Saint Joseph Catholic Church

Addressing a UN Human Rights Council meeting on the massacre in El Fasher, Sudan, a Vatican diplomat said that “Catholic-run clinics, schools and community centers in conflict zones have either been forced to close or are operating under extreme duress.”

“Their staff, many of whom are volunteers, face daily threats, and many have been displaced,” said Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, apostolic nuncio and Permanent Observer to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva, Switzerland. “In order to bring an end to the current levels of violence, Sudan requires both sustained humanitarian aid and immediate diplomatic efforts.”

The Rapid Support Forces, a belligerent in the Sudanese civil war, perpetrated the massacre.

The prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication and the secretary of the Dicastery for Culture and Education discussed artificial intelligence (AI) at a conference organized by the Pontifical University of Salamanca and the International Federation of Catholic Universities.

“We must not entrust to artificial intelligence human decisions that have to do with morality and the ability to discern good from evil,” said Paolo Ruffini, the lay prefect of the Dicastery for Communication.

“No algorithm can ever replace the beauty of human encounters in the sharing of knowledge,” Ruffini added. “We must mend the rift that is growing between contemporary life and the Gospel message, between the civilization of machines, of communication, and Christian civilization.”

Bishop Paul Tighe of the Dicastery for Culture and Education warned against “blindly letting ourselves be guided” by AI results. “There is always an opinion and a direction within the algorithm.”

Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Holy See’s Secretary for Relations with States and International Organizations, delivered a lecture on November 13 in Florence on “The Nuclear Menace: New Scenarios of Risk and the Commitment of Christians.”

“The idea of ​​building peace on the threat of total destruction or on the illusion that stability can derive from a mutual possibility of annihilation” is “morally indefensible and strategically unsustainable,” said Archbishop Gallagher.

“A balance based on terror and mutual demonstrations of force,” he said, “can in no way guarantee authentic peace; on the contrary, it contributes to increasing the risk and destructive scope of a potential conflict.”

The prelate also warned of “an accelerated arms race accompanied by renewed, sometimes frenetic, efforts to expand existing arsenals and their destructive capabilities.”

Pope Leo XIV inaugurated the San Martino Outpatient Clinic outside St. Peter’s Basilica.

“The Pope was struck by the fact that among the doctors present, there were also psychiatrists,” said Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, prefect of the Dicastery for the Service of Charity. “Our poor also need this kind of care.”

At a symposium in Belém, Brazil—the site of COP30, the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference—leading prelates from Africa and Latin America expressed their anguish.

“I come from Africa, and Africa is known for being the continent that pollutes the least but suffers the most from the consequences of climate change,” said Congolese Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, president of the Symposium of the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar. “We see the increase in deserts that continues to cause damage, the floods affecting many nations, the voracious exploitation of minerals. We are heading towards catastrophe.”

“Instead of an economy focused on profit and the interests of small groups, we must put the human person, life, at the center,” he added.

“We must put the care of life at the center of our decisions,” added Cardinal Jaime Spengler, of Porto Alegre, Brazil, president of CELAM (the Episcopal Conference of Latin America). “We cannot compromise with what is called the culture of death. We are all called to be seeds of hope, for a new future.”

Pope Leo XIV has given 62 indigenous artifacts to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), the Holy See and the CCCB announced in a joint statement. The bishops, in turn, will give the artifacts to national indigenous organizations.

The artifacts “are part of the patrimony received on the occasion of the Vatican Missionary Exhibition of 1925, encouraged by Pope Pius XI during the Holy Year, to bear witness to the faith and cultural richness of peoples,” according to the statement.

Preaching at a national shrine on November 16, a Philippine bishop decried corruption and linked it to the suffering that followed recent flooding.

“I hope those people who victimized the poor can listen to their cries and to the cries of the environment,” said an emotional Bishop Raul Dael of Tandag, as he deplored (in the words of the Philippine bishops’ news agency) “negligence, environmental abuse, and corruption that diverts resources away from communities.”

Benedict Batabe Assorow, Ghana’s new ambassador to the Holy See, offered an unusually detailed account of his recent private audience with Pope Leo XIV, during which he invited the Pontiff to visit the West African nation.

Pope Leo expressed closeness to the poor and marginalized and joy in the collaboration of Church and state, Ghana’s state-owned newspaper reported. The Pope also “stressed that the Catholic Church did not seek to proselytize but rather to promote the welfare, dignity and integral development of every human person.”

In a 2007 doctrinal note, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stated that “the term proselytism was often used as a synonym for missionary activity. More recently, however, the term has taken on a negative connotation, to mean the promotion of a religion by using means, and for motives, contrary to the spirit of the Gospel; that is, which do not safeguard the freedom and dignity of the human person.”

Ghana, a nation of 34.6 million (map), is 72% Christian (15% Catholic), 19% Muslim, and 9% ethnic religionist.

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Today is the Optional Memorial of the Dedication of the Basilicas of Sts. Peter and Paul. The whole Church celebrates the dedication of the two great Roman basilicas of St. Peter at the Vatican and of St. Paul-Outside-the-Walls. The Basilica of St. Peter stands on the site of the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles, where Nero's Circus stood. It was here that St. Peter was executed. Recent excavations have shown that the present basilica which, in the seventeenth century replaced the ancient Constantinian basilica, was built over the tomb of St. Peter, just as the previous basilica. It was consecrated by Urban VIII on November 18, 1626. St. Paul-Outside-the-Walls, situated at the other end of the city on the Ostian Way, is built near the place St. Paul was martyred. It was almost completely destroyed by fire in 1823 and was rebuilt in sumptuous fashion by Gregory XVI and Pius IX and consecrated by the latter on December 10, 1854. The celebration of the anniversary of these two dedications has been kept, nevertheless, on November 18.