World News

Teresa Bayer spends time with the Simpson kids. The two families have forged a tight-knit friendship. COMMENTARY: It’s as old as the Visitation, and we should learn to practice it. ... read more

The gathering will function as “a space for mutual listening, discernment, and shared exploration of certain issue,” Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re said. St. Peter’s Basilica. | Credit: cinemavision/Shutterstock Several working sessions and four themes ranging from war to synodality are planned for the next consistory ... read more

Several working sessions and four themes ranging from war to synodality are planned for the next consistory convened by Pope Leo XIV. From reflection on the international situation to a possible “updating” of the doctrine of just war, to discussion of the encyclical Magnifica Humanitas to the steps of the synodal process, the cardinals are ... read more

The vice president of the Italian Episcopal Conference deplored the gruesome murder of four migrants from Afghanistan and Pakistan who were working in slave-like conditions in Amendolara, a small town in Calabria. ... read more

Oswald Clark, U.S. Correspondent: On May 13, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin told a U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee hearing that he did not know anything about abortion-related contaminants in the country’s water supply even though he has been personally briefed on the issue by Liberty Council Action. Zeldin was asked by ... read more

Selected Letters of John Updike:Edited by James Schiff (Penguin Random House, $73, 912 pages) John Updike is perhaps the preeminent example of what is called a man of letters – the author of short stories, novels, critical essays. A number of his letters are collected in a large volume, Selected Letters of John Updike. At ... read more

Modern Monsters: Political Ideologues and Their War against the Catholic Church:George Marlin (St. Augustine’s Press, $45.50, 227 pages) Version 1.0.0 George Marlin, chairman of Aid to the Church in Need-USA, has written an accessible examination of a dozen or so intellectuals whose ideas have, in his ... read more

Indiana and Tennessee have designated June as Nuclear Family Month—one by gubernatorial proclamation, the other following legislative votes. ... read more

In a prominent front-page article in its June 3 edition, the Vatican newspaper highlighted the revival of Qaraqosh, an Iraqi Christian city occupied by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) from 2014 to 2016. ... read more

Mexicoʼs bishops have a established a new pastoral ministry to meet the growing need of people experiencing spiritual, moral, and physical suffering, which could also be of malevolent origin. Praying with the Scriptures. | Credit: Anelina/Shutterstock As head of the recently established ministry team for ... read more

As head of the recently established ministry team for the Pastoral Care of Consolation and the Ministry of Exorcism (DEPAC, by its Spanish acronym) of the Mexican Bishops’ Conference, Bishop José Trinidad Zapata Ortiz highlighted the importance of a “mature faith” in the face of the proliferation of esoteric cults into which not a few ... read more

Given our current cultural “disclosure” moment, the 1997 film Contact, based on Carl Sagan’s 1985 novel, has taken on a strangely prophetic quality. Nearly thirty years later, its themes are no longer confined to science fiction. Congressional hearings on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs, or UFOs), testimonies from military officials, and the Department of War’s release ... read more

Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington, D.C., announced on June 3 that he had removed Msgr. Stephen Rossetti, a famed exorcist, “as an exorcist of the Archdiocese of Washington, and ended all affiliation between the archdiocese and the Saint Michael Center for Spiritual Renewal located in Washington, D.C.” ... read more

In December, I wrote about Maria von Trapp and, in particular, her book The Story of the Trapp Family Singers (1949), on which the famous musical The Sound of Music is based. Maria wrote several other books, which are also well worth reading. The family’s genuine and lived faith is beautifully shown through all of ... read more

Rome - The worldwide network of the Pontifical Mission Societies is today a vibrant reality, driven by “one simple goal: to bring the message of Jesus Christ to places and situations where ecclesial communities flourish. This mission can only bear fruit if we believe in the Resurrection.” At the close of the 2026 General Assembly ... read more