Saint Joseph Catholic Church

From the Gospel of the Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year A: Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, He will give you." Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise." Martha said to him, "I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day." Jesus told her, "I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" She said to him, "Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world." (John 11: 21-27)

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307,117 Germans formally left the Catholic Church in 2025, down slightly from the previous year’s figure of 321,659 and down significantly from the 2022 figure of 522,821.

The Mass attendance rate increased slightly, from 6.6% in 2024 to 6.8% in 2025. The number of baptisms and weddings declined; the number of confirmations and First Communions rose slightly.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Secretary of State of His Holiness, sent a message in Pope Leo’s name to the 17th International Forum for Information on the Safeguard of Nature.

In the message, Cardinal Parolin wrote that Pope Leo encourages “sustainable development research projects.”

“Ecological responsibility is not fulfilled by technical data alone,” the Pope cautioned. “Such data are necessary, but not sufficient. What is needed is an education that engages the mind, the heart, and the hands; new habits, communal lifestyles, and virtuous practices.”

The bishop of Antwerp, Belgium, wrote in a pastoral letter that he will “make every effort to ordain married men as priests for our diocese by 2028.”

“The question is no longer whether the Church can ordain married men as priests, but when it will do so, and who will do it,” Bishop Johan Bonny wrote on March 20. “It is an illusion to think that a serious synodal-missionary process in the West still has a chance without also ordaining married men as priests.”

“There is a historical shortage of local priests in many dioceses,” he added. “The number of unmarried men who want to become priests has fallen to just above zero.”

The regime of Nicaraguan strongman Daniel Ortega has banned ordinations to the priesthood and diaconate in four of the nation’s nine dioceses.

The bishops of the four affected dioceses—Jinotega, Siuna, Matagalpa, and Estelí—are all in exile.

Speaking at an event commemorating World Down Syndrome Day, a Vatican diplomat said that “discriminatory and eugenic practices linked to prenatal screening and the selective termination of pregnancies targeting babies diagnosed with Down syndrome must be firmly rejected.”

Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, apostolic nuncio and Permanent Observer to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva, Switzerland, said that “persons with Down syndrome are more than a diagnosis, more than a condition, and certainly more than the limits others may imagine.”

“All of them, like all of us, possess the same inherent dignity and sacred value, intentionally and lovingly imprinted by the Creator from the very first moment of conception,” he added. “Consequently, like everyone else, they hold the same fundamental rights.”

The undersecretary of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development announced a campaign to encourage divestment from the mining industry.

“In many regions of the world, the expansion of the mining industry has generated profound social tensions and severe environmental impacts,” Cardinal Fabio Baggio, C.S., said at a press conference on March 20.

“We know that minerals are essential for numerous aspects of contemporary life,” he added. “However, we also know that, all too often, their extraction has been carried out without listening to local communities, without respecting the rights of indigenous peoples, and without regard for the limits of the ecosystems that sustain life.”