Catholic News

• Leading publishing house publishes book by Pope Leo (CWN)
  A leading Anglo-American publishing firm, HarperCollins Publishers, published a book by Pope Leo XIV under its HarperOne imprint.
• Bishop Varden preaches to Pope, Curia on 'becoming free,' 'splendor of truth' (CWN)
  Bishop Erik Varden, OCSO, of Trondheim, Norway, reflected on “Becoming Free” and “The Splendor of Truth” in his February 24 Lenten retreat conferences to the Pope and the Roman Curia.
• Pope sends medicine, heaters to Ukraine (Vatican News)
  Pope Leo XIV, through the Dicastery for the Service of Charity, sent medicine and hundreds of oil-filled electric heaters to Ukraine, amid continued Russian attacks on the nation’s energy infrastructure. The Pontiff made the donation, valued at over €1 million ($1.18M), in response to a plea from Bishop Pavlo Honcharuk, the Latin-rite bishop of Kharkiv-Zaporizhzhia. Vatican News reported that a gift from the Banco Farmaceutico ETS Foundation paid for most of the assistance.
• Nuncio asks for prayer for Ukraine amid intensifying Russian attacks (Vatican News)
  The apostolic nuncio to Ukraine asked for prayer and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine amid intensifying Russian missile and drone attacks far from the front line. “I would like to encourage everyone to support Ukraine, above all in a spiritual sense,” Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas said in an interview with Vatican News. “This means prayer, humanitarian assistance, solidarity, and heartfelt closeness.” Archbishop Kulbokas added, “I believe that the greatest help the Church can offer the Ukrainian people is above all spiritual help: to assist everyone—including myself—to broaden our gaze, so as not to focus solely on the evil we see and experience every day, but to maintain a gaze filled with hope.”
• USCCB urges Congress to act against ICE enforcement actions at churches (USCCB)
  In a February 24 letter to members of Congress, the chairmen of the US bishops’ Committees on Religious Liberty and Migration urged Congress to enact laws to ensure “respect for what are commonly referred to as sensitive locations, especially houses of worship, such that immigration enforcement efforts are avoided at or near these locations, absent exigent circumstances.” Archbishop Alexander Sample of Portland, Oregon, and Bishop Brendan Cahill of Victoria, Texas, also called on Congress to ensure “consistent access to religious and pastoral services for all immigration detainees, subject only to reasonable limitations based on clear guidelines and uniform processes, regardless of a detention facility’s operator.”
• Cardinals Müller, Sarah urge SSPX to submit to papal authority (The Catholic Register)
  Two former prefects of Vatican dicasteries urged the Society of Saint Pius X not to proceed with its plans to ordain bishops without papal approval. “Can one who abandons the Chair of Peter still claim to be within the Church of Christ?” said Cardinal Robert Sarah, 80, the prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments from 2014 to 2021. “The only solution possible in conscience before God is for the Society of Saint Pius X ... to recognize our Holy Father Pope Leo XIV as the legitimate Pope not only in theory but also in practice, and to submit to his teaching authority and his primacy of jurisdiction without preconditions,” added Cardinal Gerhard Müller, 78, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith from 2012 to 2017.
• Leading Philippine prelate recalls People Power Revolution, warns against moral fatigue (CBCP News)
  At a Mass marking the 40th anniversary of the People Power Revolution, the president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines warned against “moral fatigue.” Archbishop Gilbert Garcera of Lipa said that the nonviolent revolution, which led to the removal of authoritarian President Ferdinand Marcos from office, was “not simply people power; it was people power sustained by prayer: Rosaries in hand, hymns in the air, flowers offered to soldiers, and ordinary people standing unarmed before tanks.” “Brothers and sisters, the greatest danger today is not only historical distortion, but moral fatigue,” Archbishop Garcera warned. “When freedom is treated merely as a memory and not a duty; when faith is reduced to devotion without moral courage; when peace is sought without justice—the spirit of [the revolution] slowly dies.”
• 18 bishops suggest reforms to immigration enforcement (Center for Migration Studies)
  Eighteen bishops “in border states and beyond” issued a brief text, “Recommended Reforms to Immigration Enforcement in the United States,” on February 24. The recommended reforms include “the right to apply for asylum at the border should be honored,” “sensitive locations should be protected,” and “immigration enforcement should not focus on those who are contributing to the nation.”
• Bishop Wilmer, proponent of changes to Catholic teaching, elected chairman of German Bishops' Conference (Deutsche Bischofskonferenz)
  The German Bishops’ Conference elected Bishop Heiner Wilmer, SCJ, of Hildesheim as its new chairman. Bishop Wilmer succeeds Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg, who has completed a six-year term. A proponent of changes to Catholic teaching on sexual morality, Bishop Wilmer was once rumored to be under serious consideration for appointment as prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
• Nigerian bishops elect new president from violence-plagued area (ACI Africa)
  The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria elected Archbishop Matthew Man-Oso Ndagoso of Kaduna as its new president. Archbishop Ndagoso, 66, was bishop of Maiduguri (2003-07) until his appointment as archbishop of Kaduna. Kaduna has been the site of recent anti-Christian violence, as attested by CWN reports (November 18, December 4, February 9). The prelate succeeds Archbishop Lucius Iwejuru Ugorji of Owerri, who has completed a four-year term as conference president. The nation of 243 million (map), the most populous in Africa and sixth most populous in the world, is 47% Muslim, 46% Christian (11% Catholic), and 7% ethnic religionist.
• Record number of converts in Dublin (Irish Times)
  A record number of converts intend to enter the Church at Easter in the Archdiocese of Dublin: 129, up exponentially from 14 in 2022. Roughly half of the 129 converts are non-Christians; the others are non-Catholic Christians.
• Anglican bishop arrested in sexual assault inquiry (BBC)
  Rt. Rev. Stephen Conway, the Anglican bishop of Lincoln, England, was arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a man. The 68-year-old prelate, who has led the Anglican diocese since 2023, was previously bishop of Ramsbury (2006-10) and Ely (2010-23). (The Catholic Church teaches that Anglican orders are invalid: in his 1896 apostolic letter Apostolicae Curae, Pope Leo XIII taught that “ordinations performed according to the Anglican Rite have been and are completely null and void.”)
• Bishops call on EU to appoint coordinator against anti-Christian hatred (COMECE)
  The Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE) called upon the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, to appoint an EU coordinator against anti-Christian hatred. COMECE drew attention to a resolution passed in January by the European Parliament. In the resolution, the lawmakers said that “while Christianity remains the most persecuted religion in the world today, with more than 380 million people affected, there is no European coordinator responsible for combating Christianophobia, even though a coordinator has been appointed to combat Islamophobia.”
• Vatican spokesman reflects on 4 years of destruction in Ukraine (Vatican News)
  In an editorial marking the fourth anniversary of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, a Vatican spokesman lamented the suffering of the Ukrainian people, warned against indifference to their plight, and called for peace. At the same time, Massimiliano Menichetti, one of three vice directors of Dicastery for Communication’s editorial department, warned against rearmament in response to Russian aggression. “We will need a way of seeing that does not humiliate the enemy, that can turn the enemy into a counterpart at the table—an approach capable of changing hearts,” Menichetti wrote on February 24. “We must hope that this fourth anniversary will mark the year in which the international community stops ‘managing’ the war and returns to building peace, nurturing trust, coexistence, and shared memory.”
• Peruvians recall future Pope Leo as disciplined, open-hearted man (L'Osservatore Romano (Italian))
  Two Peruvians in Chiclayo, where the future Pope Leo was bishop from 2015 to 2023, recalled Pope Leo as a disciplined and open-hearted man. César Piscoya, described by the Vatican newspaper as a “dear friend of the Pope,” discerned in the 1990s whether to profess vows as an Augustinian. Father Robert Prevost, his spiritual director, “was a very disciplined man; he would get up at 4:00 AM and be in the chapel by 5:00 AM ... In short, he taught us by example. He was very demanding regarding study and homework.” Piscoya eventually married, had three children, and was widowed when his eldest child was nine. Bishop Prevost appointed him a lay diocesan official in Chiclayo, where he recalled that the bishop acted “with discretion and clarity, without showmanship, but with evangelical consistency.” “Everyone remembers the Pope as a gringo who was more Peruvian than all the Peruvians,” said journalist Harry Gordillo, who added: In him you found not only a spiritual guide, but also a warm person who opened his arms to you in any situation. He was a priest who never stopped listening and helping in any way possible. That’s why so many people in Chiclayo say Robert Prevost is their friend.
• Bishop Varden preaches to Pope, Curia on 'entering Lent,' 'Bernard the idealist' (CWN)
  Bishop Erik Varden, OCSO, of Trondheim, Norway, is publishing his Lenten retreat conferences to the Pope and the Roman Curia:
• 'Stop the aggressor,' Ukrainian Catholic leader pleads on 4th anniversary of invasion (Vatican News)
  Discussing the situation in Ukraine four years after the 2022 Russian invasion, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church said that “it is shameful that, in four years, the international community has failed to stop the aggressor’s deadly hand.” “We must do everything possible to stop the aggressor,” Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk said in an interview with Vatican News. “Then another time will come: that of healing the trauma and rebuilding what the war has destroyed. But that will be another story. Orate pro nobis. Pray for us.”
• Vatican cardinal: expand legal pathways to combat illegal immigration (National Catholic Reporter)
  In an interview with the National Catholic Reporter, the undersecretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development called for the expansion of “regular corridors of migration.” “These legal flows of migration have always existed historically, and at certain historical moments, for reasons of fear, they are no longer considered feasible,” said Cardinal Fabio Baggio, CS, who stated that “this absolutely does not mean that the Church has favored illegal immigration.” Cardinal Baggio added: Today the person as subject has been lost, the migrant, and people speak only of “illegals,” and everyone knows what we are referring to. As if the only people who violate a law are migrants who enter illegally into a country. But someone who runs a red light, is he an illegal driver? Why is only this category [migration] labeled with illegality, when there are many other forms that are far more serious? We find ourselves faced with a language that is itself an instrument, let’s say, for perpetuating fear or exacerbating fear.
• Christians may be buried in public cemeteries, India's high court affirms (Fides)
  The Supreme Court of India affirmed that Christians and members of other religious minority groups may be buried in public cemeteries in the Hindu-majority nation. The decision follows the exhumation of the bodies of Christians from public cemeteries in some villages in Chhattisgarh (map), a state that is 93% Hindu, 2% Muslim, and 2% Christian.
• Christians must fight against evil, Mexican Primate says following drug lord's killing (El Heraldo de México)
  Following the killing of drug lord Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, the Primate of Mexico said that “the fight against evil is a permanent duty for all disciples of Jesus, the Teacher of Peace.” Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes of Mexico City added, “We are aware of the difficult times we face as a society; therefore, I offer this message to encourage us and to call on everyone to be collaborators for the common good, promoting the justice and social peace we need.”
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