attempting to address,” asserting that “I haven’t seen that there have been massive sweeps of individuals in the United States.” 

Since President Donald Trump assumed office five months ago, ICE has deported more than 100,000 immigrants who were in the country illegally, according to the White House. The administration has also sought to encourage those in the country illegally to self-deport as well. CIS estimates that there are nearly 15 million immigrants in the country illegally.