NATION
MELVILLE, La. (OSV News) – Father Stephen Ugwu, the pastor of St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Melville, Louisiana, is stable and recovering following a July 13 attack with a machete. The priest is at a hospital being treated for lacerations to his head and body. According to local media reports, a man wielding a machete attacked the priest at the church’s campus after Father Ugwu declined the man’s request, leaving Father Ugwu with cuts on his head and body. Melville police arrested the attacker and assisted Father Ugwu, a priest from Nigeria serving the Diocese of Lafayette. The suspect, identified as Johnny Dwayne Neely, 58, of Palmetto, is in custody, according to St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office. He faces charges of attempted second-degree murder, hate crimes and home invasion and a bench warrant. Based on words used by the suspect, Melville Police Chief Phillip Lucas told local media that he believed the attack was racially motivated. Blue Rolfes, diocesan director of communications, told OSV News July 15 that Father Ugwu’s condition was improving. He has some “serious wounds,” she said, but he is receiving the care he needs, and doctors are optimistic about his recovery. “He feels blessed to be alive and that his God protected him during his time of need,” Rolfes said.

ST. MICHAELS, Ariz. (OSV News) – After a 5-4 Supreme Court decision struck a blow to the Navajo Nation’s request for federal assistance in securing water for the reservation June 22, Catholics who minister among Native Americans shared their thoughts on the historic water crisis facing the Southwest U.S. and the Indigenous populations who live there. “People line up at a community well and fill up their water containers to take out to their homesteads to be able to have water for their families for the week, sometimes for days. If it’s an older couple, it might last a little longer,” said Dot Teso, president of St. Michael Indian School in St. Michaels, Arizona – which was founded by St. Katharine Drexel in 1902. “You can imagine if you were going on a camping trip and you’re thinking about water for the trip – these people have to think of this every day.” Arizona v. Navajo Nation came before the Supreme Court when the Navajo Nation asked for the courts to require the federal government to identify the former’s water rights and needs and provide a way to meet those needs. Seeking to protect their own interest in access to the Colorado River, the states of Arizona, Colorado and Nevada intervened in the suit. While the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona dismissed the Navajos’ complaint, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision in their favor. Navajo Nation Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley in a statement the ruling “will not deter the Navajo Nation from securing the water that our ancestors sacrificed and fought for – our right to life and the livelihood of future generations.”

ST. PAUL, Minn. (OSV News) – An annual procession to Father Augustus Tolton’s gravesite in Illinois will be joined next year by pilgrims walking the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage en route to Indianapolis, the Diocese of Springfield’s worship director announced July 9. Father Daren Zehnle shared the news with more than 200 pilgrims who participated in this year’s procession from a parish in Quincy, Illinois, with ties to Father Tolton, to his gravesite almost a mile away. Father Tolton (1854-1897) is the first identifiable Black priest in the United States, and he was renowned not only for his holiness and preaching, but also for the considerable adversity he faced as a Black priest in the late 1800s. Pope Francis declared him “venerable” in 2019. Will Peterson, founder and president of Modern Catholic Pilgrim, the Minnesota-based nonprofit organizing the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, said Father Tolton is the first of six Black American Catholics on the path to canonization officially to be linked geographically to the national pilgrimage. He hopes others will be as well, as the national pilgrimage’s four routes will pass through cities where several of these “Saintly Six” lived and ministered, as pilgrims make their way to Indianapolis for the National Eucharistic Congress in July 2024.

VATICAN
ROME (OSV News) – Venerable Lucia was only 10 years old when she and her two cousins told their friends and family that they had seen the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima in 1917. Mary first appeared to Lucia, 9-year-old Francisco Marto and 7-year-old Jacinta Marto May 13, and the apparitions continued once a month until October 1917. The church has ruled that the apparitions and the messages from Our Lady of Fatima were worthy of belief. On June 22, Pope Francis declared Sister Lucia “venerable,” with a decree recognizing the Fatima visionary’s heroic virtues. Pope Benedict XVI waived the standard waiting period for Sister Lucia’s cause, opening it in 2008. The Diocese of Coimbra, Portugal, completed its investigation and forwarded documentation to the Holy See’s Congregation (since renamed Dicastery) for the Causes of Saints in 2017, the apparitions’ centennial year.

WORLD
KYIV, Ukraine (OSV News) – With Russia’s war on Ukraine now approaching its 10th year – and the full-scale invasion surpassing the 500-day mark – OSV News traveled to Kyiv to meet with Bishop Vitalii Kryvytskyi of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kyiv-Zhytomyr, who shared his reflections on the war’s spiritual impact. Air raid sirens, soldiers’ funerals and endless work hours have become routine as Ukraine carries on with daily life while fighting a war for global values and security, said the bishop. Grief and confusion can break “even people really close to God,” he admitted. At the same time, “war takes off all the masks” and ultimately, the persecution inflicted by Russia against Ukrainian faithful mysteriously “crystallizes faith and faithfulness to the Gospel,” said Bishop Kryvytskyi, adding that he has learned to simply be present to those in the depths of wartime suffering. “People sometimes expect priests to have answers to all the questions,” he said. “And now we understand that our greater task is to be with our flock, even if we do not have answers for the questions, even in our hearts.”

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (OSV News) – A group of Brazilian missionaries announced July 3 they have left their post in Nicaragua, becoming the latest community of women religious to leave the country, where some Catholics are facing increasing persecution by the government of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo. The Sisters Poor of Jesus Christ posted their statement on Facebook, announcing the community’s departure from Nicaragua and its arrival in El Salvador, along with photos showing sisters getting off a bus carrying a crucifix. “We want through this statement to express our gratitude for the seven years of mission in the lands of Nicaragua, we appreciate the welcome of the church and its people during that time in which our charism remained in the country serving the poor in their multiple facets,” said the statement posted in Spanish and Portuguese on the Fraternidade O Caminho page. The sisters’ announcement, reported by Global Sisters Report, came just ahead of Reuters reporting July 5 that Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa, Nicaragua – sentenced in February to 26 years after being accused of treason – had been released from prison late July 4. But Auxiliary Bishop Silvio José Baez of Managua, Nicaragua, who has been living in exile in Miami for some time, tweeted July 5 that he has received no information about Bishop Álvarez’s reported release. In news reports, Cardinal Leopoldo José Brenes of Managua denied July 5 that the bishop had been freed.

NATION
WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Prior to the first anniversary of a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its prior abortion precedent, pro-life activists lauded legislation passed in multiple states while advocating for additional support services for women and families facing unplanned pregnancies. The Supreme Court issued its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on June 24, 2022, undoing nearly a half-century of its own precedent on abortion as a constitutional right. The case involved a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks, in which the state directly challenged the high court’s previous abortion-related precedents in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Jeanne Mancini, March for Life president, told OSV News that the first post-Roe year has been “amazing in so many ways” in reducing abortion, but it also has introduced “an element of confusion.” The way forward, Mancini said, must be to “lean into this and do it with a lot of love” and also “emphasize the truth that pro-life is pro-woman, whether it’s the support of a pregnancy care center or funding support at the state level.”

GOWER, Mo. (OSV News) – Mother Abbess Cecilia Snell puts the number of pilgrims who in the past six weeks have flocked to her Benedictine abbey in rural Missouri between 10,000 and 15,000. It’s a conservative estimate, she said, of the droves of people who, at times, have waited hours in line to see the body of the community’s foundress, Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster. The Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles disinterred her remains April 28, four years after her death at age 95, and discovered a surprising lack of decay, leading to claims of her incorruptibility and potential for canonization. Most visitors are locals, or from Kansas City or St. Louis. Some, however, have traveled from Washington state, Maine, California and Florida, but also from as far as Canada, Colombia and India, Mother Cecilia said. “It was her relationship with Christ on the path (to) holiness that led her to greatness before him. She sends a message of the value of vocation, of charity and forgiveness, even through racial barriers, and that holiness is possible in our day. Quite a few people have said, ‘I knew her. This makes me realize that I can be holy too!’” Mother Cecilia said.

VATICAN
ROME (CNS) – Devotion to Marian apparitions should lead people to Jesus and not to a particular individual or community, Pope Francis said. In an interview with the Italian state television network, RAI, broadcast June 4, the pope said Marian apparitions are “an instrument of Marian devotion that is not always true” and may be used to focus on or promote an individual. “There have been true apparitions of Our Lady, but always with her finger like this, to Jesus” he said pointing outward, “never has Our Lady drawn (attention) toward herself when (the apparition) is true, she has always pointed to Jesus.” Pope Francis said that a Marian devotion that becomes “too centered on itself” and lacks guiding people to Jesus “is no good, be it in the person that has the devotion or those who carry it forward.” Through an observatory body overseen by the Pontifical International Marian Academy, the Vatican tracks alleged Marian apparitions around the world and studies their authenticity. During his upcoming trip to Portugal Aug. 2-6, Pope Francis will travel to a shrine honoring the apparitions at Fátima in which Mary appeared to three Portuguese children in 1917. Public devotion to Our Lady of Fátima was approved by the local bishop in 1930 and has since been promoted by the Vatican.

WORLD
BENIN CITY, Nigeria (OSV News) – The killing of Father Charles Igechi June 7 is further evidence of Christian persecution in Nigeria, church officials in the country say. The priest was on his way to St. Michael College, Ikhueniro, where he was assigned, when unidentified gunmen swooped in and shot him in the back. Archbishop Augustine Akubeze of Benin City said in a statement that the body of the priest was found in Ikpoba Hill, not far from Benin City, the capital and largest city of Edo state in southern Nigeria. In a June 8 condolence message, the archbishop reported “with deep sadness and sorrow in our hearts” the death of one of the priests of the archdiocese, Father Charles Onomhoale Igechi, who was ordained Aug. 13, 2022, and at the time of his death was vice principal of St. Michael College in Ikhueniro, Archbishop Akubeze asked for the faithful to pray “for the happy repose of his soul.” Josef Ishu, secretary of the Nigerian bishops’ conference Laity Office, told OSV News the killing of the priest is “the latest evidence of Christian persecution” in Nigeria.

KHERSON, Ukraine (OSV News) – Delivering aid in Ukraine’s flooded Kherson area has become a life-threatening task. Aid workers of Caritas and other organizations told OSV News they cannot go on rescue boats without bulletproof vests and military helmets, as Russian troops have continued to fire on civilian victims and rescuers. In some towns that are still under Russian occupation, sources say the situation is so dire that people die on their own rooftops. On June 6, damage to the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant in Kherson released some 4.3 cubic miles of water (a single cubic mile of water equals 1.1 trillion gallons) from the Kakhovka Reservoir, one of the world’s largest capacity reservoirs. Dozens of towns and villages along the Dnipro River have been flooded so far, with tens of thousands at flood risk, according to Ukrainian government officials. The Institute for the Study of War, based in Washington, has assessed that “the balance of evidence, reasoning, and rhetoric suggests that the Russians deliberately damaged the dam.” Father Piotr Rosochacki, director of Caritas-Spes Ukraine since 2015, told OSV News the flooded terrain is now being “regularly shelled” by Russian troops, lamenting the attacks as “never-ending.” He appealed to Catholics around the globe not to forget about Ukraine and not to become indifferent. “The water will go away and in a month, two, others will live their own lives and forget about the dam. But people here will remain without basics like drinking water,” he said, adding that long-term help is needed “so that those people can live again.”

NATION
WASHINGTON (OSV News) – The U.S. Supreme Court said April 21 it would block a lower court’s restrictions on an abortion pill, leaving the drug on the market while litigation over the drug proceeds. The court’s order was an apparent 7-2 vote, with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito publicly dissenting. The decision froze a lower court’s ruling to stay the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the drug. The Justice Department and a pharmaceutical company that manufactures the abortion pill mifepristone previously asked the Supreme Court to intervene in the case after an appeals court allowed portions of the ruling by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk to take effect. A coalition of pro-life opponents of mifepristone, the first of two drugs used in a medication or chemical abortion, had filed suit in an effort to revoke the FDA’s approval of the drug, arguing the government violated its own safety standards when it first approved the drug in 2000. However, proponents argued mifepristone poses statistically little risk to women using it for abortion early in pregnancy, and claim the drug is being singled out for political reasons. In an April 21 statement, President Joe Biden said he would continue “to stand by FDA’s evidence-based approval of mifepristone, and my Administration will continue to defend FDA’s independent, expert authority to review, approve, and regulate a wide range of prescription drugs.” On April 22, Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, called the Supreme Court’s interim order “a tremendous disappointment, both for the loss of innocent preborn life from chemical abortion, and for the danger that chemical abortion poses to women.”

SAN FRANCISCO (OSV News) – On the very day Elon Musk launched SpaceX rocket Starship on its ill-fated maiden voyage toward space, that final frontier, Musk’s company Twitter did boldly go purging blue verification check marks from users who had not signed up for its paid Twitter Blue service on April 20, including Pope Francis’ Twitter accounts. The nine papal Twitter accounts, first set up under Benedict XVI in 2012, tweet a daily message from the Holy Father in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Latin, French, Polish, Arabic and German. The Vatican press office, noting that the nine @Pontifex accounts have a total of more than 53 million followers, told CNS Rome April 21 it understood Twitter was changing some of its policies. But it added, “the Holy See trusts that they will include certification of the authenticity of accounts.” That same day, following the loss of its blue checkmark, each papal account received a new gray verification checkmark designating “a government or multilateral organization account.” Other religious entities and organizations that have lost their blue checkmark include the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, National Catholic Reporter, Catholic News Service Rome and Protestant televangelist Joel Osteen. There is now a triad of checkmark colors on Twitter. Blue marks mean an account has an active subscription to Twitter Blue, gold indicates an official business account through Twitter Verified Organizations, and gray indicates a government or multilateral organization. There also are affiliate account badges for each, as well as automated account labels for bots.

BALTIMORE (OSV News) – For every Dorothy Day – or St. Teresa of Kolkata, St. Oscar Romero or St. Pope John Paul II – there may be hundreds, even thousands, of anonymous potential saints who are not raised to the altars for a very simple reason: Their advocates just can not afford it. The sainthood process entails expenses for research, travel, translation and, if the cause progresses, beatification and canonization ceremonies. On average, costs total about $250,000 – with high-profile causes potentially topping $1 million. While ultimately conducted by the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, causes are typically initiated by a diocese, religious order or nonprofit lay group. The intricacies of the canonization process – with stages marked by the titles servant of God, venerable, blessed and saint – also poses a challenge for under-resourced dioceses. In addition to undisputed holiness, there is intense research, reams of paperwork, continuous fundraising, potential discrimination – and sometimes, a few unanticipated roadblocks. Ralph E. Moore Jr., a lifelong Catholic and African-American parishioner of St. Ann Catholic Church in Baltimore and a member of its Social Justice Committee, has organized a canonization letter writing campaign to Pope Francis, urging him to advance the sainthood causes of six African Americans, noting that a lack of finances has played a role in denying Black Catholics their own recognized saints.

VATICAN
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – At least three dozen women will be voting members of the assembly of the Synod of Bishops in October, Pope Francis has decided. In a decision formalized April 17, “the Holy Father approved the extension of participation in the synodal assembly to ‘non-bishops’ – priests, deacons, consecrated men and women, lay men and women,” the synod office said in a statement April 26. Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, relator general of the synod, told reporters that about 21% of the synod’s 370 members would not be bishops and at least half of that group would be women. Adding women and young people to the membership will make sure “the church is well represented” in the prayer and discussions scheduled for Oct. 4-29 at the Vatican, the cardinal said. “It will be a joy to have the whole church represented in Rome for the synod.” “As you can see, the space in the tent is being enlarged,” Cardinal Mario Grech, synod secretary-general, told reporters. “The Synod of Bishops will remain a synod of bishops,” Cardinal Grech said, but it will be “enriched” by representatives of the whole church.

WORLD
BERDYANSK, Ukraine (OSV News) – Russian forces have reportedly seized a Roman Catholic church in Ukraine, according to published accounts. The nonprofit, nonpartisan Institute for the Study of War (ISW) released an April 22 assessment stating that Viktoria Halitsina, head of the Ukrainian military administration of the port city of Berdyansk, wrote on her agency’s Telegram channel April 22 that Russian troops had seized the city’s Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In her post, Halitsina said that the church “was not only a religious community,” but a place where “the needy could receive support.” In November 2022, two priests based at the church, who served both Latin-rite Catholics and Ukrainian Catholics, were abducted, and their fates remain unknown. ISW noted April 9 that Russia has engaged in widespread religious persecution in Ukraine, targeting a number of Catholic, Christian and Islamic communities.

NAIROBI, Kenya (OSV News) – Catholic bishops in Kenya have expressed shock and strongly condemned the mass “starvation suicide” in Shakahola, a remote forest-ranch area in eastern Kenya, where a pastor led congregants to fast to death. Kenyan authorities still continue to retrieve bodies from shallow graves in the 800-acre ranch in Kilifi County near the town of Malindi. On April 27 the official death toll was 95. All victims were followers of the Good News International Church Pastor Paul Mackenzie. He told his followers to pray and fast to meet Jesus and that the world would end April 15. As families arrived in the town of Malindi in search of their relatives following the Shakahola tragedy, the Kenyan Red Cross Society in Kilifi County said April 26 that officials had recorded 322 missing persons. Some of the devastated families that arrived in Malindi had lost several relatives to the cult. “We condemn in the strongest terms possible, the cultic preaching orchestrated by (the) pastor … which induced his followers to fast to death,” said Archbishop Martin Kivuva Musonde of Mombasa, president of the Kenyan bishops’ conference, in a statement April 24.

NATION
BALTIMORE (OSV News) – The release of the Maryland Attorney General’s report on clergy sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore was a day of sorrow, Archbishop William E. Lori said in his first interview after the April 5 release. “It’s a day that I must face, and the archdiocese must face the enormity of this horrid legacy of sexual abuse. It is a day when my heart goes out to the victim-survivors, recognizing how many people have been harmed, and harmed very significantly,” he told the Catholic Review, the archdiocesan news outlet. He said that as he read the report, “just as a pastor of souls and as a Catholic,” he felt ”deep sadness” and “shame” and “felt sickened by the report.” Archbishop Lori said he spoke to some victim-survivors in the morning before the anticipated release, an opportunity for which he was grateful, as he has been for the many conversations he has had with victim-survivors over the years. He emphasized that there is no one currently in ministry in the archdiocese who has been credibly accused of abuse. The church began to change decades ago, the archbishop said, and in hearing the voices of victim-survivors, has steadily taken “really important steps to root sexual abuse out of our ranks,” including zero tolerance and removal from ministry of anyone credibly accused of abuse; creating safe environments within parishes and schools to keep young people safe; reporting “any and every allegation” to authorities; offering counseling to victims; and settlements “where desired.”

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (OSV News) – At least five people were killed and eight were injured in a shooting at Old National Bank in downtown Louisville, Ky., on April 10, local police said. That shooting followed another mass shooting where six people, including three children, were killed at a Nashville school two weeks earlier on March 27. Both mass shootings are just some of the violent events with multiple casualties involving guns, that have taken place in the U.S. A public policy response to gun violence from a Catholic perspective should prioritize the common good, theologians and church leaders told OSV News. Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller of San Antonio in whose diocese is Uvalde, where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers last year, has emerged in the wake of the tragedy as an advocate for more gun control. He told OSV News that gun violence is tied to a host of other signs of an acceptance of violence in the culture, from abortion, to domestic violence, to a lack of regard for the immigrant, to failing to care for creation. Archbishop García-Siller said the U.S. bishops have called for gun ownership regulations – banning civilian ownership of tactical-style semi-automatic weapons, eliminating high capacity magazines, and extending universal background checks – because “people are really suffering.” He said, “We have the teaching of Jesus about being peacemakers. We have to continue advocating, to continue promoting justice, to promote behavior that goes more along with our dignity.”

VATICAN
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Vatican’s chief prosecutor said Pope Francis has given him free rein to investigate the 1983 disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, a 15-year-old Vatican resident. The case has fueled conspiracy theories for close to 40 years and inspired a Netflix series in 2022. Alessandro Diddi, the Vatican prosecutor, told Corriere della Sera, an Italian newspaper, that the pope and Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, have an “iron will” to shed whatever light is possible on what happened to Orlandi, the daughter of a Vatican employee, who vanished in Rome June 22, 1983. Diddi’s interview with Corriere della Sera was published April 11, the same day Pietro Orlandi, Emanuela’s brother, met with Diddi and other Vatican prosecutors for more than eight hours. It was their first meeting since Diddi opened a new file on the case in January at Orlandi’s request. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Orlandi said that in 40 years he had “never been questioned so thoroughly” on the case, but the meeting also gave him an opportunity to discuss “the most important things that have come out in these 40 years.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis has chosen “His mercy is from age to age,” a passage from the Gospel of Luke, as the theme for the 2023 celebration of the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly. On the world day, which will be celebrated July 23, Pope Francis will celebrate Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, according to the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life. Pope Francis chose the theme to tie the celebration of the World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly to World Youth Day, which will be celebrated just over a week later, in Lisbon, Portugal, the dicastery said. The theme for the youth gathering Aug. 1-6 is “Mary arose and went with haste” from Luke 1:39, the dicastery said, and it describes how Mary sets out to visit her elderly cousin Elizabeth and “proclaims, in the Magnificat, the strength of the alliance between young and old. ”Pope Francis celebrated the first World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly in 2021 and decreed that it be observed each year on the Sunday closest to the feast of Sts. Joachim and Anne, Jesus’ grandparents.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis confirmed he will travel to Mongolia in September, becoming the first pope to visit the Asian nation, which is home to a cardinal and some 1,300 Catholics. In an audience April 14 with executives and staff of ITA Airways, the airline that has taken the pope on his international trips since 2021, he said that he will visit Mongolia, a country sandwiched between Russia and China, after traveling to Hungary in late April and Marseille, France, in September. During an airborne news conference on his return flight from South Sudan in February, the pope told journalists there was a “possibility that from Marseille I will fly to Mongolia.” To the airline workers, Pope Francis said that “God willing” he will leave for his 41st apostolic trip, traveling to Hungary April 28-30 “and then there will be Marseille and Mongolia, and all the others that are on the waiting list.” In August 2022, Pope Francis named Italian Bishop Giorgio Marengo, apostolic prefect of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, to be the first cardinal based in Mongolia. The cardinal, 48, is the youngest member of the College of Cardinals.

WORLD
JERUSALEM (OSV News) – A British-Israeli mother and her two daughters were killed in a drive-by-shooting terrorist attack in the Jordan valley on April 7, during a week that, instead of seeing the holidays of Passover, Easter and Ramadan celebrated in parallel peacefully, spiraled the region into violence. Rina, 15, and Maia, 20, Dee died at the scene of the attack while their mother Lucy, 48, died of her wounds on April 10. Following the Jordan valley attack, an Italian tourist identified as Alessandro Parini, 36 – in Israel for the Easter holiday – was killed in what Israeli police have said was a car-ramming terrorist attack on a beach promenade in Tel Aviv which left one other Italian and three British nationals among the injured. The attacks were spurred on by an Israeli police raid into Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque compound in the early morning of April 5, and is on a site known to Jews as the “Temple Mount.” Israel police also issued a statement saying they had completed their “extensive…work” in preparation for the Orthodox Holy Fire ceremony on April 15, following coordination meetings with heads of churches. The fire hazard security regulations imposed by Israeli police on the ceremony, and the way in which it is enforced, is always a point of contention. It imposes restrictions on the number of faithful who can attend the ceremony, which sees the holy fire brought forth from the traditional tomb of Jesus inside Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

PARIS (OSV News) – Notre Dame Cathedral will get its spire back by the end of 2023, more than four years after it was devastated by a fire. But to reopen by its deadline of Dec. 8, 2024, the cathedral, a beloved symbol of France, needs to meet three conditions, currently in the works. This includes cleaning and restoration of the interior of the building; restoration of masonry and collapsed vaults; and working to restore the missing spire and frameworks, which, according to the newest statement from the “Rebuild Notre Dame” committee, “is in progress, both on the Ile de la Cité and in the workshop.” More than 1,000 people, spread throughout France, are working simultaneously on the revival of the masterpiece of Gothic art that Notre Dame is, including nearly 500 workers, craftsmen and supervisors who are currently working on the building site, inside the cathedral. Notre Dame also attracted an unprecedented surge of generosity in the history of French philanthropy, with 340,000 donors from 150 countries raising $929 million in donations.

ABUJA, Nigeria (OSV News) – At least 52,250 people have been killed over the last 14 years in Nigeria just for being Christian, a new report published April 10 revealed. The report, titled “Martyred Christians in Nigeria” and published by the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), says 30,250 of those killed were killed since 2015, when President Muhhamadu Buhari came to power. The report blames what it calls Buhari’s radical Islamism for those killings. Approximately 34,000 moderate Muslims were also butchered or hacked to death within the same period. The sheer number of Christians and moderate Muslims killed or displaced has sent chills down the spines of many, including Andrew Boyd, spokesman for Release International, which serves the persecuted church in some 30 countries. He described the report’s finding as “a staggering death toll.” “It is absolutely appalling that so many Christians are being targeted for their faith and killed in Nigeria, while the Nigerian government seems to stand by and let it happen. It is no less appalling that the international community appears content to stay on the sidelines and watch,” he told OSV News. Meanwhile, Aid to the Church in Need, in its own report, has given voice to the thousands of Christians persecuted for their faith in Nigeria.