Saint Joseph Catholic Church

The Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land expressed “profound indignation and unreserved condemnation of the desecration of a representation of Jesus crucified by an Israeli soldier in a Lebanese village.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he condemned “the act in the strongest terms. Military authorities are conducting a criminal probe of the matter and will take appropriately harsh disciplinary action against the offender.”

Father Guilherme Peixoto was the DJ at the concert, entitled “Todos, todos, todos” (Everyone, everyone, everyone). The event took place on April 18, three days before the first anniversary of the Pontiff’s death.

Pope Leo convoked the meeting “to proceed, in mutual listening, to a synodal discernment on the steps to be taken in order to proclaim the Gospel to families today, in light of Amoris Laetitia and taking into account what is currently being done in the local Churches.”

The General Secretariat also announced a June 23-25 preparatory meeting to prepare for the continental evaluation assemblies of the implementation phase of the synod on synodality.

The bishops and other ordinaries of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Mongolia, and Azerbaijan elected Cardinal Giorgio Marengo (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia) as the conference’s president; Bishop José Luis Mumbiela Sierra (Almaty, Kazakhstan) as vice president; and Auxiliary Bishop Yevgeniy Zinkovskiy (Karaganda, Kazakhstan) as secretary general.

Writing in the Vatican newspaper, an Argentine rabbi and an Iranian-born Muslim theologian paid tribute to Pope Francis on the first anniversary of his death.

Pope Leo XIV addressed Equatorial Guinea’s political and civil leaders today (video) and encouraged them to serve the City of God, rather than the “lust for power and worldly glory that leads to destruction.”

The bill would “establish a two-year window for clergy to revoke their exemption from Social Security and Medicare taxes and enroll in the programs,” said Archbishop Shelton Fabre of Louisville and Archbishop Ronald Hicks of New York, who chair the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development and the Committee on Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations.

“We are pleased that the bipartisan measure was advanced unanimously by the House Ways and Means Committee in December 2025, and we therefore urge consideration by the full House of Representatives as soon as possible,” the prelates added.

“The escalation of the current conflict in the Middle East will have consequences beyond borders and further worsen hunger worldwide, especially among the most vulnerable populations,” the diplomat warned at the 38th session of the Regional Conference for the Middle East.

In its report, Vatican News, the news agency of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication, inaccurately described the Vatican diplomat as an archbishop. The Annuario Pontificio notes that Father Arellano was named a monsignor in 2016, but has not been named a bishop.