News Briefing: Church in the World

The apostolic nuncio to Ukraine “prayed for Russia” during a visit to sites of airstrikes in Kyiv, asking “that the Lord may grant it the grace to turn from war to peace”. 

Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas visited parts of the capital damaged during a wave of attacks on the night of 1-2 July, which killed more than 30 people across the country. He told Vatican Radio that some were “still trapped beneath the rubble of the destroyed buildings I just visited” and that every strike “means more lives are being destroyed”. 

Bishop Kenneth Nowakowski of the Ukrainian Eparchy of the Holy Family in London issued a statement saying the attacks “intentionally targeted civilian life” and were “a profound violation of human dignity”.

The European Union bishops’ conference council Comece said the strengthening of European defence capabilities is legitimate and necessary, but the EU must not lose sight of its original vocation as a project of peace. 

The Comece statement, echoing Pope Leo XIV’s statements before this week’s Nato summit in Ankara, said “security cannot be reduced to its military dimension alone”. US President Donald Trump had said the meeting should review members’ commitment to spend five per cent of GDP on defence. 

“European citizens rightly expect the Union and its Member States to ensure their security and protect the values on which the European project is founded,” the statement said. “The future European Security Strategy should therefore combine stronger defence capabilities with renewed investment in diplomacy, conflict prevention, peace-building, international cooperation and multilateralism.” 

It continued: “Security policy must remain firmly oriented towards the strategic objective of peace and grounded in respect for human dignity, fundamental rights and the common good.” Comece said security was also threatened by “poverty, forced displacement, environmental degradation, climate change, pandemics, organised crime, social fragmentation and democratic erosion”.

Swiss authorities ended the exemption for clergy from military service. Hitherto clergy who were not military chaplains were included among the professions and office holders whose presence at home in times of war was regarded as essential.  

The change of Article 18 of Switzerland’s military law came into force on 1 June and went largely unnoticed. The reason for the proposed change, according to the Federal Council, was that the exemption had developed historically but was now partly outdated as the need for pastoral support at home had changed in recent decades, citing the large number of people leaving the Church. 

Swiss reports said the churches do not appear on the list of the organisations asked to comment prior to the discussion in parliament.  

The Swiss Bishops’ Conference “regretted” that it had only been able to respond retrospectively, as the change affected the churches and their pastoral presence in Switzerland. Its spokesman Maurice Greder said the Federal Council’s argument were “to a certain extent presumptuous” and did not take into account “the many dimensions of pastoral care”.

The German Bishops’ Conference (DBK) is to establish a commission on “Women in sacramental offices in a global perspective”, according to a letter by the conference’s general secretary Beate Gilles seen by KNA.  

This follows up on a decision of the Synodal Way: “As a form of continuation of the consultation on the topics of the Synodal Way, a commission will be set up that will deal exclusively with the topic of the sacramental ministry of people of all genders.”  

While the decision to admit women to sacramental offices has to be made by Rome rather than local churches, the Synodal Way had asked the German bishops to continue to support the admission of women to the diaconate for all churches wanting this in their particular pastoral situation. 

Gilles confirmed that the commission should be a place where the concern to involve women in sacramental offices could be discussed jointly by the DBK and the Central Committee of Lay Catholics (ZDK).  

The DBK and the ZDK will each appoint five delegates, with recruitment currently underway.  ZDK representatives will be appointed shortly and the bishops’ conference will elect its delegates at its autumn plenary.

Roger Vangheluwe, the former Bishop of Bruges who resigned in a 2010 sexual abuse case that still haunts the Belgian Church, died on 1 July defrocked and confined to a Benedictine abbey in France. He was 89. 

The scandal was “the starting point for Belgium’s growing awareness of sexual abuse in the Church, with its judicial investigations, commissions, and, years later, its special parliamentary commission”, the Church’s Cathobel agency said. 

Vangheluwe, close to the late Cardinal Godfried Danneels, admitted in 2010 to abusing two young nephews. He quit his diocese and took refuge in Solesmes Abbey near Le Mans but always rejected allegations of paedophilia. He seemed forgotten for a decade, but the TV mini-series “Godforsaken” on the sex abuse scandal reignited public outrage in late 2023. 

Belgian bishops had repeatedly asked the Vatican to laicise Vangheluwe but received no response. Prime Minister Alexander De Croo joined the call for him to be punished. 

In January 2024, an official of Belgian bishops’ conference told a Flemish parliamentary inquiry that “it will be difficult for Pope Francis to make a peaceful visit to our country in September until there is clarity on this matter”. The Pope decreed Vangheluwe’s dismissal from the clerical state in March 2024, and visited the country the following September.

The final fragment of the “Rebirth” mosaic, a major new artwork dedicated to the victims of spiritual and sexual abuse in the Church, was unveiled in Lourdes in southern France last weekend. 

“Rebirth” was designed by French hermit artist Sr Samuelle, who says she was abused by the former Jesuit priest and artist Marko Rupnik. The mosaic is one facet of a multidisciplinary project which also includes a documentary “The Symphony of Tesserae” by French director Quentin Delcourt. 

The new artwork will be displayed at locations where Rupnik’s mosaics are still or were exhibited, including sanctuaries in Lourdes, Fatima, the Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida in Brazil, the St John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, DC and the Vatican. 

In the coming months, all of the large fragments or tesserae that make up the artwork will be assembled and presented to the public in the artwork’s entirety in Paris. The fragments will later be individually displayed in 200 different places in France and beyond. 

According to Quentin Delcourt, Lourdes will host both the first and the last fragments of the mosaic thereby becoming the starting point and destination of this journey to recognise abuse in the Church and bring healing to victims of abuse.

Pope Leo XIV’s much-awaited visit to France in September is emerging as the latest twist in the torturous parliamentary procedure to pass an assisted suicide bill.

President Emmanuel Macron made a 2022 re-election promise to loosen France’s end-of-life-laws, which now allow deep sedation until death. The National Assembly has voted three times to allow assisted suicide with optional euthanasia, but the Senate has rejected the bill twice. 

The Senate refused its final vote on the bill, instead making a last-minute appeal to the government to “end this sterile back-and-forth, rather than using the constitutional means at its disposal to force through such a reform”. The lower house is due to pass the bill definitively on 15 July. 

The appeal noted that UK parliamentarians had decided to repeat their assisted suicide debate this autumn due to a similar impasse. “Wisdom would therefore dictate that the government follow this example,” the motion on 3 July said. 

The US-born Pope’s lively interest in France would be overshadowed if the bill passed. Thanks to its rising adult baptisms, Leo recently chose Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline of Aveline and Archbishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort of Rheims to advise the Dicastery for Evangelisation. 

“At this rate, the government’s objective of passing the law before summer is not guaranteed,” Famille Chrétienne said in an editorial. “The prospect of the Pope’s visit … offers a glimmer of hope for a bit of wisdom and consistency at the highest levels of government to scrap this bill.”

The prosecutor general of Spain requested prison sentences of 12 years each for seven schismatic former nuns accused of mistreating elderly nuns in their care.  

The former Poor Clares of the community once located in Belorado, in the Burgos region of north-west Spain, publicised the six charges brought against them by a private individual and the prosecutor general for the alleged mistreatment of five elderly Poor Clares aged between 87 and 101 years old.  

In December 2025, Spanish police removed the elderly religious from the care of the schismatic community, on the orders of a judge. The ex-nuns say they “completely disagree” with the charges.  

“What we are living through is persecution, a punishment for having defied ecclesiastical authorities,” said the former religious who in May 2024 announced their decision to leave the Catholic Church on the grounds that they no longer believed the Pope – or any pope since Pius XII who died in 1958 – had the authority to govern it.

They were subsequently excommunicated by the Archbishop of Burgos.

The lives of over one million people across East Africa have been transformed by investment by Vita Impact, an NGO supported by religious orders in Ireland, Britain and the US, according to its latest report.  

Vita outlined how its €9 million Vita Green Impact Fund, established in 2023, created 300 jobs, generated €600,000 in local revenue, and resulted in the planting of 840,000 trees – preventing 430,000 tonnes of CO₂ emissions. 

John Weakliam, Vita CEO, said their model “proves that what Africa really needs is investment through next-generation models of development that rely less on hand-outs. We intend to scale up this cost-effective model to 4 million people in the next phase”. 

The model places women at the centre of climate action and sustainable development through safe water, fuel-efficient cookstoves and community-led forestry projects in Ethiopia and Eritrea. The fund generates revenue by selling the carbon emission savings generated as carbon credits.

The Holy See called for international action to prevent human rights violations in El Obeid, a city in the south of Sudan that has come under siege in its civil war. 

Speaking at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, the Holy See’s permanent observer Archbishop Ettore Balestrero warned that many of the 500,000 people trapped in the city had been displaced from El Fasher, where rebels committed atrocities against civilians during an 18-month siege that ended in October. 

“It is the responsibility of the international community to ensure that this tragedy is not repeated,” Archbishop Balestrero said. “Starving civilians can never be a method of warfare.” He insisted there could be “no military solution to the crisis in Sudan”.

A bishop called for lasting solutions to solve South Africa’s migrant crisis as xenophobic attacks escalated in recent days, with thousands of African nationals fleeing the country fearing for their lives. Critics say the South African government has failed to create employment opportunities for young people, amid high levels of corruption. 

“Our pain calls us not to find someone to blame but something to build.  Only together can we seek lasting solutions that uphold the dignity of every person,” said Archbishop Sithembele Sipuka of Cape Town, speaking in Rome where he was among 35 recently appointed metropolitans to receive the pallium from Pope Leo on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul. 

He said that South Africa faces huge social and economic challenges and warned that “if tomorrow every African foreign national were to leave this country, our problems would still be with us”. He insisted: “The cause is not the foreigner.”  

South Africa hosts millions of migrants from across Africa, many of whom are in the country illegally. Xenophobic attacks escalated last month when mobs of protestors gave the migrants an ultimatum to leave the country by 30 June.

The Diocese of Enugu in eastern Nigeria refused a request to use the Jubilee Hall of the Holy Ghost Cathedral in the city for the rally in support of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.  

“Since the event in support of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Barr Dr Peter Ndubuisi Mbah … is intended to serve as a political endorsement gathering, the Catholic Diocese of Enugu wishes to state that it does not permit the use of its churches, parish halls, or other ecclesiastical facilities for partisan political rallies, endorsements or similar activities,” said a statement signed by the diocese’s director of communications Fr Anthony Aneke.

He said the event “does not reflect the policy or position of the diocese and therefore will not hold at the said venue”, expressing regret for “any misunderstanding that the announcement may have created”. 

The diocese’s position is consistent with the policy of institutional neutrality toward party politics adopted by Nigeria’s Catholic bishops. While maintaining this neutrality, the episcopate regularly speaks out on social, moral and governance issues in the light of the Church’s Social Doctrine, following the canonical limits on the involvement of clergy in active politics. 

In early June 2026, the Diocese of Enugu hosted meetings and public discussions on civic education and the 2027 elections, with the aim of encouraging informed and responsible democratic participation.

United States immigration officials arrested and then released a nun detained while walking to Sunday Mass. 

On 28 June Sr Leticia Ugboaja, a 56-year-old member of the Daughters of Mary Mother of Mercy, was travelling to Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church in McAllen, Texas, located a few miles from the Mexican border, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials took her into custody, according to a statement issued by the church. 

The incident garnered attention across Texas as parishioners, congressional officials, advocacy organisations and the Diocese of Brownsville expressed concern that a nun dressed in her religious habit had been apprehended by ICE. 

Church officials said Ugboaja serves as an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion at Our Lady of Sorrows Church and is a registered nurse at South Texas Health System. Following the intervention by lawmakers from South Texas, Ugboaja was released and returned home later on the day of her arrest. 

“For now, it is clear that Homeland Security enforcement protocols that make it possible for a religious sister, or anyone, to be detained and handcuffed while peacefully walking to church on a Sunday morning are wildly disturbing and need to be reformed,” said Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville Flores in a statement.

The nurses’ union at St Charles Hospital in Long Island, New York, reported progress at strike negotiations on 2 July and said they were eager to resume discussions on Monday, according to the New York State Nurses Association. 

Dozens of nurses marched to St Charles Hospital President James O’Connor’s office in late June to notify him that they will strike on 13 July unless management negotiates a fair contract that delivers safe staffing and fair wages, union officials said. O’Connor “stepped in to prevent bargaining committee members from attending the planned session” on Friday, the union said. 

St Charles Hospital, located in Port Jefferson, NY, is a campus of Good Samaritan University Hospital and is part of Rockville Centre-based Catholic Health. The union represents about 300 nurses at St Charles.  Catholic Health is a six-hospital system with about 18,000 employees.

A restaurant server repeated stabbed a parish priest in Austin, Texas after recognising him from a church he previously attended as he was leaving a downtown steakhouse, according to local reports. 

Local police identified the suspect as 45-year-old Edward Koubek, who was charged with second-degree felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The victim was Fr Jairo Sandoval-Pliego, the pastor of San Jose Catholic Church in Austin.

The incident happened around 10:30 p.m. on 27 June at Bob’s Steak and Chop House. The Austin Police Department responded to multiple 911 calls reporting a stabbing. The responding officers found Sandoval-Pliego bleeding from his neck and transported him to a local hospital for treatment. He was expected to recover.

Police said Koubek stabbed the priest because he allegedly held a grudge against him from church. Bail for Koubek was set at $18,000.

The Nicaraguan government freed a retired bishop from detention following pressure from the United States. Police had arrested Bishop Juan Abelardo Mata SDB, the 80-year-old former Bishop of Estelí, on 25 June after he urged Catholics to pray for the persecuted Church including the exiled Bishop of Matagalpa Rolando Álvarez during a Mass at the Cross of Calvery parish in the city of Estelí.  

The US government had demanded “immediate and unconditional freedom” for Bishop Mata, denouncing his “arbitrary detention by the Murillo-Ortega dictatorship”. A statement from the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs said: “Bishop Emeritus Mata does not represent any threat to the Sandinista regime and his health is fragile.” It added: “We also condemn the continued and cruel religious persecution and repression by the Murillo-Ortega dictatorship. Attacks on religious freedom must cease.” 

The bishop was initially informed that he was under investigation and taken to his home in the city of Tisma in south-eastern Nicaragua. Later, police took the bishop to an unknown location. Mata served as Bishop of Estelí from 1990 until 2021 and was previously an auxiliary in the Archdiocese of Managua.

Pope Leo asked for the intercession of Bl Francis Xavier Truong Buu Diep for “all those who proclaim the Gospel in situations of persecution today”, after his beatification in Vietnam on 2 July. 

More than 70,000 people attended the beatification Mass at the Tak Say Pilgrimage Centre in the Mekong Delta – the first such ceremony held in the country – where Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle presided as the Pope’s special envoy. 

He said Diep, killed in odium fidei by two Japanese deserters in 1946 after refusing to leave his parish, invites Catholics “to be witnesses or martyrs of [Jesus’] truth”.  

Speaking after the Angelus in St Peter’s Square on Monday, Pope Leo said: “Amid oppression and violence [Diep] defended the rights of the people and did not abandon his parishioners.”

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