Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish

null / Credit: Wolfgang Schaller|Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Jul 3, 2025 / 15:33 pm (CNA).

The U.S. Supreme Court during its next term will consider two cases addressing whether or not states can ban males from participating in female sports leagues.

The high court said on Thursday that it would hear arguments in Hecox v. Little, out of Idaho, as well as the case B.P.J. v. West Virginia State Board of Education.

Both cases arose from lawsuits brought by young men who identify as female and who sued against the states’ respective bans on boys competing in girls’ sports.

The West Virginia dispute arose after a then-11-year-old boy brought a lawsuit against the state over its Save Women’s Sports Act. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the law last year, claiming its enforcement would harm the boy “on the basis of sex.”

In the Idaho case, meanwhile, a male athlete sued the state over its Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which was passed to block males from gaining access to women’s sporting leagues. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals similarly upheld a block on the law in 2023. 

This is not the first time Idaho has been to the Supreme Court over transgender policy. The state last year won a temporary victory at the high court when it was given emergency relief that allowed it to enforce its ban on doctors performing sex-change operations on children. Challenges to that law are still playing out in court. 

Disputes over transgender ideology have been playing out at the federal level since President Donald Trump took office in January.

Trump that month signed an executive order billed as “defending women from gender ideology extremism,” one that the White House said restored “biological truth to the federal government.”

That order included measures removing gender ideology guidance, communication, policies, and forms from governmental agencies and affirming that the word “woman” means “adult human female.”

It further ordered that government identification like passports and personnel records must reflect biological reality and “not self-assessed gender identity.” 

The president also signed orders banning transgender-identifying soldiers from the military and restricting transgender surgeries and drugs for minors. The orders have been challenged in federal court. 

The federal government has elsewhere moved quickly to enforce its policies on gender ideology. This week the University of Pennsylvania, under pressure from the Trump administration, agreed to modify its athletic records to re-award several Division I titles to female athletes whose distinctions were overtaken by Lia Thomas, a biological male who identifies as female and who was allowed to compete against women in competitive swimming.

The university is further required to announce that henceforth it will not allow biological males to compete against females in athletic programs. The school will also apologize to female athletes who had to compete against Thomas.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court building in Madison, Wisconsin. / Credit: Richard Hurd/Wikimedia Commons

CNA Staff, Jul 3, 2025 / 15:03 pm (CNA).

Here is a roundup of recent pro-life and abortion-related news.

Wisconsin Catholic leaders decry repealed abortion ban

After the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that a historic pro-life law was unenforceable, the Wisconsin Catholic Conference has decried the ruling, calling it “nonsensical.”  

A Wisconsin ban on abortion from 1849 made it a felony to destroy an unborn child except in cases of a medical emergency. Though it was nullified in 1973 by the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision, Wisconsin lawmakers never repealed the law. After Roe was overturned in 2022, pro-life advocates urged the court to affirm that the repeal of Roe reactivated the law. 

But earlier this week, the state Supreme Court’s liberal majority determined that the 1849 law was superseded by other pro-life regulations of abortion that have since been adopted in Wisconsin. Justices called the legislation “a substitute” for the previous law.

Wisconsin Catholic Conference Executive Director Barbara Sella condemned the decision, saying that “the court’s majority has abandoned Wisconsin’s proud legacy of protecting all human life,” noting that Wisconsin banned abortion in 1849 and the death penalty in 1853.

Abortionist who left half a fetus behind wants to out woman who sued

An abortionist has demanded in court that the identity of a woman who sued him for medical negligence be unveiled to the public.

After the Illinois-based abortionist left half a baby inside a patient’s body, the patient — a 32-year-old woman who was five months pregnant with her fifth child — sued.

After the story made headlines, Dr. Keith Reisinger-Kindle of Equity Clinic in Champaign, Illinois, called for a gag order against the woman, identified as “Jane Doe,” while also arguing in court that she should not be granted anonymity.

Reisinger-Kindle was recently reprimanded and fined $5,000 by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.

The lawsuit alleges that Reisinger-Kindle did not adequately examine Doe after discharging her from the clinic. When Doe went to the emergency room, surgeons found that Reisinger-Kindle allegedly perforated her uterus. According to the lawsuit, surgeons found pieces of the child adhered to her intestines.

At 22 weeks, Doe’s baby was nearing the age of viability — the age when an unborn child can survive outside of the womb, usually determined to be about 24-26 weeks. In Illinois, abortions are allowed up until fetal viability.

Pope Leo XIV receives a drawing from a girl participating in the “Estate Ragazzi in Vatican” summer camp on July 3, 2025, at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media

ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 3, 2025 / 14:00 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV visited the Paul VI Hall on Thursday to meet with about 310 children and adolescents participating in the “Estate Ragazzi in Vaticano” (summer camp for kids at the Vatican).

In addition, another 300 children and adolescents from Ukraine, hosted by Caritas Italy during the summer, participated in the encounter with Pope Leo XIV.

This is the sixth edition of this summer camp for the children of employees of the Holy See. The theme this year is “When the Other Person Is Everything.”

On July 3, shortly before noon, at the end of the audiences, the Holy Father continued with the tradition of visiting these little ones. He was received by the summer camp volunteers and later he spoke with the children, responding to some questions.

As he spoke with them, the pope shared some memories from his childhood, such as attending Mass, where he met other children and friends, but above all “the best friend of all, Jesus,” the Holy See said in a statement.

The pontiff also spoke about diversity and acceptance, and offered a few words of welcome in English to the Ukrainian children, emphasizing that “it’s important to respect one another, look beyond differences, to build bridges, create friendship; we can all be friends, brothers, sisters.”

Responding to a question about war, he explained that even from a young age, it is necessary to learn to be builders of peace and friendship, to not get into wars or conflicts, and to never promote hatred or envy.

He noted that “Jesus calls us all to be friends” and advised the children to “learn from a young age to have mutual respect, to see the other person as someone like myself.”

The children and adolescents offered the Holy Father some gifts they had made during the summer camp as well as drawings and artwork made by the Ukrainian children and adolescents.

At the end of the encounter, after taking group photos with them, Pope Leo XIV invited them to pray the Hail Mary together and gave his blessing to all those present.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Sacred Heart Hall at Siena Heights University in Adrian Michigan. / Credit: Dwight Burdette, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 3, 2025 / 13:32 pm (CNA).

Siena Heights University will close at the conclusion of the 2025-2026 academic year following an assessment of the school’s “financial situation, operational challenges, and long-term sustainability,” the school said this week.

The small Catholic institution of about 2,300 students located in Adrian, Michigan, reported that “despite the dedication of our board, faculty, staff, students, alumni, and supporters, continuing operations beyond the coming academic year is no longer feasible.”

In a June 30 announcement, the university’s president, Douglas Palmer, said the school “has been a beacon of light in a world sometimes cast in darkness.”

“The spirit of Siena Heights will continue long after the institution itself closes its doors because it lives in every graduate, faculty member, and staff person who has been on campus — whether in person or online,” he said.

Siena Heights is a Catholic liberal arts school offering undergraduate and graduate programs. It was founded in 1919 by the Adrian Dominican Sisters, following the Dominican intellectual tradition of “truth and social responsibility.”

The university reported the closure has the “full support of the board of trustees and general council of the Adrian Dominican Sisters.”

Originally the institution was a college for women studying to be teachers. By the 1950s it was recognized as one of the nation’s 10 best liberal arts colleges for women. It broadened its offering over the years and eventually welcomed men as well.

Ahead of its closure, the school said that its “top priority will be its students’ academic progress and working with partner institutions to establish transfer pathways that allow as little disruption as possible. Faculty and staff will be supported with transition assistance.”

The school year will start for the last time this upcoming fall, and “the intent is to have as full and vibrant an academic year as possible, including academics, athletics, support services, and extracurriculars.”

“We are deeply grateful to the faculty, staff, students, and alumni who have worked hard decade after decade to make Siena Heights an incredibly special place,” Palmer said. “We look ahead to the next academic year planning all the activities one would normally get including athletics, residential life, and great events that we share with our alumni and entire community.”

Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, speaks during a press conference about a new Vatican document on human dignity on April 8, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Vatican City, Jul 3, 2025 / 13:02 pm (CNA).

Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, said Thursday that judges have been selected to hear the trial of Father Marko Rupnik, a former Jesuit accused of sexual abuse against women.

The cardinal told journalists that the judges chosen are “independent and external” to the dicastery but did not indicate when the Slovenian priest’s trial is set to take place in the Vatican.

“The idea was, if possible, to eliminate the idea that the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith or the Holy See had any interest or were subjected to pressure,” he said.

Rupnik, whose religious artworks can be found in shrines and churches around the world, has been accused by at least a dozen women, mostly former nuns, of sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse that reportedly occurred over the past three decades.

In May 2019, the then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith launched a criminal administrative process against Rupnik after the Society of Jesus reported credible complaints of abuse by the priest to the Vatican.

One year later, the congregation declared Rupnik to be in a state of “latae sententiae” excommunication in May 2020. His excommunication lasted only two weeks.

The Society of Jesus subsequently expelled Rupnik from the religious congregation in June 2023 for his “stubborn refusal to observe the vow of obedience.”

Since allegations of abuse against Rupnik first became public in 2018, several Church leaders and Catholic groups around the world have increasingly called for the removal of sacred art created by the former Jesuit.

On March 31, the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France announced its decision to cover Rupnik mosaics found at the entrances to the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary.   

The Dicastery for Communication, meanwhile, removed digital images of Rupnik’s art from its Vatican News website on June 9. 

The changes came days after Pope Leo met with members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors on June 5.

The Holy Father also met with Cardinal Seán O’Malley, president of the Vatican body commissioned with safeguarding vulnerable adults and children, within the first week of his pontificate on May 14.

In June 2024, O’Malley sent a letter to the dicasteries of the Roman Curia expressing hope that “pastoral prudence would prevent displaying artwork in a way that could imply either exoneration or a subtle defense” of those accused of abuse.

“We must avoid sending a message that the Holy See is oblivious to the psychological distress that so many are suffering,” O’Malley wrote in a letter to Curia leaders last year.

Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ (right), leads a press conference announcing the Mass for the Care of Creation at the Vatican on Thursday, July 3, 2025. / Credit: Hannah Brockhaus/CNA

Vatican City, Jul 3, 2025 / 12:18 pm (CNA).

The Vatican on Thursday presented new Mass prayers and biblical readings to be used to support the Church’s appreciation for God’s creation.

The “Mass for the Care of Creation,” inspired by Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical Laudato Si’, has prayers and Mass readings designed “to ask God for the ability to care for creation,” Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ, said at a July 3 presentation.

“With this Mass, the Church is offering liturgical, spiritual, and communal support for the care we all need to exercise of nature, our common home. Such service is indeed a great act of faith, hope, and charity,” the cardinal added.

The “Mass for the Care of Creation” is part of the Catholic Church’s Masses and Prayers for Various Needs and Occasions. It can be celebrated on a weekday when other liturgical celebrations do not take precedence.

The Vatican published the “formulary” of the Mass, which includes options for biblical readings and the formulas of prayers recited by the priest: the entrance antiphon, collect, prayer over the offerings, Communion antiphon, and prayer after Communion.

Czerny said Pope Leo XIV will celebrate a private Mass using the new prayer formulas in Castel Gandolfo on July 9. The Mass will be for employees of the Borgo Laudato Si’ initiative, which aims to put into practice the principles for integral development outlined in Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’.

The formulary of the “Mass of Care for Creation” is part of a group of Masses that can be said for various civil needs, such as for the country, for the blessing of human labor, for planting and for harvest time, in time of war, and after a natural disaster.

According to Bishop Vittorio Francesco Viola, OFM, secretary of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, bishops’ conferences can indicate a day for the Mass to be celebrated if they wish.

Viola also noted that “the theme of creation is already present in the liturgy,” but the Mass for the Care of Creation helps emphasize what Pope Francis wrote in paragraph 66 of Laudato Si’, that “human life is grounded in three fundamental and closely intertwined relationships: with God, with our neighbor, and with the earth itself.”

The Vatican’s liturgy dicastery was responsible for the new Mass formulary, requested by Francis and approved by Leo, but Czerny said the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, and the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity were also happy to collaborate on the project.

“Sacred Scripture exhorts humankind to contemplate the mystery of creation and to give endless thanks to the Holy Trinity for this sign of his benevolence, which, like a precious treasure, is to be loved, cherished, and simultaneously advanced as well as handed down from generation to generation,” the divine worship dicastery’s decree states.

“At this time it is evident that the work of creation is seriously threatened because of the irresponsible use and abuse of the goods God has endowed to our care,” it continues. “This is why it is considered appropriate to add a Mass formulary ‘pro custodia creationis’” to the Roman Missal.

Federal Reserve Bank of New York. / Credit: Velkiira, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

CNA Staff, Jul 3, 2025 / 11:48 am (CNA).

A federal appeals court has revived a Catholic worker’s lawsuit against the Federal Reserve Bank of New York over the bank’s having fired her for refusing to take a COVID-19 vaccine on religious grounds. 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in its Wednesday ruling partially reversed the findings of a district court, which had dismissed former Federal Reserve executive assistant Jeanette Diaz’s lawsuit against the bank over her 2022 dismissal. 

Diaz had argued that the bank’s policy requiring vaccination against COVID-19 would violate her Catholic faith, citing her opposition to vaccines “created using human cell lines derived from abortion.” 

The worker had asked her pastor in the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey, to sign a letter on her behalf affirming her refusal on religious grounds, though her pastor “refused” to do so, citing Church teaching. The Vatican in 2020 said that it is “morally acceptable” to receive COVID-19 vaccines produced using cell lines from aborted fetuses when no alternative is available.

Diaz nevertheless sought an exemption as a Catholic on grounds of an objection of conscience. Yet the district court ruled against her, claiming that she had failed to show her objection “was based in sincerely held religious beliefs” and pointing to alleged evidence that her opposition was motivated by secular and not religious concerns.

The court had also held that Diaz at times acted inconsistently in her religious belief, such as in taking medication in other cases without first affirming that it was made without using aborted fetal cells.

In reversing the lower court’s order, the appeals court said a jury could infer that Diaz “has both secular and religious objections to the COVID-19 vaccines.” Such distinctions should be made by a jury and not a court, the appeals ruling said.

Regarding Diaz’s alleged inconsistency, the appeals court cited precedent holding that “a sincere religious believer doesn’t forfeit his religious rights merely because he is not scrupulous in his observance.” The court again stipulated that a jury should be allowed to determine the plaintiff’s motivations.

The evidence the lower court relied on “at best” calls into question Diaz’s credibility without ultimately determining it, the appeals court said.

The ruling vacated the lower court’s order regarding Diaz and remanded it for further proceedings.

Though the appeals court found in Diaz’s favor, it upheld another ruling against former Federal Reserve employee Lori Gardner-Alfred.

Gardener-Alfred had cited her decades-long membership in the Temple of the Healing Spirit. But she “could give almost no details” about her participation in that temple, the appeals court noted, and much of the information she gave was “often contradicted” by other elements of her testimony.

The “evidence of Gardner-Alfred’s religious beliefs is so wholly contradictory, incomplete, and incredible that no reasonable jury could accept her professed beliefs as sincerely held,” the appeals court held.

Though it ruled in Diaz’s favor, the appeals court ruling upheld the lower court’s order imposing sanctions on both women for “discovery misconduct.”

The plaintiffs “acted intentionally and in bad faith when they repeatedly flouted the district court’s orders, neglected their discovery obligations under the federal rules, and withheld relevant documents that were potentially damaging to their case,” the appeals court noted.

In November 2024 a jury awarded a Catholic Michigan woman $12.7 million after Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan refused to give her a religious exemption from the company’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate and fired her.

The Vatican repeatedly affirmed its support for the COVID vaccines amid the height of the COVID-19 crisis. In 2024 Pope Francis named biochemist Katalin Karikó to the Pontifical Academy for Life; the scientist helped develop the mRNA technology used to create the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.

Professor Michael McConnell speaks after winning the Notre Dame Prize for Religious Liberty on June 25, 2025. / Credit: Casey Patrick/Notre Dame Law School

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 3, 2025 / 09:45 am (CNA).

During its recently concluded fifth annual Religious Liberty Summit, Notre Dame Law School recognized two scholars for their contributions to the promotion and protection of religious liberty around the world.

The Notre Dame Prize for Religious Liberty, which is awarded to one person each year for his or her achievements in preserving religious liberty, was presented at last week’s summit to former federal judge and constitutional scholar Professor Michael McConnell of Stanford Law School. 

Meanwhile, professor and author Dr. Russell Hittinger of The Catholic University of America (CUA) received the Religious Liberty Scholarship Award, which is given annually to an individual for accomplishments in advancing the understanding of how law protects freedom of religion. 

Hittinger is executive director of CUA’s Institute for Human Ecology and a research professor in the School of Philosophy. He has also taught at Princeton, Fordham, and the University of Chicago and has been a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas.

McConnell sees welcome course correction

“When I look back, things are so much better now… in constitutional law, freedom of religion, we’re doing a whole lot better today than we were before,” McConnell said at the event.

McConnell is director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School and teaches courses on constitutional law, constitutional history, the First Amendment, and interpretive theory. 

From 2002 to 2009, he served as a circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. As an author, his most recent work, co-authored with Nathan Chapman, is “Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Protects Religious Diversity and Freedom of Conscience.”

For his part, Hittinger has published more than 100 articles and books, including “Political Pluralism and Religious Liberty: The Teaching of Dignitatis Humanae” and his 2024 book “On the Dignity of Society: Catholic Social Teaching and Natural Law.”

The Confiteor at a Traditional Latin Mass. / Credit: James Bradley, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Vatican City, Jul 3, 2025 / 09:15 am (CNA).

A Vatican spokesman has played down the significance of recently leaked Vatican documents that appear to cast doubt on Pope Francis’ rationale for restricting the Latin Mass, calling the documents “partial and incomplete.”

The documents appear to show that bishops had a more favorable outlook on the Traditional Latin Mass than Pope Francis suggested when he issued controversial restrictions on its celebration in 2021.

Vatican journalist Diane Montagna published two excerpts from an internal Vatican report on a global consultation of bishops in a Substack newsletter July 1. The publication of the texts has sparked renewed controversy over Francis’ decision to restrict the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass at a time when some liturgical traditionalists are voicing hopes that Pope Leo will reverse or moderate his predecessor’s action.

Matteo Bruni, director of the Holy See Press Office, said July 3 the leaked information “presumably concerns part of one of the documents on which the decision [to restrict the Latin Mass] is based.”

Answering a question from CNA during a press conference on another topic, Bruni called published reports “a very partial and incomplete reconstruction of the decision-making process.” At the same time, he refused to confirm the documents’ authenticity.

The spokesman added that “other documentation, other reports, also the result of further consultations” were also taken into consideration with regard to restrictions on the Latin Mass.

An official at the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, the department responsible for the application of Traditionis Custodes, Pope Francis’ July 2021 decree restricting the Mass, told CNA on July 3 that the dicastery “has nothing further to add” to Bruni’s response.

The leaked texts, which summarize consultation results and selected quotations from bishops, have been hailed by critics of Traditionis Custodes as evidence that Pope Francis was misleading when stating his reasons for placing strict restrictions on the celebration of the Latin Mass.

Francis’ decree revoked the permissions granted by Pope Benedict XVI in his 2007 decree Summorum Pontificum.

“The claim that a majority of bishops around the world wanted restrictions on the ancient Mass [Traditional Latin Mass] was always dubious, but this document shows for all to see that it is completely false,” Joseph Shaw, president of the Latin Mass federation Una Voce International, wrote in a newsletter on July 2.

Shaw said the leaked documents show “only the views of the minority of bishops who really disliked the TLM were being acted upon. The majority view was ignored.”

Traditionis Custodes placed significant restrictions on the celebration of the Mass according to missals from before the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council. In the decree, Pope Francis said he had taken into consideration “the wishes expressed by the episcopate” and “the opinion of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.”

Pope Francis explained in a letter accompanying the decree that in 2020 he had asked the now-Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith to carry out a survey of bishops around the world about the results of the implementation of the 2007 norms on the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass.

“The responses reveal a situation that preoccupies and saddens me, and persuades me of the need to intervene,” Francis wrote in the letter. He added that the intention of his predecessors, to foster unity among Catholics with diverse liturgical sensibilities, “has often been seriously disregarded” and the opportunity “exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences, and encourage disagreements that injure the Church, block her path, and expose her to the peril of division.”

According to one of the leaked documents, a five-page “overall assessment” that according to Montagna was part of a never-published report more than 200 pages long on the results of the 2020 questionnaire, the consultation found “the majority of bishops who responded … and who have generously and intelligently implemented the MP [motu proprio] Summorum Pontificum, ultimately express satisfaction with it." But “some bishops state that the MP Summorum Pontificum has failed in its aim of fostering reconciliation and therefore request its suppression.”

The leaked assessment said some bishops stated they would prefer to return to the pre-2007 rules for the Traditional Latin Mass, when its celebration required permission from the local bishop, “in order to have greater control and management of the situation.”

“However,” the text continued, “the majority of bishops who responded to the questionnaire state that making legislative changes to the MP Summorum Pontificum would cause more harm than good.”

Sacred Heart Cathedral in Da Nang, Vietnam. / Credit: Andreas Bossard via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 3, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

The Catholic Church in Vietnam welcomed with great joy and hope the ordination of 40 new priests during June, the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

According to the Vatican news agency Fides, the Diocese of Da Nang welcomed six new priests, “consecrated to be each an ‘alter Christus’ [‘another Christ’], to become pastors of the people of God, not to live for themselves but to be all things to all people,” said Archbishop Joseph Dang Duc Ngan, archbishop of Huế and apostolic administrator of Da Nang, in his homily at the ordination Mass on June 24 in the local cathedral before numerous faithful.

“A priest does not become perfect from the day of his ordination. The priesthood is a journey of daily growth in Christ and constant strengthening in the Holy Spirit to fulfill the mission of God and the Church with joy and true love,” the prelate emphasized.

Bishop Peter Le Tan Loi celebrated the ordination Mass of 13 new priests on June 25 at the Soc Trang Cathedral in the Diocese of Can Tho.

During the Eucharist, the prelate invited the faithful present to “unite in prayer and accompany the new priests, so that they may always lead a life faithful to their pastoral identity: humble, holy, and dedicated to the flock.”

On June 27, the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Day for the Sanctification of Priests, 21 new priests were ordained for the Archdiocese of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon).

Archbishop Joseph Nguyen Nang said in his homily that “the priest is not like a robot of the modern age. In his ministry, the priest takes God’s will seriously so that, in every action — liturgical, pastoral, and charitable — he may transmit the good news.”

Fides also reported that at the Shrine of Our Lady of Bai Dau in the Diocese of Ba Ria, Bishop Emmanuel Nguyen Hong Son ordained six new deacons, also on June 27.

Pope Leo XIV’s meets with country’s vice president 

On Monday, June 30, Pope Leo XIV received the vice president of Vietnam, Vo Thi Anh Xuan, in an audience at the Vatican, a gesture that confirms the positive development of relations between the southeast Asian country and the Holy See.

A statement from the Vatican press office reported that “great appreciation was expressed for the positive development of relations between the Holy See and Vietnam.” 

In particular, the implementation of the historic 2023 agreement on the pontifical representative resident in Vietnam was highlighted, which allowed the Holy See to once again have a representative in the country, something that had not happened since 1975, when the communist government expelled the apostolic delegate.

Vietnam has nearly 93 million inhabitants. Of these, approximately 6.8 million, or 7.4% of the population, are Catholics, according to statistics published by the Holy See. 

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.