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Bishop Michael Morrissey of the Diocese of Geraldton appeared in court to give evidence in the trial of Bishop Christopher Saunders, the former leader of the Diocese of Broome on Monday, August 4, in Perth, Western Australia.

Bishop Saunders led the Broome diocese from 1996 until 2021, when he stepped down citing “ill health” amid allegations of grooming and sexual abuse of young Aboriginal men. He has since been charges with 19 counts of sexual abuse, as well as pleading guilty to multiple firearms charges last year.

On Monday, Bishop Morrissey was called as a witness by prosecutors and answered questions on “Integrity in Ministry,” a document first issued in 2004 by the Australian bishops’ conference outlining principles and standards for clergy in the country.

Morrissey was specifically asked about the allegations that Saunders used alcohol as a means of grooming and assaulting young men and minors. While Morrissey said he could conceive of offering some kind of pastoral contact in informal situations “over a beer,” he would never provide “pastoral care” to someone who appeared to be intoxicated, nor involve alcohol in a one-on-one pastoral setting, WAToday reported.

It is believed to be the first occasion a serving diocesan bishop has appeared as a witness for the prosecution in the criminal trial of another bishop charged with sexual abuse. After Saunders stepped down from ministry, Morrissey was appointed apostolic administrator of the Broome diocese until Saunders’ successor was appointed in 2025.

Lawyers for Saunders argued that even though the document was issued by the bishops’ conference, of which he was a member at the time of the allegations, it did not represent a binding “one-size-fits-all” code of conduct. The bishop denies all criminal charges.

Lead prosecutor Adam Ebell had previously told the trial that Saunders was sexually attracted to Aboriginal males and invited them to “alcohol-fueled” parties at Church properties across the state’s Kimberley region.

The prosecutor said the dress code at the parties was “shirts off” and there was a “seemingly endless supply of alcohol and cigarettes,” bought using Church funds.

The prosecutor alleged that Saunders used boxing and wrestling as a “subterfuge” to engage in physical contact with the young men.

Most of the charges reportedly concern one alleged victim, who was 16 when the claimed sexual contact began and 19 when it ended. According to the prosecutor, the young man “felt shame” at what had occurred but “felt like he could not say no.”

Saunders is also accused of committing offenses against a 24-year-old man and another man who was in his late teens. The jury heard that additional men would give evidence about their encounters with Saunders, though these encounters did not result in charges.

The court has also been shown surveillance footage of Saunders, covertly recorded at his home in Broome in 2024. The footage, which did not lead to any charges, reportedly showed Saunders and another man shirtless and drinking, resting their feet on each other’s laps.

Also in court on Monday to appear for the prosecution was Saunders’ former assistant Cherrille Quilty, who told the trial that she was tasked by the bishop with processing for purchase cell phones and alcohol running into the thousands of dollars, allegedly used as gifts for young men.

In a 2024 interview with The Pillar, Quilty said that she was among the first to raise a criminal complaint against the bishop, whom she also accused of abusive bullying as an employer.

She also said that there was “a list of names on the wall in the secretary’s office with victims, potential victims, and their bank account details,” and that “was ostensibly for the payment of men who had done ‘odd jobs’ for the bishop.”

“It wasn’t for odd jobs, I can tell you that now,” she told The Pillar. “It was hush money. One of the first victims that came forward was the one that I paid most frequently and it was to shut him up.”

“You didn’t dare ask why [Saunders] was paying them. Didn’t dare. He wasn’t the sort of person you would ever cross or ask him anything… And he would make me drop whatever I was doing to go to the bank, get petty cash out, go to the bank, and bank that money immediately.”

Saunders formally resigned from office as bishop of the Broome diocese in 2021 after stepping back from governance of the diocese in 2020, after accusations surfaced that he had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of Church funds on gifts for vulnerable young men, including cash, phones, alcohol, and travel.

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The bishop was arrested and charged after a second police investigation was opened in 2024 into accusations against Saunders. That investigation followed a previous police inquiry, closed in 2021, which filed no charges for lack of evidence, but the case was reopened after law enforcement authorities were given a copy of the results of an internal Church investigation conducted under the norms of Vos estis lux mundi.

Previous statements from the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference have said that Saunders’ case is before the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome and he is charged with “alleged canonical crimes, as defined by Vos estis lux mundi, and alleged breaches of the Church’s Integrity in Ministry protocols.”

Leaked portions of the report produced by the Church’s investigation, which triggered the renewed police action against the bishop last year, identified a pattern of behavior by Saunders consistent with grooming dozens of young men over a period of decades.

According to media reports on the leaked text, one man told Vatican-commissioned investigators that Saunders had employed him to do gardening work at his residence and offered him the use of his shower afterwards. According to the alleged victim, the bishop then climbed into the shower with him.

“I was scared. He was a big fella and I was just a teenager at the time,” he told investigators, and that the bishop subsequently started showering him with gifts of cash, phones, cigarettes and alcohol.

Another man testified that Saunders threw so-called “bunga bunga parties,” to which only male guests were invited and at which he saw the bishop ask attendees to strip, and kiss and grope young guests.

“The bishop has been variously described by witnesses as … a sexual predator that seeks to prey upon vulnerable Aboriginal men and boys,” the report said.

But the bishops’ conference also claimed initially that the investigation into Saunder did not identify any alleged or potential victims under the age of 18, even while Saunders has now been criminally charged with multiple sexual offenses against a person under 18.

Following his resignation and the opening of the Vos estis investigation, Saunders was ordered by the Vatican to reside outside the diocese, a directive he ignored, continuing to live in a Church-owned house in Broome and to exercise considerable influence over diocesan affairs. By December 2023, Saunders was still listed as the “responsible person” for nine Catholic charities in his former diocese, several of which are affiliated with local parishes.

The Broome diocese covers the Kimberley and Pilbara regions of the sparsely populated state of Western Australia, serving around 15,000 Catholics out of a total population of 44,000 people.

Bishop Timothy Norton, S.V.D., was installed as the new Bishop of Broome on Dec. 4, 2024.

Australian media said Norton stressed that the Broome diocese would continue to cooperate with police amid an ongoing investigation.

“Accordingly, no further comment will be made regarding the former bishop of Broome until such time as all legal proceedings are concluded,” he said.

“The protection of children and adults at risk remains our highest priority. We encourage anyone who has experienced abuse, or suspects abuse within the community, to come forward and report it to police.”

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Hey everybody,

Today’s the feast of St. John Vianney, and you’re reading The Tuesday Pillar Post.

If you’re a parish priest, today’s your day. If you’re not, today’s the day for your parish priest.

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Most of you know something about his story: He was born in the French Revolution’s reign of anticlericalism, in which priests either swore loyalty to the regime and its philosophy, or found themselves going underground, and offering sacraments was for them illegal.

His devout farming parents traveled to Masses in homes and on farms; insofar as I can tell, his first communion was in a barn.

The witness of those priests made him want to be one, but the path was twisted and rocky: His father would not at first assent, and by the time he did, John had almost no education and struggled in every part of his academic formation. He was poor and ill-prepared, and people thought he was foolish.

But he was persistently faithful.

Through a forced and unexpected military conscription, through illness, through an accidental military desertion that came when he couldn’t find his unit, and that put him on the wrong side of the law, he was faithful. And then, having endured all that, he was faithful through skepticism in his diocese about whether he should be ordained at all.

He was ordained, and after he was a parochial vicar, he was sent to a peasant parish of 230 people. There he stayed for the rest of his life: A little parish in a little village in a little corner of France.

But he wanted to be a good priest. He got people to start going to Mass on Sundays. He got them to come to confession. He fixed with his own hands their ugly and badly maintained church. He got to know them, and he preached to them, and he offered them God’s mercy. He did most of that by living faithfully, with such earnestness that people were convicted.

In all of that, his interior life grew, so that as he offered up a lot of suffering, God seemed to give him the opportunity for more: People gossipped about him, priests didn’t always like him, he seems to have battled the devil, night after night. I think there were consolations which went along with that — deep, mystical insights into the goodness and love of God. But they were hard won.

For me, the story of John Vianney is one of those near-mythical saint tales that can feel far from my own reality. He exercised heroic patience, I exercise almost none. He was unflappably penitent, while I am dispositionally permissive with myself. He had love for souls where I have often love of self.

But it seems romantic because we tell it with gauzy piety. It was actually hard, each part of his life, and likely discouraging, and he doubtlessly had the temptations to comfort, and self-pity, and self-indulgence. He was a person, not a cartoon character, nor a SuperPriests mascot.

But if he wanted us to know something, it was a lesson to which he would not have become so zealously committed if he didn’t actually know how much it mattered: That in the sacrament of penance, to which he gave his life, is the chance to start again, and then to let God build on small beginnings, by the patient persistence of mercy.

I’ll text my pastor today, and tell him I appreciate him, sure. But I think the real lesson is that Christ is waiting for me in the confessional, through the ministry of his priests, to build something good from the most unlikely of beginnings.

—

The news

Wildfires in Spokane, Washington have destroyed hundreds of houses and destroyed more than 10,000 acres in recent days, with very little containment achieved so far.

Officials have said it is the most destructive wildfire situation in the state’s history, largely because of the fires’ vicinity to residential neighborhoods.

The Pillar spoke with Bishop Thomas Daly about the fires, and about the challenges of a pastoral response.

The Vatican has announced two Chinese episcopal appointments in recent weeks, signaling the continuing operation of its eight-year-old agreement with China’s government on the appointment of bishops.

The appointments come after Pope Leo has had more than a year in office, and seen a modest slate of Chinese episcopal appointments pass across his desk. This means the pontiff has had time to gauge the internal workings of the Holy See’s deal with the Chinese Communist Party.

With that under his belt, what could be the scope of the pope’s ambitions for improving the Church’s lot in China?

Ed Condon takes a good look at the state of affairs.

—

Across the nation of India, Christians have faced increased persecution in recent years, including violence in some areas of the country. And persecution often comes in the context of claims that Christians are rabid or coercive proselytizers, bent on forcing people against their well-formed will into the waters of baptism.

Religious freedom activists say that the first step of such persecution is the passage of “anti-conversion” laws, whose stated aim is to prevent coerced conversion. Such laws, they say, where they exist, are often weaponized against Christians, who face accusations of proselytization even for such offenses as performing works of mercy or acts of worship.

Which is why the Archdiocese of Bombay is pushing back over the Maharashtra Freedom of Religion Act of 2026, which according to the archdiocese, “creates scope for undue scrutiny or surveillance of prayer meetings, schools, hospitals and social-service centres run by minority institutions.”

Michelle La Rosa reports.

—

I call your attention to a special episode of The Pillar Podcast.

I sat down recently with Bishop Andrew Cozzens to talk about the National Eucharistic Congress — how it happened, what it meant for him personally, and what lessons were learned.

“It’s happened to me a couple times in my life where you get caught up in something the Holy Spirit is doing,” Bishop Cozzens told me.

He’s worth listening to. Do that here.

—

Last month’s illicit SSPX consecrations and subsequent excommunications raised expectations that Pope Leo might soon act to expand the celebration of the TLM in communities that are in union with Rome.

But more than a month later, that expected papal action has not come.

In an analysis on the subject, Edgar Beltran asks whether the pontiff intends a kind of soft reform — keeping existing liturgical policies on the books, while moving toward a more generous application.

Edgar talks with a lot of well-positioned folks in Rome, and this assessment is informed by that. Read about it.

—

Pope Leo XIV issued a new Fundamental Law of Vatican City State last week, replacing a previous version adopted in 2023.

Here’s what’s changed.

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I am in Houston, Texas today, to give some talks at the Leadership Summit of Amazing Parish, which is a non-profit that gives coaching to parish pastors and the people who work with them.

(They didn’t pay me to say that or anything, I just know a bunch of Pillar reader pastors who use their services and are happy with them.)

Last night, when I should have gone to the opening address, I instead walked three blocks to take in a Houston Astros game, but the truth is that I found the Field-Formerly-Known-As-Enron to be so soulless and arid that I’m now certain I made a mistake.

If I weren’t going to listen to the talk, I ought instead to have gone to see some of the historic churches of this city, whose mixture of mission and French influence make them well-reflective of the fascinating history of Catholicism in Texas.

That history can’t be told without the story of Bishop Claude Dubuis, who left France for Texas on February 19, 1846, while St. John Vianney was serving in the parish of Ars, and on the very day the Republic of Texas joined these United States.

Dubuis is a fascinating guy.

He came, like a lot of French missionaries, as a part of a trend that began during the Republic of Texas days, and largely because the republic was supported diplomatically by the French — in some ways at the behest of the Vatican, which had hoped that French recognition of the Texas republic would help encourage Protestant and somewhat-anti-Catholic Texas public officials to tolerate the Church and her people.

By the time Dubuis arrived as a young Holy Cross priest on Texas soil, the circumstances had changed considerably, and Texas was American. But the Church was very French, at least in her clerical classes.

Dubuis was tough. He was pastor to German farm and ranching settlers who provided him a hut to live in at the beginning. He traveled the vast territory of his parish on horseback; he slept in trees to avoid both snakes and floodwaters. He was captured four times by the Comanche, before he began learning their language and inviting them into his church.

In 1850, he traveled to France to bring back more priests, regaling seminarians with stories of frontier priestly life, and signing them up in droves. Then, as he became vicar general of the Galveston diocese, he started bringing sisters to staff schools.

He learned Spanish, English, German, Alsatian, and the aforementioned Comanche. He learned to eat cornbread and salt bacon, and to endure the noonday heat.

In 1862, frontier-hardened and with dirt under his nails, he became the second bishop of Galveston. He was consecrated a bishop in France, where he’d traveled to make a vocations visit and to stop in at the Apostolic See for some business.

To come back — with the Civil War raging — he had to be ferried through a Union blockade, along with 60 priests, sisters, and seminarians he had brought with him from France.

He buried people during a cholera outbreak, and he went to Vatican Council I with dust in his hat.

He had more than 150,000 Catholics, over a vast Texas territory, and fewer than 90 priests, most of whom were French. Some of those priests flirted with French-ish Jansenism, and Dubuis had to help them find a path that would work on the frontier, while they also adapted to a very different status for the Church than they had enjoyed in France. He also had to deal with priests who couldn’t adapt and returned to France, and a small number who disappeared out onto the plains, some for marriage, some just walking off without so much as a letter.

But Dubuis was committed, he became a Texan, and he loved his people.

In 1881, at 64, he was traveling to France for vocations work when he began taking ill. He had terrible arthritis, and a lot of miles on his body. He stayed to recover in his family home. So far as I can tell, as a year or so passed, he was asked to resign, but he didn’t. It seems he expected to go back to Texas.

He didn’t make it. In fact for the next 12 years, he remained bishop of Galveston, but living in France.

In those days, before the great centralization of the 20th century, a diocesan bishop wasn’t easily or often removed. And Dubuis wasn’t. I don’t really understand why he didn’t resign. I think, as best as I can tell, he really hoped to get back. He was a Texan, and a missionary.

For the diocese, that was a hardship. Bishop Nicolaus Gallagher — himself an Ohio boy — became coadjutor in 1882, but he had to run the diocese as apostolic administrator for the next decade. He opened schools and encouraged religious orders, but he had to do all of that in the strange liminal period of a protracted episcopal absence, in which the see wasn’t impeded, but the bishop wasn’t there, either.

I don’t know if Gallagher looked north for wisdom on that subject, but he could have.

See, in 1859 — the year Vianney died, as it happens — a man named Bishop James Duggan became the fourth bishop of Chicago. Irish-born and with a basically broke diocese, Duggan had faced his own problems. He did his best to work through them, but by 1869, he was suffering from a collapse in mental health, and at the encouragement of other American bishops, Pius IX sent him to a sanatorium in Missouri, where his mental health continued to decline.

For the next decade, Bishop Tom Foley ran the Chicago diocese as a coadjutor — Duggan was apparently not fit mentally to resign, or not willing — and yet Pius IX was disinclined to remove him either. That situation lasted all the way until Foley’s death in 1879, and Duggan’s apparently lucid resignation soon thereafter, which paved the way for Chicago to become an archdiocese, and a new bishop to take the reins.

For his part, Dubuis didn’t resign from office until 1892, whereupon Leo XIII was so grateful to have the situation clarified that he made him a titular archbishop, and saw to it that he could help with confirmation across the city of Lyon.

Reverend Fathers, I’m not sure where your bishop is today. But if he’s not on extended leave in France, or in a sanatorium in Missouri, you probably have something to thank God for.

Please be assured of our prayers, and please pray for us.

Yours in Christ,

JD Flynn
editor-in-chief
The Pillar

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Three fires just north of downtown Spokane ignited on Saturday, and are continuing to burn a span of more than 10,000 acres, with no containment so far.

Officials have said it is the most destructive wildfire situation in the state’s history, largely because of the fires’ vicinity to residential neighborhoods.

As of Monday night, there had been no fatalities reported in the fires, but some 65,000 people had been evacuated.

With hundreds of homes destroyed, and many more threatened by the urban blaze, Bishop Thomas Daly of Spokane knows that his people need hope amid the devastation all around them.

The Pillar spoke with Bishop Daly about his pastoral response to the fires, what he expects to see in the rebuilding process, and the message of hope he wants to offer those who are being affected by the tragedy.

That interview is below. It has been edited for length and clarity.

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Bishop, tell me about what you’ve seen in the areas affected by the wildfires in your diocese.

We toured on Monday — myself, our vicar general, and our director of communications, with one of the police officers — the areas impacted by the fire.

The fire’s devastation is on the north side of Spokane, primarily in two parishes, where residential areas have been evacuated.

More than 600 structures have been destroyed, and you just see the neighborhoods of homes that were built in the 1970s and 1980s which have been completely destroyed — just devastated.

I visited with one family that I know very well; they come to our cathedral for Mass. It’s a husband and wife with grown kids, who just remodeled their home — and that home was completely destroyed.

But their response was encouraging: “At least we’re all safe.”

One police officer said to me that he expects that people who were evacuated will soon feel the panic of what they’ve experienced. “It’s going to hit them about the panic,” he said, “when they had to evacuate, when cars were backed up as the fires were coming up the hill, and over through the trees and the forest.”

People had to leave immediately, which meant they left pets, and they left stuff that was really valuable. So there’s going to be a lot of post-traumatic stress over this, that we ought to be attentive to as the Church.

There has been a great outreach of concern. A friend of mine in California asked me today: “Why do your people seem calm?”

And I think it’s because, basically, they realize that their first priority was: “At least we’re still alive.”

It wasn’t about what they’re owed, or anything else.

Some of the politicians are bound to use this, not as a tragedy to care for people, but to make it a political issue right away.

But right now, I think there’s a level of calm, because there haven’t been so far any deaths reported. Still, it’s just devastating to see just the destruction.

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Can you talk to me about the pastoral response you make to a tragedy like this? And then the humanitarian response you’ll make with Catholic Charities. How do you approach each of those things?

Well, I think the pastoral response is, first, to know where your people are.

People are evacuated. Some are with relatives. And our Immaculate Heart retreat house has opened up.

Rick McLean, the director of the retreat house, said “we can take people in.” And that’s a part of our pastoral approach.

Our two parishes in the area — Assumption and St. Thomas More — are on site finding out what the needs of the parishioners are. Right now, those are immediate needs — housing, foods, things like that.

On the immediate needs, Catholic Charities, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and the Red Cross are all working together.

St. Vincent de Paul is very much on the grassroots level, and the Red Cross and Catholic Charities are working at a bigger footprint — and the Archdiocese of Seattle has offered to assist as needed.

The secondary response will be about the [long term] impact. School’s going to start in a few weeks. And the chance of homes being put together, even somewhat, before winter comes is going to be very, very slim.

We have to be prepared for the long haul on the impact on parishioners and family life, when it’s going to take them a lot longer than they imagined to get back into some normalcy of life with housing.

Where are people going to live when they’re dealing with insurance companies? Are there sufficient contractors?

Because you know, when you don’t have a place to live, being displaced is very unsettling, and it becomes even more so with school-aged kids. So we have to be prepared for that.

In fact, that’s probably going to be the greatest need, the long-term impact on families as they try to get some normalcy of life in the months ahead, after they answer the immediate questions: Where am I going to sleep tonight? Where am I going to get my next meal? Have I gotten everything out of my house that I need, if my house has anything left?

I’ve been struck by the images we’ve seen over the past year of Pope Leo, as Bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, being present to his people when they face disaster. And it seems like that’s a template for bishops to be reminded to be with their people in these kinds of disasters when they come.

It is, as much as we can.

And thank God, Father Connall, who is our vicar general, was able to talk with a police officer whose son is entering the seminary in a few weeks. He took us through the blockade, letting us see the sites where people have been impacted.

It was there that we talked with people — Catholics who we know from the cathedral — who had lost their home, but who told us they were ok, because “we’re safe and our children are safe.”

Normally when we think of these wildfires, they’re out in the fields, in farming or wooded areas. To see residential areas destroyed is very different.

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It sounds like visiting these homes was really affecting for you.

It was. I was doing the wedding of [a friend] in Lake Tahoe, and as I was getting ready to fly home, a neighbor said, “you might not be able to make it home, because of the smoke.”

I did make it home. But … I’m not used to residential fires burning like these are burning.

As a boy, our own house caught fire, and we moved.

But this, in Spokane, is just devastating, as you see it. And it’s hard to understand — in one area you’ll see one house burned while the fire left the others, but then you’ll see entire blocks that are burned.

As a kid — it took just a few months to rebuild the house, and that was 50 years ago. Now, I mean, people will have to find the contractors, and they’re going to be fighting with insurance companies, and it could be a couple years, I think.

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You mentioned concern about the way wildfires might be politicized. On the other hand, the Church is called to care for the earth, our “common home,” as Francis called it. How do you approach the discussion around a growing frequency of wildfires in proximity to residential areas, and the questions those raise?

I think in the midst of this fire, the key is to stay focused on the immediate needs of the people.

People have been displaced. Their whole livelihood has just been ripped from them. So let’s deal with that first, and let’s not use someone’s tragedy to further a cause — whether you’re going to use it for fundraising or you’re going to use it to talk about climate change.

It was great working with the police officers and the firemen.

We talked with the officers who have to make sure that the neighborhoods remain safe and that people eventually will be let in if their houses are still around.

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So as you’re taking in a tragedy like this, where do you see the Lord?

These are the moments when you need someone to be with you who says, “I’m with you to the end of the age.”

And then, look at the Church’s rich tradition of responding in quiet ways to the needs of people — “what you’ve done for the least of these, you did for me.”

This is not a time to be calling press conferences. A friend mentioned that since the fires began I haven’t issued a statement.

I said, “I’m going to go visit the site first and see what the devastation is before issuing a statement on what’s happening.”

Look at Scripture: When there’s been famine, when there’s been destruction, when there’s been pestilence, you can’t lose hope that the Lord is there.

The best definition of hope is this: “reality grounded in faith.”

The reality is that this is a very difficult time. It’s devastating. But Christ is with us, and he’s calling us to reach out of ourselves for people.

And people are doing that — There’s a generous spirit here. And thank God for that.

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Already read the readings? Skip ahead to 6:10.

Reading 1 - 1 Kings 19: 9a, 11-13a

Psalm 85: 9-14

Reading 2 - Romans 9: 1-5

Gospel - Matthew 14: 22-33

But more than a month later, that expected papal action has not come.

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Pope Leo has made a number of small yet tangible gestures towards traditionalist communities in the first year of his pontificate – for example, receiving some of the bishops, cardinals, and religious superiors most closely connected to them, and allowing a traditionalist pilgrimage to celebrate Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica.

Those measures have sharpened expectation in some corners that the pope has planned to address longstanding discontent over Francis’ liturgical policy, with a solution friendly to Catholics who prefer the older liturgical rubrics.

Last week, though, the prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments said in an interview that Pope Leo XIV has no intention of changing the restrictions imposed by Pope Francis on preconciliar liturgical texts.

Has the pope changed his view on the TLM? Or are the comments just talk, filling the weeks of the idle Roman summer?

A careful look at Leo’s choices to date suggests there may be a third interpretation – that the pontiff may intend to keep the liturgical situation in a gray area, leaving policies intact as written, while urging generosity and magnanimity in their application.

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When the Vatican last month declared six bishops of the Society of St. Pius X excommunicated — and warned that priests and even some lay attendees of their liturgies could also incur an excommunication — many observers speculated that the pope would soon after make a formal gesture to traditionalist communities who wanted to remain in communion with Rome, with some even speculating on the the establishment of a successor to the Ecclesia Dei commission, which once was charged with overseeing traditionalist communities, until its 2019 suppression.

But more than a month later, nothing concrete has yet happened.

Meanwhile, on July 29, Cardinal Roche, prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, appeared to rule out any liberalization of Francis-era liturgical restrictions.

The English cardinal said in an interview with The Tablet that “Pope Leo is not going to change Traditionis custodes, and he’s not going back to Summorum pontificum.”

“The abundant diet of Scripture that is now given through the celebration of the Mass and the sacraments is something that wasn’t available to use before, but it is now,” he said.

The cardinal also added that while the TLM emphasizes that the priest acts on behalf of the congregation, the emphasis in the Novus ordo is different.

“In fact, when the Mass is being celebrated, because the baptized people are a priestly people, they too are celebrating with the priest.”

Did Roche’s outspoken comments actually mirror the views of the pope? It’s not entirely clear.

Some observers have argued that Roche felt free to make these comments because at 76 he is, at least in theory, due to retire anytime now, and feels comfortable speaking his own mind, which may or may not reflect the pope’s private thinking.

However, sources close to the dicastery have told The Pillar that Pope Leo respects Roche, especially for how he has approached liturgical controversies with the German bishops’ conference, and that it’s at least plausible that the cardinal’s remarks came from an informed perspective on the matter.

Still, Leo’s own actions in the past year have shown a willingness to take a more cordial stance towards those with an affinity for the TLM, without necessarily suggesting that an abrogation of Traditiones custodes is forthcoming.

For example, in November, The Pillar reported that the Archbishop Miguel Maury Buendia addressed the plenary assembly of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, informing the bishops that the Vatican would “be generous” when asked to dispense from the restrictions to the traditional liturgy.

These dispensations have become commonplace in several American dioceses, with some even increasing the number of TLMs offered.

And in March, Cardinal Pietro Parolin sent a letter to the French bishops’ conference before their plenary assembly, calling for “the generous inclusion of those sincerely attached to the vetus ordo, in accordance with the guidelines established by the Second Vatican Council regarding the liturgy.”

Several senior Vatican officials in Leo’s closest group of advisors told The Pillar that Leo’s informal and progressive relaxation of the application of Traditionis custodes will not stop.

“It’s not a liturgical issue, but an issue of communion. If you’re in communion with the Church, we should allow for reasonable accommodation for different charismas and styles, including those who are more traditional, and I think that’s the trend now,” one official told The Pillar.

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Meanwhile, organizers of the traditionalist Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage told The Pillar that they have asked permission to celebrate a TLM in Saint Peter’s Basilica this year, but haven’t received a response.

One of Leo’s concrete gestures towards traditionalist communities last year was allowing the celebration of a TLM during the pilgrimage in Saint Peter’s Basilica after not being allowed to do so in 2023 and 2024.

One source said organizers of the pilgrimage intend to ask again after the summer.

“The problem is that in the pope’s close circle, they saw that the Mass helped a lot of people but was also used as propaganda and they didn’t like that,” the source said.

If Pope Leo declines to allow the pilgrimage to celebrate the TLM in St. Peter’s, that could be seen by many observers as a sign that he has grown cold to the idea of abrogating, reforming or even loosening the application Traditiones custodes.

However, it is also possible that the lack of a response is a matter of personnel connected with the basilica.

There is growing speculation that Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, Archpriest of Saint Peter’s Basilica, is due to be replaced soon. Rumors in Rome indicate that Gambetti’s replacement might be Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Cardinal Rolandas Makrickas, or Bishop Guido Marini, who are all thought to be friendlier to the TLM than Gambetti.

It is possible that a forthcoming transition in archpriest could be delaying a response about the celebration of a TLM in the basilica

Therefore, silence should not be understood as rejection — at least not yet.

Several Vatican sources told The Pillar the decision to allow the Mass last year happened after Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke asked the pope in an Aug. 22 audience to allow the Mass to be celebrated there.

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As questions continue to swirl regarding the future of Traditionis custodes, Pope Leo has not given any indication that a formal, stable solution is close at hand.

And several cardinals and curial officials – including both those considered to be friendly and hostile to the TLM – consulted by The Pillar in the last few months said they don’t expect a solution in the near future, at least not this year.

A Vatican official told The Pillar in April that in a 2025 meeting, Leo acknowledged he did not know much about traditional communities or the traditional liturgy. According to the official, the pope’s central concern was not the liturgy itself, but whether members of those communities accepted the Second Vatican Council.

The pope accepted a suggestion to meet with cardinals, bishops, and others close to traditional communities in order to receive firsthand information from them.

That has seemingly led to audiences with figures able to offer the pope perspectives on the matter: Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, Cardinal Robert Sarah, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Fr. John Berg, superior general of the Fraternity of Saint Peter, and the researchers Stephen Bullivant and Stephen Craney, who are set to publish a book on traditional communities in the United States.

So while Roche may be right that Pope Leo is not planning to return to Summorum pontificum or formally amend Traditionis custodes, that does not necessarily change anything about Leo’s approach to the TLM and the expectations surrounding it.

At the same time, while many expected the illicit SSPX consecrations to move the needle towards fewer restrictions on TLM celebrations in communion with Rome, that hope has not yet materialized.

The pope, it seems, is comfortable keeping the situation in a gray area for now – one in which he is not inclined to immediately change the law, but will continue slowly encouraging bishops, through curial officials and papal diplomats, to adopt more generous applications of the Francis-era law.

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The archdiocese said in a statement last week that while the Catholic Church “has always unequivocally condemned conversion through force, fraud, coercion or inducement,” similar laws in other Indian states have been “used more often to intimidate religious minorities than to address genuine instances of wrongdoing.”

“Experience in other States raises serious concerns that such legislation can place a disproportionate burden on Christian communities, inter-faith couples and others exercising the constitutionally protected freedom to profess, practise and propagate their faith,” the archdiocese said.

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The archdiocese released its statement following reports that Indian President Droupadi Murmu had approved the Maharashtra Freedom of Religion Act, 2026, paving the way for it to go into effect.

The second most populous state in India, Maharashtra will become the 13^th state to adopt an anti-conversion law, with the stated aim of preventing coerced conversions.

But the laws’ critics have consistently argued that they are also used to discourage voluntary conversions from Hinduism, India’s main religion, to minority faiths, including Christianity.

Christians make up less than 1% of the population in Maharashtra.

The Archdiocese of Bombay objected in particular to the legislation’s “vague and overbroad terminology,” as well as a provision allowing the blood relative of a new convert to lodge a “first information report” with the police. A first information report is a crucial initial step in a criminal investigation in India.

This provision, the archdiocese said, “raises concerns about an adult’s right to make an independent decision of conscience. It also creates the possibility of misuse by families opposed to an inter-faith marriage or to a person’s decision to change one’s religion.”

Additionally, the archdiocese warned, the law enables police officers “to take cognisance on their own initiative, ahead of any complaint from an affected person, [which] creates scope for undue scrutiny or surveillance of prayer meetings, schools, hospitals and social-service centres run by minority institutions.”

In March, when the bill passed the legislature, bishops in Maharashtra warned that it could lead to the risk of imprisonment for OCIA leaders.

While the OCIA program, which prepares adults to join the Catholic Church, is specifically crafted to avoid forced conversions and ensure that adults make a free and informed decision to become Catholic, the wording of the legislation could allow for the prosecution of OCIA leaders, they said.

“If family members, who may naturally oppose such a decision, raise objections, the clergy and others involved in the process risk being accused of coercion or of ‘brainwashing’ as mentioned in 2(p) of the bill,” the bishops said at the time.

“In such circumstances, they face the threat of severe and disproportionate penalties, including imprisonment of up to seven years and heavy fines, despite the absence of any wrongdoing. This effectively criminalizes legitimate religious activity and places an unreasonable burden on both the individual and the religious institution.”

In its statement last week, the Archdiocese of Bombay noted that the local Christian community has experienced a recent increase in intimidation directed at its educational and social work.

“There is a genuine concern that ordinary acts of charity and pastoral service could be misconstrued as inducement, placing religious congregations and Christian institutions in the position of having to defend their work before the police and courts, rather than being able to focus on serving the communities they were established to uplift,” the archdiocese said.

It added that in other states, similar laws have been used to harass minority religions and couples in inter-faith marriages.

“More broadly, religious minorities face the risk of a law intended to prevent coercion could instead be weaponised as an instrument of harassment, social boycott and vigilante action. In such circumstances, an accused person may be presumed guilty in the court of public opinion long before any judicial finding has been made,” the statement said.

It asked the state government to consider the law’s effect on religious minorities and to ensure that “adequate safeguards, clear definitions and procedural protections are put in place to prevent its misuse against minority communities.”

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This episode is brought to you by St. Bernard’s School of Theology and Ministry, hosting a conference this October on the life and thought of soon-to-be Blessed Archbishop Fulton Sheen. You can join in-person or virtually.

Learn more at stbernards.edu

The bishops, both appointed for dioceses in the Inner Mongolia province, were publicly announced by the Vatican in the daily bolletinos for July 22 and 29, the announcements coinciding with the episcopal consecrations of Joseph Chang Yanfeng as Bishop of Chifeng and Francis Xavier Duan Yongkun as coadjutor Bishop of Bameng.

According to the Vatican, both men received papal approval for their appointments under the norms of the Vatican-China deal on June 15. The bishops’ installations are the latest in a series of relatively undramatic appointments in Vatican-China relations since Leo’s election as pope last year.

The Holy See’s accord with China continues to draw criticism from some quarters, with commentators noting Beijing’s track record of violating the deal’s provisions — often publicly and with impunity — and the continuing crackdown on the exercise of basic religious freedoms on the mainland. But, with the deal set to run for another two years, it is clear the current system of appointments will continue for some time yet.

After more than a year in office and with a modest slate of mainland appointments seen through, Pope Leo has had time to gauge the internal workings of the Holy See’s deal with the Chinese Communist Party. With that under his belt, what could be the scope of the pope’s ambitions for improving the Church’s lot in and with China?

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—

The dual July announcements represent, on one level, a continuation of a kind of progress for the Vatican-China deal under Leo, inasmuch as there seems to be a superficial smoothness to the processing of Chinese episcopal appointments.

Both bishops were selected within the CCP-affiliated internal structures of the Church in China and, at least according to the Vatican’s public statements, subsequently presented for formal papal approval — which was granted — before receiving episcopal consecration.

That may seem like small beer in the grand scheme of creating a healthy Chinese ecclesiology, but in the immediate context of the Vatican-China deal’s life cycle since 2018, it has to be considered a kind of victory.

The previous status quo, in which the Communist-controlled Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association appeared to appoint bishops at will, with or without a papal mandate, was in many respects worse than the situation before the deal was first agreed. At least in the prior situation there was clarity of status between the schismatic state-sponsored church and the Underground Church in communion with Rome and an obvious distinction between those bishops who were in union with the pope and those who were not. Under Pope Francis, there was essentially no clarity about what was being done licitly on the mainland and what was not, with the Vatican often clearly left in the morally untenable position of having to pretend appointments made without any Roman involvement were pre-approved.

That level of institutional indifference, not to say contempt, by Beijing came to a nadir during the papal interregnum last year, with the CPCA announcing the “election” and installation of a new bishop when there was no pope to issue a mandate.

Since Leo’s election, Beijing has appeared much more cooperative and respectful of the essential procedural norms of papal approval. The July announcements appear to be a continuation of that shift, with both citing a common June day for the approval of both bishops, which were separately announced on the days of their consecrations.

However, each new mainland appointment continues to be met with a predictable (and not necessarily unreasonable, given recent history) chorus of reflexive criticism and the assumption that every new bishop represents a kind of Roman capitulation to the Chinese government.

At the same time, it is worth noting that, unlike with previous rounds of Chinese appointments, neither of the two new bishops has been portrayed in the media as obviously aligned with either the CPCA or the underground Church, and both have served in pastoral and curial ministry in their dioceses for some years. This may be a reflection of the Church in China becoming — and becoming understood as — less starkly bifurcated than it once was between “pro-Rome” and “pro-Beijing” bishops.

The emergence in China of a more complex body of bishops has been one of the more tangible but least quantifiable outcomes of the Vatican-China deal. Last summer, the Vatican announced the appointment of formerly underground Bishop Joseph Lin Yuntuan as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Fuzhou.

The general reception of that appointment at the time focused on Lin’s background and service for years as a clandestine bishop serving the Underground Church. His nomination to serve in an official capacity of the Fuzhou archdiocese was hailed as a kind of triumph for the Vatican in its ongoing power struggle with Beijing. However, as The Pillar reported at the time, the crucial factor in Lin’s appointment from the mainland perspective was the vocal support of the Archbishop Joseph Cai Bingrui, who was installed as head of the archdiocese earlier that year, and who championed Lin’s acceptance by the CPCA.

As sources on the mainland explained to The Pillar, Cai’s status as a CPCA bishop did not mean he was hostile to Rome or formerly underground bishops, and that episcopal relationships on the mainland were often much more nuanced than commonly appreciated from outside.

However, if the Chinese episcopate is becoming less divided internally, and it is the case that at least some candidates for dioceses can now be found who are actually mutually acceptable to Beijing and Rome, the Vatican still faces a baseline level of skepticism around the China deal — reasonably so, given the history of CPCA unilateral action and years of deafening Roman silence on globally prominent human rights abuses in the country.

One obvious way to dial back the popular cynicism about the entire idea of sincere Vatican-China cooperation on bishops would be to simply bring the announcement of new appointments in line with other similar episcopal nominations everywhere else in the Church.

If, as the Vatican’s own public statements have consistently claimed for some time, Chinese nominations for bishops are receiving papal approval weeks, or even months in advance of their consecrations, it would seem perfectly reasonable, and would be a presumably effortless and cost-free change, to announce them as the approvals are granted, instead of the current system of acknowledging the new bishops only on the day they are installed.

Apart from representing a healthy normalization, this would also be a genuine “proof of life” from the Vatican in its otherwise undisclosed dealings with the Chinese authorities — the ability to announce and acknowledge new bishops weeks ahead of their installations would be a genuine sign that the appointment process is happening as claimed.

As long as new installations are merely acknowledged in real time, though, there will be a sizable body of opinion which holds, or at least is open to the possibility, that the Vatican remains totally sidelined by the CCP and has merely become more efficient at presenting the appearance of involvement.

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—

If there is scope to tighten up Vatican communications around Chinese appointments in the immediate term, though, Leo is no doubt giving some thought to the bigger picture of Vatican-China relations.

With two years left to run on the deal in its current form, the pope will, one expects, want to see some changes made to the agreement which has been renewed on a pro-forma basis every two years since its signing in 2018, with a four-year extension being granted in 2024.

Given the years of obvious problems under Pope Francis, even assuming a relatively smooth two years of appointments from now until October of 2028, many will continue to call for a wholesale revisiting of the terms of the deal, and even a flat out withdrawal from it.

Given the continuing erosion of freedoms for basic religious practice on the mainland, this is understandable.

And the direction and speed of travel on this over the next two years should be something the Vatican tracks closely.

At the same time, while the leadership of Xi Jinping sees unlikely to change or change course between now and then, it can be reasonably predicted that by 2028 Leo will have overseen a complete turnover in the leadership of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, ushering out the old guard responsible for and most invested in the 2018 deal.

The extent to which the pope brings in new thinking along with new faces, and allows for candid expressions of China-skepticism at the top of the Holy See’s diplomatic tree, could do much to shape how bullish Rome is in approaching any renewal or renegotiation.

However, even assuming that Leo’s key advisors are willing to take and advise a more realistic assessment of the current deal’s merits, there remain some hard realities they will have to think around. It remains the case that walking away from the Vatican-China deal might be a decisive public statement about the state of religious freedom in China, but it would create enormous and immediate pressures on Chinese Catholics, and likely create another schism between the state and underground churches.

At the level of the hierarchy, this would mean bishops who have been trying to pick a careful path between state tolerance and communion with Rome would be effectively forced to choose sides, and suffer the consequences. For ordinary Catholics who remained loyal to the pope, it would mean a return to outlaw status.

Another approach to negotiations with China might, conversely, be to try to broaden its scope in the hope of winning special protections or exemptions for Catholics from state repression of religious practice. While that might strike some as a fanciful aim, it isn’t exactly true to say that the Vatican has no bargaining power, or Beijing no interest in changes to the status quo.

Over the course of the Vatican-China deal’s life-cycle thus far, episcopal appointments have been complicated by the government’s overt desire to redraw the diocesan map of the mainland, overwriting and carving up the Church-recognized dioceses which have existed since the 1940s.

Leo approved an early effort in his reign to stop or at least slow the emergence of parallel diocesan boundaries, suppressing two existing dioceses and creating a new jurisdiction in September last year in a move reflecting state-drawn sees.

China continues to press ahead with changes to the episcopal map, not out of overt antagonism to the Holy See, but because of an insistence that ecclesiastical boundaries be coterminous with civil provincial areas. At the same time, the government has shown a clear willingness to act unilaterally when Rome has been slow to agree to changes over recent years, the result of which is to undermine the entire goal of the Vatican-China deal and create a commonly recognized Church in China.

The epicopal appointments in July represent, in this context, a kind of mixed compromise, with Bishop Joseph Chang Yanfeng being installed to lead the Vatican-created Diocese of Chifeng, and Francis Xavier Duan Yongkun as coadjutor Bishop of Bameng — a jurisdiction created by the state in the 1980s and until now only informally recognized by Rome.

If a new iteration of the Vatican-China deal is to emerge by 2028, the agreement of a new set of diocesan boundaries and episcopal sees would, arguably, be a major win for both sides — it is worth noting that even the Vatican approved jurisdictions as they currently exist are not always distinct in their territories and are the sometimes confused results of decades of appointments and erections of dioceses, mission territories, and apostolic prefectures, sometime from more than a century ago.

For such a project to come off, though, the Vatican would have to be prepared to think big and bold in its dealings with China, and willing play a real hand at the diplomatic table to win some protections for local Catholics in addition to structural coherence.

Of course, all that presupposes that the Vatican’s role and leverage in the current deal is alive, if not always well. Establishing that for all to see remains the immediate challenge for the Holy See.

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Apologies for burdening your inbox with a non- Pillar Post email, but lucky for you this is not a money pitch either.

This is Jack, the former intern, freelancer, and, according to Ed, The Pillar’s “resident young and cool person” and , I write to share a simple message with The Pillar community — Thank you.

This “thank you” comes as a bittersweet goodbye to The Pillar community — I am stepping away from newswriting, for at least a year, to begin the propadeutic year of seminary formation. (Please pray for me!)

As I prayed about what I wanted to write, the Lord kept drawing me back to gratitude and to share the defining lesson I learned from my time as a journalist. But mostly to gratitude.

For three years, as a college student, I’ve been writing feature and news stories for The Pillar. Often, it still seems crazy that I was able to travel the world, granted access to bishops, priests, and lay leaders, and have my work published by such a fine online publication.

Yet here I am, and none of it would have been possible without you, our readers.

So, from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you for reading my articles. Thank you to those who sent me messages and pitches. Thank you for the uplifting, encouraging comments, and even for the critical comments that highlighted weaknesses and helped me strengthen my craft.

Thank you to all the people that I have met and interviewed through reporting out the many stories, and to all the Pillar readers that have approached me in the field and the wonderful conversations that have followed.

Thank you to the paying subscribers, who fund the reporting trips I’ve made, the ones that made for the most exciting, formative college career imaginable and delivered high quality (hopefully) journalism.

But most of all, thank you for supporting me in a mission that taught me so much about the Church, the Christian life, one that provided lasting friendships, and helped me grow in my own spiritual life immensely.

—
Four years ago, as I was trying to enter the journalism business — a future boss offered me the chance to become famous, to become “somebody,” promising that if I worked for that news outlet, then by the time I graduated college, I would be an editor, and the entire Catholic world would know who I am.

To any naïve college freshman, raised in the social media era, that sounded like a sweet deal.

So I signed on.

(No, it was not for The Pillar.)

Growing up within the social media landscape, AI revolution, and the COVID years where everything happened on your phone; becoming internet famous appeared to be the pinnacle of success.

Even for a Catholic kid such as myself, the lure of internet stardom was tempting — especially Catholic internet stardom.

Everywhere I looked, I saw young Catholic celebrities popping up, with their massive online followings, throngs of kids attending their talks, or hounding their booths at conferences.

That’s the life, I thought.

If I want to become a great evangelist and have an impact on the Church, then I MUST become a Catholic celebrity, I reasoned.

Only then, will I prove myself to God and to the Church.

Oh, and that stardom will make me feel important and good about myself — that’s a nice benefit, I thought.

That early job, and the pursuit of that stardom, turned unsurprisingly into a disappointment, as my editors wanted quick write-up stories, effectively copied from other outlets, they emphasized that stories were to first have a “conservative” angle, then a “Catholic” one, with clickbaity headlines, and offered limited opportunities for on the ground reporting.

Months after joining, I began to dislike that job. So, I quit.

Freelancing opportunities began popping up with the National Catholic Register, OSV News, America Magazine, and The Pillar, which I eagerly took, and through which the Lord opened a plethora of incredible doors to travel and interview faith-filled Catholics from all walks of life — from Cardinals of the Catholic Church to Rose, an old Filipino lady in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Quickly, my naïve view of the Church began to broaden, and I realized there’s a lot more to the Church than the latest celebrity priest talk, Matt Fradd podcast, or whatever trends the hip Catholic influencers were pushing.

There are people in the trenches sharing the love of Christ, who want to share that love with everybody they meet — in person.

Bishop Andrew Cozzens, Tim Glemkowski, and Jason Shanks taught me that “if you hold up Jesus, people will come.”

Speaking of the Eucharistic Revival, The Airstream Sisters (Daughters of Divine Love) showed that what you experience at a national level, becomes very effective if shared locally.

There were the Catholics in San Angelo Texas, a small Texas oil town who couldn’t contain their joy as they talked about the joy of welcoming the National Eucharistic Revival to their small Texas town in the summer of 2025.

A 24-hour pilgrimage to the March for Life taught me that life done in community is so much better than any post could capture.

Jim, Bill, and Harold, from Fairbanks Alaska, taught me the importance of the coffee social hour (or three) after daily Mass, even when it is -30 Fahrenheit outside.

Their vicar general — Father Robert Fath — and other Alaskan priests spoke openly and shared the joy and hardship of being a priest on America’s last frontier, from riding snowmobiles from parish to parish, to bringing the sacraments to the most remote regions.

Last, there is Eddie Cotter, the 65 -year old youth minister in central, Ohio, taught me that the most impactful work in the Church doesn’t happen on social media or on a huge stage, it’s in the trenches of parish life, making soup for 30 kids every Wednesday night, inviting them to go deeper with the Lord.

Now, Eddie’s a charismatic, friendly guy with lots of wisdom, fit for the internet. So naturally, I asked why he hasn’t tried to start a podcast or be a professional speaker.

His reply meant a lot: “I’m not leaving the trenches anytime soon, I love it too much.”

That quote, and the image of being in the trenches for Christ, has stuck with me ever since.

Traveling to Alaska in December and then meeting Eddie this past March proved to be capstone moments for my reporting experience.

There’s nothing sexy or flashy about Fairbanks, Alaska or central Ohio — definitely nothing social media worthy. But in the frontier and heartland of America, I met men and women committed to evangelization, dedicated to working hard for the salvation of souls in unglamorous climates, far from cameras and influencers.

These people love Jesus and want to share that love with others — they are not doing it for the likes or views.

My Pillar reporting trips clearly defined many of the themes that have been percolating in the background of stories that I have been seeking to tell over the past four years.

The lesson — albeit a seemingly simple one — is one that a freshman me, and now a college graduate me, could stand to hear time and time again: the Church is not lived online, rather it is a physical tangible Church, at the service of man, for the salvation of man.

In other words, I need to remind myself that being a Catholic influencer ain’t what life is about.

Do many of them do great work? Yes, absolutely and I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting and interviewing many of them, like Fr. Mike Schmitz.

But there are already plenty of content and creators out there flooding social media and plenty of journalists are writing about it.

Instead, the Lord introduced me to the folks in the trenches, the people getting their hands dirty, the folks committed day in and day out to introducing people to Jesus Christ through offering the sacraments in small Alaskan villages, organizing diocesean wide Eucharistic congresses in West Texas, or cooking soup for a bunch of teenagers at 65 years old.

Those are the stories and interviews that motivated me and inspired me to fall more deeply in love with Christ and to go into the trenches at my own parish and in my own dioceses. Those are the stories that will stick with me wherever the Lord will lead me.

So, thank you for allowing me to meet those people, hear their stories and share them with you. It has been an incredible gift, one that continues to bear much fruit in my life. A gift that I am incredibly grateful for.

Please pray for me as I make my way to seminary, and know of my prayers for you!

Yours in Christ,
Jack Figge

Editors note:

Jack has been an extroardinary gift to The Pillar, and we’ll be praying for him as he enters seminary formation. We hope to work with more young people like Jack — to give them the opportunity to learn serious and faithful Catholic journalism, to travel the Church, and to encounter Christ in his people.

Here’s a simple truth: Paying Pillar subscribers help make that happen. If you’re willing to pitch in, we can do more of that work — work we can all be proud of. We appreciate you. And most of all, we ask you to join us in praying for Jack.

Subscribe now

In Christ,

Ed and JD

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In a preamble to the new document, which was issued only in Italian July 31, Leo XIV explained that the constitutional framework of Vatican City State needed to be updated “to take into account new requirements of governance and several important legislative changes introduced over recent years.”

He said that the new version of the Fundamental Law confirmed and integrated the changes.

The Fundamental Law of Vatican City State was first issued by Pope Pius XI in 1929, following the state’s creation under the Lateran Treaty, signed by Italy and the Holy See.

Pope St. John Paul II promulgated a new version of the Fundamental Law in 2000, which was revised by Pope Francis in 2023.

The new text, which goes into effect immediately, consists of 25 articles, one more than in the previous version.

The latest document has a new Article 16, which specifies the duties of the president of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State, Vatican City’s legislative body under the authority of the pope. The Pontifical Commission’s president also serves as president of the Governorate of Vatican City State, Vatican City’s executive governing body.

The updated Article 16 says: “The President of the Governorate ensures the governance of the State, oversees the executive function and the implementation of laws and other normative acts, issues the directives necessary for the general organization of the State, determines the administrative policies and personnel management policies, and coordinates the bodies of the Governorate.”

It adds: “The President, who is assisted by the Secretary General and, where appointed, by the Vice Secretary General, may delegate certain executive functions to the Secretary General and the Vice Secretary General.”

Highlighting the change, a July 31 report by Vatican News said: “Concerning the executive function, the new law confirms the role of the Governorate, whose organizational structure contributes to the proper mission of the State and serves the Successor of Peter, to whom it is directly accountable.”

“At the same time, it further clarifies the responsibilities of the President and the Secretary General, as well as their collaborative relationship. It also underscores the institutional nature of the office of the Secretary General, thereby indicating that the role may be entrusted to more than one person.”

Vatican News also pointed to an alteration in the wording of the section concerning judicial functions.

The 2023 version (Article 21, paragraph 1) said: “Judicial authority is exercised, in the name of the Supreme Pontiff, by the bodies established in accordance with the judicial system and by other bodies to which the law grants jurisdiction in specific matters.”

The 2026 document (Article 22, paragraph 1) says: “Judicial authority is exercised, in the name of the Supreme Pontiff, for adjudicative functions by the Tribunal, the Court of Appeal, and the Court of Cassation; and for investigative and prosecutorial functions by the Office of the Promoter of Justice. The legal status of the judicial bodies is established by the Law on the Judicial System.”

Vatican News commented: “As regards the judicial function, Article 22, paragraph 1, expressly reaffirms that the Law establishes the legal framework governing the judicial bodies of the Judicial System. Thanks to the significant reforms introduced in recent years, that law fully guarantees the proper administration of justice.”

Another difference between the 2023 and 2026 texts is found in Article 8, which previously said that the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State was composed solely of cardinals. The new version notes that the Pontifical Commission consists of “cardinals and other members.”

This reflects a development that occurred on Feb. 15, 2025, when Pope Francis appointed Sr. Raffaella Petrini, F.S.E., as president of the Pontifical Commission and the Governorate of Vatican City State.

Pope Leo XIV updated the text of Article 8 in an apostolic letter issued motu proprio (on his own initiative) on Nov. 21, 2025 to acknowledge that non-cardinals can serve in the post.

Petrini is currently assisted by two secretaries general, the Italian Archbishop Emilio Nappa and the Italian lawyer Giuseppe Puglisi-Alibrandi.

In the new document’s preamble, Pope Leo XIV said that the Fundamental Law served as “the foundation and reference point for every other norm and regulation” in Vatican City State.

He wrote that the law’s existence “reaffirms the singular distinctiveness and autonomy of the Vatican legal order, as well as the role of the Governorate, which contributes to the State’s own mission and is at the service of the Successor of Peter, to whom it answers directly.”

He added: “As in the past, the exercise of all resulting power over the territory defined by the Lateran Treaty, and over the buildings and areas where institutions of the State or the Holy See operate and where personal and functional guarantees and immunities are in force under international law, is conferred upon the governing bodies and upon those who, in various positions of responsibility and animated by a true ecclesial spirit, carry out their service for the State on a stable basis.”

Vatican City State, the world’s smallest independent state, is an enclave surrounded by the city of Rome. It covers an area of around 120 acres (49 hectares) and has roughly 700 citizens, roughly 70% of whom are resident in the territory.

The new version of the Fundamental Law, like the 2023 version, has three annexes. The first sets out the specifications of the Vatican City State flag, which is one of only two national flags that are officially square, alongside that of Switzerland.

The second annex presents the official coat of arms of Vatican City State, which is distinct from the Holy See’s coats of arms, and the third shows the state’s official seal.

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Hey everybody,

Just a reminder that Ed is on vacation, and I’m JD. Further, Michelle is away, and I’ve sent Luke home early after a long day toiling in the salt mines. So the copy editing of this newsletter might be substandard. Bear with me. It’s summertime.

With that said, today’s the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, and you’re reading The Friday Pillar Post.

Because you’re reading the Pillar Post, I assume you already know about St. Ignatius, and I don’t need to rehash much about him here. And yesterday was the feast of Blessed Solanus Casey, but I’m guessing you already know about him, or you’ve read about him at The Pillar a few times.

But I bet you don’t know about St. Elin of Skövde, who is the decidedly-less-famous undercard saint of the day — it’s her feast, but she’s clearly not the main event.

Elin needs better promoters though — she should be much more famous than she is. Her story is remarkable.

She lived in southwest Sweden in the 1100s. She was probably noble, and she was rich. Her dad was rich, and then her husband was rich. He died a few years after they married, leaving her with a young daughter, and maybe other children.

But Elin didn’t remarry. Instead, she put her wealth in service to the Gospel — she set up works of mercy for the poor, and she helped build several churches. One of those churches was in a place called Götone. The story says that when that church was built, she insisted on a portico between the church and its baptistry. She told the builders that God would provide the relics of a saint to be placed there.

He did. This is how:

In the early 1160s, Elin went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. By then, her daughter was grown and married. And while Elin was traveling, her son-in-law was killed by his own servants. When they were caught, they said that Elin had put them up to the murder.

There were no witnesses. She had no trial. Instead, when she returned to Sweden, she was killed by her son-in-law’s relatives, who found her in Götone and stabbed her to death.

Even when she died, few believed that the accusation against her was true. She suffered the consequence for it unjustly. And then people began praying for her intercession. Some reported miracles.

Elin was canonized just years after her death — and pilgrims continued reporting miracles at her tomb for centuries.

She was falsely accused, and she died over a lie. Any of us who has been misunderstood, gossiped about, or falsely accused could use her intercession.

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The news

Ten years ago this week, Pope Francis created a diocese for Syro Malabar Catholics in Great Britain.

As the eparchy reflects on that milestone, The Pillar interviewed Bishop Joseph Srampickal, who says that the Eastern Catholic Church he leads is not just for ethnically Indian Catholics living in Britain. Instead, he said that “the Syro-Malabar Eparchy of Great Britain ... can play a significant role in the revival of the Catholic Church.”

How? Well, he says, “by witnessing to the richness of our Eastern Christian tradition, we have the potential to contribute to a new evangelization and offer a distinctive spiritual witness to the Church in Great Britain.”

Here’s the story.

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It’s still summertime. (And too early for all the back-to-school emails I’ve been getting this week.)

But summer is, for many Catholic families, the time for camps and conferences and other spiritual “mountaintop” experiences. After that comes real life — and spiritual mountaintops are often followed by spiritual valleys.

So the question for parishes, and even for families, is how to support young people after they’ve come down from the mountain, so to speak. And for insight on that, The Pillar talked with veteran youth leader Eddie Cotter, who is one of the most interesting people we know.

Here’s what he had to say.

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Brazil has more Catholics than any other country in the world. So it’s not surprising that it’s producing a striking number of potential 21st-century saints.

Meet some of the most interesting, right here.

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A Polish man has been identified as the main suspect of a vandalization and desecration of the Medjugorje shrine in Bosnia on July 28.

Security camera footage showed a man dousing the altar of Saint James Parish in the Bosnian town of Medjugorje with a flammable liquid and setting it on fire during the early hours of Tuesday morning.

According to local media, police in the nearby town of Citluk received reports early the same morning that several statues of Our Lady had been vandalized, covering her face with black graffiti and with messages such as “Medjugorje is a deception,” “Only Jesus,” and blasphemous phrases.

Here’s the story — along with a little reminder on what the Church actually has to say about Medjugorje.

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Pope Leo XIV approved this week the practical union of two Irish dioceses under a single bishop. The dioceses are the fourth set in the country to be united in persona episcopi in recent years, signifying the impact of declining religious practice in Ireland.

—

Before his summer vacation ended this week, Pope Leo made a little road trip pilgrimage with his brother, to the Shrine of the Most Holy Trinity in Vallepietra, and to an important Benedictine cave at Subiaco.

Turns out those places are pretty cool. Read all about ‘em.

—
As the Ukrainian Catholic Church continues to form Catholics more than four years after the country was first invaded by Russia, there are signs that Pope Leo may be considering a long-awaited change of status for the second-largest Eastern Catholic Church in the world.

Is it possible that Pope Leo is preparing to recognize the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church as a patriarch?

Yes. It is possible. Read about it here.

In celebration of Archbishop Sheen’s approaching beatification, St. Bernard’s School of Theology and Ministry cordially invites you to a conference October 23rd – 25th reflecting on his total witness: his life, his thought, and his holiness. All who know and love Fulton Sheen are welcome to attend; a special invitation is extended to those who seek to learn more about him. Learn more here!

Next, Pope Leo XIV appointed on July 25 seven new members to the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the Church’s highest canonical court of appeal including the first three non-bishops ever appointed as members of the tribunal.

Two of the appointments are American bishops: Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone and Bishop Edward Lohse of Kalamazoo.

The appointment of Cordileone, especially, should be taken as a very significant pick from Pope Leo. Vatican sources have told The Pillar in recent years what Vatican observers probably surmised — that Cordileone spent much of the Francis papacy out of step with elements of the curial zeitgeist in Rome, and not always well received in Rome as a result — especially after the archbishop’s 2022 decision to prohibit Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi from reception of the Holy Communion.

Cordileone’s appointment to the Signature signals that Leo does not intend to be hidebound to the personal politics of the Francis papacy. It is, in short, the sort of move which communicates just how much water has now passed under the bridge.

Here’s a news report.

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Like many US dioceses, the Archdiocese of Detroit is going through a parish consolidation process.

In the preparation, the archdiocese has posted an uncommonly detailed set of presentations — one for each parish in the archdiocese — providing the data diocesan leaders are assessing as they make these decisions about the closure or merger of parishes.

So Brendan Hodge dove into the numbers. They offer some interesting insights.

—
And finally in the news, check out a profile of the Vatican’s Madre di Misericordia clinic, which aims to serve Rome’s poorest patients, and to do so while conveying their dignity.

“Some of these people may fear judgmental stares and rejection that further wounds their dignity. For these people, our clinic represents a place they can access free of charge, without needing a referral, and where they can be certain to find qualified people who will welcome them with open arms and outstretched hands. Anyone in need who comes to us is welcome—a brother, a sister. That is enough,” Archbishop Luís Marín de San Martín told The Pillar.

“Our doctors welcome them warmly, listen to them, and are there for them. The poor are at the heart of their service. This is because they see Christ in their faces, and by healing them, they heal Christ. Many of those who come to us need to talk, to share their story. Although it would be desirable for this same welcoming attitude toward the most vulnerable to be present in all healthcare facilities and institutions, I believe we must start with ourselves.”

Read about it here.

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Cupich, subsidiarity and synodality

Cardinal Blase Cupich gave this week an interview to a news portal of the German bishops’ conference, in which some remarks came as a surprise to American observers of the cardinal.

Speaking about authority in the life of the Church, Cupich touched on the topics of solidatity and subsidiarity. And — speaking to German Catholcis — he warned that leaders “must be careful to remain united during this time and not allow a situation to arise in which a bishops’ conference takes a path that violates the unity of the whole Church.”

The remarks are significant because I would not have expected even the penumbra of a correction from Cupich of the German “synodal way,” and yet, there it was, in plain text, for all who have eyes to read.

I’m not sure how the warning will be taken in Germany, or in Rome, where it was more likely meant to be heard.

But however that shakes out, I’m struck by a different claim from Cupich in the interview, one which repeats a common misunderstanding of Catholic social teaching — but most commonly, a misunderstanding associated with the American political right, inside and outside the Church.

It is important, Cupich told German Catholics, that in the life of the Church “we respect the principle of subsidiarity.”

“This means that decisions should be made at the lowest possible level before Rome or a higher authority intervenes.”

This is a uniquely American spin on subsidiarity — the idea that the “lowest possible level” should always solve the problem first.

But it’s not actually how the Church views subsidiarity. Drawing from Pius XI, the Catechism explains that subsidiarity means: “a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co-ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.”

In other words, communities of lower orders have certain functions, and those should be allowed for, even supported. But communities of higher orders have certain functions, too.

This distinction is not just abstract. It means that “lower order” community of an episcopal conference — not a natural or divinely ordered community, by the way, but a creature of positive law — should fulfill its functions, as delineated in the law, while the universal Church, guided and led by Peter, should fulfill its own.

Subsidiarity is not localism-at-all-costs, or a preferential option for close-by dictators or demagogues — either in the Church or in civil society.

Real subsidiarity means knowing what each sphere of society is for — its telos — and then ensuring the proper ordering of social spheres, so that each can do the thing for which it exists.

If we don’t get that right, we’ll get a lot of ecclesial questions wrong, and a lot of civic ones too? Don’t believe me? Well, ask yourself how synodality got off the rails — when it did — and you’ll see exactly what I mean.

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Papal house parties

Pope Leo received at the Vatican today punk rock icon Patti Smith today, in a moment that seemed to be pretty exciting for both of them.

The pope’s getting picked on a little bit, because Patti Smith is apparently pro-abortion, but, if you ask me, the pontiff is and should be allowed to meet with people who disagree with Catholic doctrine — in fact, that strikes me as a crucial part of the job for anyone entrusted with the great commission. In fact, that’s how the great commission actually happens.

Smith is also controversial to some because she has some 1970s lyrics critical of organized religion, though since 2014, she’s been at the Vatican a few times, once playing a Vatican Christmas concert for Pope Francis and the Vatican’s employees.

I don’t know anything about Patti Smith, because I don’t pay a lot of attention to rock icons in general, but I’m glad for the pope that he seems to regularly invite to his office people from sports, culture, or the arts whom he admires or just appreciates.

There are not a lot of actual perks to the papacy, if you ask me, but one is that you can summon nearly anyone you want to a meeting, and they’ll come.

So if you become pope, here are my suggestions for making the most of your invitatory power:

—Invite the rock stars you like. Invite the athletes you like. Basically, if there’s anyone you’ve ever wanted an autograph from, invite them to the Apostolic Palace.

But don’t have them just sit at your desk and talk. That’s a waste.

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I’m Luke Coppen and I aim to guide you each weekday morning to the most interesting Catholic news and commentary.

The next Starting Seven will be on Monday, Aug. 17, due to a vacation break.

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Catholic bishops in Florida repeat their call for an abolition of the death penalty. Bosnian authorities arrest a …

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On July 28, 2016, the Argentine pope named Fr. Joseph Srampickal as the first bishop of the Syro-Malabar Eparchy of Great Britain, based in Preston, a city with a deep Catholic history in northwestern England.

Srampickal, who was then vice-rector of Rome’s Pontifical Urban College for the Propagation of the Faith, was consecrated as a bishop Oct. 9 at the Preston North End soccer stadium at a ceremony attended by almost 10,000 people.

In the decade that followed, he sought to establish the eparchy on a firm footing, founding parishes, missions, and proposed missions (communities in formation) across Britain, to serve Syro-Malabar Catholics who migrated from India and the British-born generations that followed.

With their own eparchy, Syro-Malabar Catholics have gained a new prominence within the wider Catholic community. In a country where Catholic gatherings are often relatively small, they have turned up in their thousands on pilgrimages to the national Marian shrine of Walsingham and at Handhoosa, the annual Syro-Malabar youth gathering.

In an email interview with The Pillar, Srampickal described the eparchy’s birth and evolution, the joys and challenges of its first 10 years, and how Syro-Malabar Catholics can help to evangelize Britain.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

The Syro-Malabar eparchy of Great Britain celebrated its 10th anniversary July 28. Could you explain the background to its creation, and why Church authorities decided the time was right to establish it?

For several decades, Syro-Malabar Catholics have migrated to Great Britain, with migration increasing significantly over the past 20 years. Before the eparchy’s establishment, our faithful were welcomed with great generosity into their local Latin Catholic parishes, for which we remain deeply grateful. They received generous pastoral care and were able to participate fully in the sacramental life of the Church.

However, as the Syro-Malabar community continued to grow, it gradually became apparent that this arrangement, though pastorally generous, was not enough to preserve the distinct identity and heritage of our Church. Many, especially those of the second generation, were growing up with little awareness of their Eastern Catholic heritage, the richness of the East Syriac tradition, and the unique identity of the Syro-Malabar Church.

During this period, the pastoral care of the faithful was provided in various ways. Syro-Malabar priests studying in Great Britain, priests serving primarily in Latin dioceses, and a small number of priests dedicated to the Syro-Malabar communities regularly traveled across the country to celebrate the Holy Qurbana (Mass) and administer the sacraments. Their generosity and sacrifice laid the foundations for the growth of the community. Nevertheless, as you can imagine, within this arrangement it was not possible to provide comprehensive pastoral care or to establish stable parish communities.

The Catholic Church has consistently taught that the Eastern Catholic Churches have both the right and the duty to preserve their own liturgical, spiritual, theological, and canonical traditions. The Second Vatican Council expressed this clearly in [the 1964 decree] Orientalium ecclesiarum 6: “All members of the Eastern rites should know and be convinced that they can and should always preserve their legitimate liturgical rite and their established way of life, [...] Besides, they should attain to an ever greater knowledge and a more exact use of them, and, if in their regard they have fallen short owing to contingencies of times and persons, they should take steps to return to their ancestral traditions.”

The Dicastery for the Eastern Churches discerned the need for a dedicated ecclesiastical structure to care for the growing Syro-Malabar community in Great Britain. The eparchy’s establishment was therefore not simply an administrative decision; it was a pastoral response to ensure that our faithful could live, celebrate, and hand on their own ecclesial tradition while remaining fully integrated within the communion of the universal Catholic Church.

This vision was beautifully articulated by Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, the then Prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches, in a [March 9, 2020] letter to me: “The mind of the Church when erecting an ecclesiastical circumscription outside the traditional territory is to assist the Eastern Catholic faithful belonging to their respective eparchy to grow in their sense of identification with their sui iuris [autonomous] Church by participating in their proper ecclesial life. This is the mission entrusted to you by Pope Francis for the Syro-Malabar faithful, so that their precious liturgical, theological, spiritual, disciplinary, and cultural heritage may flourish also in Great Britain.”

This statement captures the very purpose of the eparchy. Its mission is not simply to provide the Holy Qurbana in another language, but to foster a living Syro-Malabar Church in Great Britain: one in which the faithful can worship according to their own liturgical tradition, grow in their ecclesial identity, and pass on the rich spiritual, theological, canonical, and cultural heritage of their Church to future generations. In doing so, the eparchy also enriches the wider Catholic Church through the distinctive gifts of the East Syriac tradition.

What are your strongest memories of your consecration as the eparchy’s first bishop, and what vision did you have for the new eparchy?

What struck me most was the sheer number of people who had gathered in the stadium — nearly 10,000, as I was later told. Seeing so many people waiting with such eager anticipation brought to mind the words of Mt 9:36: “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

Two memories from that day remain especially vivid. The first was the rain — which I have since realized is something of a hallmark of Great Britain. The second was the sight of two doves circling above the stadium during the ordination. At the time, I could not help but see them as a symbol of God’s blessing upon the sacred event taking place.

I was deeply moved by the devotion of the Syro-Malabar faithful, who had traveled from across Great Britain and endured the cold, the wind, and the rain in order to be present for the ordination.

That day also strengthened my own vision of the priesthood: to be a shepherd for the people entrusted to my care and to help them live out their identity as Syro-Malabar Catholics in a Western context. That, after all, is precisely why I was sent and what I believe to be the will of the universal Church.

How has the eparchy developed over its first decade?

The eparchy’s development over the past decade has been guided by two successive five-year pastoral plans. The first, implemented during the initial five years, focused on building our community and gathering our faithful into one vibrant and functional ecclesial body. To achieve this, each year was dedicated to a particular group within the Church: children, youth, married couples, family units, and parishes.

The second five-year pastoral plan sought to help the eparchy and its faithful discover, appreciate, and live the Syro-Malabar heritage in a more concrete way. Accordingly, each year was devoted to a different dimension of our tradition, enabling our faithful to experience the richness of their heritage through the study and practice of the liturgy, theology, spirituality, discipline, and culture.

Over the past decade, we have also witnessed remarkable structural growth, made possible by the grace and guidance of Isho M’shiha [Jesus Christ in Syriac]. Seven new parishes have been erected, together with 72 missions and 31 proposed missions.

Today, more than 80 priests minister to our communities stretching from Inverness to Plymouth.

We have also established a pastoral house at Maryvale and a retreat center at Darlington, providing places where the entire eparchy can gather for formation, fellowship, and worship. In addition, a number of dedicated apostolates now serve the diverse needs of our faithful, including youth, altar servers, catechists, liturgy, and other pastoral ministries.

Looking back over these 10 years, what gives me the greatest joy is the profound impact the eparchy has had on our young people. The vast majority of our missions now have active chapters of the Syro-Malabar Youth Movement. Through these local units, together with regional and eparchial gatherings, we are able to provide our young people with a close-knit community that strengthens their faith through the witness and friendship of their peers.

I firmly believe that catechesis alone is not enough. Young people also need opportunities to form holy friendships that will support and sustain them in a culture increasingly hostile to Christian values.

My greatest joy is seeing the eparchy bear lasting spiritual fruit in the lives of its youth. The number of vocations with which Isho M’shiha has blessed the eparchy over the past decade speaks eloquently of the work He is accomplishing among our young people. I have had the privilege of ordaining two priests. We currently have five seminarians, one professed to the consecrated religious life, and four others in formation. These are clear signs of God’s abundant blessing upon our eparchy.

By God’s grace, we have also been able to provide pastoral care even to relatively small and remote communities, including those in Inverness, Scotland, and on the Isle of Wight. Knowing that we are able to help Syro-Malabar Catholics grow in their Oriental Catholic tradition through the regular celebration of the Holy Qurbana (Holy Mass) and catechesis, regardless of the size of their community, fills me with profound gratitude to the Lord.

Nevertheless, the eparchy has faced considerable challenges, particularly during its early years. One of the greatest obstacles has been the lack of permanent infrastructure where our communities could gather and celebrate the Holy Qurbana. This has inevitably limited the eparchy’s growth and its ability to provide comprehensive pastoral care to its faithful.

Language has presented another significant challenge. While many first-generation migrants naturally prefer Malayalam, the native language of Kerala, in the liturgy, the second generation is generally more comfortable worshiping in English.

Recognizing this pastoral reality, the eparchy has sought to implement a gradual transition toward greater use of English in the liturgy, while continuing to respect the linguistic heritage of the first generation. We are convinced that this approach will better serve future generations and enable them to participate more fully in the liturgical life of the Church.

How has the eparchy helped families preserve their Syro-Malabar identity while also becoming part of the local Church and wider British society?

Through commissions such as the Bible Apostolate and Catechism, we have been able to pass on the traditions, teachings and values of the Syro-Malabar Church to the younger generation, ensuring that their faith remains strong across generations.

This is achieved through almost all parishes, missions and proposed missions, which run regular Sunday School programs. Children from Year 1 to Year 12 [Grades 1-12] take part in a sophisticated catechetical program that supports families in sharing their faith.

In addition, every year the eparchy holds the Bible Kalotsavam (Bible Festival), where children, youth and adults participate in numerous faith-centered events including the Suvara Bible Quiz. Competitions range from painting and sketching to Margam Kali, a traditional dance form that originated among the Nazranis of Kerala. Participants compete at the local mission level before progressing to the regional and eparchial levels, where crowds of around 5,000 gather.

Syriac hymn competitions held under the leadership of the Women’s Forum help our women to learn the ancient and liturgical hymns.

Since 2023, the eparchy has also held an annual Urha (The Way) Quiz, which follows a similar format and further supports families in understanding the hallmarks of belonging to the Syro-Malabar Church.

At the same time, we have tried our very best to maintain the collaboration with the wider Catholic community through initiatives such as WeBelieve and Adoremus, helping Syro-Malabar Catholics to connect with the local Church and contribute to the mission of the Body of Christ. The collaborative efforts of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, and similarly in Scotland, have allowed our families to feel at home away from home.

The witness of our families has been one of the greatest means of integrating into British society. I take great joy in visiting many homes during my pastoral visits and sharing in their profound faith. Many of our migrants have contributed immensely to the healthcare sector, strengthening the NHS and wider society while demonstrating their commitment to serving others. I am confident that our second-generation migrants will continue to enter a wider range of professions and remain steadfast in their faith.

How have the Handhoosa events helped to engage young Syro-Malabar Catholics, and what have you learned from them about the faith of the younger generation?

Handhoosa, meaning “Happiness,” is our annual youth gathering that has helped engage young Syro-Malabar Catholics across Great Britain by bringing them together to grow in their liturgical identity and build a strong sense of community.

Many who begin their faith journey through Catechism continue by joining the Youth Apostolate. From these events, I have learned that young people value authentic relationships and opportunities to actively live out their faith. Through participation in unit-, regional- and eparchial-level activities, they have embraced the scope and breadth of the eparchy. They form meaningful friendships across the eparchy, consequently enabling them to live out and share their faith boldly in schools, universities and workplaces.

The establishment of more than 90 local Syro-Malabar Youth Movement units has been a remarkable blessing for the eparchy. By inviting young people to organize prayer meetings, lead the choir, and take on various other responsibilities, they are not simply participating in parish life. They are becoming missionary disciples.

As St. Paul reminds us, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ” (1 Cor 12:12). This spirit of unity and participation helps young people recognize that each has a unique role to play in building up the Body of M’shiha.

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Have there been any pastoral needs that have proved especially difficult to meet?

One of the greatest pastoral challenges I have encountered has been the eparchy’s geographical spread. While having a pastoral center in a central location such as Birmingham has been a great blessing, I am also mindful of the challenges faced by families and communities living at the furthest ends of the country. For some, distance can make it difficult to access regular pastoral support, participate in parish activities and feel fully connected to the wider eparchy.

As the eparchy continues to grow, I recognize the increasing need for more dedicated places of worship. Many communities are currently dependent on shared spaces or rented facilities, where limitations on availability, timing and resources can sometimes restrict their ability to gather freely and develop a strong parish life. Having churches and suitable places of worship of their own would provide communities with a greater sense of belonging and create a stable environment where faith, fellowship and pastoral care can flourish.

Another important pastoral need is the availability of more full-time parish priests who can journey closely with our communities. As Pope Francis reminds us, “a good shepherd smells like the sheep.” This calls us to ensure that our priests are not only ministers of the sacraments but also companions who know the joys, struggles and everyday realities of the faithful entrusted to their care. Having priests who are fully present within communities would greatly strengthen pastoral outreach, nurture families in their faith and help the eparchy respond more effectively to the needs of its growing faithful.

Despite these challenges, I remain filled with hope and gratitude for the dedication of our priests, religious, families and communities. These challenges also present opportunities for us to deepen our commitment to one another and continue building a vibrant Syro-Malabar Church in Great Britain.

In what ways has the eparchy enriched the wider Catholic Church in Great Britain over the past decade? And do you think the eparchy has a role to play in the evangelization of the country as a whole?

Over the past decade, the eparchy has enriched the Catholic Church in Great Britain through the reverent celebration of the Holy Qurbana, the faithful proclamation of the Word of God, and by fostering life-changing encounters with M’shiha. By the grace of Almighty God, the eparchy has nurtured communities that are first evangelized and then sent forth as missionary disciples to evangelize others.

The witness of our faithful, especially those serving in the health sector, has become a living proclamation of the Gospel. Through their care for the sick and vulnerable, they reveal the healing presence of M’shiha and bear witness to His love in places where hope is most needed.

I firmly believe that the eparchy has a vital role to play in the evangelization of Great Britain. By sharing the richness of our liturgical tradition, our missionary spirit, and our joyful witness to M’shiha, we can help renew faith, inspire vocations, strengthen families, and build vibrant Christian communities. As we continue to look to the future, I pray that the Ruha d’Qudsha [Holy Spirit] will use our witness to bring many more people to know, love, and follow M’shiha.

Do you still encounter misunderstandings among Latin Catholics about the Syro-Malabar Church or the role of the eparchy?

My experience has been that the vast majority of Latin Catholics are welcoming, generous, and open to the Syro-Malabar Church. Their hospitality reflects the catholicity of the Church, where different traditions enrich one another in communion.

Where misunderstandings do arise, they are usually not due to reluctance but to a lack of awareness. Some are unfamiliar with the nature of the Syro-Malabar Church as a sui iuris Church and may not fully understand its traditions, structures, or the canonical role of the eparchy. At times, this can lead to practices that do not fully respect the rights and discipline of the Eastern Catholic Churches.

As Orientalium ecclesiarum 6 reminds us, those engaged in ministry should be formed in the knowledge, respect, and appreciation of the rites, discipline, history, and spirituality of the Eastern Churches. Continued dialogue, collaboration, and mutual learning will strengthen communion and help us witness more fully to the richness of the universal Church.

What are your priorities and hopes for the eparchy over the next decade?

I strongly believe that the Syro-Malabar Eparchy of Great Britain, by fulfilling the mission entrusted to us by Isho M’shiha through His vicar in Rome, can play a significant role in the revival of the Catholic Church in Great Britain.

Unlike many ethnic communities within the Catholic Church in Great Britain, our eparchy enables its faithful to belong to a particular Church with its own liturgy, theology, spirituality and canonical discipline. By witnessing to the richness of our Eastern Christian tradition, we have the potential to contribute to a new evangelization and offer a distinctive spiritual witness to the Church in Great Britain.

To achieve this, the Syro-Malabar Church in Great Britain must gradually move beyond an exclusively Malayalam-speaking identity. Our aim is to make English the principal language of the liturgy, catechesis and the wider pastoral life of the eparchy, while remaining fully faithful to our Syro-Malabar heritage. The fostering of abundant local vocations will be essential to achieving this vision.

One of our principal priorities for the coming years will be to address the infrastructural challenges facing our eparchy, particularly the lack of churches and parish halls owned by our community. Dependence on shared facilities limits our ability to flourish and to live out our ecclesial heritage fully. The establishment of our own parishes and churches will greatly strengthen our mission and enable us to fulfill more effectively the purpose for which this eparchy was established.

Our catechetical program, which provides a structured 12-year formation for children and young people up to the age of 17, has served our community well. Likewise, our pastoral organizations have successfully encouraged the active participation of the laity in the life and mission of the eparchy, ensuring that their gifts and voices contribute to the growth of our Church.

In the years ahead, I hope to embrace the motto, “Evangelized to evangelize.” Having received the gift of faith, we must now become its joyful witnesses. We will encourage every member of the Syro-Malabar faithful to share the Gospel confidently in their families, workplaces, schools and every sphere of daily life, so that our eparchy may not only preserve the faith but also become an instrument of its growth throughout Great Britain.

The best way I can summarize the past decade in the life of the eparchy is with the words of 1 Cor 3:6: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” Over these years, the eparchy and its faithful have worked tirelessly to fulfill the mission entrusted to us. Yet, as St. Paul reminds us elsewhere, “Yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me” (1 Cor 15:10). Whatever has been achieved during this past decade has ultimately been the work of God’s grace, guiding and sustaining our efforts.

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I’m Luke Coppen and I aim to guide you each weekday morning to the most interesting Catholic news and commentary.

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Security camera footage showed a man dousing the altar of Saint James Parish in the Bosnian town of Medjugorje with a flammable liquid and setting it on fire during the early hours of Tuesday morning. The same day, several pictures circulated on social media showing statues of Our Lady vandalized with blasphemous graffiti.

Bosnian police identified and arrested Bartłomiej Włodzimierz Krakowiak, a Polish national, as the main suspect in the vandalism the same day as the attack. According to Bosnian media, Krakowiak went on a pilgrimage to Medjugorje in 2017 after being diagnosed with depression.

According to local media, police in the nearby town of Citluk received reports in the early morning of July 28 that several statues of Our Lady had been vandalized, covering her face with black graffiti and with messages such as “Medjugorje is a deception,” “Only Jesus,” and blasphemous phrases.

Police also found a banner with the first names of the six alleged visionaries of Medjugorje with a message in Polish saying “they are fraudsters, I have evidence.”

The local parish put out a statement the same day saying: “it is with great sadness that we received the news of the act of vandalism that damaged the prayer areas in our parish. We immediately began cleaning and repairing the damage so that all areas would be properly prepared for the prayer again.”

“We thank all those who, with their work and selfless help, participate in ensuring that the sanctuary remains a place of encounter with God, a place of peace, and a place where the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Peace, is honored,” it adds.

The parish invited Catholics to pray, fast, and forgive after the blasphemous attack.

“In a special way, we invite all faithful to respond to this event in the way that Our Lady has been teaching us for over forty years in Medjugorje: with prayer, fasting, and forgiveness. We pray for the conversion of the hearts of those who committed this act, that the Lord may touch them with His grace and lead them on the path of goodness.”

“We also pray for peace in the hearts of all people. Our Lady constantly invites us to be carriers of peace. May this event encourage us to take her invitation even more seriously: not to return evil for evil, but to witness love, forgiveness, and hope with our lives,” the statement says.

The statement emphasized that ordinary devotional activities at the shrine would not stop.

“The shrine remains open to all pilgrims. The prayer program is taking place regularly, and all the spaces are being rapidly cleaned and prepared so that they can once again be a place of prayer and encounter with the Lord through the intercession of the Queen of Peace.”

Thousands of young people are expected to attend the Medjugorje’s International Youth Festival on Aug. 1-6. Local media reported that the Franciscan community in charge of the shrine said that they’re not expecting any changes to the schedule and that the parish will be ready to receive the pilgrims by then.

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An estimated 50 million people have visited the village of Medjugorje, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, since June 24, 1981, when six youngsters reported seeing an apparition of a woman bathed in brilliant light.

The six — Ivan Dragičević, Ivanka Ivanković, Jakov Čolo, Marija Pavlović, Mirjana Dragičević, and Vicka Ivanković — identified the figure as the Gospa (“Lady” in Croatian).

They said the Gospa referred to herself as the “Queen of Peace” and shared messages calling for prayer, conversion, and fasting, which are reported to continue to this day.

After decades of investigation and assessment of the visionaries’ claims, in 2024 the Vatican doctrine office offered a cautiously positive assessment of the alleged Marian messages emanating from Medjugorje, authorizing the local bishop to issue a declaration of “nihil obstat” (“nothing stands in the way”).

According to the DDF’s note, “the nihil obstat indicates that the faithful can receive a positive encouragement for their Christian life through this spiritual proposal, and it authorizes public acts of devotion.”

The DDF was careful, though, to distinguish between the positive acts of popular piety which had developed around the site, which the Vatican affirmed, and the supernatural claims of the visionaries, on which it returned no endorsement: “Evaluating the abundant and widespread fruits, which are so beautiful and positive, does not imply that the alleged supernatural events are declared authentic.”

“Instead, it only highlights that the Holy Spirit is acting fruitfully for the good of the faithful ‘in the midst’ of this spiritual phenomenon of Medjugorje. For this reason, all are invited to appreciate and share the pastoral value of this spiritual proposal.”

“Moreover, the positive assessment that most of the messages of Medjugorje are edifying does not imply a declaration that they have a direct supernatural origin. Consequently, when referring to ‘messages’ from Our Lady, one should always bear in mind that they are ‘alleged messages.’”

The dicastery’s note said “the time has come to conclude a long and complex history that has surrounded the spiritual phenomena of Medjugorje,” acknowledging that “bishops, theologians, commissions, and analysts” had expressed contrasting opinions.

The DDF also “strongly advised” that “pilgrimages are not made to meet with alleged visionaries but to have an encounter with Mary, the Queen of Peace.”

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Among the fruits associated with the shrine, the dicastery highlighted vocations to the priesthood and religious life, and “genuine conversions of people who had been far from God and the Church.”

The note said the “central aspects” of the Medjugorje messages included an emphasis on peace, Christocentrism (the centrality of Jesus), the call to conversion, prayer, fasting, the Mass, and sacramental confession.

“However, a few messages stray from these positive and edifying contents and even seem to go so far as to contradict them. As a result, one should be attentive lest these few confused elements overshadow the beauty of the whole.”

In conclusion, the note said its observations created the conditions “to proceed with the determination of a nihil obstat.”

“Through the nihil obstat about a spiritual event, the faithful ‘are authorized to give it their adherence in a prudent manner,’” it explained.

“While this does not imply a declaration of the supernatural character of the phenomenon in question — and recalling that the faithful are not obliged to believe in it — the nihil obstat indicates that the faithful can receive a positive encouragement for their Christian life through this spiritual proposal, and it authorizes public acts of devotion.”

“Such a determination is possible insofar as many positive fruits have been noted in the midst of a spiritual experience, while negative and dangerous effects have not spread among the People of God.”

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