NATION

LAFAYETTE, La. (OSV News) – Gov. Jeff Landry, R-La., vetoed $1 million in state funds for an emergency homeless shelter run by Catholic Charities of Acadiana over the organization’s work with migrants, he acknowledged in press statements. Landry, a Catholic, said that he vetoed the funds for the largest homeless shelter in Lafayette on the basis of his allegation that the shelter’s operator, Catholic Charities of Acadiana, facilitates illegal immigration, a charge the Catholic Church’s charitable arm denied. The move comes as some elected officials have grown increasingly hostile toward nongovernmental organizations, including Catholic ones, that provide resources such as food and shelter to migrants, including those at the U.S.-Mexico border. In July, a state judge denied Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s effort to shut down Annunciation House in El Paso, Texas, a Catholic nonprofit serving migrants, finding his office “failed to establish probable grounds for the proceedings” and violated the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act. In February, Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee for Religious Liberty, issued a statement expressing solidarity with faith-driven ministries to migrants, saying it was the “strong tradition of religious liberty” that allows Catholics “to live out our faith in full.”

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (OSV News) – The Knights of Columbus announced July 11 the organization will cover mosaics by ex-Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik at the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington and the Holy Family Chapel at the Knights’ headquarters in New Haven, Connecticut. In a statement, the Knights said the decision came at “the conclusion of a careful and thorough process.” The mosaics will be obscured by fabric “which will remain in place at least until the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) issues its decision on the pending sexual abuse cases against artist Father Marko Rupnik.” After that “a permanent plaster covering may be in order.” Father Rupnik, whose distinctive mosaics are known for their oversized black, almond-shaped eyes, was expelled from the Society of Jesus in 2023 after refusing to obey their measures imposed in response to credible accusations that he spiritually, psychologically or sexually abused some two dozen women and at least one man. He remains a priest living and working in Rome as the director of art and dean of theology at Centro Aletti, the religious art community he founded in 1991. Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly said in the statement that the Knights had to prioritize the needs of abuse victims, especially as “the allegations are current, unresolved and horrific.” He noted the Knights’ commitment to proclaim Jesus Christ’s Good News and said, “Shrines are places of healing, prayer and reconciliation. They should not cause victims further suffering.”

EXTON, Pa. (OSV News) – “The Bible in 10 Minutes,” a new viral video offering by Father Mike Schmitz and Ascension, earned 358,000 views in just 24 hours, according to a July 10 news release from Exton-based Ascension, a multimedia Catholic network and a leader in Catholic faith formation and digital content. The audience response makes this Father Schmitz’s most “viral video ever, more than doubling his previous one-day record of 160,000 views set with his 2022 review of ‘The Sound of Freedom,'” the release said. Father Schmitz, a priest of the Diocese of Duluth, Minnesota, has gained a national following for, among other things, his popular “The Bible in a Year” and “The Catechism in a Year” podcasts from Ascension. He will be a featured keynote speaker during the National Eucharistic Congress July 17-21 in Indianapolis. Father Schmitz and Mother Olga of the Sacred Heart, founder and servant mother of the Daughters of Mary of Nazareth in the Archdiocese of Boston, are scheduled to address the congress’s July 18 evening revival session 7-9:30 p.m. at Lucas Oil Stadium. “The Bible in 10 Minutes” can be found on the “Ascension Presents” YouTube channel.

VATICAN

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The working document for the October assembly of the Synod of Bishops on synodality called for responses to how all the baptized can better serve the Catholic Church and help heal humanity’s “deepest wounds.” The document said the synod should spur the church to become a “refuge” and “shelter” for those in need or distress and encourage Catholics to “allow themselves to be led by the Spirit of the Lord to horizons that they had not previously glimpsed” as brothers and sisters in Christ. “This is the ongoing conversion of the way of being the Church that the synodal process invites us to undertake,” the document said. The 30-page document, called an “instrumentum laboris,” was released at the Vatican July 9. It will serve as a discussion guideline for the synod’s second session Oct. 2-27, which reflects on the theme: “How to be a missionary synodal Church.” The reflections are the next step in the synod’s overarching theme: “For a synodal Church: communion, participation and mission.” Synodal practice “calls us to mutual care, interdependence and co-responsibility for the common good,” it said, and it is willing to listen to everyone, in contrast to methods “in which the concentration of power shuts out the voices of the poorest, the marginalized and minorities.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis prayed in thanksgiving for the release of two Ukrainian Catholic priests who were held in Russian captivity for more than 19 months, calling on Christians to pray for the release of all prisoners of war. “I give thanks to God for the freeing of the two Greek Catholic priests,” he said after praying the Angelus June 29, the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. “May all the prisoners of this war soon return home.” The pope expressed his sorrow for all people suffering because of war around the world, asking Christians to “pray for all populations wounded and threatened by fighting, that God may free them and support them in the struggle for peace.” The two priests, Redemptorist Fathers Ivan Levytsky and Bohdan Geleta, were arrested in the occupied city of Berdyansk Nov. 16, 2022, according to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which said that after military items were placed in a church in the town the two priests were arrested for the “illegal possession of weapons.” Fathers Levystky and Geleta were among 10 prisoners who were released to Ukrainian authorities, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote in a June 28 post on X. “I would also like to recognize the Holy See’s efforts to bring these people home,” the president said in his post.

WORLD

PARIS (OSV News) – The capital of France’s Normandy region held its breath on July 11 as reports and social media pictures spread that the Rouen Cathedral’s spire was on fire, causing the building to be evacuated. Around 70 firefighters brought the blaze under control in less than two hours, much to everyone’s relief. “In the end, there was more fear than harm,” Archbishop Dominique Lebrun of Rouen told OSV News on July 12. “Today, the cathedral is reopened,” he said. Rouen Cathedral is the tallest church in France. It was in Rouen that St. Joan of Arc was burned alive in 1431, during the Hundred Years’ War between France and England. As in Paris, the Seine River flows through the city. “The fire started inside the spire, right at the edge,” Archbishop Lebrun said. “But in the end it only burned a large plastic casing from the restoration work currently underway. The rest was untouched.” The origin of the fire, thought to be accidental, is not yet known. “I am very grateful to the entire rescue chain, including the sacristans, firefighters, contractors, police and civil authorities, who acted with great professionalism,” Archbishop Lebrun told OSV News. The spire of the cathedral, unlike Notre Dame’s in Paris, is made of cast iron, so the fire did not spread, but four construction site workers were injured by smoke inhalation and were psychologically shocked.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (OSV News) – The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem issued a strong condemnation after the Israeli military targeted a Catholic school in Gaza that killed four people, including a senior Hamas official. In a statement published July 7, the patriarchate said it was monitoring reports of a strike on Holy Family School, which “has, since the beginning of the war, been a place of refuge for hundreds of civilians.” “The Latin Patriarchate condemns, in the strongest terms, the targeting of civilians or any belligerent actions that fall short of ensuring that civilians remain outside the combat scene,” the statement read. The patriarchate called for a cease-fire agreement “that would put an immediate end to the horrifying bloodbath and humanitarian catastrophe in the region.” According to multiple news reports, including by The Associated Press, Israeli airstrikes took place overnight July 6-7 in Gaza, killing 13 Palestinians. The strike against Holy Family School, which was operating as a shelter, claimed the lives of four people, including Ihab al-Ghussein, Hamas’ undersecretary of labor. In a statement, Hamas mourned the death of al-Ghussein, whose wife and daughter were killed in strikes in the early days of the war, AP reported. Israeli military officials justified the attack on the school, arguing that the bombing struck a Hamas military building and a weapons-making facility “in the area of a school building.”

KYIV, Ukraine (OSV News) – A July 8 attack by Russia on a children’s hospital and other civilian targets throughout Ukraine is “a sin that cries out to heaven for revenge,” said the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. At least 42 have been killed and over 190 injured as Russian bombers pummeled Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and numerous cities throughout the nation with more than 40 missiles and guided aerial bombs. Among the sites struck was the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv, where two adults died and about 50 were injured, including seven children. Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, father and head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, released a July 8 statement denouncing the strike. “In the name of God, with all determination, we condemn this crime against humanity. … This is a sin that cries out to heaven for revenge,” he said. He noted that doctors, medical workers and volunteers bloodied in the strike were digging through the hospital’s wreckage “to save even those children whose hearts are beating there under the rubble.” “Today we cry with all the victims. Today we want to pray for all the dead … (and) wrap our Christian love around all the wounded,” said Major Archbishop Shevchuk. He concluded his statement with a prayer “for the protection and victory of the lives of our children and women.