Catholic News
- 7 saints canonized during Mass in St. Peter's Square (CWN)
Pope Leo XIV canonized seven saints yesterday during a Mass attended by an estimated 70,000 people in St. Peter’s Square (video, booklet). - USCCB committee chairmen condemn Trump administration's push for IVF expansion (USCCB)
Reacting to a Trump administration announcement, the chairmen of three USCCB committees said that they “strongly reject the promotion of procedures like IVF” that “freeze or destroy precious human beings and treat them like property.” “Every human life, born and preborn, is sacred and loved by God,” said the chairmen of the bishops’ Committees on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth; Religious Liberty; and Pro-Life Activities. “Without diminishing the dignity of people born through IVF, we must recognize that children have a right to be born of a natural and exclusive act of married love, rather than a business’s technological intervention. And harmful government action to expand access to IVF must not also push people of faith to be complicit in its evils.” At the same time, the bishops welcomed aspects of the administration’s announcement, including “comprehensive and holistic restorative reproductive medicine, which can help ethically to address infertility and its underlying causes.” - Pope boards peace sailboat, addresses young adults (CNS)
On October 17, Pope Leo XIV visited a sailboat whose young adult crew members have traveled the Mediterranean over the past month to promote peace. In his remarks, Pope Leo, accompanied by Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline of Marseille, highlighted three themes: dialogue, building bridges, and learning to be builders of peace. - Caritas calls for immediate humanitarian access to Gaza, prosecution of war crimes (Caritas Internationalis)
Caritas Internationalis, the Church’s federation of relief and development agencies, called for “immediate and unrestricted humanitarian access” to Gaza, as well as “full accountability for all perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity before national and international courts.” “We urge both sides to honor and implement the peace deal, and need immediate access to get urgent lifesaving assistance to Palestinians in Gaza who have been pushed to the edge of existence,” said Alistair Dutton, Caritas’ secretary general. “There is a short window of opportunity to provide relief and an end to this inhuman suffering.” - Leaders from Lesotho, Uruguay, Azerbaijan meet with Pontiff (CWN)
Pope Leo XIV received three international leaders in separate audiences on October 17: - Cardinal urges international community not to impose sanctions on Madagascar (Vatican News (Italian))
Cardinal Désiré Tsarahazana of Toamasina, Madagascar, urged the international community not to impose sanctions on his nation following a coup in which army leaders backed youth protestors and then suspended the constitution and dissolved the senate and high court. Sanctions “would be illogical and immoral,” Cardinal Tsarahazana told Vatican media. “Supporting young people who demand a better life and then killing them with sanctions would make no sense.” Cardinal Tsarahazana spoke of a climate of widespread corruption and fear in the island nation. - Pope Leo appoints new archbishop of Vienna (Vatican Press Office)
Pope Leo XIV today named Msgr. Josef Grünwidl, 62, as the new archbishop of Vienna, a see whose last ten archbishops have been created cardinals, dating back to 1858. Ordained to the priesthood in 1988, Archbishop-designate Grünwidl was appointed by Pope Francis as the archdiocese’s apostolic administrator in January upon the retirement of Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, OP. The Austrian bishops’ news agency noted that the archbishop-designate has called several times for the end of the discipline of mandatory priestly celibacy in the Latin rite—a discipline highly praised by the Second Vatican Council in its Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests. The bishops’ news agency also reported that the archbishop-designate believes that the discussion of the ordination of women to the diaconate “should not be suppressed,” and that he is open to the appointment of women as cardinals. - Pope to receive King Charles and Queen Camilla at the Vatican (Vatican News)
King Charles III and Queen Camilla will take part in an official state visit to the Vatican on October 23. The visit—postponed from April—will focus on the unity of Christians and care for the environment. Pope Leo and the Anglican archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, will lead an ecumenical prayer service for the care of creation in the Sistine Chapel. - Latin American bishops hold virtual jubilee for the indigneous (L'Osservatore Romano (Italian))
CELAM (the Episcopal Conference of Latin America) conducted a virtual Jubilee of the Indigenous People of Latin America and the Caribbean. Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ, the prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, said in a message that “your love for the earth, your respect for the elderly, your sense of community, and your ability to live in harmony with creation are a gift to the whole Church ... I invite you to continue caring for your communities, passing on the wisdom of your ancestors to new generations and joyfully proclaiming the Good News of Jesus.” The jubilee’s three principal themes were “Amazonian identity, indigenous inclusion in cities, and pastoral action in the face of discrimination, poverty, and land loss,” the Vatican newspaper reported. - Vatican newspaper focuses on poverty (CWN)
L’Osservatore Romano devoted seven articles to poverty in its October 17 edition. - State of Washington will not enforce law on seal of Confession and abuse (Washington State Attorney General)
Following a court ruling, the State of Washington’s attorney general said he has agreed “not to enforce reporting requirements for information clergy learn solely through confession or its equivalent in other faiths.” In May, the state enacted a law requiring priests to report information about child abuse, even if it is given in a sacramental confession. Under the agreement, clergy remain mandatory reporters of abuse, with the exception of abuse learned about in the confessional. - Vatican diplomat renews call for debt relief for poor nations (Holy See Mission)
At a UN meeting devoted to “countries in special situations,” Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, apostolic nuncio and Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, renewed the Holy See’s call for debt relief for impoverished nations. “My delegation recognizes that the most pressing and unifying concern for countries in special situations is the unsustainable debt burden,” he said. “The global financial system must be directed towards the goal of attaining the common good of the human family.” - Cardinal Parolin praises Father Romanelli, other priests who remain in conflict zones (Vatican News (Italian))
In an address at the awarding of the Ambassadors to the Holy See Literary Prize, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Secretary of State of His Holiness, paid tribute to priests and religious who remain in conflict zones. After praising the example of Father Gabriel Romanelli and other priests and religious who have remained at Gaza’s sole parish, Cardinal Parolin recalled the last Mass in Baghdad’s cathedral before the American attack in 2003. The prelate also praised the example of priests elsewhere in Iraq, in Sarajevo, and in Chile, during the 1973 coup. The winner of the prize was Andrea Angeli, for a book on faith in conflict zones. - 9 US bishops call for peaceful, prayerful public witness on behalf of migrants (Diocese of Tucson)
The archbishops of Denver, Las Vegas, and Santa Fe, joined by six other bishops, called on Catholics to engage in “peaceful and prayerful public witness” on behalf of migrants. The prelates called on “each Catholic” to engage in a series of actions on behalf of migrants, including: “Prepare a Catholic vigil for migrants, following the guidelines and suggestions of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.” The bishops suggested October 22 as a “Catholic Day of Action.” - Church burned down, children kidnapped as Islamist violence intensifies in Mozambique (Fides)
Discussing the Islamist insurgency in Mozambique, a local bishop warned that “the situation continues to deteriorate and violence.” Bishop Osório Citora Afonso, IMC, told the Fides news agency that jihadists recently burned down a church and kidnapped children. “More than one million people have been displaced and 6,000 killed,” but “not much has been said about this” in the international media in recent years, the prelate added. - Pope greets Russian pilgrims (Vatican News)
Pope Leo XIV met on October 17 with a group of pilgrims from Russia, and encouraged them to take advantage of their stay in Rome, “where the heart of the Christian soul beats.” The Pope reminded his visitors that last year Pope Francis gave the beloved icon of Salus Populi Romani to the Church in Russia for the Jubilee Year. He said: “May the pilgrimage of this Icon in the Catholic dioceses of Russia be a source of comfort for you and for your families, especially the sick and the suffering.” - 2 historic churches reopen in Mosul, 8 years after liberation from ISIS (Vatican News)
Following lengthy restoration work, two Christian churches have reopened in the Iraqi city of Mosul, eight years after its liberation from three years of rule by ISIS. The Syriac Orthodox Church of Mar Toma dates to the 7th century; the Chaldean Catholic Church of Al-Tahira dates to the 18th. - USCCB publishes DACA update (USCCB)
The Office of Policy and Advocacy of the US bishops’ Department of Migration and Refugee Services has published a three-page “DACA Update.” The DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program “was first created in 2012 to provide limited protection from deportation and access to legal work authorization for certain undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children, commonly known as ‘Dreamers,’” the USCCB office stated. “Since then, the legality of DACA has been considered in several lawsuits.” - Pushback from some parishioners after Spokane bishop removes priest amid allegations (InvestigateWest)
Some parishioners have pushed back after the Diocese of Spokane removed a priest from ministry. “Bishop Thomas Daly has taken unusually public steps to disclose the nature of the allegations against Mejía and to brief parishioners on evidence of sexual and financial wrongdoing, a level of transparency rarely seen in the Catholic Church,” InvestigateWest reported. But some parishioners “see it as a politically or personally motivated purge—an effort by a conservative bishop to oust a popular priest whose warm, pastoral style clashed with Daly’s more hard-line approach.” - Theft, vandalism at 15 churches in German diocese (Domradio.de (German))
In September, 15 churches in the Diocese of Passau (map) were targets of theft and vandalism, according to the German Catholic radio station Domradio. “We usually have about 15 to 20 burglaries in a whole year, and now we only have 15 cases in the month of September,” said Josef Sonnleitner, the diocesan finance director. - More...