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The Archdiocese of Kaduna, Nigeria, condemned new terrorist attacks on Catholic communities within its territory.

“The Archdiocese condemns these incessant attacks in the strongest terms and calls on government and the security agencies to intensify efforts towards the protection of lives and properties of such besieged areas,” Father Christian Okewu Emmanuel, the archdiocesan chancellor, said in a statement.

Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, said in an interview that “there are darn good reasons, moral reasons, for being concerned about an open border.”

“At times, the Catholic left is great for calling for dialogue and bridge-building—until it comes to conservatives,” Bishop Barron continued, as he called for “bridges of conversation.”

“What I don’t want from the Church is a kind of demonization of the Trump administration,” he added.

In his new encyclical letter, Pope Leo XIV wrote that “today, more than ever, without prejudice to the right to self-defense in the strictest sense, it is important to reaffirm that the ‘just war’ theory, which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated” (n. 192).

Pope Leo cited Pope Francis’s 2020 encyclical letter Fratelli tutti:

In recent decades, every single war has been ostensibly ‘justified.’ The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of the possibility of legitimate defense by means of military force, which involves demonstrating that certain ‘rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy’ have been met. Yet it is easy to fall into an overly broad interpretation of this potential right. In this way, some would also wrongly justify even ‘preventive’ attacks or acts of war that can hardly avoid entailing ‘evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.’

Addressing the World Health Assembly, a Vatican diplomat called for international cooperation to address “disparities in life expectancy and health quality across and within countries.”

“Shared responsibility is a call for civil authorities to consistently uphold the God-given dignity of every human being, by promoting the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health in policymaking and improving the conditions that enable people to live in good health,” said Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, apostolic nuncio and Permanent Observer to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva, Switzerland.

Archbishop Balestrero added that “the ethical litmus test of any reshaped global health architecture is how it treats those whose inherent dignity is most easily forgotten: the child in the womb, the elderly, persons with disabilities, the poor, the displaced.”

The Bolivian bishops issued an urgent plea for dialogue amid ongoing mass protests that began on May 7.

The Church “reiterates her readiness to accompany every sincere effort at encounter and reconciliation, and invites the People of God to intensify their prayer for Bolivia,” the episcopal conference said in a May 25 statement.

Pope Leo XIV met for 30 minutes on May 25 with Coadjutor Archbishop Carlos Tomás Morel Diplán of Santo Domingo, a massive see of 2.5 million Catholics in the Dominican Republic.

Archbishop Diplán, who already exercises administrative and financial authority in the archdiocese, said he was “invited to participate in several meetings at the Vatican.”

The Dominican news site N Digital reported that the Pope and the archbishop discussed the prelate’s mission in the archdiocese, as well as other issues related to the Church in the Caribbean nation.

Three years after the outbreak of ethnic violence in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur (map), the state’s leading prelate discussed the Church’s efforts to foster reconciliation.

“The Church has been deeply affected, just as the wider society in Manipur has,” said Archbishop Linus Neli of Imphal, India. “Thousands were displaced, and even after three years, only around 10% have been resettled, while many continue to live in relief camps.”

The president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops welcomed Pope Leo XIV’s new encyclical (CWN coverage) with “praise and gratitude.”

The encyclical is “a powerful reminder that no technology can replace a child of God, and all technology should be placed at the service of helping humanity thrive,” said Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City.

A priest of the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas, was arrested on suspicion of stealing $160,000 from his former parish.

Father Richard Storey, formerly of Curé of Ars Catholic Church in Leawood, was suspended and resigned his pastorate last fall amid a criminal investigation into an allegation that involved an adult victim. According to an archdiocesan statement, a subsequent archdiocesan review of parish finances uncovered information that “warranted referral to law enforcement.”