Associated Press

Top US bishop worries Catholic border services for migrants might be imperiled by government action.

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(HOLLY MEYER. AP).

Government officials would be infringing on religious freedom if they were to restrict the Catholic Church’s work serving migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border, says a top U.S. bishop.

Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, addressed the issue this week while in Louisville, Kentucky, for a USCCB meeting where migration issues, including the long wait for religious worker visas, came up repeatedly. He acknowledged recent targeting of faith-based border work by government officials, including the Texas attorney general’s attempts to shutdown a Catholic nonprofit that has operated a network of migrant shelters for decades.

“We obviously want to respect the law, but if that liberty is restricted, then yes, our religious liberty is being restricted because we can’t put into practice the precepts of the Gospel,” Broglio said during a news conference Thursday.

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Rome LGBTQ+ Pride parade celebrates 30th anniversary, makes fun of Pope Francis comments

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(Associated Press).

The Rome LGBTQ+ Pride parade celebrated its 30th anniversary Saturday as tens of thousands of people in brightly colored outfits marched through the Italian capital waving banners, dancing and singing as they marked gay rights and poked fun at Pope Francis. Many of the signs and banners at the parade made fun over a recent comment made by the pontiff. The Pope had to issue an apology last month after Italian media quoted unnamed bishops saying that Francis jokingly used the term “faggotness” while speaking in Italian during a meeting. He had used the term in reaffirming the Vatican’s ban on allowing gay men to enter seminaries and be ordained priests.Francis reportedly repeated the word a second time in a meeting with Rome priests this week.

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Donald Trump tells a group that calls for banning all abortions to stand up for ‘innocent life’

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(AP. Michelle L. Price and Peter Smith).

Donald Trump on Monday urged a staunchly anti-abortion Christian group to stand up for “innocent life,” ambiguously revisiting an issue that Democrats want to make a focus of this year’s presidential election.

The former president and presumptive Republican nominee’s pre-recorded message praised the work of those attending the event hosted by The Danbury Institute, which is meeting in Indianapolis in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention. The newly-formed institute is an association of churches, Christians and organizations that wants to eradicate abortion in its entirety.

A panel of in-person speakers doubled-down on that anti-abortion stance on Monday, and a top Southern Baptist leader called for a hardline position against in vitro fertilization. Albert Mohler, the president of the SBC’s flagship seminary, said IVF is a “commodification of the embryo” that assaults human dignity. He criticized pastors as well as politicians showing openness to it including in Alabama, which shielded IVF providers from prosecution and civil lawsuits after a state Supreme Court ruling said frozen embryos are children.

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In secular France, chaplains prepare to provide Olympians with spiritual support during the Games

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(AP. Giovanna Dell’Orto).

PARIS (AP) — As athletes rev up their training and organizers finalize everything from ceremonies to podiums before the Paris Olympics, more than 120 faith leaders are preparing for a different challenge — spiritually supporting some 10,000 Olympic athletes from around the world, especially those whose medal dreams will inevitably get crushed.

“We’ll need to bring them back to earth, because it can feel like the end of the world after working on this goal for four or five years,” said Jason Nioka, a former judo champion and deacon who’s in charge of the largest contingent of Olympic chaplains, about 40 Catholic priests, nuns and lay faithful.

Ordained and lay representatives from the five major global religions — Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism — have been working together for months to set up a shared hall in the Olympic village outside Paris.

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A court ruled embryos are children. These Christian couples agree yet wrestle with IVF choices.

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(LAURA UNGAR AND TIFFANY STANLEY. AP).

When faced with infertility, Amanda and Jeff Walker had a baby through in vitro fertilization but were left with extra embryos — and questions. Tori and Sam Earle “adopted” an embryo frozen 20 years earlier by another couple. Matthew Eppinette and his wife chose to forgo IVF out of ethical concerns and have no children of their own.

All are guided by a strong Christian faith and believe life begins at or around conception. And all have wrestled with the same weighty questions: How do you build a family in a way that conforms with your beliefs? Is IVF an ethical option, especially if it creates more embryos than a couple can use?

“We live in a world that tries to be black and white on the subject,” Tori Earle said. “It’s not a black-and-white issue.”

The dilemma reflects the age-old friction between faith and science at the heart of the recent IVF controversy in Alabama, where the state Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos have the legal status of children.

The ruling — which decided a lawsuit about embryos that were accidentally destroyed — caused large clinics to pause IVF services, sparking a backlash. State leaders devised a temporary solution that shielded clinics from liability but didn’t address the legal status of embryos created in IVF labs. Concerns about IVF’s future prompted U.S. senators from both parties to propose bills aiming to protect IVF nationwide.

Laurie Zoloth, a professor of religion and ethics at the University of Chicago, said arguments about this modern medical procedure touch on two ideas fundamental to the founding of American democracy: freedom of religion and who counts as a full person.

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Former US senator from Indiana Joe Donnelly to step down as US ambassador to the Vatican.

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(AP).

Former U.S. senator from Indiana Joe Donnelly is stepping down as U.S. ambassador to the Vatican and returning to his home state two years after assuming the role.

In a post on the social platform X on Thursday, the U.S. embassy to the Vatican confirmed Donnelly will leave the position July 8, but did not cite a reason for his departure.

“It has been an honor and a privilege to serve my country in this unique way,” Donnelly is quoted as saying in the post.

President Joe Biden nominated Donnelly for the position in 2021 and he was confirmed as ambassador to the Holy See in 2022.

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As election nears, violence is key issue for Mexicans, including Catholics jolted by priest killings

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(AP. María Teresa Hernández).

CHIHUAHUA, México (AP) — José Portillo Gil, the gang leader known as “El Chueco” — the Crooked One — lowered his gun. The Rev. Jesús Reyes then spoke what he feared might be his final words: Please, don’t take my brothers’ corpses away.

Next to him, at the altar of his church in northern Mexico, Jesuit priests Javier Campos, 79, and Joaquín Mora, 80, lay in a pool of blood.

“I could almost feel the bullets going through my body,” said Reyes, who survived the attack without being shot.

The killings took place in Cerocahui in mid-2022, but the sorrow over the crimes has not diminished in the communities nestled in the remote Tarahumara mountains. Nor have Catholic leaders’ demands for peace abated.

Since he took power in 2018, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has avoided direct confrontation with cartels and violent gangs controlling and terrorizing local communities. His “ hugs, not bullets ” policy has drawn extensive criticism from faith leaders, human rights organizations and journalists who have echoed victims’ fears and anger.

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What we know about the young missionaries and religious leader killed in Haiti.

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(DÁNICA COTO AND JIM SALTER. AP).

The local director of a mission group in Haiti and a young missionary couple from the U.S. were attacked and fatally shot by gang members after leaving a youth group activity at a church, a family member told The Associated Press.

Thursday’s killings of Jude Montis, the local director of Missions in Haiti Inc., and Davy and Natalie Lloyd happened in the community of Lizon in northern Port-au-Prince. Natalie Lloyd is the daughter of a Republican state representative in Missouri.

Haiti’s capital has been crumbling under the relentless assault of violent gangs that control 80% of the city, while authorities await the arrival of a police force from Kenya as part of a U.N.-backed deployment aimed at quelling gang violence in the troubled Caribbean country.

Here are some things to know about the missionary work, which focused on helping the children of Haiti, and the gang attack that took three lives.

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Florida priest accused of biting woman who grabbed Holy Communion wafers during Mass

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no foto

(The Associated Press).

ST. CLOUD, Fla. (AP) — The Diocese of Orlando is defending a Catholic priest accused of biting a woman who tried to grab Holy Communion wafers during Mass at a central Florida church.

The confrontation occurred Sunday afternoon at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in St. Cloud. Police have forwarded a report to prosecutors accusing Father Fidel Rodriguez of misdemeanor battery, but no formal charges have been filed, and the priest wasn’t arrested.

“While the Diocese of Orlando does not condone physical altercations such as this, in good faith, Father Rodriguez was simply attempting to prevent an act of desecration of the Holy Communion, which, as a priest, Father Rodriguez is bound by duty to protect,” the diocese said in statement Thursday.

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Chiefs’ Mahomes: Butker entitled to his beliefs, even though the QB doesn’t always agree with him

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(AP.  Dave Skretta and Tersa Walker).

Patrick Mahomes said Wednesday that while he doesn’t agree with all the beliefs espoused by kicker Harrison Butker during a recent commencement address, the Chiefs quarterback nevertheless respects his teammate’s right to make them be known.

Butker delivered what has become a polarizing speech May 11 at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, where the three-time Super Bowl champ said most women receiving degrees were probably more excited about getting married and having kids, and that some Catholic leaders were “pushing dangerous gender ideologies onto the youth of America.”

Butker also assailed Pride month, an important time for the LGBTQ+ community, and President Joe Biden’s stance on abortion.

“I’ve known Harrison for seven years. I judge him by the character he shows every single day,” Mahomes said after one of the Chiefs’ voluntary practices in Kansas City, Missouri. “We’re not always going to agree, and there are certain things he said that I don’t necessarily agree with. But I know the person he is and he’s doing what he can to lead people in the right direction.”

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France is proud of its secularism. But struggles grow in this approach to faith, school, integration

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(AP.  Giovanna dell’Orto).

Brought into the international spotlight by the ban on hijabs for French athletes at the upcoming Paris Olympics, France’s unique approach to “laïcité” — loosely translated as “secularism” — has been increasingly stirring controversy from schools to sports fields across the country.

The struggle cuts to the core of how France approaches not only the place of religion in public life, but also the integration of its mostly immigrant-origin Muslim population, Western Europe’s largest.

Perhaps the most contested ground is public schools, where visible signs of faith are barred under policies seeking to foster a shared sense of national unity. That includes the headscarves some Muslim women want to wear for piety and modesty, even as others fight them as a symbol of oppression.

“It has become a privilege to be allowed to practice our religion,” said Majda Ould Ibbat, who was considering leaving Marseille, France’s second-largest city, until she discovered a private Muslim school, Ibn Khaldoun, where her children could both freely live their faith and flourish academically.

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From schools to the Olympics, how France’s staunch secularism affects religion in public life

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(AP. Giovanna dell’Orto).

Walk around multicultural metropolises like Paris or Marseille, or any small village in the French countryside, and signs of faith are everywhere. Many Muslim women wear headscarves and historical Catholic churches anchor nearly every neighborhood.

But France’s principle of “laïcité,” loosely translated as “secularism,” means no “excessive” crosses, or kippahs, or Islamic head coverings can be worn by staff, students and players in public schools, hospitals, courts and sports fields — though visitors and spectators can.

As the world’s eyes turn to France, host of the Olympics in two months, this unique way to define the role of religion in public life is getting more scrutiny.

SECULARISM AS A CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE

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Vatican makes fresh overture to China, reaffirms that Catholic Church is no threat to sovereignty

Posted on by Catholic Radar Al

(NICOLE WINFIELD. AP).

The Vatican made another big overture to China on Tuesday, reaffirming the Catholic Church poses no threat to Beijing’s sovereignty and admitting that Western missionaries had made “errors” in past centuries in their zeal to convert the Chinese faithful.

The Vatican hosted the head of China’s bishops conference for an unprecedented, high-level commemoration of a landmark 1924 meeting in Shanghai that affirmed the need for foreign missionaries in China to give way to local church leaders.

The presence of Shanghai Bishop Joseph Shen Bin alongside the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, at the Pontifical Urbaniana University was in itself noteworthy. It marked the first time in memory that a mainland bishop has been allowed by Beijing to participate in a public Vatican event as the keynote speaker.

It was also significant given the controversy over Shen’s 2023 appointment. Pope Francis in July was forced to recognize China’s unilateral appointment of Shen as bishop of Shanghai. The appointment seemingly violated the Holy See’s 2018 accord with Beijing over bishop appointments.

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Why US Catholics are planning pilgrimages in communities across the nation

Posted on by Catholic Radar Al

(PETER SMITH. AP).

A long-planned series of Catholic pilgrimages has begun across the United States this weekend, with pilgrims embarking on four routes before converging on Indianapolis in two months for a major gathering focusing on Eucharistic rites and devotions.

The National Eucharistic Pilgrimage is beginning with Masses and other events in California, Connecticut, Minnesota and Texas. A small group of pilgrims plan to walk entire routes, but most participants are expected to take part for smaller segments. Each route goes along country roads and through city centers, with multiple stops at parishes, shrines and other sites.

Although it was forged amid a recent debate among bishops over whether to refuse Communion to U.S. politicians who don’t oppose abortion, the pilgrimage is a revival of a historic Catholic tradition that faded by the mid-20th century.

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Defensores del derecho al aborto en EEUU y América Latina se citan ante los retrocesos conservadores.

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no foto

(MARÍA VERZA. AP).

CIUDAD DE MÉXICO (AP) — Mas de un centenar de activistas defensores del derecho al aborto de América, integrantes del movimiento conocido como “marea verde”, iniciaron el jueves un encuentro de dos días en Ciudad de México para colaborar más e intentar frenar retrocesos que se han dado en Estados Unidos y que amenazan a otros países donde han avanzado gobiernos conservadores.

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Holy Year or holy mess, Vatican and Rome begin dash to 2025 Jubilee with papal bull, construction

Posted on by Catholic Radar Al

(AP. NICOLE WINFIELD).

The Vatican crossed a key milestone Thursday in the runup to its 2025 Jubilee with the promulgation of the official decree establishing the Holy Year. It’s a once-every-quarter-century event that is expected to bring some 32 million pilgrims to Rome and has already brought months of headaches to Romans.

Pope Francis presided over a ceremony in the atrium of St. Peter’s Basilica for the reading of the papal bull, or official edict, that laid out his vision for a year of hope: He asked for gestures of solidarity for the poor, prisoners, migrants and Mother Nature.

“Hope is needed by God’s creation, gravely damaged and disfigured by human selfishness,” Francis said in a vigil service afterward. “Hope is needed by those peoples and nations who look to the future with anxiety and fear.

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Holy Year or holy mess, Vatican and Rome begin dash to 2025 Jubilee with papal bull, construction

Posted on by Catholic Radar Al

(NICOLE WINFIELD. AP News).

The Vatican crossed a key milestone Thursday in the runup to its 2025 Jubilee with the promulgation of the official decree establishing the Holy Year. It’s a once-every-quarter-century event that is expected to bring some 32 million pilgrims to Rome and has already brought months of headaches to Romans.

Pope Francis presided over a ceremony in the atrium of St. Peter’s Basilica for the reading of the papal bull, or official edict, that laid out his vision for a year of hope: He asked for gestures of solidarity for the poor, prisoners, migrants and Mother Nature.

“Hope is needed by God’s creation, gravely damaged and disfigured by human selfishness,” Francis said in a vigil service afterward. “Hope is needed by those peoples and nations who look to the future with anxiety and fear.

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