Author: Eric Deabill

VATICAN CITY (OSV News) – On the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, Pope Leo XIV personally placed the pallium on the shoulders of 35 metropolitan archbishops, urging them to follow the example of the patron saints of Rome in being “builders of unity” and “servants of the truth in charity.”

“Let us pray to Saints Peter and Paul that they may sustain us on our journey of communion in the footsteps of the Savior,” the pope said in his homily in St. Peter’s Basilica June 29.

Sts. Peter and Paul, who were both martyred in Rome, are venerated as the patron saints of the Eternal City, which marks the solemnity with fireworks, flowers, and much celebration.

The Via della Conciliazione, the broad avenue leading to St. Peter’s Square, was decorated with colorful handcrafted floral carpets in honor of the feast, while inside the basilica the centuries-old bronze statue of St. Peter was adorned with vestments and a papal tiara.

But the heart of the city’s celebration was the Mass with the 267th successor of Peter at the main altar of the basilica, built over the tomb of St. Peter and filled with cardinals and bishops for the occasion.

Pope Leo presented the woolen bands to archbishops from across the globe, including newly appointed archbishops of Kraków, Calcutta, Cape Town, Cebu, Brisbane and Lahore.

Four American archbishops were among them: Archbishop Ronald A. Hicks of New York, Archbishop James F. Checchio of New Orleans, Archbishop James R. Golka of Denver and Archbishop Mark S. Rivituso of Mobile, Alabama.

The pallium — a 3-inch-wide woolen band adorned with crosses, with 14-inch strips hanging down the front and back — is a liturgical vestment symbolizing unity with the pope and service to the faithful. Metropolitan archbishops wear it when celebrating Mass within their ecclesiastical province.

“These bands of white wool adorned with crosses indeed express the commitment of every Shepherd — and also of every Christian — to take upon their shoulders the brothers and sisters entrusted to them, like so many lambs of the Lord’s flock,” the pope said.

In presenting the palliums, Pope Leo XIV revived a tradition originally established by St. John Paul II in 1983 of personally placing the vestment on each archbishop’s shoulders. Pope Francis had in 2015 returned the practice to local nuncios presiding over the imposition of the pallium in each archbishop’s home archdiocese.

In his homily, Pope Leo drew on the symbols traditionally associated with the two apostles, keys for St. Peter, and a sword and book for St. Paul, to illustrate what he called the Church’s path to authentic unity.

“A key does not break down doors; rather, it opens and closes them by finding the proper levers within,” the pope said.

“In the same way, communion within the Church is not built by clinging rigidly to one’s own position, but by seeking, in all hearts, points of encounter in the Truth,” he added.

Reflecting on St. Paul, Pope Leo said the apostle “allowed himself to be transformed by the power of God’s word, which rescued him from the way of violence and led him onto the path of love.”

The Mass was attended by some of the 178 cardinals who gathered in Rome for an extraordinary consistory June 26-27, during which they discussed the pope’s recent encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas” and the implementation process of the Synod of Bishops on synodality.

Also present was a delegation from the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, who joined Pope Leo at the conclusion of Mass in praying at the tomb of St. Peter in the crypt beneath the basilica’s main altar.

“Dear friends, it is important for us today to look to these two Saints — Peter and Paul — to understand how we, in turn, can be apostles and builders of unity, and generous servants of the truth in charity,” Pope Leo said.

“Peter’s example is an invitation to every Christian to become a builder of unity, placing God at the center of one’s life and drawing close to one’s brothers and sisters, attentive to their circumstances and needs,” he said. ” In this way, we learn to live with one another in charity, so that the message might be fully proclaimed.”

PHILADELPHIA (OSV News) – Catholic leaders are warning the Supreme Court’s decision allowing the Trump administration to deport hundreds of thousands of Haitians and thousands of Syrians currently under protected status in the U.S. will have dire consequences — including for the U.S. itself.

At least two bishops have called on Congress to extend the protections given the ongoing grave crises in both nations.

“Revoking the legal status of hundreds of thousands of people residing in our country creates a moral crisis when returning to their country of origin is not a safe or reasonable option,” said Bishop Brendan J. Cahill of Victoria, Texas, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration, in a June 26 statement.

On June 25, the nation’s top court halted federal court rulings that had kept the administration from ending the Temporary Protected Status program for nationals from Haiti and Syria, saying federal law largely prevents the court from reviewing the earlier moves to scrap the TPS designations for those countries.

“If we are truly to affirm the God-given dignity of every human person, we as a nation cannot turn a blind eye to such an injustice and the impossible choices it will create for families and communities,” said Bishop Cahill.

Created by Congress as part of the Immigration Act of 1990, TPS provides deportation protections for those from Homeland Security-designated countries experiencing ongoing crises, such as war and environmental disasters. As of March 31, 2025, the last date for which publicly available data exists, there were approximately 1.3 million people with TPS living in the United States.

More than 330,000 Haitians and some 6,100 Syrians in the U.S. had TPS protection as of 2025. Both nations have experienced long-running conflict, instability, disaster and disease.

“Even if the Administration determines TPS is no longer warranted, deferred enforced departure remains a tool available to the President, and we urge him to exercise right judgement in this way,” said Bishop Cahill. “Forcibly sending families to dire conditions is a legacy all leaders should seek to avoid. To that end, my brother bishops and I also continue to call upon Congress to act — to meet this moment with the moral fortitude that is so desperately needed.”

Haitians face the possibility of being returned to a country “on the brink,” one that for decades has “endured one calamity after another,” said Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski of Miami, whose archdiocese is home to an extensive Haitian and Haitian-American community.

Hours after the Supreme Court decision was announced, Archbishop Wenski held a June 25 press conference, livestreamed via the Archdiocese of Miami’s Radio Paz, stating that “it would be an act of abject cruelty for the United States to send families back” to the “dangerous and unsafe conditions” that prevail in Haiti.

He called on Congress to give Haitians “at least a reprieve of three more years” by extending TPS — which he admitted was “an imperfect tool” — rather than “pulling the floor out from under families without any workable alternative.”

“The mass deportation of 350,000 men and women and their children to a country in dire straits is not a workable alternative,” stressed Archbishop Wenski.

He cited “widespread gang violence and kidnapping, a cholera epidemic, spreading food insecurity” and “the lack of functioning state institutions.”

“The situation in Haiti is very, very critical,” said Haitian native Father Eugène Almonor, an Oblate of Mary Immaculate and chaplain of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s Haitian Catholic Community.

Father Almonor, now a U.S. citizen who serves at St. William Parish in Philadelphia, told OSV News June 25 that asking someone “to return to Haiti is exposing your life” to danger.

He himself has been unable to travel to visit family in Haiti for some time.

Father Almonor, whose community is grappling with the impact of the Supreme Court decision, said Haitians who have lived in the U.S. “10, 15, 20 years” would be “lost” returning to a land that has plunged even more deeply into crisis since they last knew it.

“We don’t know where we would go,” he said.

Both he and Archbishop Wenski observed that Haitians under TPS in the U.S. — many of whom are Catholic — have become part of the nation’s fabric, making significant contributions to their communities and to the nation’s economy.

“The Haitians in this country are not on the dole,” said Archbishop Wenski. “They are hard workers filling jobs that, if it were not for them, would go unfilled.”

He stressed that the “sudden expulsion of Haitian TPS holders would have potentially a devastating effect on our nation’s economy,” pointing to health care facilities in his region.

The archbishop also noted that politicians in Indiana and Ohio — places where “Haitians were falsely accused of eating people’s pets,” a reference to an unsubstantiated rumor advanced by Vice President JD Vance and several others — have also noted “losing the Haitians now would hurt the local economy.”

Above all, said Father Almonor, “it is a question of humanity.”

“In the United States, we say, ‘In God we trust,'” he said. “But our faith in God is a faith made to love others, to support others — especially the vulnerable people.”

(OSV News) – The archbishop of Caracas called for prayers and solidarity after back-to-back earthquakes struck Venezuela, killing at least 188 people and injuring hundreds more.

“We ask God that we may all face this together, finding comfort in God, and in solidarity and charity,” Archbishop Raúl Biord Castillo said in a video posted on Instagram June 25.

According to The Associated Press, the twin earthquakes, which struck in the evening June 24, measured 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude and were the strongest to hit Venezuela in more than a century.

By late afternoon June 25, news reports said that more than 1,500 people were injured and another 200 were trapped in rubble.

Social media was flooded with images of the chaos and destruction that ensued, including a video showing terrified residents outside of a church that was swaying as the earthquake rocked the area.

As a massive search and rescue effort was underway and the full scale of the disaster began to emerge, Pope Leo XIV sent an initial emergency donation of 100,000 euros (US$115,000) through the Dicastery for the Service of Charity, Vatican News reported.

The Holy See said the aid, coordinated with the apostolic nuncio to Venezuela, Archbishop Alberto Ortega Martín, and Archbishop Biord “is only a first step, with further assistance to follow in response to the needs identified by the local Church.”

Archbishop Biord toured several churches in the capital following the devastating earthquakes. Standing in the rubble of San José de Ñaraulí Church, the archbishop said several churches in the archdiocese suffered damage, including the Cathedral of Caracas.

Despite the circumstances, Archbishop Biord said that what was important was the feeling of unity among people helping victims and those who have lost their homes.

“Our hearts are with the deceased — we pray for their eternal rest — and with those injured who are being rescued, as well as all the people who have lost loved ones. (This earthquake) was a very powerful natural phenomenon,” he said.

The archbishop of Caracas prayed that the people of Venezuela would find “comfort in God, and in solidarity and charity.”

“Amidst all of this — Christian and Catholic alike — we must all form a great network of solidarity to help those brothers and sisters who are suffering material losses,” he said. “We are deeply pained by the damage to our artistic heritage, but that can be recovered over time. But human life is what is most important.”

Several messages of support to Catholics in the country were published, including from the Mexican bishops’ conference.

In a tweet posted on X June 25, the Mexican bishops said they joined in prayer for the people of Venezuela, and asked God to “grant consolation to the afflicted, strength to those who serve, and swift recovery to the affected communities.”

“As a pilgrim Church in Latin America, we make our own the pain of our Venezuelan brothers and sisters and entrust them to the maternal protection of Our Lady of Coromoto,” the bishops said, referring to the patroness of Venezuela.

Spanish Archbishop Luis Argüello of Valladolid, president of the Spanish bishops’ conference, published a letter June 25 on behalf of the country’s bishops expressing their “deepest fraternal closeness in these moments of great sorrow.”

“We join you in prayer for the eternal rest of the deceased. We implore divine comfort for their families and a swift recovery for the hundreds of injured and displaced people who have lost their homes and livelihoods,” Archbishop Argüello wrote in the letter, which was addressed to Bishop Jesús González de Zárate, president of the Venezuelan bishops’ conference.

“We also pray that the Lord will strengthen and enlighten the authorities, emergency teams, healthcare workers, and volunteers who are working tirelessly in rescue and relief efforts,” he added.

The U.S. Catholic bishops also expressed their solidarity and concern for Venezuelans amid the disaster.

“As rescue efforts are underway, I urge the international community to mobilize in support of the Venezuelan people, and to send the necessary humanitarian assistance to alleviate their suffering,” said Bishop A. Elias Zaidan, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace.

He noted that “Catholic Relief Services, the international relief agency of the Church in the United States, and its partner Caritas Venezuela, are already responding and assessing needs at this early stage.”

“We understand the U.S. government is readying an initial response and appreciate their partnership in responding to this natural disaster,” said Bishop Zaidan, who heads the St. Louis-based Maronite Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles.

He added, “Let us all join in prayer that Our Lady of Coromoto, patroness of Venezuela, will comfort and protect her children and that compassionate international assistance will arrive swiftly.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a post on X, said: “The United States extends our deepest condolences to the people of Venezuela following the devastating earthquakes. Our hearts are with all those who have lost loved ones, those injured, and the courageous rescue workers working tirelessly in the aftermath.”

Rubio said the State Department “is immediately deploying search and rescue teams, medical resources, and humanitarian assistance to Venezuela.”

In Florida, Deacon Gustavo Adolfo Roversi, a Miami businessman and newly ordained member of the local clergy, is among the many Venezuelans living in the United States anxiously awaiting more information on the quakes’ impact on communities in their home country.

“As a matter of fact my wife happens to be (there now) — she is fine, thank God,” Deacon Roversi told the Florida Catholic, the news outlet of the Miami Archdiocese. “I have a family member, a first cousin, who is still unaccounted for. We pray it is because the phone system is down.”

A native of Valencia, Venezuela, which is among the many cities and towns also impacted by the earthquakes, Deacon Roversi went to college at the University of Kansas in the 1980s before returning to South America to help run the family paper products manufacturing business. They later expanded the business to Florida in the late 1990s

“I know that there are fatalities, but still unsure about the numbers,” the deacon added. “So far it is in the hundreds. I understand Colombia just sent rescue crews.”

SCRANTON – The Scranton Catholic Charismatic Conference will be held on July 31 and August 1 & 2, at the University of Scranton.

National and International speakers will be sharing the Word of God.

Contemporary music ministry from Baltimore will be joining us.

Mass is celebrated daily; Adoration and a service of prayer will be held on Saturday night.

More information and full weekend registrations are available at ccrscranton.org and day registrations are available all weekend at the John Long Center on campus.

Meals are also available for purchase on campus.

Bishop Bambera will be celebrating Mass on Sunday at 1:30 pm.

Call the CCR office (570-344-2214) for additional information.

All are welcome!

SCRANTON – Imagine rooms full of people from multiple faiths enjoying respectful dialogue, food and fellowship; gatherings to consider the meaning and blessing of our country’s founding. We can create this together: a once-in-a-generation opportunity for neighbors to meet neighbors, a chance to regain unity through conversation about some of America’s most inspiring words.

What is faith250?

faith250 is a program that invites faith leaders and communities across the country to form clusters of congregations to act as sacred spaces for listening to one another, clarifying our shared civic values, and celebrating our hopes for America.

We can shore up the bonds between citizens because houses of worship are one of the few places where neighbors, friends, citizens, and newcomers can regularly meet face to face; where we study text and seek truth together; and where our varied faith traditions each remind us to see the Divine in every human being.
Our work centers on some of America’s sacred texts — The Declaration of Independence, Emma Lazarus’s The New Colossus, America the Beautiful, and Frederick Douglass’s address, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?

What happens at a multifaith gathering?

A typical faith250 multifaith event runs between two to two-and-a-half hours and includes:

• A shared meal or light refreshments — breaking bread together before the formal discussion begins.
• A welcome from clergy that sets the tone: civic, not partisan; spiritual, not sectarian.
• A reading aloud of one of the four American texts.
• Facilitated small-group discussion, typically at tables of six to eight people, using the faith250 multifaith event handout for that text.
• A brief closing — a reflection, a prayer, or a moment of shared commitment.

How can I participate?

The first gathering is July 13, 2026, 7PM at Temple Hesed, 1 Knox Road, Scranton. All are welcome to attend!

Register for the event by clicking here.

To learn more, visit https://faith250.org/what-is-faith250

Participating Congregations & Organizations
• Bahá’ís of Scranton
• Bethel AME Church
• Christians for the Common Good
• Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints-Clarks Summit Stake
• Covenant Presbyterian Church
• Elm Park United Methodist Church
• Islamic Center of Scranton
• Jinyin Temple
• Roman Catholic Diocese of Scranton
• Scranton Area Ministerium
• Sisters of IHM-Scranton
• St. Luke’s Episcopal Church
• St. Mark Episcopal Church
• Temple Hesed
• Temple Israel
• United Baptist Church of Taylor

VATICAN CITY (Vatican News) – An English edition of a book of Pope Benedict XVI’s previously unpublished homilies has been released by the Vatican.

“The Lord Holds Us by the Hand” offers readers a collection of Pope Benedict’s homilies, allowing them to hear once again the voice of Joseph Ratzinger as preacher, theologian and pastor.

The volume, originally published in Italian by the Vatican Publishing House, is titled, “The Lord Holds Us by the Hand.” It is a compilation of homilies delivered between 2005 and 2017 during the liturgical seasons of Advent, Lent and Easter.

The book includes a preface by Archbishop Georg Gänswein, Pope Benedict’s former personal secretary, and an introduction by Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, president of the Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation.

The homilies were delivered during private Masses celebrated by Pope Benedict with the papal household and occasional guests, both while he was pope and later as pope emeritus.

Some were preached in the chapel of the Apostolic Palace, while others were given at the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican, where Benedict lived after his resignation.

Although spoken in private settings, the texts open a window onto the depth and simplicity of Pope Benedict’s preaching. They reveal his ability to read sacred Scripture in an ever-new way, drawing from it light for faith, prayer and daily Christian life.

The pages of the book also show how Joseph Ratzinger kept a personal relationship with Christ at the center of his faith.

In the homilies, Pope Benedict returns again and again to the mystery of the Lord who accompanies his people, sustains them and holds them by the hand.

The title itself expresses this central intuition: the Christian life is not a solitary path, but a journey guided by the presence and mercy of God.

The collection also highlights the continuity between Pope Benedict’s theological work and his pastoral ministry. His reflections are marked by the clarity, spiritual depth and Christ-centred focus that characterized his pontificate.

“The Lord Holds Us by the Hand” is the first volume of Pope Benedict’s unpublished homilies. A second volume, dedicated to homilies in Ordinary Time, is expected to follow. The Italian edition of the first volume was presented at the Turin International Book Fair May 17.

With the publication of the English edition, these previously unpublished texts are now available to a wider readership, offering a renewed encounter with Pope Benedict’s preaching and with his lifelong invitation to place Christ at the heart of faith and history.

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – On the fourth anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Catholic bishops’ conference and pro-life leaders pointed to abortion pills as among key challenges for the cause of protecting the right to life of unborn children.

The Supreme Court issued the Dobbs ruling June 24, 2022, in a case involving a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks, where the state directly challenged the high court’s previous abortion-related precedents in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The high court ultimately overturned its own prior rulings, undoing nearly a half-century of its own precedent that held abortion to be a constitutional right.

In the years since that ruling, efforts to restrict or protect access to abortion have stalled in Congress. As a candidate in 2024, President Donald Trump stated his view that abortion should be a matter for the states rather than Congress, and said he would veto abortion restrictions if they reached his desk.

Individual states have moved to either restrict abortion or expand access to it in the wake of the Dobbs ruling. However, multiple reports have found that the rate of abortions in the U.S. has increased since the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe.

According to an estimate from Guttmacher Institute, a research firm for the abortion industry, 1.12 million abortions took place in 2025, marking a 21% increase from 2020, which Guttmacher said marked “the last year of comprehensive national estimates” before Dobbs. Guttmacher found the figures were largely unchanged from 2024. It also noted that the abortion numbers overall may be an undercount due to people acquiring abortion pills in advance or obtaining them by means other than U.S. abortion clinic providers.

In a statement marking the Dobbs anniversary, Bishop Daniel E. Thomas of Toledo, Ohio, chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, said the “victory of the Dobbs decision risks being undone by the massive influx of abortion pills.”

“While the Dobbs decision gave states the freedom to pass pro-life laws and protect preborn children, these laws are now being undermined,” he said. “The Food and Drug Administration, a government agency responsible for protecting public health, has enabled a nationwide mail-order abortion industry by allowing abortion pills to be prescribed in telemed appointments and sold both at neighborhood pharmacies and online, circumventing state laws that protect life in the womb.”

Louisiana has challenged an FDA policy issued by the Biden administration, which permitted mifepristone, a pill commonly used in abortion but also in some miscarriage care protocols, to be distributed by mail. The Trump administration has thus far left that regulation in place, prompting frustration from pro-life groups, and has sought to block state challenges to mifepristone, such as Louisiana’s.

The Supreme Court in May left that policy in place while the litigation proceeds.

Proponents of mifepristone — the first of two drugs used in a chemical or medication-based abortion — or its distribution by mail argue it is statistically safe for a woman to take at the early stages of pregnancy, and that attempts to restrict it are an attempt to ban abortion outright. Opponents of the drug’s use for abortion argue there are significant risks to those who take it, particularly outside of medical settings, in addition to ending the life of an unborn child early in its development.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told reporters on a June 23 press call that there has been “a failure to step up on the federal level and pass protections that are grounded in the 14th Amendment — whatever consensus can bear — grounded in the 14th Amendment.”

Dannenfelser is among the pro-life leaders who have argued that the 14th Amendment, which states that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States,” shall not be denied “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” is grounds for federal abortion restrictions.

Pointing to lawsuits like Louisiana’s, Dannenfelser argued that “the abortion drug has usurped the sovereignty of those states” that have restricted abortion.

“We have insisted that the Justice Department settle with the state of Louisiana, who has sued them for justice, for undermining their state laws, for putting extra burdens of financial and health care for women who are experiencing these horrible moments,” she said.

A letter from more than 80 pro-life groups, including SBA, published June 23 to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said, “We respectfully urge you to settle Louisiana v. FDA, end DOJ’s defense of the mail-order abortion drug regime.”

In an amicus brief filed by groups including SBA, the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, and the National Catholic Bioethics Center, argued the in-person dispensing requirement should be reimplemented to prevent health risks to the mother and to prevent coercion by partners, abusers, or traffickers.

“Coerced consent is no consent at all, and there is an increased risk of coercion in the context of abortion drugs and procedures if the prescribing physician does not thoroughly screen for abuse or coercion,” the brief stated.

Jennie Bradley Lichter, president of the March for Life, told OSV News the group “joined this amicus brief because women deserve better than being prescribed dangerous abortion-inducing drugs without even a simple consultation with a physician — putting their health and safety at serious risk.”

“The current lack of safeguards also plays right into the hands of abusive men who can pose as women, obtain these drugs via the internet, and then coerce their baby’s mother into taking them or even forcibly drug her in order to evade responsibility for their child,” she said. “There is no semblance of true informed consent in the way abortion drugs are currently distributed. FDA must restore an in-person dispensation requirement.”

The Catholic Church teaches that all human life is sacred from conception to natural death, and as such, opposes direct abortion, which takes the life of the unborn child.

Marie T. Hilliard, senior ethicist for the National Catholic Bioethics Center, as well as a registered nurse with a graduate degree in maternal child health and a canon lawyer, said in written comments to OSV News that NCBC, which opposes all direct abortions, “recognizes the threats not only to the unborn child, but also to women and girls having access to unsafe chemical abortion practices.”

“Women and girls’ very lives are being threatened by the current lack of regulatory requirements, and the lives of these mothers also must be protected, and hopefully the lives of their unborn children when these mothers are provided with all the information they need for true informed consent,” she said.

In his statement, Bishop Thomas concluded, “On this Anniversary of the Dobbs decision, we praise God for the historic overturning of Roe v. Wade, and we beg the intercession of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in building a culture of life.”

(OSV News) – Father James Musgrave III, 39, a Detroit native who is one of more than 400 men ordained to the priesthood in the United States this year, came late not only to his discernment, but also to faith itself.

He grew up as a “none” and was not baptized until he was 25.

That, according to the annual survey of new priests conducted by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, puts him in a tiny group. Overall, 93% of the survey respondents said they had been baptized Catholic as infants.

Although Father Musgrave attended Detroit Catholic Central High School, “I had different priorities at the time,” he told OSV News. “I didn’t take it seriously,” but recalls now that he “always felt most at home in the Catholic Church.”

After graduating from Hillsdale College, where he majored in marketing and management and minored in biology, he attended medical school at East Tennessee State University for more than two years before having what he remembers as “an identity crisis.” That’s when his discernment began in earnest: “Learning how to pray. Following, in love with Jesus.”

He didn’t give up medicine entirely, becoming the director of graduate enrollment management at the University of Michigan Medical School while he became active in Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish in Plymouth, Michigan.

There, he said he learned “what true discipleship means.” With a group of adults helping him, he “learned how to pray. How to put Jesus at the center of myself.”

Eventually, he said, a priest told him “to ask Jesus, ‘What do you want for my life?'”

That sent him to Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit with the assistance of the Labouré Society, which helped cover his student-loan debt. He was one of four ordained at the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament. He’s now assigned to St. Hugo of the Hills Parish in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Journeys to the priesthood quite often are on meandering paths, as noted by Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis on May 30 at the ordination Mass for six men at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul, Minnesota.

“I found myself marveling that the Lord would have placed a holy desire for priesthood in the hearts of a bridge builder, a college basketball player, an aspiring doctor and a linguist; or that he would have sparked an even deeper love for him as they came to study the ancient church fathers in dusty Latin tomes or gave tours of the holy sites of Rome and Jerusalem,” the archbishop said. “The Holy Spirit blows where he wills, and as Pope Francis often said, we have a God of surprises.”

On May 30 at St. Mark Catholic Church in Huntersville, North Carolina, Bishop Michael T. Martin ordained 10 men to the priesthood — the most ordained at one time in the history of the Diocese of Charlotte.

“You have to love the people of God you’re being sent out to serve,” Bishop Martin said in his homily. “His sheep are every human person on the face of the Earth, every person in whatever school or parish, every community, every hospital or nursing home. Wherever you go, love them all … you cannot wait for them to come to you, you have to go out to them.”

CARA’s ordinand survey reported that 6 in 10 responding ordinands (62%) are Caucasian. One in 6 (17%) is Hispanic/Latino. One in 10 (11%) is Asian/Pacific Islander/Native Hawaiian. One in 20 (5%) is African/African American/Black.

The three most common countries of birth among the foreign-born are Vietnam (5% of all responding ordinands), Mexico (3%), and Colombia (2%).

Twenty-six percent of the respondents in the CARA survey were born outside the United States. They represented 35% of ordinands in religious orders and 24% of ordinands to diocesan priesthood.

The current class of ordinands are, on average, 33 years old at ordination with half between 26 and 31 years old, and the other half between 31 and 75 years old.

Falling squarely into those categories is Father Kaique Duarte Santos, 30, ordained June 6 at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Fall River, Massachusetts. This summer, Father Santos is assigned to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in North Falmouth, Massachusetts.

Faith was always part of his life before he entered the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in South Orange, New Jersey. He was born in Teófilo Otoni, Brazil, the youngest of three children of Aldair Burmann, a gemstone cutter, and his wife, Marizete, a teacher.

Two family tragedies created what he called “a spiritual questioning” about the meaning of life: His brother Victor was killed in an accident in late 2008, and his father died just two months later.

“God gave me the grace to get through that,” he told OSV News.

Youth retreats in 2010 and 2011 convinced him that the priesthood could be in his future. “That was the first time I saw people praying like they really meant it,” he recalled. “I was used to seeing people go to church because they felt they had to.”

He joined the Brazilian Canção Nova Community, a charismatic community connected to the Salesians, in 2015 and attended a retreat at a Carthusian monastery. Learning that Fall River Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha was born in Brazil clinched his decision about his vocation. Bishop da Cunha was the first Brazilian-born bishop in the U.S., when he was appointed in 2014.

CARA’s ordinand survey reports that about half the respondents said they were between the ages of 3 and 16 when they first considered the priesthood, with another half between 16 and 51, for an average age of 16.

For Father Thiet Van Hoang, 35, that moment came when he was 11 and attended the ordination Mass of his uncle, Father Huong Hoang.

As the fourth of six children in Ha Tinh, Vietnam, he remembers that his family attended liturgy at Ke Dong Parish twice daily, for morning Mass and vespers, the evening prayer of the Church.

But initially, at University of Da Nang, he pursued another career and earned a degree in computer science, becoming a software developer for two years.

However, he told OSV News, he had always sensed his calling. There was no drama and no questioning. He just knew. He arrived in the U.S. in 2018 and enrolled in the University of St. Mary of the Lake, widely known as Mundelein Seminary, in the Chicago suburb of Mundelein.

He was one of four new priests ordained May 23 at the Cathedral of St. Raphael in Dubuque, Iowa, for the Archdiocese of Dubuque. He’s assigned to the Calmar Pastorate in northeast Iowa. “I know that area well enough,” he told OSV News, since he was earlier assigned an internship there.

(OSV News) – The Vatican released the official schedule of the second extraordinary consistory this year, giving a glimpse into some of the topics and major issues that will be discussed by Pope Leo XIV and the College of Cardinals.

The schedule of the June 26-27 consistory, which was published by the Vatican press office June 22, includes discussions centered on the pope’s recent encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas,” on safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence.

As the second consistory of the year, the pope is making good on the cardinals’ requests for further collaboration, which the college expressed during the general congregations prior to his election last year.

According to the Code of Canon Law, the College of Cardinals assists the pope “through collegial action in consistories in which they are gathered by order of the Roman Pontiff who presides.”

The code also states that extraordinary consistories are convened “when particular needs of the church or the treatment of more grave affairs suggest it.”

Over the two days, the cardinals will take part in four sessions — two per day — with the first session in the morning June 26 centered on the theme “In what world are we called to proclaim the Gospel?” and featuring a biblical meditation delivered by Cardinal Grzegorz Rys of Krakow.

After a time of personal prayer and reflection, the cardinals, divided into several groups, will discuss their responses to two questions: “What sufferings, tensions, and questions currently affect most deeply the peoples and ecclesial communities entrusted to your care?” and “What signs of hope, of fidelity to the Gospel, and of possible reconciliation is it important to bring to our common listening?”

In the afternoon’s second session, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, will introduce the theme “The culture of power and the civilization of love.”

According to the schedule, the theme is based on the fifth chapter of “Magnifica Humanitas.” Among the issues addressed by Pope Leo in that chapter are the risks posed by technology when used irresponsibly, especially in warfare.

“Here the question is not merely the efficiency of new tools, but also the risk that technology, detached from ethics and responsibility, will render decisions about life and death more rapid and impersonal, and will present the use of force as an immediate and viable option,” the pope wrote.

Regarding the civilization of love, Pope Leo cited St. Paul VI, who “envisioned a social order in which justice and charity are intertwined and love becomes the guiding principle of economic, political and cultural life.”

“Today, we must resolutely recover this vision, for the civilization of love is no naïve utopia, but a demanding project, which consists in translating charity into structures of justice, giving institutional form to fraternity and regarding others — whether individuals or peoples — as allies necessary for building the common good,” he wrote.

Pope Leo also warned of a culture of power “in which the availability of resources and the ability to dominate tend to dictate the agenda and criteria for decision-making.” This culture relegates the common good to the background and the concrete tragedy of people at war is reduced to a secondary consideration in relation to strategic interests.”

After Cardinal Fernandez’s introduction, the cardinals will once again divide into groups and respond to two questions: “In what way do the tensions, divisions, and conflicts affecting the world touch the life of our Churches and our peoples today?” and “What languages, attitudes, and practices can help build reconciliation, coexistence, and peace?”

The groups’ responses will be presented in the Synod Hall, followed by open discussions on the theme, and the day will conclude with a closing prayer.

The consistory’s second and final day June 27 will begin with a morning Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica presided by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals.

The third session, which reflects on the theme, “Building in the good: the worksites of our time,” includes an introduction by Cardinal Stephen Brislin of Johannesburg based on the introduction and conclusion of “Magnifica Humanitas.”

Among the notable issues the pope warns of in the encyclical’s introduction is the danger posed by the “Babel syndrome.”

Drawing from the biblical account of the construction of the Tower of Babel, Pope Leo said in the encyclical it was “a project conceived without reference to God, supported by a uniformity that eliminated diversity and that chose homogenization over communion.”

“We must, then, avoid the ‘Babel syndrome,’ namely the idolatry of profit that sacrifices the weak, a uniformity that neutralizes differences, and the pretense that a single language — even a digital one — can translate everything, including the mystery of the person, into data and performance,” he wrote.

The pope instead draws from the biblical narrative of the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem following the Babylonian exile, in which the people rediscover a common language that is “not one of uniformity, but one of communion.”

“The narrative shows how the city is reborn, not through the initiative of one man, but through the shared responsibility of all: men, women, priests, artisans, heads of households and young people all play a part. It is an undertaking with God at the center, which rebuilds relationships before rebuilding with stones.”

In the encyclical’s conclusion, Pope Leo rejects “the promises of transhumanism,” which often seeks “an enhanced and almost disembodied humanity,” and calls for human dignity to be placed at the forefront in the digital era.

“No computational system, however sophisticated, can create a heart that gives itself, or a conscience that discerns good from evil,” the pope wrote. “Even when machines excel in efficiency, a human face that asks to be gazed upon remains the center of our history.”

After the South African cardinal delivers his address, the groups of cardinals will hold discussions based on the questions that center on the aspects that “make it more difficult to build up the common good” and the expectations of the people “that the Church is called to listen to, and which perhaps we do not listen to enough.”

The consistory’s final session will focus on the three-year implementation process of Synod of Bishops on synodality, which was approved by Pope Francis March 11 2025, a little over a month before his death, and subsequently confirmed by Pope Leo.

The implementation process includes an assessment of progress at diocesan, national and continental levels beginning in 2027, culminating in an assembly set to take place at the Vatican in October 2028.

After a presentation by Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, and a time for cardinals to ask clarifying questions, those present will engage in a free discussion with Pope Leo on the session’s theme.

The session will conclude with an address by Pope Leo that will be broadcast, the Vatican said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Participation in the Eucharist transforms believers into the Body of Christ and offers a remedy to the divisions affecting families and communities, Pope Leo XIV said during his weekly general audience June 24.

In his final general audience until Aug. 5, Pope Leo also encouraged young people to use the downtime of summer vacation to attend Mass, go to confession frequently, reflect on Scripture, go on spiritual retreats and pilgrimages and spend time with loved ones.

“Vacation is a time for rest and to seek signs of God in the beauty of creation,” he said in his remarks to Polish-speaking visitors. He also asked people to pray for students so that they may “choose wisely” the schools and universities they will attend and “discern with prudence their vocation.”

Continuing his series on the documents of the Second Vatican Council, the pope focused on “Sacrosanctum Concilium,” the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, explaining how the Eucharist draws the faithful into deeper communion with God and one another.

Receiving Christ in the Eucharist transforms believers into the Body of Christ, whose head is the risen Lord seated at the right hand of the Father, the pope said.

“Thus, the Eucharist is the sacrament of the Kingdom that is to come,” Pope Leo said.

The Eucharist teaches Catholics to adopt Christ’s way of self-giving love and to be “drawn day by day into ever more perfect union with God and with each other,” he said.

“This gift draws us into the dynamic of unity, offering a powerful antidote to the forces of division that undermine our world, our communities, our families, and our hearts,” he said.

The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy teaches that the faithful are called to “offer themselves in union with Jesus Christ” to the Father “through the hands of the priest and together with him,” the pope said. Participation in the Eucharist also means being formed by God’s word and “nourished at the table of the Lord’s body.”

The Eucharist cannot be separated from the Word of God, the pope said, noting that the liturgy and the Eucharist form “one single act of worship.” Quoting Pope Benedict XVI, he said Scripture illuminates and explains the mystery of the Eucharist, while the Eucharist opens believers to a deeper understanding of Scripture.

“This Word nourishes and sustains us together with the Eucharistic bread and leads us from the decay of sin to new life in Christ,” Pope Leo said.

Referring to the Second Vatican Council’s focus on giving Catholics greater access to Scripture, the pope pointed to the Lectionary — the book containing the biblical readings proclaimed at Mass — as a result of the council’s liturgical reform. The expanded collection of readings used in the Church’s liturgies today, he said, reflects the richness of the Church’s living tradition, combining “fidelity to tradition with openness to legitimate progress.”

“Dear brothers and sisters, let us draw with faith from this source of divine life and allow ourselves to be transformed by the mystery we celebrate,” he said.