Read & Reflect
Articles, reflections, news, and homilies — thoughtful Catholic content for the faithful, published regularly.
World News
World News
‘God gave the growth’: Mar Srampickal on 10 years of Britain’s Syro-Malabar eparchy
Ten years ago this week, Pope Francis created a diocese for Syro-Malabar Catholics in Great Britain.Mar Joseph Srampickal, Bishop of the Syro-Malabar Eparchy of Great Britain. Credit: © Mazur/cbcew.org.uk.On July 28, 2016, the Argentine pope named Fr. Joseph Srampickal as the first bishop of the Syr...
World News
Leo XIV issues new Fundamental Law of Vatican City State
Pope Leo XIV issued a new Fundamental Law of Vatican City State Friday, replacing a previous version adopted in 2023.The dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. Credit: Livioandronico2013/wikimedia CC BY-SA 4.0.In a preamble to the new document, which was issued only in Italian July 31, Leo XIV explained that...
World News
‘Open arms and outstretched hand’ - Vatican clinic aims to uphold dignity
From the outside, the Madre di Misericordia clinic may not seem like much. In fact, it’s easy to miss the clinic entirely.Located just steps from the security lines where tourists and pilgrims wait to enter St. Peter’s Basilica, the entrance to the clinic is modest enough that a passerby could easil...
World News
Who’s in and who’s out? Leo’s revamp of Vatican supreme court
Pope Leo XIV appointed seven new members to the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the Church’s highest canonical court of appeal, on July 25, including the first three non-bishops ever appointed as members of the tribunal.Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome. Public domain.The appointments b...
World News
Meet the 21st-century Brazilians on the path to sainthood
Brazil has more Catholics than any other country in the world. So it’s not surprising that it’s producing a striking number of potential 21st-century saints.Padre Léo, pictured in 2006. Screenshot from the @cancaonovaplay YouTube channel.Among the figures whose causes are progressing is Padre Léo, w...
World News
Eddie Cotter: Spiritual maintenance after the 'mountaintop moment'
With the school year approaching, a challenge looms for Catholic teenagers across America — the dreaded post-conference spiritual crash.Eddie Cotter speaks with teenagers at a youth group event. Credit: Jack Figge.After experiencing powerful spiritual moments from jampacked summers of Steubenville C...
World News
Two more Irish dioceses united ‘in persona episcopi’
Pope Leo XIV approved the union of two more Irish dioceses under a single bishop Wednesday.A map highlighting Ireland’s dioceses of Ferns, left, and Ossory. Sheila1988 via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).The Vatican announced July 29 that Bishop Gerard Nash, who has led the Diocese of Ferns since 2021, wou...
World News
Where Leo prayed
Pilgrims arriving at the Shrine of the Most Holy Trinity in Vallepietra approach on foot after hours of walking through the mountains, traveling in groups behind decorated banners. Inside, they touch the rock above them. When they leave, they walk backwards, unwilling to turn their backs on the imag...
World News
Prayer app leak is latest in series of Vatican website vulnerabilities
A popular prayer app connected to the Vatican, “Click to Pray,” has been leaving user information exposed for months, the most recent in a years-long string of vulnerabilities and hacks for Vatican-related websites.St. Peter’s Basilica. public domain.Subscribe nowThe app, which is available on both...
World News
Leo and the patriarchy
As the Ukrainian Catholic Church continues to form Catholics more than four years after the country was first invaded by Russia, there are signs that Pope Leo may be considering a long-awaited change of status for the second-largest Eastern Catholic Church in the world.Pope Leo XIV and Major Archbis...
World News
Motor City Blues
Like many US dioceses, the Archdiocese of Detroit is going through a parish consolidation process.In the preparation, the archdiocese has posted a detailed set of presentations (one for each parish in the archdiocese) providing the data diocesan leaders are assessing as they make these decisions abo...
World News
Transalpine Redemptorist founder excommunicated for schism
The head of a traditionalist group who was illicitly ordained a bishop on a remote Scottish island Saturday has been declared excommunicated after a diocesan canonical process found him guilty of schism.The illicit episcopal consecration of Fr. Michael Mary Sim, F.SS.R., on Papa Stronsay, on July 25...