Saint Joseph Catholic Church

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The bishop of Arlington, Virginia, instructed the faithful to “avoid participating in the activities of the SSPX.”

“I encourage any persons locally who have been attached to the SSPX and who desire the spiritual nourishment of the Church and the Extraordinary Form of the Mass to become active in any one of the eight locations in our diocese where this is currently possible,” Bishop Michael Burbidge said in his July 8 statement.

“To my brother priests in the SSPX, please know of my prayers for you and my heartfelt desire for your return to full communion with the Church,” Bishop Burbidge added. “I invite all the faithful to join me in prayer for the end of all division and schism and for the unity of the Church, so that she may better fulfill the divine commission to make disciples of all nations.”

The chairman of the U.S. bishops’ canonical affairs committee discussed the bishops’ recent revisions to the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, said that “in the Charter revision process, the feedback we were getting was not to make any major revisions, that what we have has been working well—and so that’s the approach the revision process took.” He said that positive revisions include a glossary that defines terms and references to the presumption of innocence and mandatory Church reporting of allegations.

Defending the continued exclusion of the sexual abuse of adults from the document, the prelate said that “one reason is the potential ramifications—currently under the charter and the Essential Norms, we have a policy of zero tolerance and that is not necessarily the case with adult misconduct ... Bringing them into the Essential Norms would be the whole process of having to take that to the Holy See, and just delaying this whole thing, in order to deal with these other issues under the Charter.”

Fides News Agency, the agency of the Pontifical Mission Societies, reported on recent efforts by Latin American and Caribbean dioceses to advocate for communities adversely affected by mining.

“Our only concern is to safeguard the life of every human being,” said Bishop Rafael Valdivieso of Chitré, Panama. “Anything that endangers human health and life represents a serious risk.”

The former president of Fairfield University in Connecticut argued in an op-ed that U.S. sanctions against Cuba are harming the Church there.

Father Jeffrey von Arx, S.J., wrote that “while there is growing awareness of the severe humanitarian crisis in Cuba, in large measure brought on by the U.S. fuel blockade, few are paying attention to the damage that decades of sanctions are inflicting on the Catholic Church’s ability to serve the Cuban people,”

“The sisters who bake the hosts for Holy Communion for most of the parishes in Cuba can no longer provide them because they cannot use their ovens due to lack of gas and electricity,” Father von Arx continued. “Churches have appealed abroad for assistance simply to celebrate the Eucharist.”

“The Church has become one of the few institutions capable of accompanying vulnerable families, providing humanitarian assistance and creating space for dialogue,” he added, as he argued that “policies that further weaken the Church’s ability to carry out that mission ultimately harm the very people the United States says it wants to support.”

A Paulist priest recently celebrated a Pride Mass outside the Stonewall National Monument in New York, as part of his parish’s Out at St. Paul ministry.

“To all those who have suffered because of our Church, please hear this: first, I’m sorry,” Father Chris Lawton, C.S.P., preached. “I am sorry for the times that the Church has not recognized the presence of God in you, and for the times it has implicitly encouraged others to do the same.”

“I want to apologize to our transgender siblings, who continue to face unique injustice in this Church, and at this time in the life of our country as well,” Father Lawton added.

Echoing an appeal he made last week, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, the former prefect of the Papal Household and private secretary of the late Pope Benedict, renewed his repeal for the lifting of restrictions on the traditional Latin Mass.

Archbishop Gänswein, now apostolic nuncio to three Baltic nations, said in an interview that Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict’s 2007 document permitting wider celebration of the extraordinary form, bore fruit “especially for young people, and this can be seen first of all in the increasing numbers of the Paris-Chartres pilgrimage every year.”

“These young people are nourished by the beauty of the liturgy; they are not at all opposed to the Second Vatican Council,” he continued. “It is not true that those who have a traditional liturgical sensibility and participate in the Tridentine Masses are anti-conciliar.”

In 2021, Pope Francis repealed the provisions of Summorum Pontificum when he issued Traditionis Custodes, his 2021 document restricting the extraordinary form of the Mass.

Father John Sheridan of the Diocese of Youngstown, Ohio, announced that the documentation for the sainthood cause of the Servant of God Rhoda Wise (1888-1948) has been submitted to the Vatican.

The late Bishop George Murry, S.J., began the cause’s diocesan phase in 2017.

Caritas Venezuela, the charitable agency of the Church in Venezuela, reported that it has distributed 4,031 tons of water and 3,247 tons of food to more than 8,000 families affected by the recent earthquakes.

The agency also report that it has received 14,700 tons of humanitarian aid.

Citing Pope Leo’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, a Vatican diplomat called upon the international community to “move beyond development metrics tied to gross domestic product,” especially with regard to Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

Addressing a UN discussion on SIDS, Msgr. Marco Formica, interim chargé d’affaires of the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations, said on July 9 that small island nations’ “exposure to climate-related disasters, environmental degradation, and external economic shocks repeatedly unmask deep structure vulnerabilities that GDP-metrics fail to capture.”