Author: Eric Deabill

(OSV News) – The president of the U.S. bishops’ conference called for a special collection to bolster the Catholic Church’s response to a deepening humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip as the Israel-Hamas war continues to grind on.

In a letter to his brother bishops, Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, urged them to hold a “special collection to provide humanitarian relief and pastoral support for our affected brothers and sisters in Gaza and surrounding areas in the Middle East” through both Catholic Near East Welfare Association and Catholic Relief Services, the overseas humanitarian relief agency of the Catholic Church in the U.S.

Excerpts of the letter, dated Aug. 12 according to CNEWA, were released by both CNEWA and the USCCB Aug. 20.

“It is with great pastoral concern for the ongoing crisis in Gaza that I write to you today,” the archbishop, who also heads the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, said in his letter. “Our Church mourns the terrible suffering of Christians and other innocent victims of violence in Gaza and surrounding areas who are struggling to survive, protect their children, and live with dignity in dire conditions.”

In July, organizations including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the U.N. World Food Program, and UNICEF warned that a hunger crisis was deepening in the devastated area, exceeding famine thresholds, with more than one in three people going days at a time without eating.

Archbishop Broglio noted Pope Leo XIV “continues to call for a ceasefire and for aid to enter the territory, noting with great sorrow that ‘Gaza is starving.'”

He said both CNEWA and CRS have well-established partnerships in the region that allow the Catholic Church to deliver aid quickly and efficiently to the Gaza Strip.

“The situation in Gaza and across the Middle East cries out for assistance of the Catholic community of the United States,” Archbishop Broglio wrote. “I ask that you take up this collection and send funds to CNEWA and CRS as soon as possible.”

(OSV News) – As the Trump administration seeks to end Russia’s multiyear war on Ukraine, Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians continue, said Metropolitan Archbishop Borys A. Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia.

Archbishop Gudziak traveled to Ukraine two days after the Aug. 15 summit between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska.

Ahead of an Aug. 18 White House meeting among Trump, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and several European leaders, Russia launched attacks on multiple Ukrainian regions — including an apartment building in Kharkiv, the ruins of which Archbishop Gudziak visited Aug. 19.

In a video provided directly to OSV News and posted on his Facebook page, Archbishop Gudziak stood before the remains of the structure, which had been struck Aug. 18 along with several other buildings in the city of Kharkiv.

The attack left seven dead, most from a single family, and some two dozen injured, with three people still missing.

“Thirty-six hours after the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, and a day before the summit with President Zelenskyy and the European leaders in Washington, this building of a hundred apartments of families was hit by five Iranian-style drones, killing seven people, five of them members of one family, father, mother, two children and a grandmother,” said Archbishop Gudziak in his video, with the blackened, crumbling remains of the apartment building behind him.

One of the slain children was a toddler, while the other was her 16-year-old brother, said Ukrainian authorities.

Archbishop Gudziak noted that “all hundred families have lost their homes” as a result of Russia’s attack, which also targeted several other sites throughout Ukraine, including the city of Zaporizhzhia, where three were killed and 23 wounded in a ballistic missile strike on an apartment building.

Reuters said one of its reporters had seen medics attempt to revive a toddler at the scene, with the child’s body covered in dust.

Basilian Sister Lucia Murashko — who along with two fellow women religious has remained at their Zaporizhzhia monastery throughout the full-scale invasion to serve the war-torn city — told OSV News in a message after the attack, “We are well, if I can say so.”

Previously, Sister Lucia and some 80 children had narrowly avoided being killed in a deadly Dec. 6, 2024, strike on Zaporizhzhia as they celebrated a liturgy marking the feast of St. Nicholas. That attack killed 10 and wounded more than 20.

Russia’s overnight Aug. 17-18 attacks also targeted the city of Odesa, where a previously damaged oil depot owned by Azerbaijan was hit again for the second time in as many weeks.

Hours after the Washington summit, Russia launched additional attacks, launching 270 drones and 10 ballistic missiles on central Ukraine and striking the city of Kremenchuk. While authorities did not report casualties, Ukraine’s air force said despite downing 230 drones, 16 locations were hit.

“This, dear brothers and sisters, is the daily image of Russia’s war against Ukraine,” said Archbishop Gudziak in his video.

In a second Aug. 19 video he shared with OSV News and posted to Facebook, Archbishop Gudziak traveled to the remains of Kharkiv’s former Epicenter home improvement mall, which Russia struck with two glide bombs May 25, 2024, killing 19 and wounding 54.

Among those slain were Iryna Myronenko, a first-year catechetical student at Ukrainian Catholic University, and her 12-year-old daughter Mariya. The family had been shopping for a faucet at the store when the missile hit.

Speaking Aug. 19 before an on-site memorial dedicated to the mother and daughter, Archbishop Gudziak — who in September 2024 had visited the gutted structure prior to its demolition — said, “Iryna and Maria ask that you continue to pray, to be informed, to act, to help … stop this war.”

In a nod to Moscow’s oft-repeated calls to address what it calls the “root causes” of its attacks on Ukraine — specifically, a belief that Ukraine’s sovereignty does not exist despite international recognition — Archbishop Gudziak said, “Help people understand what the root causes of this war are: the desire to possess and control the other.

“The victims are innocent,” he said. “Those who oppress should be named.”

Amid Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — which continues attacks initiated in 2014 and which has been declared a genocide in two joint reports from the New Lines Institute and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights — “the people hold out,” said Archbishop Gudziak in his first Aug. 19 video.

“They believe in the fact that God’s truth will prevail. They help each other. They’re in solidarity,” said Archbishop Gudziak. “And they are grateful to all Americans, to all people of goodwill who support them, with prayer, with accurate information, and with aid.”

He called for unity in bringing a just end to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which continues attacks initiated in 2014 and which has been declared a genocide in two joint reports from the New Lines Institute and the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights.

“Let us stand together. Let us stand for the victory of God’s truth, and not this kind of barbarity — the killing of children, the killing of families, the killing of innocent people who just want to live and be free,” said Archbishop Gudziak.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Leo XIV asked Catholics to observe Aug. 22 as a day of prayer and fasting for peace and justice, particularly in Ukraine and in the Holy Land.

At the end of his general audience Aug. 20, the pope noted that the church will celebrate the feast of the Queenship of Mary Aug. 22.

“While our world continues to be wounded by wars in the Holy Land, in Ukraine and in many other regions of the world,” he said, “I ask all the faithful to spend Aug. 22 in fasting and prayer, asking the Lord to grant us peace and justice and to dry the tears of those who suffer because of the armed conflicts underway.”

“May Mary, queen of peace, intercede so that people would find the path of peace,” he prayed.

The night before his audience, as he was greeting people who gathered outside the Villa Barberini in Castel Gandolfo, Pope Leo told reporters the new diplomatic moves aimed at ending Russia’s war on Ukraine are a reason for hope, but much remains to be done.

“There is hope. We still have to work hard, pray hard and seek the way forward,” the pope told reporters late Aug. 19 as he prepared to leave the villa and return to the Vatican.

Encountering the pope the day after U.S. President Donald Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and a delegation of European leaders, the reporters asked Pope Leo if he had heard from any of the leaders.

“I hear from some of them from time to time,” the pope said, but he did not respond to a journalist who asked if he speaks with Trump.

Pope Leo, who marked the 100th day of his papacy Aug. 16, also was asked how that was going.

It has been “a blessing from God,” he said. “I receive so much. I really believe in the Lord’s grace, and I am so thankful for the reception I have received.”

Ending his short, second stay at Castel Gandolfo, Pope Leo said he would return. “It’s a grace to be here.”

(OSV News) – Six pro-life activists, a majority of them Catholics including two recently pardoned by President Donald Trump, are now facing state charges for a July 31 Red Rose Rescue abortion clinic “rescue” in Upland, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, that temporarily disrupted its activities.

The protest took place at the Delaware County Women’s Center in the Crozer Chester Medical Center.

The facility does not perform surgical abortions, but provides first trimester medication-based abortions using mifepristone and misoprostol. The two drug-regimen is commonly used in first trimester abortions, as well as some early miscarriage protocols.

Abortion is legal in Pennsylvania up through the 23rd week of an unborn baby’s gestation.

On Aug 14, an arraignment hearing scheduled for magisterial district court in Brookhaven, Pennsylvania, was postponed until Aug. 21.

Among the six defendants are Joan Andrews Bell, 77, of Montague, New Jersey, and William Goodman, 55, originally from Madison, Wisconsin. Both Bell and Goodman had been pardoned by Trump for their convictions under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act, for their participation in clinic blockades known as “rescues.”

They and four others face charges of biosecurity trespassing — entering a medical treatment area without adhering to biosecurity procedures — and disorderly trespassing. Both are misdemeanors and could bring jail terms of up to one year as well as fines.

Also charged were ChristyAnne Collins, 70, of Texas City, Texas, who was well-known in the Washington area in the ’80s and ’90s for her participation in clinic protests; Monica Miller, 72, of South Lyon, Michigan, who heads Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, a group affiliated with the Red Rose Rescues; Patrice Woodworth-Crandall, 61, of Winona, Minnesota; and William Holmberg, 71, of Steubenville, Ohio.

All the defendants are Catholic, except Collins, who is evangelical. Magistrate court records accessed by OSV News show all six posted bail at $20,000 each. In an email to supporters sent Aug. 7, Miller said $2,000 was raised per rescuer for their bail.

The Upland borough police report described a chaotic, but nonviolent, afternoon on July 31.

According to the report by the arresting officer, a security guard at the Crozer Center told police there were two people in the elevator refusing to leave the property. One of the people was identified as Collins. In the building’s second elevator, the report said, were Bell and Holmberg. The officer’s report stated Holmberg told him that “they were there to aid women in different opportunities other than abortion.”

When the officer “attempted to explain to all parties that while I understand they are there to help people,” Collins he wrote, “interrupted me stating that I should go speak to the women upstairs and explain that they are committing murder. I replied by informing her that abortions are legal here, and entirely the women’s choice. Furthermore, I would not be going upstairs and speaking with anyone.”

A nurse had set off the fire alarm in an attempt to get the protesters to leave, but they refused.
Upstairs, police found Miller, Woodworth-Crandall and Goodman.

According to the arresting officer’s report, “They were allegedly there with a young female who came in for an appointment. The young female checked in and three protesters all checked in with her. The young female stated she had to make a phone call, left the room and never came back.”

The report then relayed that the trio “then began pouring an unknown liquid and salt-like substance” (which they identified as holy water and holy, or blessed, salt) all over the floor, and informed a staff member that they would “rather burn in hell than leave.”

The arresting officer then described how after refusing a lawful order to leave or face arrest, “all 3 protesters began to kneel or lay on the floor” before being physically removed from the premises.

A similar scene played out with the remaining rescuers who laid themselves down and acted as dead weight. Holmberg was placed into a patrol vehicle, while Collins and Bell were taken out in wheelchairs before being placed into a different patrol vehicle.

In her account of the day sent by email Aug. 7 to Citizens for a Pro-Life Society supporters, Miller wrote that the rescuers were “arrested while peacefully offering roses and resources to mothers.”

She also wrote that they “peacefully offered words of support and alternatives to abortion as well as information on abortion pill reversal,” which refers to the attempt to stop a medication-based abortion with progesterone after a woman has taken the first dose of mifepristone.

According to Miller, “About 90 minutes into the rescue, the staff announced that they were ‘closing the clinic for the day,’ and all abortion appointments for the eight women who had arrived to kill their unborn children were canceled.”

Miller said that because the parking-lot location of the center made sidewalk interventions impossible, “thus only by entering the building itself could the women scheduled for abortion be reached.”

The Catholic Church opposes abortion because it holds that all human life is sacred from conception to natural death. The church also has a tradition of nonviolent advocacy to give witness to the truth, while making clear that all advocacy for justice must make use of only moral means, with St. John Paul II teaching in his 1993 encyclical, “Veritatis Splendor,” that a person cannot “intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order … even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general.”

Red Rose Rescue was founded in June 2017, with its first clinic intervention held that September.

Although the FACE Act is still on the books, on Jan. 24 the Justice Department ordered federal prosecutors to cease enforcement of that law barring “extraordinary circumstances” or in cases presenting “significant aggravating factors.”

A bill to repeal the act, sponsored by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, was voted out of the House Judiciary Committee June 10.

ROME (CNS) – Spending the day with the poor, Pope Leo XIV prayed that Catholics would make sure their parishes are welcoming of all people and would be “on fire” with God’s love.

“We are the church of the Lord, a church of the poor – all precious, all active participants, each one bearing a unique word from God,” the pope said Aug. 17 as he celebrated Mass at the Shrine of Santa Maria della Rotonda in Albano Laziale with about 110 clients and volunteers of the Diocese of Albano’s Caritas programs, including people experiencing homelessness and residents of its shelter for families.

“Let us not leave the Lord outside of our churches, our homes or our lives,” the pope said in his homily at the Mass. “Rather, let us welcome him in the poor – and then we will make peace even with our own poverty, the kind we fear and deny when we seek comfort and security at all costs.”

After the morning Mass, Pope Leo returned to Castel Gandolfo – less than two miles away – to lead the recitation of the Angelus prayer and then to host lunch for the Caritas clients and some of the volunteers.

The luncheon was held in the Borgo Laudato Si’, a project for education and training in integral ecology begun by Pope Francis in the gardens of the papal summer villa. Waiters in white shirts and black trousers served the guests a meal that included vegetable lasagna, eggplant parmesan or roast veal, fruit salad and dessert provided by local restaurants.

Cardinal Fabio Baggio, director general of Borgo Laudato Si’, welcomed the pope and said the lunch with the poor was a beautiful way to celebrate Pope Leo’s first 100 days in office and affirm Catholic teaching that “unites care for creation with care for every person.”

Pope Leo was seated at a round table placed at the junction of two long tables that formed an “l” under an awning to protect guests from the sun. At the table with him were: Rosabal Leon, a migrant from Peru, whose husband and two children were seated nearby; and Gabriella Oliveiro, 85, who lives by herself on the outskirts of Rome.

Before blessing the food, the pope said the setting was a reminder of the beauty of God’s creation, especially God’s creation of human beings in his image and likeness — “all of us. Each one of us represents this image of God. How important it is to always remember that we find this presence of God in every person.”

In his homily at the Mass, the pope had said that whether seeking assistance or providing it, in the church “each person is a gift for others. Let us tear down walls.”

Pope Leo thanked the people in Catholic communities around the world who “work to facilitate the encounter between people of different origins and economic, psychological or emotional situations: only together, only by becoming one body in which even the most fragile has full dignity, do we truly become the body of Christ, the church of God.”

The day’s Gospel reading, Luke 12:49-53, began with the words, “Jesus said to his disciples: ‘I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!'”

The fire Jesus was speaking of, the pope said, was “not the fire of weapons, nor the fire of words that burn others down. No. But the fire of love — a love that stoops to serve, that responds to indifference with care and to arrogance with gentleness; the fire of goodness, which doesn’t cost like weapons do, but freely renews the world.”

The price may be “misunderstanding, ridicule, even persecution, but there is no greater peace than having his flame within us,” the pope said.

The Shrine of Santa Maria della Rotonda is built in the round on the site of a first-century pagan temple. The shape, Pope Leo said, “makes us feel welcomed into the womb of God.”

“From the outside, the church, like every human reality, can appear rigid. But its divine reality is revealed when we cross its threshold and experience its welcome,” the pope said. “Then our poverty, our vulnerability, and above all our failures — for which we may be despised and judged, and sometimes we despise and judge ourselves — are finally welcomed into the gentle strength of God, a love without sharp edges and without conditions.”

“Mary, the mother of Jesus, is for us a sign and foretaste of God’s maternity,” he said. “In her, we become a motherly church, one that generates and regenerates not by worldly power, but by the virtue of charity.”

Pope Leo prayed that Catholics would allow Jesus’ fire to burn away “the prejudices, the caution and the fears that still marginalize those who carry the poverty of Christ written into their lives.”

(OSV News) – Pope Leo XIV will have a “real-time digital encounter” with participants attending the National Catholic Youth Conference this fall.

The news was announced Aug. 15 by the annual conference’s host, the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry. The Washington-based organization, launched in 1981 with the support of the U.S. bishops, fosters collaboration among the country’s Catholic youth ministry leaders.

During the gathering, which will take place Nov. 20-22 in Indianapolis, the pope will address an expected crowd of 15,000 or so young people ages 14-18.

The digital appearance – scheduled for Nov. 21 at 10:15 a.m. (ET) amid the event’s general session – will feature a 45-minute dialogue with a pre-selected group of young people. Details of that selection process will be released at a later time, said organizers. EWTN will broadcast and livestream the exchange.

“This historic moment will mark a powerful opportunity for young people to witness the universal Church’s care and concern for their voices, experiences, and hopes,” said the NFCYM in its press release, noting that it had timed the announcement’s date with that of the Aug. 15 feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary as part of “entrusting this event to the Blessed Mother.”

While it did not issue a formal announcement of the pope’s scheduled appearance, the Vatican press office distributed copies Aug. 15 of the national federation’s press statement in English, Spanish and Italian, according to OSV News partner Catholic News Service Rome.

NFCYM executive director Christina Lamas said her organization was “humbled and thrilled to welcome the Holy Father” to the upcoming conference.

“His presence is a profound reminder that young people are at the heart of the Church and that their voices matter,” said Lamas.

“Even in a globalized world, the Church can seem far away for young people,” said Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez of Philadelphia, episcopal adviser and board member of NFCYM. “The Holy Father’s choice to encounter the American youth in this way is an expression of his closeness to Catholic youth, following in the footsteps of his predecessor Pope Francis who called the youth the ‘now of God.'”

NFCYM described Pope Leo’s participation in the event as “inspirational,” adding that it will “build on the hope-filled encounters with millions of young people both online through the first-ever Digital Influencers Jubilee, and in person at the recent Jubilee for Youth in Rome.”

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Some immigrant religious workers are facing legal limbo, and Catholic advocates are pushing the Trump administration to address the backlog in their visa category.

Many immigrant religious workers — such as Catholic priests and nuns — legally enter the country on R-1 non-immigrant religious worker visas. These are initially granted for a 30-month period, with one possible renewal allowing for a total of 5 years, so they can be in the U.S. to carry out ministry work. While within that window, they can apply for employment-based EB-4 status so they can legally remain in the U.S. without interruption.

“One of the challenges is that because the number of green cards that are issued every year is not representative of the number of people that are eligible, you’ve got huge backlogs,” Erin Corcoran, an associate teaching professor and executive director of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, told OSV News.

“And this affects these religious workers,” she said.

That backlog could have a grave impact on the church in the U.S. The National Study of Catholic Priests — released in 2022 by The Catholic University of America’s Catholic Project — indicated 24% of priests serving in the U.S. are foreign-born, with many of them also subject to visa renewals.

In April, bipartisan legislation, titled the Religious Workforce Protection Act, was introduced in the Senate by Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Jim Risch, R-Idaho, and in the House by Reps. Mike Carey, R-Ohio, and Richard Neal, D-Mass. In statements at the time, Kaine and Collins both cited priest shortages in their states. All five of those members are Catholic.

If signed into law, the bill would permit religious workers already in the U.S. on temporary R-1 status with pending EB-4 applications to stay in the U.S. while waiting for permanent residency, Collins’ office said at the time.

Catholic organizations, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Jesuit Refugee Service/USA and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, also known as CLINIC, have backed the legislation.

A spokesperson for the USCCB told OSV News on Aug. 6, “We’re continuing our education efforts about the pressing need for the RWPA, and together with our interfaith partners, we’re encouraging grassroots supporters to raise this issue with their members of Congress while they are back in their states/districts during the August recess.”

“We remain hopeful that Congress will have an opportunity to move the bill forward before the end of the year,” the spokesperson said.

Corcoran said the legislation would allow, for example, a Catholic priest with temporary R-1 status, to move from one parish to another in accordance with diocesan needs without jeopardizing that status.

“For many religious workers, as part of your job or part of your vocation, you’re going to be moving parishes right?” she said. “And under the current framework, you can’t do that without jeopardizing your status.”

The bill, however, would not increase the limit on how many visas are granted.

“It’s a very modest fix,” she said. “One of the things we’ve seen historically is that there are a lot of small, little fixes that could happen through legislation for these exact kinds of immigration dilemmas. But historically, Congress has always wanted to pass everything at once, so this provision has been put in comprehensive immigration reform bills in the past, but the problem is that there are other provisions in (broader immigration packages) that there can’t be consensus on.”

Despite bipartisan support, it was not immediately clear what the prospects might be for the bill once lawmakers return from their August recess, or whether President Donald Trump would be willing to sign it.

The White House did not return a request for comment from OSV News by publication time on whether the Trump administration would support the bill.

But several proponents of the legislation who spoke with OSV News pointed to the bipartisan nature of the bill as cause for optimism.

Dylan Corbett, executive director of the Hope Border Institute, a group that works to apply the perspective of Catholic social teaching in policy and practice to the U.S.-Mexico border region, told OSV News, “Congress and the Trump administration have a good opportunity to make an urgent targeted fix to ensure clergy and religious from abroad serving our communities throughout the country don’t become casualties of an increasingly broken immigration system.”

“Here the Biden administration really fumbled the ball. If we can get this done, the broader lesson can be that it really is possible to come together and find common ground to build an immigration system that is workable, efficient and meets our national needs,” Corbett said.

Corcoran said, “We’ve seen so little bipartisan solutions to problems, and to me, this is the kind of thing that this administration should be embracing, because it can show that they can be compassionate, that there are bipartisan solutions that are available for certain sub-populations within the immigration backlog, and that we all benefit, right, from these people being in our parishes.”

Advocacy for the bill comes as the Trump administration seeks to implement hardline immigration policies, including its pursuit of what it has called “the largest deportation in U.S. history.”

However, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an interview that aired Aug. 7 with Raymond Arroyo on EWTN’s “The World Over,” that the administration is trying to “create its own standalone process” for religious workers, instead of having them conflated with other immigration categories.

“And I’ve been in touch, for example, with a number of our cardinals here in the United States and bishops about that as well,” Rubio said. “And it’s not only the Catholic Church. I mean, our other places are being impacted by it but we’re trying to streamline that process.”

“We clearly view that entry point as very different than some of these others,” Rubio said, adding, “We don’t want to read headlines that some Catholic Church had to close because it couldn’t get their priests here … some order closed because some nun couldn’t get here. So we’re not interested in that. That’s really not the aim here. It’s more caught up in the structure of it. We’ll have a plan to fix it. We’re working on it. We know it’s an issue, and we’re committed to fixing it.”

Congress is scheduled to return from its August recess in early September.

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – A federal district court in Philadelphia Aug. 13 struck down a religious conscience rule implemented by the first Trump administration exempting employers with religious or moral concerns from having to provide their employees with insurance coverage for contraceptives and other drugs or procedures to which they have an objection.

The Little Sisters of the Poor, defendants in the suit, are expected to appeal.

In a nationwide ruling, U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone in Philadelphia found the rule, which expanded the parameters for the types of nonprofits that could use the exception, were not necessary to protect the conscience rights of religious employers.

The nuns will appeal the ruling “in the coming weeks,” said Becket, the religious liberty law firm representing the Little Sisters of the Poor in their ongoing legal efforts over their objections to paying for abortifacient drugs, sterilizations and contraceptives in their employee health plans.

“The district court blessed an out-of-control effort by Pennsylvania and New Jersey to attack the Little Sisters and religious liberty,” Mark Rienzi, president of Becket and lead attorney for the Little Sisters, argued in a statement. “It’s bad enough that the district court issued a nationwide ruling invalidating federal religious conscience rules. But even worse is that the district court simply ducked the glaring constitutional issues in this case, after waiting five years and not even holding a hearing.

“It is absurd to think the Little Sisters might need yet another trip to the Supreme Court,” he continued, “to end what has now been more than a dozen years of litigation over the same issue. We will fight as far as we need to fight to protect the Little Sisters’ right to care for the elderly in peace.”

In 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a federal mandate requiring most employers to provide contraceptive drugs in their health insurance plans. The mandate included a narrow religious exemption for entities such as churches, but did not include religious nonprofits.

After requesting and being denied an exemption due to the Catholic Church’s teaching against drugs like the morning-after pill, the Little Sisters filed a lawsuit. Their effort ultimately became part of the consolidated case Zubik v. Burwell, a 2016 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which sent the case back to lower courts, but effectively was in the Little Sisters’ favor.

The federal government later finalized new exceptions that would include entities like the Little Sisters. However, Pennsylvania and New Jersey challenged those rules, arguing they were improperly expanded. In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a narrow procedural ruling siding with the Little Sisters, but their suit has continued.

“As Little Sisters of the Poor, we dedicate our lives to caring for the elderly poor until God calls them home,” Mother Loraine Marie Maguire of the Little Sisters of the Poor said in a statement. “We will continue to fight for the right to carry out our mission without violating our faith, and we pray Pennsylvania and New Jersey will end this needless harassment.”

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (CNS) – Arriving in Castel Gandolfo, Pope Leo XIV told reporters he hoped U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin can find a way to reach a ceasefire in Russia’s war on Ukraine when they meet in Alaska.

Reporters were in the crowd that waited to welcome the pope back to the papal summer villa Aug. 13, and a journalist from the Italian agency ANSA asked him what his hopes for the Aug. 15 Trump-Putin meeting were.

“I’m always hoping for a ceasefire,” the pope said. “There must be an end to the violence and so many deaths. Let’s see how they can reach an agreement because the war has been going on too long.”

Pope Leo said that it is not even clear what the point of the war is, “so one must always seek dialogue, diplomacy and not violence.”

The pope also noted that just a few hours earlier, European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a video call with Trump.

The reporter also asked Pope Leo if he was worried about the humanitarian situation in Gaza as Israel continues its military operations to destroy Hamas, which attacked Israel in October 2023, killing close to 1,200 people and kidnapping hundreds of others.

The pope said he was “very” worried. “It cannot continue like this.”

“We know the violence, the terrorism” of Hamas, he said, and “we respect the many who died and the hostages, who must be released, but there also are many who are dying of hunger.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – God never gives up on anyone, even when the person betrays God’s love, Pope Leo XIV said.

Christian hope flows from “knowing that even if we fail, God will never fail us. Even if we betray him, he never stops loving us,” the pope said Aug. 13 at his weekly general audience.

Arriving in the Vatican audience hall, Pope Leo welcomed the visitors in English, Spanish and Italian and explained that the audience would be held in two parts – in the hall and in St. Peter’s Basilica – so people would not be forced to stay outside under the very hot sun.

Pope Leo was scheduled to leave the Vatican after the two-part audience to return to the papal villa at Castel Gandolfo where he had spent part of July. The Vatican press office said he would stay until Aug. 19 in the town, which is about 15 miles southeast of Rome.

Greeting English speakers in the basilica, the pope wished them “safe travels” and prayed that God’s grace would “accompany you and fulfill in your hearts that desire that we all share to live an authentic conversion, to walk united in the church, to renew our faith and to be authentic witnesses of Jesus Christ and his Gospel throughout the world.”

In his main audience talk in the hall, Pope Leo continued his series about Jesus’ final days, looking specifically at Jesus’ revelation during the Last Supper that one of the disciples would betray him.

Jesus does not make the statement to condemn or embarrass Judas in front of the others, the pope said, but does so “to show how love, when it is true, cannot do without the truth.”

In the Gospel, each of the disciples responds, “Surely it is not I?”

The question, the pope said, “is perhaps among the sincerest that we can ask ourselves. It is not the question of the innocent, but of the disciple who discovers himself to be fragile. It is not the cry of the guilty, but the whisper of him who, while wanting to love, is aware of being able to do harm. It is in this awareness that the journey of salvation begins.”

To be saved, he said, a person must recognize that he or she is in need of salvation.

But, at the same time, a disciple of Christ also should feel “beloved despite everything” and know that “evil is real but that it does not have the last word.”

“If we recognize our limit, if we let ourselves be touched by the pain of Christ” at being betrayed, “then we can finally be born again,” Pope Leo told the crowd. “Faith does not spare us from the possibility of sin, but it always offers us a way out of it: that of mercy.”