Saint Joseph Catholic Church

Father Gawel was detained in 2025 on espionage charges, according to Reform.news, which covers events in Belarus.

The Eastern European nation of 9.5 million (map) is 82% Christian (63% Orthodox, 17% Catholic). An autocratic president, Alexander Lukashenko, has led the nation since 1994.

Father Subash Gomes, O.M.I., was hospitalized, and his passport stolen.

The South Asian nation of 170 million (map)--the world’s eighth most populous—is 89% Muslim and 9% Hindu.

“Last year, the influential futurist Jaron Lanier attended a Vatican conference on AI even though he disagrees with the Church on plenty of other issues,” according to the report. Lanier “left the discussion thinking that the Catholic understanding of the human person is ‘vastly, vastly, vastly more sane and reasonable’ than that of his Silicon Valley peers.”

“Right now, all of our 131 parishes have Mass every weekend,” said Brenda Kresky, director of diocesan pastoral planning. “We’re reducing that by [about] a third and saying, even if you remain open, you won’t have Mass on the weekend.”

“We are resurrection people,” she added. “You have to go through Good Friday to get to the resurrection. You don’t get to skip Good Friday.”

The Diocese of St. Cloud has 131 parishes, 49 diocesan priests active in the diocese, 87 total diocesan priests, and 73 religious priests in the diocese, according to the 2025 edition of The Official Catholic Directory.

“Any armed action that attacks the civilian population constitutes a grave offense against God and a rupture of the moral and social order,” said Archbishop Francisco Javier Múnera Correa, Archbishop Gabriel Ángel Villa Vahos, and Bishop Germán Medina Acosta. “Human life is sacred and must be protected under all circumstances.”

The prelates added, “In the name of God, we exhort those who promote and carry out violent actions to exercise restraint, to immediately cease every act that threatens life, to comply with the principles of international humanitarian law, and to treat the population with humanity.”

“I deeply understand the sacrifice this will require,” Bishop Michael Barber, S.J., wrote in his statement, entitled “Aligning our reality with our mission.”

“We cannot allow nostalgia and sentimentality to hold back the message of the Gospel,” he continued. “While we love our local church building, the church has never been solely a building ... The faith of our people will continue, just in a different place and with new people.”

The Diocese of Oakland has 82 parishes, 153 diocesan priests active in the diocese, 218 total diocesan priests, and 179 religious priests in the diocese, according to the 2025 edition of The Official Catholic Directory.

“The transmission of faith within families is weaker now than in the past,” said Cardinal Farrell, the prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life. “According to the Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae 2021, between 1991 and 2021, the number of baptisms administered worldwide to children under the age of seven declined by 31.1%, and Catholic marriages by 48%.”

“Faced with these figures, we must not lose heart; rather, we must remain fully aware of them so as to transform this situation into an opportunity for ecclesial renewal,” he added.

Bishop Rémy Vancottem, who governed the diocese from 2010 to 2019, is not permitted to celebrate Mass publicly or to participate in bodies of the episcopal conference.

The diocese statement followed the publication of an article in Humo, a Dutch-Belgian magazine.

The Pontiff “had a great interest in the sciences and was responsible for the re-establishment and reform of the Vatican Observatory in 1891 within the walls of the Vatican,” the Vatican Observatory noted.

The naming was announced in the International Astronomical Union’s WGSBN Bulletin (p. 14); the WGSBN is the Working Group for Small Bodies Nomenclature.

Pope Leo XIV called for peace in Colombia amid escalating pre-election violence in the South American nation.