Posted on 06/20/2025 17:11 PM (CNA Daily News - Vatican)
Pope Leo greets pilgrims during the Jubilee of Families, Children, Grandparents, and the Elderly on Sunday, June 1, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, Jun 20, 2025 / 13:11 pm (CNA).
Members of Italy’s local and national governments will be the main participants in events for the Catholic Church’s Jubilee of Government Leaders on June 21–22, part of the wider Jubilee of Hope.
According to the Vatican, the weekend’s events mix government and Church initiatives, including a pilgrimage through the Holy Door on June 21 followed by a meeting on “ecological debt” hosted by Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri at city hall. The event will include a keynote by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin.
The Vatican has not yet confirmed if Leo will hold a jubilee audience with participants on Saturday morning, as he did last weekend, and as Pope Francis did twice before his hospitalization in mid-February.
In addition to members of Italy’s Chamber of Deputies and Senate, Italian mayors and regional counsellors are expected to participate in one or more events. Ambassadors to the Holy See and representatives from other countries will also attend.
The area just outside St. Peter’s Square will transform into an open-air concert venue on the evening of June 21. The “Harmonies of Hope” concert will feature musicians from the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Venezuela, Switzerland, Italy, and Japan.
The U.S. musician taking part is Brad Mehldau, a 54-year-old jazz pianist and composer from Jacksonville, Florida.
On Sunday, June 22, jubilee participants will be able to attend Pope Leo XIV’s Angelus from a reserved area. Attendees are also invited to join the pope’s Mass for the solemnity of Corpus Christi to be celebrated at the Basilica of St. John Lateran and which will be followed by a Eucharistic procession through the streets to the Basilica of St. Mary Major.
During the Jubilee of Government Leaders, one of the largest groups to participate in the Holy Door pilgrimage will be employees of Italy’s national welfare agency, INPS (Istituto Nazionale Della Previdenza Sociale).
The paragovernmental entity, which employs approximately 25,000 people throughout Italy, is participating in the Catholic Church’s jubilee year with a pilgrimage through the Holy Door and Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on June 21 as an event to bring employees together.
Diego De Felice, the institute’s director of communications, told CNA around 4,000 INPS employees and their family members will participate.
According to De Felice, the welfare agency “espouses a positive vision of the intervention of the state for the purposes of social justice,” and this approach, even though secular, is “close to what the social doctrine of the Church professes.”
This week, in anticipation of the jubilee, the Italian Parliament hosted a conference on interreligious dialogue with the participation of religious and civil society leaders, and delegations from 60 countries. Archbishop Rino Fisichella, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, spoke at the opening of the conference on June 19.
Posted on 06/20/2025 17:11 PM (CNA Daily News)
Pope Leo greets pilgrims during the Jubilee of Families, Children, Grandparents, and the Elderly on Sunday, June 1, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, Jun 20, 2025 / 13:11 pm (CNA).
Members of Italy’s local and national governments will be the main participants in events for the Catholic Church’s Jubilee of Government Leaders on June 21–22, part of the wider Jubilee of Hope.
According to the Vatican, the weekend’s events mix government and Church initiatives, including a pilgrimage through the Holy Door on June 21 followed by a meeting on “ecological debt” hosted by Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri at city hall. The event will include a keynote by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin.
The Vatican has not yet confirmed if Leo will hold a jubilee audience with participants on Saturday morning, as he did last weekend, and as Pope Francis did twice before his hospitalization in mid-February.
In addition to members of Italy’s Chamber of Deputies and Senate, Italian mayors and regional counsellors are expected to participate in one or more events. Ambassadors to the Holy See and representatives from other countries will also attend.
The area just outside St. Peter’s Square will transform into an open-air concert venue on the evening of June 21. The “Harmonies of Hope” concert will feature musicians from the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Venezuela, Switzerland, Italy, and Japan.
The U.S. musician taking part is Brad Mehldau, a 54-year-old jazz pianist and composer from Jacksonville, Florida.
On Sunday, June 22, jubilee participants will be able to attend Pope Leo XIV’s Angelus from a reserved area. Attendees are also invited to join the pope’s Mass for the solemnity of Corpus Christi to be celebrated at the Basilica of St. John Lateran and which will be followed by a Eucharistic procession through the streets to the Basilica of St. Mary Major.
During the Jubilee of Government Leaders, one of the largest groups to participate in the Holy Door pilgrimage will be employees of Italy’s national welfare agency, INPS (Istituto Nazionale Della Previdenza Sociale).
The paragovernmental entity, which employs approximately 25,000 people throughout Italy, is participating in the Catholic Church’s jubilee year with a pilgrimage through the Holy Door and Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on June 21 as an event to bring employees together.
Diego De Felice, the institute’s director of communications, told CNA around 4,000 INPS employees and their family members will participate.
According to De Felice, the welfare agency “espouses a positive vision of the intervention of the state for the purposes of social justice,” and this approach, even though secular, is “close to what the social doctrine of the Church professes.”
This week, in anticipation of the jubilee, the Italian Parliament hosted a conference on interreligious dialogue with the participation of religious and civil society leaders, and delegations from 60 countries. Archbishop Rino Fisichella, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, spoke at the opening of the conference on June 19.
Posted on 06/20/2025 16:41 PM (CNA Daily News)
Pope Leo XIV delivers his homily during the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity and the Jubilee of Sport on June 15, 2025, in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
Vatican City, Jun 20, 2025 / 12:41 pm (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV on Friday declared 174 new martyrs, including 50 French Catholics who died in Nazi concentration camps during World War II and more than 100 Spanish priests killed during the Spanish Civil War.
In a decree signed on June 20, the pope also recognized a medical miracle that occurred in 2007 in a Rhode Island hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit through the heavenly intercession of a 19th-century Spanish priest, Father Salvador Valera Parra, making possible his future beatification.
The French martyrs declared Friday died between 1944 and 1945, many after being arrested by the Nazi regime for their ministry and resistance efforts under German occupation.
Among them were Father Raimond Cayré, a 28-year-old diocesan priest who died of typhus in Buchenwald in October 1944; Father Gerard Martin Cendrier, a 24-year-old Franciscan who perished in the same camp in January 1945; Roger Vallée, a 23-year-old seminarian who died in Mauthausen in October 1944; and Jean Mestre, a 19-year-old lay member of the Young Christian Workers, who was killed in Gestapo custody in May 1944.
They were part of a broader network of clergy, religious, and Catholic laity (particularly laity affiliated with Catholic Action movements) who clandestinely accompanied French forced laborers into Germany after the Vichy regime’s Service du Travail Obligatoire was enacted in 1943. Some were tortured and killed by the Nazis because of their apostolate in Germany, while others died “ex aerumis caceris,” or because of their suffering in prison.
Most of the 50 martyrs died in camps like Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Dachau, and Zöschen, often succumbing to typhus, tuberculosis, or brutal execution. They included four Franciscans, nine diocesan priests, three seminarians, 14 Catholic Scouts, 19 members of the Young Christian Workers, and one Jesuit.
The majority of these French martyrs (more than 80%) were under the age of 30 when they died. The youngest of the Catholics Scouts, aged 21 and 22, were both executed — one by gunfire at Buchenwald and the other by beheading in Dresden in 1944.
According to the Vatican, their persecution was rooted in “odium fidei,” or hatred of the faith. The martyrs’ “apostolic action” and their willingness to die rather than abandon their spiritual duties were seen as a direct affront to the totalitarian and anti-Christian ideology of the Nazi regime.
The pope also declared 124 martyrs from the Spanish Civil War, all from the Diocese of Jaén, killed between 1936 and 1938. They included 109 diocesan priests, one religious sister, and 14 lay Catholics.
The Vatican Dicastery for the Causes of Saints divided them into two martyr groups for their records: Father Manuel Izquierdo Izquierdo and 58 companions and Father Antonio Montañés Chiquero and 64 companions.
Their martyrdom occurred in the context of widespread anticlerical violence during Spain’s civil war, when many revolutionaries, fueled by atheist propaganda, desecrated churches and executed religious leaders. According to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, their deaths, marked by “anti-religious and anti-Christian sentiments” of the guerrillas, fit the Church’s criteria for martyrdom in “odium fidei.”
In response to the news, Bishop Sebastián Chico Martínez of Jaén said: “These lands have been blessed and watered throughout the centuries of Christianity by the blood and witness of martyrs … their sowing has been fruitful in new Christians and will continue to be so.”
The martyrs from the Diocese of Jaén are the latest of a total of more than 2,000 martyrs from the Spanish Civil War already recognized by the Church and beatified under the pontificates of John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis.
The new Spanish martyrs’ beatification ceremony will take place in Jaén on a date to be determined.
The pope also approved a miraculous healing attributed to the intercession of Father Salvador Valera Parra, a 19th-century Spanish priest known for his charity during epidemics and natural disasters in Almería. He can now be beatified, thanks to an inexplicable healing that occurred in Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 2007.
Born in 1816, Valera Parra had a childhood marked by profound faith. When his father died, 13-year-old Salvador was seen kneeling before the body reciting the Divine Office alone. The Spanish diocesan priest is remembered for many works of charity, including founding, along with St. Teresa Jornet, a home for the elderly.
The miracle involved a premature infant named Tyquan who was delivered by emergency cesarean section after complications during labor in 2007. Born without signs of life and suffering from severe oxygen deprivation, the baby showed no improvement after an hour. The attending Spanish physician, a devotee of Servant of God Salvador Valera Parra, prayed for his intercession. Moments later, the child’s heart began to beat.
Despite doctors’ expectations of lifelong neurological damage, Tyquan developed normally, growing into a healthy, active child.
In the audience with Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, the prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, Pope Leo XIV also recognized the heroic virtue of four individuals, declaring them venerable. They are:
— João Luiz Pozzobon (1904–1985), a Brazilian deacon and father of seven known for his Marian devotion and founding the Schoenstatt Movement’s Pilgrim Mother Rosary Campaign, which is now present in more than 100 countries
— Anna Fulgida Bartolacelli (1923–1993), an Italian laywoman who suffered from dwarfism and rickets and was a consecrated member of the Silent Workers of the Cross, living a life of hidden sanctity and service to the sick
— Raffaele Mennella (1877–1898), a young Italian cleric of the Missionaries of the Sacred Hearts, who died of tuberculosis at the age of 21
— Teresa Tambelli (1884–1964), a Daughter of Charity known for her long ministry to the poor in Cagliari, Italy
Posted on 06/20/2025 16:41 PM (CNA Daily News - Vatican)
Pope Leo XIV delivers his homily during the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity and the Jubilee of Sport on June 15, 2025, in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
Vatican City, Jun 20, 2025 / 12:41 pm (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV on Friday declared 174 new martyrs, including 50 French Catholics who died in Nazi concentration camps during World War II and more than 100 Spanish priests killed during the Spanish Civil War.
In a decree signed on June 20, the pope also recognized a medical miracle that occurred in 2007 in a Rhode Island hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit through the heavenly intercession of a 19th-century Spanish priest, Father Salvador Valera Parra, making possible his future beatification.
The French martyrs declared Friday died between 1944 and 1945, many after being arrested by the Nazi regime for their ministry and resistance efforts under German occupation.
Among them were Father Raimond Cayré, a 28-year-old diocesan priest who died of typhus in Buchenwald in October 1944; Father Gerard Martin Cendrier, a 24-year-old Franciscan who perished in the same camp in January 1945; Roger Vallée, a 23-year-old seminarian who died in Mauthausen in October 1944; and Jean Mestre, a 19-year-old lay member of the Young Christian Workers, who was killed in Gestapo custody in May 1944.
They were part of a broader network of clergy, religious, and Catholic laity (particularly laity affiliated with Catholic Action movements) who clandestinely accompanied French forced laborers into Germany after the Vichy regime’s Service du Travail Obligatoire was enacted in 1943. Some were tortured and killed by the Nazis because of their apostolate in Germany, while others died “ex aerumis caceris,” or because of their suffering in prison.
Most of the 50 martyrs died in camps like Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Dachau, and Zöschen, often succumbing to typhus, tuberculosis, or brutal execution. They included four Franciscans, nine diocesan priests, three seminarians, 14 Catholic Scouts, 19 members of the Young Christian Workers, and one Jesuit.
The majority of these French martyrs (more than 80%) were under the age of 30 when they died. The youngest of the Catholics Scouts, aged 21 and 22, were both executed — one by gunfire at Buchenwald and the other by beheading in Dresden in 1944.
According to the Vatican, their persecution was rooted in “odium fidei,” or hatred of the faith. The martyrs’ “apostolic action” and their willingness to die rather than abandon their spiritual duties were seen as a direct affront to the totalitarian and anti-Christian ideology of the Nazi regime.
The pope also declared 124 martyrs from the Spanish Civil War, all from the Diocese of Jaén, killed between 1936 and 1938. They included 109 diocesan priests, one religious sister, and 14 lay Catholics.
The Vatican Dicastery for the Causes of Saints divided them into two martyr groups for their records: Father Manuel Izquierdo Izquierdo and 58 companions and Father Antonio Montañés Chiquero and 64 companions.
Their martyrdom occurred in the context of widespread anticlerical violence during Spain’s civil war, when many revolutionaries, fueled by atheist propaganda, desecrated churches and executed religious leaders. According to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, their deaths, marked by “anti-religious and anti-Christian sentiments” of the guerrillas, fit the Church’s criteria for martyrdom in “odium fidei.”
In response to the news, Bishop Sebastián Chico Martínez of Jaén said: “These lands have been blessed and watered throughout the centuries of Christianity by the blood and witness of martyrs … their sowing has been fruitful in new Christians and will continue to be so.”
The martyrs from the Diocese of Jaén are the latest of a total of more than 2,000 martyrs from the Spanish Civil War already recognized by the Church and beatified under the pontificates of John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis.
The new Spanish martyrs’ beatification ceremony will take place in Jaén on a date to be determined.
The pope also approved a miraculous healing attributed to the intercession of Father Salvador Valera Parra, a 19th-century Spanish priest known for his charity during epidemics and natural disasters in Almería. He can now be beatified, thanks to an inexplicable healing that occurred in Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 2007.
Born in 1816, Valera Parra had a childhood marked by profound faith. When his father died, 13-year-old Salvador was seen kneeling before the body reciting the Divine Office alone. The Spanish diocesan priest is remembered for many works of charity, including founding, along with St. Teresa Jornet, a home for the elderly.
The miracle involved a premature infant named Tyquan who was delivered by emergency cesarean section after complications during labor in 2007. Born without signs of life and suffering from severe oxygen deprivation, the baby showed no improvement after an hour. The attending Spanish physician, a devotee of Servant of God Salvador Valera Parra, prayed for his intercession. Moments later, the child’s heart began to beat.
Despite doctors’ expectations of lifelong neurological damage, Tyquan developed normally, growing into a healthy, active child.
In the audience with Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, the prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, Pope Leo XIV also recognized the heroic virtue of four individuals, declaring them venerable. They are:
— João Luiz Pozzobon (1904–1985), a Brazilian deacon and father of seven known for his Marian devotion and founding the Schoenstatt Movement’s Pilgrim Mother Rosary Campaign, which is now present in more than 100 countries
— Anna Fulgida Bartolacelli (1923–1993), an Italian laywoman who suffered from dwarfism and rickets and was a consecrated member of the Silent Workers of the Cross, living a life of hidden sanctity and service to the sick
— Raffaele Mennella (1877–1898), a young Italian cleric of the Missionaries of the Sacred Hearts, who died of tuberculosis at the age of 21
— Teresa Tambelli (1884–1964), a Daughter of Charity known for her long ministry to the poor in Cagliari, Italy
Posted on 06/20/2025 14:29 PM (CNA Daily News)
Sister Maria Zhang made her perpetual vows as an Augustinian Recollect on May 13, 2025. / Credit: Diocese of Salamanca
Madrid, Spain, Jun 20, 2025 / 10:29 am (CNA).
Sister Maria Zhang Yue Chun made her perpetual vows on May 13 at the convent of the Augustinian Recollects in Vitigudino, Salamanca province, Spain. Her prioress, Sister Berta, said she is “an example” for her community.
Born in Shangqiu, Henan province, China, Maria lived without any connection to Catholicism. She was married and took care of her five children. During a serious illness, however, the support provided to her by a community of active Augustinian Recollects opened her eyes to the faith.
On July 1, 2007, she was baptized along with her four daughters. Her husband and son followed in her footsteps at Christmas that year. The following year, Maria was widowed. One by one, her daughters joined a community of Augustinian nuns who have had a presence in the Asian country since 1931. This past April 25, her only son was ordained an Augustinian priest.
Ever since her husband’s death, Maria felt a strong calling to live her faith more radically as a contemplative nun. However, in China, the Augustinian nuns do not have a community of this nature.
Thus, in 2015, Maria left her native country ready to fulfill the vocation to which she was being called. She was especially helped in this endeavor by one of her daughters, who is also part of an Augustinian community in Spain.
But it wasn’t easy. Despite her family background full of considerable and evident spiritual merits, various communities turned her down, primarily due to her age (56 at the time) and because she didn’t know Spanish.
However, with the support of a Chinese priest and making use of an electronic translator, she arrived at the Vitigudino convent. The prioress, Sister Berta Feijó, recounted to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, what that first contact was like when she was allowed to experience religious life within the convent.
“Little by little, she learned the essentials for our contemplative life and adapted,” Sister Berta said. “What we observed in her is that she was always smiling and happy.”
The prioress, originally from Peru, said Sister Maria “is an example for the community of a dedicated life, of recollection, of a sisterhood also because she is eager to serve,” especially the older sisters of the convent, all of whom are in their 90s.
The community currently consists of 16 sisters from four different continents: Five are Spanish, seven are from Tanzania, and the rest are from Guatemala, Peru, Venezuela, and China.
Despite the obvious language difficulties, Sister Berta recalled that Sister Maria was determined: “She never flinched, she never seemed sad, nor did she ever complain about anything, always happy to this day.” So much so that the first thing she learned to say in Spanish was that “she’s happy.”
Maria took the white veil for novices in 2017 and three years later made her temporary vows in a ceremony accompanied by one of her daughters, Sister Maria Sun Shen, who sang to the Virgin in her native language at the end of the Mass.
This past May 13, after publicly expressing her total devotion and invoking the saints with the litany, Sister Maria prostrated herself on the floor as a sign of humility while two sisters covered her with rose petals.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Posted on 06/20/2025 14:29 PM (Catholic News Agency)
Sister Maria Zhang made her perpetual vows as an Augustinian Recollect on May 13, 2025. / Credit: Diocese of Salamanca
Madrid, Spain, Jun 20, 2025 / 10:29 am (CNA).
Sister Maria Zhang Yue Chun made her perpetual vows on May 13 at the convent of the Augustinian Recollects in Vitigudino, Salamanca province, Spain.
Posted on 06/20/2025 13:29 PM (CNA Daily News)
Bishop Anthony Ireland was appointed the new archbishop of Hobart in Tasmania, Australia, on June 20, 2025. / Credit: Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference
CNA Newsroom, Jun 20, 2025 / 09:29 am (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV has appointed Bishop Anthony Ireland, auxiliary bishop of Melbourne, Australia, as the new archbishop of Hobart, marking the second major Australian archdiocesan appointment this week following the naming of Bishop Shane Mackinlay to Brisbane on June 19.
The 68-year-old Ireland will succeed Archbishop Julian Porteous, who is retiring after nearly 12 years leading Tasmania’s Catholic community.
The appointment was announced Friday by the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
“With a heart full of quiet joy, I have received the news of this appointment, humbled and grateful for the trust placed in me to shepherd a diocese,” Ireland said in a statement.
“As a parish priest, I found deep fulfillment in the pastoral relationships formed through shared faith and mission. I now look forward with great hope to walking that same path of grace with the people of Tasmania.”
Born and raised in Melbourne, Ireland studied for the priesthood at Corpus Christi College, a regional seminary. Ordained in 1987, he served across several parishes in the Melbourne Archdiocese.
The archbishop-elect pursued advanced theological studies in Rome beginning in 1990 and earned higher degrees in both moral and spiritual theology. He completed doctoral studies at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas.
The Australian prelate held teaching roles at Catholic Theological College in East Melbourne, where he lectured in moral theology and served as head of the Department of Moral and Practical Theology for eight years.
Archbishop Timothy Costelloe, SDB, president of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, praised the appointment, highlighting Ireland’s “considerable experience also in parish ministry and the ministry of health care” as well as his academic and spiritual formation roles.
“The archbishop-elect’s experience in the Archdiocese of Melbourne will stand him in good stead as he takes up the new challenge of pastoral leadership in the Archdiocese of Hobart,” Costelloe said, noting that Ireland’s episcopal motto — “Confirm, strengthen, and support” — would be warmly welcomed by Tasmania’s Catholic community.
While an official installation date has not been announced, sources in the archdiocese indicate Ireland will be installed as archbishop in the coming weeks.
Posted on 06/20/2025 11:34 AM (U.S. Catholic)
After drafting my first formal memoir, You Lied to Me About God: A Memoir (North Atlantic Books), I shared it with one of my assistants, Katie Dougherty Zuercher, to proofread. Her first comment brought a smile to my face: “What if we all wrote our memoirs simply to share them with others in our lives? To […]
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Posted on 06/20/2025 11:31 AM (U.S. Catholic)
For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women) Japanese Breakfast (Dead Oceans, 2025) Japanese Breakfast rocketed into our music world in 2013. Founder/vocalist/guitarist Michelle Zauner formed the group as a side project, naming it after a GIF animation. A year later, she moved home to care for her dying mother, and the indie pop Japanese Breakfast became […]
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Posted on 06/20/2025 10:00 AM (CNA Daily News - US)
The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Linz, Austria, is the largest church building in that country. / Credit: Dein Freund der Baum, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 20, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).
Here’s a roundup of Catholic world news from the past week that you might have missed:
The Catholic Church in Austria is recording a positive trend in priestly ordinations for 2025, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.
At least 26 men have been ordained priests across Austrian dioceses, a Kathpress survey estimated, though the number could be much higher. Over the past decade, the average number of ordinations has been 22 per year.
The Christian presence in the Holy Land, already a dwindling minority, is under unprecedented threat amid ongoing regional conflicts, reported ACI MENA, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner. With the Gaza war still raging and tensions between Israel and Iran escalating this month, Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem, East Jerusalem, and Gaza are facing mounting hardship.
According to ACI MENA, Bethlehem’s economy has cratered, forcing dozens of hotels and shops to close, while in Gaza, the Christian population has halved since October 2023, with churches damaged and civilians killed while sheltering inside. Church leaders warn of a “silent, systematic displacement” as political instability and economic collapse push Christian families to emigrate. Sami El-Yousef of the Latin Patriarchate said remote operations have resumed post-crisis, but the humanitarian need has soared.
The passing of Chaldean Bishop Paul Thabet Habib Yousif Al Mekko of Alqosh, Iraq, has brought renewed focus to the suffering of Iraq’s Christian population, ACI MENA reported. A steadfast spiritual leader during ISIS’ occupation in 2014, Thabet returned to his hometown of Karamles after its liberation in 2017, where he discovered the desecrated statue of the Virgin Mary, later restored and blessed by Pope Francis in Erbil during his historic 2021 visit.
Thabet was deeply committed to helping displaced Christians return home, leading rebuilding efforts and blessing fields as symbols of resilience. His work featured in international exhibitions spotlighting Christian persecution. A scholar and writer on Chaldean liturgy, he was mourned as both a religious and national figure. “We lost a man of peace and coexistence,” said Nineveh Gov. Abdel Qader Dakheel, echoing the sentiments of many Christians across Iraq.
The United Christian Forum (UCF), an ecumenical group that monitors incidents of religious persecutions, has found that more than two Christians per day are attacked in the country, according to a UCA News report.
UCF recorded 313 incidents from January to May. “If this trend is not stopped immediately, it will threaten the identity and existence of the Indian Christian community in its motherland,” UCF’s national convenor A.C. Michael told UCA. The organization recorded a total of 834 incidents throughout last year.
The Catholic Archdiocese of Nairobi, Kenya, has initiated a three-day “marathon of rosaries,” interceding for respect of human life in the East African nation after protests earlier in the week culminated in violent clashes with Kenyan police.
“We are calling on all Catholics in our Archdiocese of Nairobi and beyond to pray the rosary, a marathon of rosaries for the next three days for the respect of human life and dignity,” Archbishop Philip Subira Anyolo said in a statement on June 18. The protests erupted after the murder of a teacher and blogger, Albert Ojwang, in police custody, reported ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa.
Catholic churches across the Middle East and beyond are celebrating Corpus Christi — also known as the feast of the Body of Christ — with processions that reflect both Eastern and Latin traditions, ACI MENA reported.
Syriac Catholic priest Father Boulos Affas explained to ACI MENA that, although street processions are rare in urban Iraq, rural Christian villages still observe the tradition with solemn rituals, crosses, incense, rose petals, and hymns accompanying the Blessed Sacrament.
The Chaldean Church has also added a distinctive nine-day novena honoring the Eucharist, featuring penitential prayers and adoration rites. Father Antoine Zeitouni of Qaraqosh told ACI MENA this tradition symbolizes the deep reverence for the Eucharist in Eastern liturgy.