Saint Joseph Catholic Church

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Pope Leo XIV today named Msgr. Josef Grünwidl, 62, as the new archbishop of Vienna, a see whose last ten archbishops have been created cardinals, dating back to 1858.

Ordained to the priesthood in 1988, Archbishop-designate Grünwidl was appointed by Pope Francis as the archdiocese’s apostolic administrator in January upon the retirement of Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, OP.

The Austrian bishops’ news agency noted that the archbishop-designate has called several times for the end of the discipline of mandatory priestly celibacy in the Latin rite—a discipline highly praised by the Second Vatican Council in its Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests.

The bishops’ news agency also reported that the archbishop-designate believes that the discussion of the ordination of women to the diaconate “should not be suppressed,” and that he is open to the appointment of women as cardinals.

Some parishioners have pushed back after the Diocese of Spokane removed a priest from ministry.

“Bishop Thomas Daly has taken unusually public steps to disclose the nature of the allegations against Mejía and to brief parishioners on evidence of sexual and financial wrongdoing, a level of transparency rarely seen in the Catholic Church,” InvestigateWest reported. But some parishioners “see it as a politically or personally motivated purge—an effort by a conservative bishop to oust a popular priest whose warm, pastoral style clashed with Daly’s more hard-line approach.”

The archbishops of Denver, Las Vegas, and Santa Fe, joined by six other bishops, called on Catholics to engage in “peaceful and prayerful public witness” on behalf of migrants.

The prelates called on “each Catholic” to engage in a series of actions on behalf of migrants, including: “Prepare a Catholic vigil for migrants, following the guidelines and suggestions of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.” The bishops suggested October 22 as a “Catholic Day of Action.”

In September, 15 churches in the Diocese of Passau (map) were targets of theft and vandalism, according to the German Catholic radio station Domradio.

“We usually have about 15 to 20 burglaries in a whole year, and now we only have 15 cases in the month of September,” said Josef Sonnleitner, the diocesan finance director.

Following a court ruling, the State of Washington’s attorney general said he has agreed “not to enforce reporting requirements for information clergy learn solely through confession or its equivalent in other faiths.”

In May, the state enacted a law requiring priests to report information about child abuse, even if it is given in a sacramental confession. Under the agreement, clergy remain mandatory reporters of abuse, with the exception of abuse learned about in the confessional.

At a UN meeting devoted to “countries in special situations,” Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, apostolic nuncio and Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, renewed the Holy See’s call for debt relief for impoverished nations.

“My delegation recognizes that the most pressing and unifying concern for countries in special situations is the unsustainable debt burden,” he said. “The global financial system must be directed towards the goal of attaining the common good of the human family.”

The Office of Policy and Advocacy of the US bishops’ Department of Migration and Refugee Services has published a three-page “DACA Update.”

The DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program “was first created in 2012 to provide limited protection from deportation and access to legal work authorization for certain undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children, commonly known as ‘Dreamers,’” the USCCB office stated. “Since then, the legality of DACA has been considered in several lawsuits.”

Discussing the Islamist insurgency in Mozambique, a local bishop warned that “the situation continues to deteriorate and violence.”

Bishop Osório Citora Afonso, IMC, told the Fides news agency that jihadists recently burned down a church and kidnapped children.

“More than one million people have been displaced and 6,000 killed,” but “not much has been said about this” in the international media in recent years, the prelate added.

In an address at the awarding of the Ambassadors to the Holy See Literary Prize, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Secretary of State of His Holiness, paid tribute to priests and religious who remain in conflict zones.

After praising the example of Father Gabriel Romanelli and other priests and religious who have remained at Gaza’s sole parish, Cardinal Parolin recalled the last Mass in Baghdad’s cathedral before the American attack in 2003. The prelate also praised the example of priests elsewhere in Iraq, in Sarajevo, and in Chile, during the 1973 coup.

The winner of the prize was Andrea Angeli, for a book on faith in conflict zones.