Saint Joseph Catholic Church

“In March 2025, the state’s median home price was a staggering $884,350, according to the California Association of Realtors, and it’s expected to rise again this year,” the newsletter stated.

In 2023, the program had an operating deficit of $11,412,329, leading to net assets of negative $2.3 million at year’s end. Ralph McCloud, who was named director of CCHD in 2008, resigned from his position in 2024.

In his June 12 address to clergy of the Diocese of Rome (CWN coverage), Pope Leo XIV paid tribute to three 20th-century Italian priests:

A brief Vatican statement issued after the meeting said that the conversation had focused on the hope that Lebanon, “through the stabilization and reform process, would experience a new season of political harmony and economic recovery, enabling it to strengthen the ideals of coexistence among faiths and the promotion of development that characterize it.” The meeting also included a more general discussion of the need for peace in the Middle East.

The bishops’ conference issued a statement noting “with great consternation—but not real surprise—the nonsense spoken by Mr. Jean-Pierre Bemba” in which the politician had charged that the country’s bishops were plotting to destabilize the government of President Felix Tshisekedi.

The World Day of the Poor will be observed on Sunday, November 16. The papal message for the occasion was released by the Vatican on June 13.

In his message the Pope reminds readers: “The gravest form of poverty is not to know God.” He says that in our commitment to the common good, “our social responsibility is grounded in God’s creative act, which gives everyone a share in the goods of the earth.”

Gallup found that 34% of adults in the US see religious influence as on the rise, as against only 20% who felt the same way last year.

Although a majority of Americans (59%) say that the influence of faith is in decline, that number is down dramatically from the results of a similar survey last year, in which 75% of respondents saw religion in decline.

Congressmen Mark Green and Josh Brecheen—the chairmen, respectively, of the Homeland Security Committee and Oversight Committee of the House of Representatives—sought information from non-government organizations (NGOs) that had worked with the government in resettling immigrants. The goal of the investigation is to determine if government funds were used “to facilitate illegal activity.”

In their letter to the NGOs, the lawmakers explained their concern that the Biden administration had encouraged illegal immigration “by signaling to those who arrived illegally or without proper documentation that they could expect such assistance, all expensed to American taxpayers, once they arrived in the United States.”

The canonization of Blessed Carlo Acutis had been scheduled for April 27, the Jubilee for Teenagers, but was postponed because of the death of Pope Francis. The canonization of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati had been set of November 20.

The scheduled canonizations were announced at a consistory of cardinals on June 13. The same consistory also approved the canonizations of:

• Peter To Rot, a lay catechist martyred in Papua New Guinea in 1945;
• Bartolo Longo, a Satanic priest who converted to Catholicism;
• Ignazio Choukrallah Maloyan, the Armenian Catholic Archbishop of Mardin, a martyr who died in 1916, during the Armenian genocide, when he refused to embrace Islam; and
• María del Monte Carmelo Rendiles Martínez, founder of the Congregation of the Servants of Jesus;
• Maria Troncatti, professed religious sister of the Congregation of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians; and
• José Gregorio Hernández Cisneros, a Venezuelan doctor who died in 1919.

“It is with regret that we observe in these last few hours, once again, that peace is sought through preventive attacks instead of committing to dialogue around the negotiating table,” the cardinal wrote in a message to the AsiaNews service.

Cardinal Mathieu recalled that last year, in a meeting with Iranian Muslim leaders, Pope Francis had said that the cardinal’s role in Iran was “to integrate, include and be in contact with the nation.” There are about 22,000 Catholics in Iran, of a population of over 84 million. The entire Christian population accounts for less than 1% of the people in the overwhelmingly Islamic nation.