News Briefing: Church in the World

The bishops of the Philippines called on the government to ban all forms of online gambling, which they denounced as “a deep and widespread moral crisis” disguised as a form of leisure.

“We are deeply concerned because it seems that there is a new plague or virus that is destroying individuals and families, and society. It is spreading silently and causing widespread slavery,” said a statement from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), after its 130th plenary assembly in the province of Bohol. It said online gambling “causes the destruction of many of our countrymen” and “is a clear form of slavery”. 

The Bishop of Kalookan Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David, the CBCP’s outgoing president, signed the statement asking why “many in the media, the government, and the business world” seem to be silent about the ills of online gambling. “Could it be because many of them are also benefiting from it?” 

The Church in the Philippines has long opposed gambling. In 2001, a Church-backed uprising ousted then-president Joseph Estrada, an actor-turned-politician who was accused of illegal gambling and adultery. Gambling has persisted, however, particularly among poor Filipinos, and was among Cardinal David’s main campaigns during his tenure as CBCP president.

Filipinos must “combat moral indifference” in the face of delays in Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial at the Senate, a statement from the nation’s bishops said. 

“We are disturbed by the delay in the Senate in executing the constitutional demand for the impeachment process of the Vice President,” they said after their plenary meeting last week. “We affirm that impeachment, when pursued with truth and justice, is a legitimate democratic mechanism for transparency and accountability in governance.” 

Duterte, 47, is accused of misusing public funds and plotting to assassinate President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. She stands to be removed from office if convicted by the Senate.

Marking the eighth anniversary of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) alongside 80 years since the nuclear attacks on Japan at the end of the Second World War, Pax Christi International renewed its call for a world free from nuclear arms.  

“We urge all governments to reject nuclear weapons and to choose the path of peace grounded in dialogue, mutual trust, and nonviolence,” it said. “The TPNW stands as a sign of hope, a commitment to life, to justice, and to the common good.”  

The message honoured the witness of the hibakusha, survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, whose “voices continue to call the world to conscience”. The TPNW was the first legally binding international agreement to prohibit nuclear weapons with the object of eliminating them.

The United States’ Internal Revenue Service (IRS) said it would no longer seek to remove the tax-exempt status of pastors who endorse political candidates from the pulpit.

In a court filing on 7 July, the IRS went against the 1954 Johnson Amendment that barred all non-profits, including churches, from making partisan political endorsements. The law has only been applied once, in 1992, to a New York church that took out newspaper advertisements opposing the candidacy of Bill Clinton. 

Conservative evangelical churches have sought the repeal of the Johnson Amendment for years, alleging that it infringes both on their rights to free speech and on free exercise of religion. During the campaign, President Donald Trump pledged to repeal the amendment. The US bishops’ conference, however, indicated that it will continue to abide by the Johnson Amendment.  

“The IRS was addressing a specific case, and it doesn’t change how the Catholic Church engages in public debate,” said conference spokesperson Chieko Noguchi.

“The Church seeks to help Catholics form their conscience in the Gospel so they might discern which candidates and policies would advance the common good. The Catholic Church maintains its stance of not endorsing or opposing political candidates.”

A New York state court issued an injunction, halting payments from parishes in the scandal-ridden Diocese of Buffalo to a diocesan fund to compensate victims of clerical sex abuse. The case was brought by several parishes that had been slated for closure by the diocese but which have appealed to the Vatican, seeking to remain open. The Holy See said the parishes should not be closed while it considers the appeals.

The diocese has been in bankruptcy proceedings since 2020.  It requires parishes to pay into the fund based on the size of their cash reserves. Parishes with more than $3 million in unrestricted funds are expected to pay 80 per cent of that amount into the fund, while poorer parishes pay as little as 10 per cent of their unrestricted funds. 

The parishes that are slated for closure or merger include some of the diocese’s wealthier parishes, and they argue that they need their money to pay legal expenses associated with their appeal to Rome. They also argue that the percentage they would be required to pay might be lower if their appeal with the Vatican is successful, although the diocese pledged to return the difference if that scenario emerges.

Bishop Alberto Rojas of San Bernardino, California lifted the obligation to attend Sunday Mass for Catholics in his diocese who fear being caught in an immigration enforcement raid. 

Previously, the Diocese of Nashville, Tennessee also lifted the obligation. Most bishops lifted the obligation during the Covid pandemic, but these are the first to take the measure in response to fears of government action. 

A spokesperson for the Diocese of San Bernardino said that the church has been preparing for the immigration crackdown since Donald Trump took office in January. They have conducted workshops at local parishes to inform people of their rights and of how to respond to immigration enforcement agents when confronted.  

In Los Angeles, parishes have held similar workshops and organised deliveries from local food banks to people afraid to leave their homes.

Following the example of Bishop Michael Pham of San Diego, priests and deacons in the nearby Diocese of Orange have accompanied migrants who go to federal courts for mandatory appearances as part of the process of becoming citizens, after agents began arresting people who were acting in compliance with a court order.

The campaign group Christian Solidarity Worldwide called on the Colombian government to investigate the disappearance of Fr Carlos Saúl Jaimes Guerrero OSA.

The 30-year-old friar vanished on 17 June in the area of Viotá, a municipality 58km from the Colombian capital Bogotá in the department of Cundinamarca, central Colombia. His vehicle was found in a rural area, with the doors open and its engine still running.  

A local mayor cited unofficial reports that Fr Guerrero, as the administrator of an estate on behalf of the Augustinians, was involved in a transaction to sell cattle and received a pamphlet containing threats. A reward worth around £1,800 is being offered locally for any information.  

The Augustinian Province of Our Lady of Grace of Colombia made a “heartfelt” appeal to Colombians to join them in prayer for “the swift return” of the priest. “We also ask that, amidst the genuine concern, everyone should remain tranquil and prudent avoiding speculation or rumour that contribute neither to truth nor hope,” it said.

A theologian wrote an open letter to the Latin American and Caribbean Episcopal Council (CELAM) urging them to speak of Christ rather than social justice.

“You, bishops of CELAM, always repeat the same old story: social issues, social issues, and social issues.  And this has been going on for more than 50 years,” said Fr Clodovobis Boff, a Brazilian Servite friar whose brother Leonardo was a leading exponent of Liberation Theology. 

The letter continued: “Souls ask for the supernatural, and you insist on giving them the natural … When will you give us good news about God, Christ, and his Spirit? About grace and salvation? About conversion of heart and meditating on the Word?”  

Boff wrote the letter after reading a report of CELAM’s most recent meeting. He has previously criticised Liberation Theology for putting “the poor in the place of Christ, making them a fetish and reducing Christ to having a mere supportive role”.

The French bishops’ conference expressed “shock” last week after receiving 12 fresh allegations of abuse by Abbé Pierre, founder of the Emmaus Movement. Seven of the claims involved “minors at the time of the events”, the bishops said in a statement.  

The Capuchin Abbé Pierre became renowned for his campaigns against poverty after he called for an “uprising of kindness” when an evicted woman froze to death in the Parisian streets during the icy winter of 1954. Voted France´s most popular man 16 times, the former Resistance fighter founded the Emmaus Movement to combat poverty in 1949.  

Last July, Emmaus International publicised claims Abbé Pierre had sexually assaulted eight women. Further abuse allegations, including of rape, emerged last September, leading Emmaus International, which comprises 425 groups in 41 countries, to announce a change of name and the French Church to open its archives.  

In January, the president of the French bishops’ conference appealed to the Paris prosecutor to open an official inquiry into the allegations, by then numbering 33 in total. In February, the prosecutor announced it would not investigate the allegations since Abbé Pierre (whose real name was Henri Grouès) had died in 2007.  

In their statement on 10 July, the bishops said they were “committed to helping victims rebuild their lives after what they have been through”.

More than 6,000 survivors, activists and international visitors joined a three-day march of peace from Tuzla to Potocari in Bosnia and Herzegovina to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre on 11 July, the date the United Nations announced last year as the International Srebrenica Memorial Day.  

In July 1995, more than 8,000 Muslim Bosniak men and boys were murdered by members of the Serbian-Bosniak army and Serb paramilitaries under the eyes of Dutch UN troops. Women and girls who had been promised safe passage were systematically raped and murdered. In 2007, the International Court of Justice declared it the largest war crime on European soil since the end of the Second World War and an act of genocide. 

Thomas Schwartz, chief executive of the aid agency Renovabis, said churches and religious communities had a particular responsibility to ensure the massacre was remembered and turned to reconciliation and peace.

The Archbishop of Berlin Heiner Koch said Christians could not remain silent in the face of crimes against humanity, and must look out for “the signs that precede hatred … when people are made into ‘the other’, when neighbours are suddenly considered enemies, when lies are spread about groups of people”. 

He continued: “Commemorating Srebrenica is not a look back in resignation, but a mission for today: what happened then must never happen again. Never again must people be persecuted and murdered because of their origins, their faith, or their affiliation.” 

The perpetrators of the massacre “turned neighbours into enemies, people into objects of hatred [and] destroyed not only lives, but also the trust of entire communities”, said Koch.

The Vatican approved devotions at a site of alleged Marian apparitions in Litmanová, northern Slovakia. The Dicastery of the Doctrine of Faith awarded the Nihil Obstat to Mount Zvir where the Virgin Mary allegedly appeared between 1990 and 1995.  

Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith, announced the ruling in a letter to Archbishop Jonáš Jozef Maxim, the Archeparch of Prešov for Byzantine-Rite Catholics.  

“Although this declaration does not imply recognition of the supernatural authenticity of the alleged apparitions, it nevertheless permits the approval of public devotion and informs the faithful that they can safely approach this spiritual offering,” he said.  

However, Fernández noted that a “few” of the messages required clarification, urging Maxim to publish “a compilation of the messages that excludes those few statements that could lead to confusion and disturb the faith of ordinary people”.

Pope Leo XlV erected the Diocese of Kapsabet in Kenya, the first new diocese of his pontificate. Bishop John Kiplimo Lelei, an auxiliary in the Diocese of Eldoret, was appointed to lead the new see formed from part of its territory in Nandi County. 

According to statistics announced by the Vatican on 10 July 2025, the new diocese will include 313,655 Catholics from a total 885,711 people in its territory, representing 35.4 per cent of the population. Its 36 parishes are served by 52 priests – 44 of them diocesan and eight Religious – and St Peter’s Church in the township of Kapsabet will be its cathedral.  

The Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) called for an investigation into police conduct after a senior officer accused South Africa’s police minister Senzo Mchunu of interfering with law enforcement efforts, disbanding a Political Killings Task Team and obstructing justice.  

The allegations follow widespread reports of political assassinations and high-level corruption, which critics say the government is unwilling to address. The SACBC called for “an independent body” to look into these reports “as well as broader issues around police leadership and performance” in a statement on 10 July. 

“The allegations raised by Lt General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi will deepen the layers of negativity around police work. It is imperative that the issues he raised be afforded immediate attention,” it said. “The very airing of the allegations in public is deeply unsettling and a matter of national security.” 

After President Cyril Ramaphosa placed Mchunu on leave and launched an inquiry, the SACBC president Cardinal Stephen Brislin of Johannesburg expressed “deep gratitude” for these “steps in the right direction”.

Angola’s bishops denounced the persecution of catechists in remote areas, where communities falsely accuse them of witchcraft and subject them to unlawful trials. Bishop António Francisco Jaca of Benguela condemned “alarming acts”. 

Speaking on 8 July after a pastoral visit to remote areas of the Balombo Municipality, he said catechists “are accused by their own communities of being sorcerers and subjected to trials with no legal basis” and live “under the weight of a dangerous mentality”. He continued: “They feel abandoned. Neither the civil authorities, police, nor even their own Church community come to their defence.” 

In Cameroon, meanwhile, two catechists of the Diocese of Ebolowa were suspended by the Church after they were accused of occult practices. 

In a communiqué on 28 June, the parish priest of the Church of Saints Philippe and Jacques in Ngoulemakong suspended Benoit Onana, the parish’s head catechist, and Gerard Zambo, from Messok village, after they were accused of using occult powers to cause the death of Fr Rapahael Magloire Mintong in a car crash in April.

Pope Leo ended the appointment of the papal delegate appointed to resolve the Syro-Malabar Church’s liturgy dispute in southern India.

Pope Francis appointed the Slovakian Jesuit Archbishop Cyril Vasil’ in 2023 as his delegate in re liturgica for the Archeparchy of Ernakulam-Angamaly in Kerala, where opposition to reforms to its eastern-rite liturgy threatened to cause schism. 

The Church’s leadership announced a compromise with dissident clergy at the end of June, and the Dicastery for Eastern Churches announced on 7 July that the Pope had ended Vasil’s office “expressing deep gratitude to the prelate for his work”.

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