St. Andrew Catholic Church

“The Appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene” by Alexander Ivanov, 1834-1836. / Credit: Alexander Ivanov, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

CNA Newsroom, Jul 22, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

Not much is known about the life of St. Mary Magdalene, whose feast day is celebrated in the Church on July 22. She first appears in the Gospel of Luke as a follower of Christ from whom seven demons have been cast out. In the Gospels, she is sometimes associated with two other women in Scripture: the woman who washes Jesus’ feet with oil and Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus. 

Her most prominent position in Scripture occurs in the Gospel of John, where she remains with Jesus at the Crucifixion, keeps vigil at the tomb, and is the first to see him on Easter morning. Differing traditions have her evangelizing in Ephesus, while others place her in Marseille, France. 

Her body has never been found.

Apart from the Blessed Virgin Mary, perhaps no other saint alive during the time of Christ appears to have been as deeply moved by Jesus’ death as this saint.

“How beautiful to think that the first appearance of the Risen One took place in such a personal way! That there is someone who knows us, who sees our suffering and delusion, who is moved by us, and who calls us by name,” said Pope Francis of the encounter in a 2017 general audience the year after upgrading her memorial to a feast day in 2016.

After this shocking encounter, the joy of Christ’s resurrection imbued her with the courage to spread this good news joyfully. “I have seen the Lord!” she proclaimed to the apostles and the whole world. Once known as a sinful woman, Mary Magdalene becomes the Apostle to the Apostles, the first witness to the Resurrection, and the model of a personal encounter with Jesus Christ risen from the grave.

“God surprises her in the most unexpected way,” Pope Francis opined. “So that woman, who is the first to encounter Jesus ... now has become an apostle of the new and greatest hope.”

This story was first published on July 21, 2021, and has been updated.

William Jennings Bryan (seated at left) being interrogated by Clarence Seward Darrow, during the trial of the State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, July 20, 1925. Because of the extreme heat, the proceedings were moved outdoors. / Credit: Smithsonian Institution from United States, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 21, 2025 / 19:05 pm (CNA).

Less than 70 years after Charles Darwin published “On the Origin of Species,” the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, became the center of the American debate about human evolution, the interpretation of Genesis, and broader sentiments about Christianity.

On July 21, 1925 — a century ago today — substitute teacher John T. Scopes was found guilty of violating a state ban on teaching evolution in schools. His $100 fine (equal to $1,837 today) was overturned by the Tennessee Supreme Court. Both then and today, the widely publicized trial has been portrayed as a microcosm of an asserted battle between “science” and “religion.”

Scopes was defended by American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawyer Clarence Darrow, who was religiously agnostic. William Jennings Bryan, a Protestant Christian and three-time Democratic Party nominee for president, defended the state law and a literalist understanding of the first few chapters of Genesis.

During the trial, Darrow called Bryan to the stand as a Bible expert and proceeded to grill him on certain texts of the Bible and question their historical accuracy. That line of questioning allowed Darrow to use the trial as a proxy fight against Christianity itself. Although that portion of the trial was thrown out by the judge because it was not relevant to Scopes’ charges, it is remembered for its impact on 20th-century debates about human evolution and Christianity.

Most famously, the 1955 play and 1960 film “Inherit the Wind” played up the “science vs. religion” narrative, effectively solidifying that perception in American culture.

The reality of the conflict at the time, however, was much more nuanced than “science” against “religion.”

Dominican Father Thomas Davenport, a physicist and philosopher at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, told CNA it would be “wrong” to suggest that Catholicism was on the side against evolutionary thought during the trial.

“The trial was … more of a crisis and a conflict involving American Protestants than Catholics, in part because of a broader philosophical, theological, and scriptural traditions that Catholics have to draw on to understand God’s revelation and the natural world, and to put them in harmony,” said Davenport, who co-authored the book “Thomistic Evolution.”

Kenneth Kemp, a retired philosophy professor for the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, told CNA: “The trial is too often used by anti-religious polemicists as support for their idea that the relation between science and religion is fundamentally conflictual.”

Kemp, who authored two books on evolution and Christianity — “The War That Never Was” and “The Origins of Catholic Evolutionism” — said it’s important to learn “how easily history can be distorted in the service of ideology.”

“The ‘wars’ underlying the Scopes trial were in fact not between science and religion but rather one war between evolutionists and anti-evolutionists, with Christians on both sides, and another war between militant atheists and Christians, with evolutionists on both sides,” he said.

The Catholic Church and evolution

Catholic scholars considered the possibility of human evolution since the middle of the 19th century, around the time Darwin posited his theory, according to Kemp. In a lecture that he delivered at the Thomistic Institute, he said there were three distinct positions by the tail end of the 1800s.

One position, he pointed out, was that bodily evolution was simply a myth. The second position was that the human body evolved from an ape-like ancestor but that the human soul is directly created by God. A third position between the two suggested that an ape-like ancestor evolved toward a preparatory stage but that the final stage of the human body was formed by a direct act of God.

Some books promoting the second view were placed on the Vatican’s list of prohibited books in the 1890s, but the Church avoided making any proclamations on evolution at the time. The First Vatican Council in 1870 avoided the subject despite the widespread public discourse.

At the time of the Scopes trial in the 1920s, Kemp noted in the lecture, American Catholics “generally kept their distance from both sides of the controversy.”

In his lecture, Kemp cited a 1925 article in America magazine that said one side “wishes to establish Protestant fundamentalism as a state religion” while the other “aims at no less than an overturn of all of Christianity.” A 1925 Commonweal article characterized the trial as “the stirring up of a raucous and heated debate between … emotional extremists,” referring to the lawyers on both sides.

The Vatican issued a proclamation on the matter 25 years after the Scopes trial when Pope Pius XII published the encyclical Humani Generis. The pontiff stated that human bodily evolution was a permissible belief, as long as one accepts that God directly creates the human soul and all humans descend from Adam and Eve. It does not require that a Catholic believe in evolution.

About 62% of self-identified Catholic Americans believe in evolution today, according to a 2024 Gallup survey. This is higher than the broader American population, of which 58% believe in the theory.

Much of the theological debate surrounded the text of the beginning of Genesis, but Davenport told CNA that Catholics should be careful about assuming that the passages “are relating a simple historical chronology” but rather should “try to understand what the literary genre and intent of the text was.”

According to Davenport, one lesson a person should take from the Scriptures about the origin of man is that the creation of human beings was “very good” and a “special part of the created order.” Another is that humans are “partly like the bodily animal world, but partly separate from it.” A third is that humans “were not predetermined to sin, but we fell through our own fault.”

Daniel Kuebler, a biology professor at Franciscan University, told CNA that the Church recognizes there is a “material component” to humans but that the process by which that comes about “is something that the Church has not made definitive proclamations on,” which permits a belief in human evolution.

Some of the opposition to evolutionary thought, according to Kuebler, stems from the belief that evolution would suggest “man is just a material being.” Yet, he said that claim “goes far beyond what science can demonstrate.”

Kuebler argued that evolution on its own “can’t explain the totality of man” and noted that the Church clearly teaches that humans have “a spiritual component: a soul that does not evolve.”

Opposition to human evolution today

A century after the Scopes trial, a belief in evolution has increased among Catholics and the broader public. Yet some organizations, such as The Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation, oppose the concept of human evolution and continue to argue in favor of six-day creationism and the position that God created humans in their current form.

Hugh Owen, the founder and director of the Kolbe Center — a Catholic nonprofit — told CNA that his organization is faithful to Pius XII’s declaration on evolution, because the pontiff urged the faithful to consider the evidence for and against evolution. Owen said the Kolbe Center ensures the lay faithful have an “opportunity to look at both sides,” which he warned many young Catholics do not encounter.

Owen argued that Church tradition and the early Church Fathers are “completely on the side of six-day creation.” He said he believes it’s important to defend this position because “an error about creation is always reflected in an error about God” and that “the character of God is at stake.”

There were some Church Fathers, however, who did not believe in a strict six-day creation, such as St. Augustine of Hippo. Owen argued Augustine did not have access to a proper translation of Genesis.

Owen acknowledged that many Catholic intellectuals at the time of the Scopes trial believed in human evolution. Yet, he pointed to some of the evidence that was used before and during the trial that has since been proven fraudulent or inaccurate.

For example, two fossils that were believed to show an intermediary between early humans and modern man — Piltdown Man and Nebraska Man — were later disproven. Some organs that were believed to have lost their original function through evolution, he pointed out, were later found to have a current function. 

Owen also pointed to the discredited embryonic recapitulation theory, which suggested that embryonic development went through various stages that resembled ancestral species.

“It’s been a gradual process, but there’s no doubt that already at the time of the Scopes trial, many Catholic intellectuals had already been deceived into thinking that bogus evidence … really did [prove human evolution],” Owen said.

Kuebler, alternatively, told CNA there are two main pieces of evidence that lead biologists to overwhelmingly believe that humans evolved from an ape-like ancestor. One is “a whole host of intermediary fossils that are not quite human” and fossil records that show “an increase in brain size over time and upright posture.” The other is “the genetic evidence” showing a similarity with chimps.

Father Gabriel Romanelli, parish priest at the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Family who was wounded in a recent strike on the church, stands before the altar during a Sunday morning Mass held by the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem at the church in Gaza City on July 20, 2025. / Credit: OMAR AL-QATTAA/AFP via Getty Images

ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 21, 2025 / 16:43 pm (CNA).

The pastor of the only Catholic church in Gaza, Argentine priest Father Gabriel Romanelli, on Sunday described the current situation after the church was hit by Israeli fire on July 17, leaving three people dead and several injured, including a 19-year-old postulant who remains hospitalized.

In a video posted July 20 on his YouTube channel, Romanelli, a priest of the Institute of the Incarnate Word, began by sharing the bad news: “Unfortunately, the war continues,” he said. “Today there were many deaths, people who were even waiting in the north, where there is a great need for humanitarian aid. The numbers are terrible; there is no final figure yet, but they’re talking about dozens of deaths, many.”

Furthermore, he continued, “the heat is oppressive. Today the heat index was 42 degrees [Celsius; 108 degrees Fahrenheit], and they say it will remain that way for days to come. There have been more evacuations in different places throughout the Gaza Strip, and the bombardment continues unabated. We have had nearby bombardment with some shrapnel falling, and unfortunately, we have come to understand what shrapnel means, which is not just something that makes noise but something that damages, wounds, and kills.”

The priest mentioned that he, too, was injured on Thursday by shrapnel from Israeli fire, which was condemned by various Church leaders and by Pope Leo XIV himself, who spoke on Friday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and on Monday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The good news from Gaza

Romanelli then said there is good news: “We are in God’s grace, we are persevering in the faith. Many have expressed their closeness in every way because of what has happened here: the attack on the Catholic Church here. The patriarchs have come to visit, as I told you.”

The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Italian Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, “is still here, so it’s a blessing for the people to have him, to pray with him, to see him pray, to ask for his blessing, to listen to him, to console him. That he can console us is very gratifying. Everyone’s gratitude is very good news.”

“Other good news is that Nayib, one of our young men in a wheelchair with a lung injury, is doing better. He prays; he’s always been a prayerful man, and he continues to pray and ask for prayers. He’s still hospitalized,” Romanelli said, although the situation at the hospital, so necessary now, “is deplorable.”

“Most of the hospitals in the [Gaza] Strip were destroyed, but Nayib is doing better. His situation is delicate, but he’s doing better,” the priest added.

“Suheil is doing better. He had a major operation and will need to be patient during his recovery,” he continued. “He’s our postulant, whom you know, a great guy. He’s 19 years old and very well-liked here. The young people, the teenagers, the children, the adults are all very moved by what happened, so, well, today we were able to have a conversation. He spoke on the phone, so he’s doing better.”

Praying and working for peace in Gaza and the entire region

The pastor of Holy Family Church also said that “people are still in shock: You can imagine how little time has passed since all of this. The good thing is that we prayed and sang. Although there were bombardments, there has been little flying debris these days, and the children wanted to go out, sing, and yell, so they were seen more in the yard, and they started playing with a soccer ball.”

“And well, we continue to ask you, thanking you for your prayers, and asking you to work, let us all work, and convince the world that peace is possible and necessary,” he continued.

The priest prayed “to the Prince of Peace, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the Blessed Virgin Mary for the gift of peace, especially for Gaza and for the entire region.”

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

Pope Leo XIV greets residents of St. Martha Home for the Elderly in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, during a visit on July 21, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media

ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 21, 2025 / 15:12 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Monday morning visited St. Martha Home for the Elderly in Castel Gandolfo, the Italian town where he is spending his vacation.

According to the Holy See Press Office, the pontiff arrived at the residence on July 20 at 10:30 a.m. local time and was welcomed by the community of nuns who run the facility.

The Sisters of St. Martha religious order was founded in 1946 by Blessed Tommaso Reggio. The sisters aim to be “humble presences of peace and hope” for those most in need and to pay “the utmost attention to the quality of relationships and the well-being” of the nursing home’s residents, according to the order’s website.

After spending time praying in the chapel, the Holy Father personally greeted approximately 20 elderly people, all between the ages of 80 and 101.

He also greeted a young nurse and after prayer along with some songs, the pope addressed everyone, highlighting some themes from the songs and referring to Sunday’s Gospel reading from Luke.

The pope emphasized how in every person there is a part of Martha and a part of Mary and invited those present to take advantage of this time of life to live the dimension exemplified by Mary: to listen to the words of Jesus and to pray.

Pope Leo emphasized the importance of prayer, saying it is “so important, much greater than we can imagine,” and told the residents that “age doesn’t matter: It is Jesus who wants to draw near to us, who makes himself a guest for us, who invites us to be witnesses, young and not so young.”

“You are signs of hope,” he added. “You have given so much in life” and “continue to be that testimony of prayer, of faith,” a family that offers to the Lord what it has.

After praying the Lord’s Prayer together, Pope Leo XIV spent a while longer visiting the residence and returned to Villa Barberini, where he is residing during his stay at Castel Gandolfo, shortly before 11:30 a.m.

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

The Muñoz family gives Pope Leo XIV a T-shirt that reads “Da Pope” after Mass in Albano, Italy, on Sunday, July 20, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media

CNA Staff, Jul 21, 2025 / 14:06 pm (CNA).

A Chicago family vacationing in Rome is making headlines after a video of their encounter with Pope Leo XIV on Sunday went viral.

Marcel and Ann Muñoz, along with their three children, met the pope after Mass on July 20 at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Pancras in Albano, a town about 16 miles south of Rome, and gifted him a T-shirt that reads “Da Pope,” — in reference to “Da Bears,” which stems from the old “Superfans” sketches on “Saturday Night Live.”

The Muñoz family were also wearing the custom T-shirts, which were, of course, in Bears colors — navy blue with white text and orange lines.

“He turned left, and he just kind of beelined towards us, so whatever it is, it’s like everyone else is, you know, very nicely dressed for a summer Mass except us — so we did kind of stick out,” Marcel Muñoz said, according to CBS News. “But you know, it’s one of those things where it’s like: ‘Hey, you’re going to be here once. Hopefully, you can catch his attention.’”

“How many people get this opportunity to be in front of the pope, to have his attention, to hold his hand? I kissed his ring, and you know, it’s such — you feel blessed,” Ann Muñoz said.

The family drove 45 minutes to Albano where the Holy Father was celebrating Mass at the cathedral near his vacation home at Castel Gandolfo. 

On Ann’s facebook page, she wrote: “We were late and just stood at the edge before a barricade was up. Then we planted ourselves in the hot sun until Mass was over. We watched it on a screen outside and even received Communion.”

“We were just hoping to catch a glimpse,” she added.

The Muñoz family are Chicago Bears season-ticket holders and said they hope the event kick-starts a winning season for the professional football team.

Over 200 Christians were murdered by Islamist militants in Nigeria on June, 13, 2025. / Credit: Red Confidential/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Jul 21, 2025 / 13:14 pm (CNA).

A joint resolution introduced last week by Rep. Riley Moore, R-West Virginia, and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, condemns the persecution of Christians in Muslim-majority countries worldwide.

Introduced on July 17, the resolution follows a speech delivered by Moore in April on the House floor, where he addressed the “rampant violence and martyrdom” endured by Christians worldwide for “proclaiming their faith in Jesus Christ.”

“Around the world, our brothers and sisters in Christ face rampant persecution for simply acknowledging the name of Jesus. That is unacceptable,” he said.

The measure calls on the Trump administration to leverage diplomatic tools, including trade and security negotiations, to advocate for religious freedom.

The resolution cites data from the 2025 World Watch List by Open Doors, which estimates that over 380 million Christians worldwide face significant persecution and discrimination, including targeted killings, church closures, forced conversions, denial of worship rights, kidnappings, and displacement in Muslim-majority countries like Egypt, Nigeria, Iran, Pakistan, and Syria, among others.

In Nigeria, more Christians are killed each year than in all other countries combined, according to Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International. Islamist militants killed nearly 200 Christians in an attack in Nigeria’s Benue state in June.

“In Nigeria alone, more than 50,000 Christians have been martyred and more than 5 million have been displaced simply for professing their faith,” Moore said. “During a Divine Liturgy in Damascus last month, an Islamic jihadist opened fire on worshippers and detonated an explosive device — killing at least 30 and wounding dozens more. These examples illustrate the violence and death Christians face on a daily basis.”

“No one from any religious background should face persecution for their faith,” said Kelsey Zorzi, the director of global religious freedom at ADF International, which supports the resolution. “Yet year after year, Christians remain the most persecuted religious group worldwide, especially in many Muslim-majority countries. We applaud the resolution for recognizing this grave reality and urging U.S. action. When Christians are being killed, silenced, or driven underground, we cannot look the other way.” 

Moore also criticized past U.S. foreign policy. He cited the religiously-motivated violence in Iraq after America’s failure to stabilize the country after the 2003 invasion, stating: “Unfortunately, decades of U.S. foreign policy blunders have exacerbated this crisis.”

He then urged action, adding: “We as lawmakers cannot continue to sit idly by. I urge my colleagues to join me in condemning the persecution of Christians across the globe.”

Hawley, who introduced the same resolution in the U.S. Senate, echoed Moore’s call, emphasizing the foundational importance of religious liberty.

“Our country was founded on religious liberty. We cannot sit on the sidelines as Christians around the world are being persecuted for declaring Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior,” Hawley said, urging colleagues to join him in condemning the persecution of Christians around the world.

The resolution has garnered support from several lawmakers, with original cosponsors including Reps. Greg Steube, Michael Guest, Glenn Grothman, Addison McDowell, Brandon Gill, Pat Harrigan, and Anna Paulina Luna.

It is also endorsed by prominent organizations including Heritage Action for America, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, In Defense of Christians, Global Christian Relief, CatholicVote, Advancing American Freedom, Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE), Family Policy Alliance, Christians Engaged, and Save the Persecuted Christians.

Bishop Robert Barron speaks to tens of thousands of young people at a World Youth Day gathering in Lisbon, Portugal, Aug. 2, 2023. The event, hosted by the U.S. bishops’ conference, culminated in a Eucharistic procession and Holy Hour. / Credit: Nuria Chiccon/EWTN News

Vatican City, Jul 21, 2025 / 12:44 pm (CNA).

Bishop Robert Barron will deliver a keynote address to more than 3,500 young American pilgrims at a special event in Rome on July 30, part of the global Jubilee of Youth celebrations expected to draw more than 100,000 young people to the Eternal City.

The U.S. National Pilgrim Gathering at the Papal Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls is being organized by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and will include Eucharistic adoration, catechesis, and a procession with relics of 12 saints and blesseds significant to the American Church and Catholic youth.

Barron, the bishop of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, and chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth, will speak on what it means to be a missionary witness in today’s world.

Pilgrims will have the opportunity to walk through the basilica’s Holy Door, opened as part of the Catholic Church’s jubilee year observances, and to pray before the tomb of St. Paul.

Bishop Edward Burns of Dallas, who is the committee’s chairman-elect, will lead a Eucharistic Holy Hour during the three-hour evening event, which begins at 7 p.m. local time (1 p.m. ET). EWTN will broadcast the event and a livestream will also be available on the USCCB’s YouTube channel. U.S. dioceses are encouraging parishes to tune in with youth groups back home.

Barron, known for digital evangelization efforts through his Word on Fire media ministry, rose to prominence by leveraging online platforms like YouTube and Reddit to reach young Catholics and the religiously unaffiliated.

His keynote comes just one day after the close of the Jubilee of Digital Missionaries and Catholic Influencers, a parallel event in Rome featuring Jesuit Fathers David McCallum and Antonio Spadaro as speakers. Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle will also offer a Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica on July 29 for the young digital missionaries.

The Jubilee of Youth, running from July 28 to Aug. 3, includes a slate of spiritual and cultural events. Among them: a penitential day at Circus Maximus on Aug. 1, a massive prayer vigil at Tor Vergata on Aug. 2 led by Pope Leo XIV, and a closing Mass celebrated by the pope on Aug. 3.

Pilgrims will also be invited to participate in walking pilgrimages to sites linked to young saints, aided by digital maps on the EWTN Travel App. Stops include the tombs of St. Agnes, St. Cecilia, and St. Philip Neri, as well as relics that have been brought to the Eternal City for the jubilee, including the relics of Blessed Carlo Acutis, Blessed Ivan Merz, and the tomb of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati.

Other national groups are also marking the week with their own events. More than 1,000 South Korean pilgrims will gather for Mass at the Basilica of San Crisogono in Trastevere on July 31, celebrated by Cardinal Andrew Yeom Soo-jung, the archbishop emeritus of Seoul, with Auxiliary Bishop Paul Kyung-sang Lee of Seoul preaching the homily. The Archdiocese of Seoul will host the next World Youth Day with the pope in 2027.

The Canadian National Pilgrim Gathering will take place on July 29 at the Basilica of Sant’Andrea della Valle.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called Pope Leo XIV on Monday, July 21, 2025, to discuss the ongoing conflict in Gaza and the West Bank. / Credit: A Katz/Shutterstock

Rome Newsroom, Jul 21, 2025 / 11:47 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV spoke on the phone with President Mahmoud Abbas of Palestine, who called the pope on Monday morning regarding the conflict in Gaza and the West Bank. 

According to the Vatican, the Holy Father repeated his appeal for the protection of “civilians and sacred places” during his conversation with the Palestinian president. 

Besides reiterating his concern that international humanitarian law be “fully respected,” the pope specifically called for the prohibition of the “indiscriminate use of force” and the “forced transfer” of people in the region.

He also emphasized “the urgent need to provide assistance to those most vulnerable to the consequences of the conflict and to allow the adequate entry of humanitarian aid,” according to the Holy See Press Office. 

The Monday phone call between Leo and Abbas comes one day after Palestine’s president launched an international contact campaign to world leaders and international organizations to stop the destruction of Gaza and end the “crime of starvation” against its people.

In his statement published on Palestine’s official X account Monday, the president called for an end to “settler terrorism” and “attacks on Christian and Islamic holy sites in the West Bank, including Jerusalem.” 

The Vatican said the 10th anniversary of the “Comprehensive Agreement between the Holy See and the State of Palestine,” signed on June 26, 2015, was also discussed at the end of the conversation.

This month, religious leaders and diplomats representing 20 countries denounced acts of violence against Christians in the West Bank village of Taybeh after Israeli settlers set fire to the cemetery of the fifth-century Church of St. George Al Khidr on July 7.

Last week, an Israeli military operation led to the deaths of three people and wounded many others at the Holy Family Church compound in Gaza. Israel said the city’s only Catholic church was “mistakenly hit” and regretted the “unintentional damage” to the parish.

Both the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa and Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III Jerusalem led an ecclesiastical delegation to Taybeh on July 14 and Gaza on July 18 as a sign of solidarity with local communities.

According to the Palestinian government, approximately 59,000 people have been killed in Gaza, including more than 18,000 children and 10,000 women since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, 2023.

During a press conference held in Ramallah, West Bank, on Monday, Palestine’s prime minister Mohammad Mustafa said “Gaza has been turned into a graveyard for children.” 

“Our children are being targeted, killed, injured, starved to death, and deprived of the most basic rights: food, clean water, shelter, safety, and education,” Mustafa said. “Israel continues to use starvation as a weapon of war.”

The Poong Jesus Nazareno Filipino Catholic Center in Anaheim, California, is a first-of-its-kind Filipino Catholic center set to open in Anaheim, California, on July 21, 2025, offering a new spiritual and cultural landmark for Filipino Catholics in America’s most populous state. / Credit: Ian Tran/Diocese of Orange

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 21, 2025 / 11:00 am (CNA).

A first-of-its-kind Filipino Catholic center is set to open in Anaheim, California, offering a new spiritual and cultural landmark for Filipino Catholics in America’s most populous state.

Bishop Kevin Vann of the Diocese of Orange is scheduled to bless the opening of the Poong Jesus Nazareno Filipino Catholic Center Monday evening, marking the launch of what the diocese says is the only such dedicated Filipino Catholic center operating in the United States.

“I feel blessed and excited that so many people are taking part in our mission to bring the people closer to Our Lord with Mary at the foot of the cross,” said Father Peter Lavin, a priest affiliated with the Philippines-based Alagad ni Maria (Disciples of Mary) institute who will serve as director of the center.

Alagad ni Maria currently has eight priests ministering in the Diocese of Orange, where they have been present since 2005 at the invitation of then-Bishop Tod Brown.

The center occupies a 1.4-acre site previously used by a Vietnamese-language congregation of the Southern Baptist Convention. It includes a 180-seat chapel where Mass will be offered in English and Tagalog as well as classrooms, offices, a music room, a fellowship hall, and a kitchen. Plans are also underway to build a rectory for priests on site.

According to a statement from the diocese, the center will provide the Filipino Catholic community in Southern California with a dedicated space for faith formation and cultural education. 

“Having the center will grant the local Filipino Catholic community dedicated spaces to engage in promoting education on their cultural heritage and traditions, including dance and song,” the diocese said in a press release.

While part of the Diocese of Orange, the Poong Jesus Nazareno Filipino Catholic Center will be owned and operated by Alagad ni Maria. Its primary mission will be to serve as a cultural and spiritual hub for the estimated 90,000 Filipino Catholics in the region.

Alagad ni Maria acquired the property for $5.2 million, raising $2.1 million from about 500 donors. Two individuals each contributed $500,000, and the Diocese of Orange assisted in securing the loan.

“For many years, it has been a heartfelt dream of the Filipino community here in the Diocese of Orange to have a center of their own — a sacred space where they can gather in faith, grow in spiritual fellowship, and pass on the richness of their heritage, language, and customs to future generations,” said Father Angelos Sebastian, vicar general and moderator of the curia for the Diocese of Orange. “The recent decision to guarantee the loan for the purchase of their property in Anaheim was a tangible expression of the diocese’s deep gratitude and esteem for their ongoing ministry and presence.”

“Bishop Kevin Vann, together with the entire Diocese of Orange, joins in celebrating this historic milestone: the opening of the only Filipino Catholic center in the country,” he continued. “With heartfelt joy, we offer our warmest congratulations, our prayers, and our full support as this long-cherished vision becomes a reality.”

The Poong Jesus Nazareno Filipino Catholic Center will be the sixth cultural center within the Diocese of Orange. The other five are a Polish center in Yorba Linda, a Vietnamese center in Santa Ana, and Korean centers in Irvine, Westminster, and Anaheim. 

The center will house an official replica of the Poong Jesus Nazareno statue. The original statue, brought from Mexico to Manila in 1606, has millions of devotees worldwide. 

The center will also serve as the U.S. headquarters for Alagad ni Maria, which has maintained a presence in the Diocese of Orange since 2005.

Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki. / Credit: Archdiocese of Cologne

CNA Newsroom, Jul 21, 2025 / 09:32 am (CNA).

The Archdiocese of Cologne has dismissed as “obviously baseless” a canonical complaint filed against Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki by German abuse survivors to Pope Leo XIV, calling the allegations unfounded and built on “false assumptions.”

The archdiocese’s response came after the “Betroffenenbeirat” (Affected Advisory Board) of the German Bishops’ Conference submitted a formal Church law complaint to Pope Leo XIV on Friday.

The complaint claimed the cardinal violated his pastoral duties regarding sexual abuse cases, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.

“The accusations are obviously baseless and build — certainly unintentionally due to lack of better knowledge — on a series of false assumptions and claims,” the archdiocese stated in a response obtained by CNA Deutsch.

‘Retraumatizing’ for abuse survivors

The survivors’ advisory board said Woelki misled abuse victims about proper procedures and handled cases negligently. However, the archdiocese countered that recent investigations “were not conducted to clarify the handling of reports of possible sexual crimes, the reporting of perpetrators, and certainly not to work through abuse cases.”

The archdiocese also challenged the canonical complaint’s legal basis, arguing that since civil cases did not address abuse-handling procedures, “the application of the Church law norms mentioned in the letter is therefore completely out of the question.”

The statement also said that under German law, only courts — not prosecutors — can issue legally binding determinations and that no such findings had been made against Woelki.

The Betroffenenbeirat asserted it had “lost all confidence that under Cardinal Woelki’s leadership, abuse cases would be investigated without regard for the perpetrators.”

The board also described Woelki’s behavior as “retraumatizing” for abuse survivors.

The archdiocese dismissed additional allegations about negligent file handling and deception of survivors as vague accusations presented without documentation.

“These are also obviously baseless and decidedly to be rejected,” the statement concluded.

Advisory board structure and role

The complaint was submitted to Trier Bishop Stephan Ackermann, the senior bishop in Cologne’s ecclesiastical province, and addressed to Pope Leo XIV. The archdiocese noted that Woelki would have preferred the authors to engage in direct and open discussion with him.

The Betroffenenbeirat operates as an official advisory body to Germany’s bishops, established in 2019 to institutionalize survivor participation in Church abuse policies.

The 12-member board comprises individuals directly or indirectly affected by clerical sexual abuse and serves as an “expert committee” advising the German Bishops’ Conference on matters of sexual violence, according to its founding documents.

This story was first published by CNA Deutsch, CNA's German-language news partner, and has been translated and adapted by CNA.