Saint Joseph Catholic Church

A convert to Catholicism, Ann Widdecombe, 78, was a Member of Parliament (1987-2010) and a Member of the European Parliament (2019-20). She was also Minister of State for Employment (1993-95) and Minister of State for Prisons (1995-97) under Prime Minister John Major.

Bishop Nicholas Hudson of Plymouth told BBC that Widdecombe “was a woman of faith and a great public servant.”

“Our prayers, the prayers of all the community, across Plymouth Diocese, in Devon, Cornwall, Dorset, are very much with her and with her family and friends,” he said.

“On the eve of the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Volyn Massacre, we convey words of sympathy and grief to the families who lost their loved ones as a result of Ukrainian military actions,” the bishops said. “We join you in your pain and express our deep regret for the bloody events that took place at that time.”

The bishops also said that “both Ukrainian crimes against Poles and Polish crimes against Ukrainians should be condemned,” and called on Polish and Ukrainian officials to “assist in finding all the graves, in identifying the victims and in their dignified burial.”

“It is up to Polish and Ukrainian historians to reliably explain the circumstances of those tragic events and to determine the actual number of victims on both sides,” the prelates added.

“We serve our own people well, close to home,” Archbishop Gudziak said. “But Christ’s call is, ‘Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’ Maybe we haven’t fully heard that yet. This is a great challenge: understanding Christianity as more than a cultural identity.”

The prelate also described the “shortage of candidates for the episcopacy” as “one of the major problems facing the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church globally.”

“In 1900 there were two bishops; today there are 56,” he said. “The overall number of faithful is roughly comparable. If it was three million then, today it is four and a half million.”

Some 200 poor people from the Diocese of Rome traveled to Castel Gandolfo today for lunch with Pope Leo XIV at Borgo Laudato Si.

“In Germany, religious communities that are corporations under public law have a right to levy taxes on their members,” The Pillar explained. “Every person in Germany who is officially registered as a member of the Catholic Church is required to pay church tax equivalent to 8-9% of their income tax liability, depending on the region in which they live.”

At the time of Msgr. Rossetti’s removal, Cardinal McElroy said that “statements made by Monsignor Rossetti linking UFOs to demonic presence and the Center’s recent use of social media gravely undermine the Church’s very precise teaching on the devil, demons and exorcism.”