Catholic News

• Pope resumes audiences on Vatican II, encourages faithful to pray the Liturgy of the Hours (CWN)
  Pope Leo XIV resumed his Wednesday general audiences today following a July hiatus and encouraged the faithful to pray the Liturgy of the Hours.
• Pope to visit Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru in November (Vatican Press Office)
  Matteo Bruni, the director the Holy See Press Office, announced today that Pope Leo XIV will visit three South American nations in November. From November 6-8, the Pontiff is scheduled to visit Montevideo, Paysandú, and Florida, in Uruguay; November 8-11, Buenos Aires, Córdoba, and Luján, in Argentina; and from November 11-17, Lima, Chiclayo, Cusco, and Pucallpa, in Peru. Pope Leo was bishop of Chiclayo from 2015 to 2023.
• Pope encourages Knights of Columbus to foster unity and charity (CWN)
  Pope Leo XIV encouraged participants in the 144th Supreme Convention of the Knights of Columbus to promote unity and charity.
• Pope Leo: Digital communication must serve truth and human dignity (Vatican News)
  Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Secretary of State of His Holiness, sent a message in Pope Leo’s name to participants in SIGNIS World Congress 2026, which is taking place in Kigali, Rwanda. SIGNIS is the World Catholic Association for Communication. In the message, Pope Leo “expressed the hope that [participants’] reflections lead to communication strategies and tools guided by truth and rooted in respect for the dignity of every person,” Vatican News reported.
• Cardinal Koovakad highlights convergences, differences between Christianity, Confucianism (Vatican News)
  Addressing a Confucian-Christian colloquium in South Korea, the prefect of the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue discussed points of convergence and distinctions between the two religions. The colloquium’s theme is “Dialogue on the Contribution of Christianity and Confucianism to an Ideal Society: The New Heaven, the New Earth, and Datong (Great Unity).” In his August 4 address at Sogang University in Seoul, Cardinal George Jacob Koovakad accordingly discussed how both religions have “profoundly shaped the moral, cultural and social development of societies and continue to inspire lives of virtue and service to the common good,” according to Vatican News’s paraphrase of his remarks. Cardinal Koovakad said that “for Christianity, the renewal of humanity and creation is rooted in God’s redeeming action through Christ,” according to Vatican News. “For Confucianism, by contrast, harmony arises not from divine redemption but from the moral cultivation of the individual, the guidance of virtuous rulers, education through ritual practice, and the ethical ordering of human relationships.”
• Mozambique's Cardinal Langa dies at 98 (L'Osservatore Romano (Italian))
  Cardinal Júlio Duarte Langa of Xai-Xai, Mozambique, died on August 3 at the age of 98. Born in 1927 and ordained to the priesthood in 1957, Langa was named bishop of Xai-Xai in 1976 and retired in 2004. He became Mozambique’s second cardinal when Pope Francis created him a cardinal in 2015. “Keeping religious practice alive and giving new impetus to the Church in a particularly impoverished area, one also struck by famines, epidemics, and natural disasters, sums up the ministry” of the prelate, the Vatican newspaper reported. “Regarded as a father by the priests of the African nation, he had focused particularly on the formation and welfare of the diocesan clergy within the Mozambican Episcopal Conference.”
• Military leader tells bishops there is religious freedom in Myanmar (Eleven Media/ANN)
  Myanmar’s president told a delegation of bishops today that “all religions are allowed to practice freely in Myanmar and there is no discrimination based on religion,” according to a report from Myanmar-based Eleven Media. President Min Aung Hlaing, who seized power in a 2021 coup d’état, made his comments amid what the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom describes as “systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.” Last month, the military regime bombed the village where Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, S.D.B., of Yangon was born. Eleven Media, which operates amid severe press restrictions, reported: Cardinal Charles Bo, President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Myanmar, expressed his joy and pride at the opportunity to meet with the President and his recognition of his efforts to fulfill his duties as a state despite the challenges. He also expressed his gratitude for the land provided for the construction of a Catholic church in Naypyidaw and wished the President and all the people of Myanmar peace and prosperity.
• Be a network, not a bureaucracy, Vatican prefect tells SIGNIS (Vatican News)
  The prefect of the Dicastery for Communication encouraged the World Catholic Association for Communication (SIGNIS) to be a network rather than a bureaucracy. “SIGNIS should not be an ecclesiastic bureaucracy, but a network of people, a network of professionals sharing the same faith,” Paolo Ruffini said in a video message to participants in SIGNIS World Congress 2026, which is taking place in Kigali, Rwanda. “This should be a place where relationships of trust are established, true information is shared, and good projects are designed.” Ruffini’s successor, Maria Montserrat (Montse) Alvarado, will assume office on November 1.
• 3 churches in French archdiocese desecrated ( Diocèse de Tours)
  Three churches in the Archdiocese of Tours, France, were desecrated, with the Blessed Sacrament profaned, according to a recent archdiocesan statement. The churches are located in Chambray-lès-Tours, Luynes, and Tours (the Church of St. Joan of Arc).
• Moroccan archdiocese assists migrants returning from Spanish city of Ceuta (Vatican News)
  The Archdiocese of Tangier, Morocco, offered assistance to some of the tens of thousands of migrants who returned to their native land after surging into the Spanish city of Ceuta. “This migration crisis caught us completely by surprise and prevented us from responding adequately,” Archbishop Emilio Rocha Grande, O.F.M., said in an interview. “We therefore provided the most basic assistance we could—water and food—but only within the limits of our resources.” Archbishop Rocha told Vatican News that Morocco is “not currently a poor country in the sense that people are dying of hunger. It is a country experiencing strong economic growth.” At the same time, “many young people feel that the economic opportunities created by development remain out of their reach,” the prelate said. “The temptation to leave is very strong. Many believe that simply arriving in Europe will solve all their problems—that they will find work, housing, and a better future.”
• Vatican newspaper calls for 'sustainability-focused strategies' amid nuclear power plant shutdowns (L'Osservatore Romano (Italian))
  L’Osservatore Romano devoted the most prominent front-page article in its August 4 edition to the drought-related shutdowns of nuclear power plants in Hungary and Romania. “Water is essential for energy production, such as in hydroelectric power plants or for cooling facilities, while energy is required to extract, treat, transport, and purify water before it reaches homes or agricultural fields,” staff journalist Valerio Palombaro wrote. “This interdependence, which extends to food, given that agriculture accounts for approximately 70% of freshwater withdrawals, highlights the growing need to adopt sustainability-focused strategies at both European and global levels.” “Ensuring water, energy, and food security requires a systemic approach capable of integrating technological innovation, environmental protection, and social equity,” he concluded.
• 2 newly identified St. Augustine sermons found in Poland (OSV News)
  Scholars from Austria and Germany found two previously unknown sermons of St. Augustine in a twelfth-century manuscript in a Polish diocesan library. The sermons found in the Pelplin diocesan library address King Saul’s meeting with the witch of Endor.
• Queens parish suffers 4th act of vandalism (QNS)
  St. Rita Church in Long Island City, New York, suffered its fourth act of vandalism since 2024 when a vandal smashed a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary with a hammer on August 1. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has documented over 400 acts of vandalism, arson, and other destruction at parishes and other Catholic sites in the United States since 2020. A tracker at CatholicVote.org lists additional attacks.
• Vatican official brings relics from St. Peter's Basilica to home parish in Indonesia (Vatican News)
  A Vatican official brought two relics from St. Peter’s Basilica to his home parish in East Flores, Indonesia, in the hope of making it a pilgrimage site. Father Markus Solo Kewuta, S.V.D., an official of the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, brought soil from St. Peter’s tomb and a stone fragment of the basilica’s holy door to St. Peter the Apostle Mission Station Church in the village of Lewouran. According to Vatican News, Father Kewuta is the first Indonesian priest to work in the Roman Curia.
• Michigan bishop responds to local ICE actions (Diocese of Saginaw)
  The bishop of Saginaw, Michigan, issued a statement in response to “recent ICE events” there, some of which “occurred within the shadow of the Chancery.” “As Catholics, we believe that all persons are created in the image and likeness of God and therefore, have an inherent human dignity,” Bishop Robert Gruss said in a statement issued on August 1. “Every human person, migrant or otherwise, must be treated as such.” Bishop Gruss added that “the deportation of people without cause, the detention of immigrants without meaningful legal representation, without access to family or a supportive community, and without basic human needs being met, and the forced separation of immigrant families and incarceration of children do not represent a just and civil society.”
• Pope promulgates new Fundamental Law for Vatican City State, the 4th since 1929 (CWN)
  Pope Leo XIV promulgated a new Fundamental Law of Vatican City State (unofficial translation) on July 31. In doing so, he replaced the Fundamental Law promulgated by Pope Francis in 2023, which included a controversial phrase in its preamble.
• Cardinal Roche: 'Pope Leo is not going to change Traditionis Custodes' (CWN)
  The prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments said in an interview that Pope Leo is “not going to change” Traditionis Custodes, Pope Francis’s 2021 apostolic letter restricting the celebration of the extraordinary form of the Mass, nor restore the provisions of Pope Benedict’s 2007 apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum.
• More...