Saint Joseph Catholic Church

The chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development called on Congress to increase funding for the EPA and Department of the Interior, from fiscal year 2026 levels to the higher levels in the preceding fiscal year.

In a recent letter to leaders and ranking members of the House and Senate appropriations committees, Archbishop Shelton Fabre of Louisville, Kentucky, also asked that “funding allocation be faithful to the mission and goal of these agencies.”

“Adequate funding for EPA and DOI is necessary for our nation to safeguard our God-given, life sustaining natural resources such as water, air, lands, and wildlife,” Archbishop Fabre added. “Congress should take care to ensure that these funds address environmental risks to God’s creation, especially for the most vulnerable amongst us.”

The number of annual abortions in Scotland soared 55% between 2016 and 2025, from 12,135 to 18,783, according to statistics from Public Health Scotland.

In 2025, 42% of abortions were repeat abortions.

In an interview with the Fides news agency, the apostolic administrator of the Apostolic Vicariate of Brunei discussed the situation of the Church under the Islamic monarchy there (map).

Father Robert Leong Soon Choi said that “we have neither nuns nor religious, and there can be no missionaries, because this is not permitted by the government, which only allows local priests.” Under these conditions, there are three priests and three Catholic churches in the Southeast Asian nation.

“The government, however, wishes to show, in a certain way, that it is open and welcoming and that it allows the Catholic community to live within the state,” he continued. Nonetheless, “we cannot expand or evangelize. We cannot build new churches or expand existing ones.”

“The faithful are diligent, and Sunday Mass, religious holidays, and pastoral activities always attract large crowds,” he added. “Our community is small, and it lives its faith with simplicity and serenity, to the extent permitted by the constitutional order, and with a vibrant faith.”

Today is the Optional Memorial of St. Augustine of Canterbury (d. 605), who was born in Rome and died in Canterbury, England, in 604. When Pope Gregory I heard that the pagans of Britain were disposed to accept the Catholic Faith, he sent the prior of St. Andrew, Augustine, and forty of his Benedictine brethren to England. Despite the great difficulties involved in the task assigned to him, Augustine and his monks obeyed. The success of their preaching was immediate. King Ethelbert was baptized on Pentecost Sunday, 596, and the greater part of the nobles and people soon followed his example. St. Augustine died as the first Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Society of St. Pius X announced today the names of the four priests who are scheduled to be consecrated bishops on July 1.

They are Father Pascal Schreiber, 53; Father Michael Goldade, 45; Father Michel Poinsinet de Sivry, 42; and Father Marc Hanappier, 36.

Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, recently warned the Society that consecrating bishops without a papal mandate entails an automatic excommunication under canon law.

An Iranian woman who converted to Catholicism has been sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison, the evangelical Protestant publication World reported.

Ghazal Marzban, 41, was charged with propaganda against Islam. She had previously received 74 lashes for taking part in an anti-government protest, according to the report.

A man broke into a Catholic elementary school in Missouri, damaged images of Christ and the Virgin Mary, and set a fire in the building.

The incident at Immaculate Conception Elementary School in Springfield is one of over 400 acts of vandalism, arson, and other destruction at parishes and other Catholic sites in the United States since 2020.

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Vice President JD Vance praised Pope Leo XIV’s new encyclical (CWN coverage).

“What I read of it sounds very profound, and the sort of thing that you would expect and hope from a leader of the Church,” he said in an interview with NBC News. “The thing about morality is that the principles never change, but the way you apply those principles does, because the world changes, right?”

“You have to kind of rethink the entire Catholic social teaching in light of the new world that we live in,” the vice president added. “And I think that’s exactly what the Pope is trying to do. So I’m glad that he did it.”

In contrast, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum criticized the encyclical: he said that “I didn’t know that tech editorializing was part of the role of being Pope.”