Michigan’s GOP just handed John James a governor’s race victory—and the fallout could be huge.

A splashy study claiming abortion bans are driving suicidal thoughts among teen girls is getting headlines — but the hard numbers don’t back the alarm. The research found no statistically significant increase in actual suicide attempts, never even looked at suicides, and leaned on limited data from just five states, with bans in effect for only one of the four years analyzed. Meanwhile…

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Archbishop Viganò is blasting what he calls a “diabolical plan” behind migration to the West, warning of ethnic replacement, social collapse and even civil war — and accusing the Catholic synodal hierarchy of aiding the destruction by preaching unconditional welcome and staying silent as Christianity is erased from family and public life.

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Capitol Hill erupts: Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security Committee voted 8-7 to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt for stonewalling GOP questions over COVID’s origins and the pandemic response, pushing the case straight to the Justice Department. Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment 111 times during his July 29 testimony, even after Biden’s blanket pardon, as Sen. Rand Paul said he had “no…

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A Mexican bishop is igniting a fresh firestorm after telling a pro-LGBT Catholic gathering in Torreón that homosexuality “is not a sin” and that “without the LGBT community, the Church is not complete.” At the opening Mass of a national Rainbow Catholic meeting, Bishop Raúl Vera López pushed full participation and leadership for LGBT-identifying Catholics, framed acceptance as a moral duty…

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Catholic nuns have won a temporary court order shielding them from key parts of New York’s new Medical Aid in Dying law, even as the state barrels ahead with implementation next month. A federal judge barred officials from forcing the Carmelite sisters and their facilities to help with counseling, referrals, paperwork, eligibility checks, or self-administration of lethal medication on their…

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Florida’s attorney general is escalating a clash with Catholic schools over vaccine exemptions, warning that schools refusing religious or health waivers may be breaking state law and risking taxpayer-backed voucher money. Uthmeier says he’s troubled by what he calls inconsistent policies, arguing parents have rights and some vaccines raise religious objections tied to aborted fetal lines…

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Pope Leo XIV has tapped Bishop Eusebio Ramos Morales of Caguas to take over the archdiocese of San Juan, Puerto Rico, ending Archbishop Roberto Octavio González Nieves’ long run at the helm since 1999. The Vatican announced the switch Aug. 6 as it accepted González’s resignation after a tenure marked by crisis, from Hurricane Maria to the COVID-19 pandemic. González, a Franciscan ordained in 1977…

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A rare Vatican-Russia opening may be coming: Russia’s state-run TASS says Archbishop Richard Gallagher, the Holy See’s foreign minister, is set to visit Moscow on August 20 — which, if confirmed, would be his first trip there since the Ukraine war erupted in 2022. The move would mark a high-stakes diplomatic touchpoint between the Vatican and the Kremlin, with prisoner exchanges, Ukraine…

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A horrifying Ohio child endangerment case is putting fresh heat on one of the state’s most controversial loopholes: the ability for some teens to marry. After authorities rescued 16 children from a rural home last month, attention quickly turned to their mother, who was 15 and pregnant when she married the father — a flashpoint now fueling a renewed push in Ohio to ban marriage under 18 outright.

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Kaduna’s Catholic priests are hailing Governor Uba Sani for what they call peace, fairness and real infrastructure gains — even as they fire a warning shot over Nigeria’s deepening rural insecurity. At their Annual Patron Saint’s celebration, the NCDPA Kaduna chapter praised the governor for easing old divisions and improving coexistence, but said the battle is far from won…

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A Pueblo County pastor is now headed for sentencing after a jury found Stephen Hutto guilty of two felony counts of sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust, a stunning fall tied to allegations he preyed on a 15-year-old girl while serving as a youth pastor in Fountain around 2008 or 2009. Hutto, formerly of Fountain Independent Baptist Church and later pastor of Highlands Baptist…

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Delaware State Police say a 23-year-old dance instructor at X-Treme Dance Studio in Laurel has been arrested on felony sexual abuse and solicitation charges involving teenage children, with detectives warning the case may be bigger than first feared. Emily Pryor Albino of Seaford is accused of abusing two teens and sending sexually explicit messages, and investigators say there may be additional…

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A jury has been discharged after failing to reach a unanimous verdict in the trial of former Catholic priest Neville Joseph Creen, accused of abusing a boy under 14 in the late 1970s and early ’80s. Creen, who pleaded not guilty to repeated sexual conduct with a child and indecent treatment of a child, leaves court with the case unresolved after a near-50-year-old allegation at the center of a…

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Pope Leo XIV has tapped Indian nun Sister Maria Nirmalini, Superior General of the Sisters of the Apostolic Carmel, for a five-year consultor role in the Vatican body overseeing consecrated life — a clear sign women religious are gaining a louder seat near the center of Church power. The move, announced in a June 18 decree and released by the Holy See, puts an Asian voice into the dicastery’s…

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U.S. divorce is sliding for younger marriages — and Catholic experts say the shift could reshape family life for a generation. Data from the Institute for Family Studies shows couples married in the 2010s are splitting at far lower rates than those married in earlier decades, with only 18% of first marriages from 2010–2012 ending in divorce after 10 years, down from 30% for 1970s marriages.

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Pope Leo XIV is sounding the alarm: prayer, he says, is fading from Christian families and being brushed aside by a culture obsessed with efficiency, consumerism and tech fixes. In a blunt appeal at his first weekly audience after the July break, the pontiff urged Catholics to rediscover prayer “in its true form” and embrace the Liturgy of the Hours as a daily discipline — warning that what…

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A Catholic deacon in Maryland is behind bars after police say he tried to arrange sex with someone he believed was a 15-year-old boy — only to be met by an undercover detective instead. Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler identified the suspect as 45-year-old Kenneth Goedeke of Bel Air, charged with two counts of sexual solicitation of a minor, with authorities saying he arrived at a location to…

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HOUSTON — A new legal fight is raging over Texas classrooms, as three Houston-area parents try a fresh strategy to tear down Ten Commandments posters already upheld under the Establishment Clause. This time, they’re leaning on a state law barring government “substantial burden” on religious exercise — arguing the posters pressure children and families to conform. Supporters call the displays…

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A Wiccan candidate’s one-word name on the ballot — and North Carolina election officials may decide it tonight.

Michigan Democrats have narrowly nominated Abdul El-Sayed for U.S. Senate, putting the far-left epidemiologist on track to potentially become the first Muslim elected to the chamber. El-Sayed edged Rep. Haley Stevens by just one point in a brutal primary fight and now faces Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers in a race that could become a high-stakes referendum on his hard-left platform…

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New bombshell in the Rupnik saga: OSV News says 22 previously undisclosed letters from women tied to the Loyola Community, describing alleged spiritual, psychological and sexual abuse, are now part of the record as the Vatican’s criminal case drags on. The letters, written in 2000 and addressed to Father Marko Rupnik, underline the scope of the allegations against the former Jesuit artist…

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A chilling hit on faith in Queens: police say a suspect was caught on video smashing a statue of the Virgin Mary at St. Rita Church in Long Island City, and investigators are treating the attack as a hate crime. The outrage hits hard for parishioners already marking the church’s 125th jubilee, and it comes amid fears this may not be the first strike — last November, someone vandalized an image of…

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DEBARY, Fla. — Shock at a Catholic church in Volusia County: deputies say 53-year-old John Mattern of DeBary ripped a Virgin Mary statue from its pedestal at St. Ann’s Catholic Church, hurled it into nearby woods, and left parishioners to discover the desecration after Sunday evening Mass. Mattern is charged with criminal mischief at a place of worship, a third-degree felony, in a case now hitting…

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Mexico’s bishops are marking the Cristero War centennial with a stark warning: a century ago, “the bells of the churches were silenced,” churches were shut for two years, and Mexicans turned against each other in a religious conflict that left martyrs behind. In an Aug. 4 video message, the Mexican Episcopal Conference said the anniversary is “not merely an anniversary; it is a time of grace,”…

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Leo XIV has tapped Monsignor Eusebio Ramos Morales, 73, the hard-line Puerto Rican bishop who backed mandatory COVID vaccination, crushed religious exemption letters, and helped oversee one of the world’s most restrictive Traditional Latin Mass crackdowns, to become Metropolitan Archbishop of San Juan. Ramos, a Francis-era churchman steeped in “synodality” language, also drew attention last year…

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Pope Leo XIV is headed back to South America for the first apostolic journey of his pontificate, a 10-city, Nov. 6-17 blitz through Uruguay, Argentina and Peru — a trip that puts him in one of Latin America’s least religious countries, then into the homeland of Pope Francis, and finally back to Peru, where he once served as a missionary and bishop. The Vatican says the tour will hit Montevideo…

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A quiet Vatican bulletin is underscoring a seismic shift: Pope Leo XIV has received Montse Alvarado and Sr. Nathalie Becquart among his senior audiences, with Alvarado set to take over as prefect of the Dicastery for Communication in November. No drama, no fanfare — just the steady normalization of women at the top of the Roman Curia, a trend launched under Pope Francis and now accelerating under…

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A masked man was caught on camera climbing a fence outside St. Rita Roman Catholic Church in Long Island City and smashing a Virgin Mary statue with a hammer in a predawn attack now under NYPD review as a possible hate crime. Diocese officials say it was the fourth vandalism strike on the parish since 2024, a bitter pattern that has church leaders warning this is no random act but an escalating…

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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has decertified Kentucky-based Network for Hope, a major organ procurement group serving parts of four states, after federal reviews found “persistent patient safety failures” and alarming reports that some potential donors may not have been dead when organ removal procedures were started. HHS says the group was given repeated chances to fix the…

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Pope Leo XIV is sounding the alarm on artificial intelligence — but with a twist: don’t flee it, face it. In a Washington conference on his new encyclical, church voices warned that AI is racing into every corner of life at breakneck speed, with ChatGPT exploding from launch to more than a billion monthly active users in less than four years. The pope’s message is blunt: humanity is at a pivotal…

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Anthony Fauci’s bad week just turned explosive: Florida’s attorney general has subpoenaed the ex-NIAID chief over what he knew and when, while the Senate Homeland Security Committee has now voted 8-5 to hold him in contempt of Congress after he invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 110 times. Sen. Rand Paul says he’ll send the matter to the Justice Department, and the fight now centers on whether…

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New CDC data shows births to Black women in the U.S. fell more sharply than any other major racial or ethnic group in 2024, dropping 4% to 473,377, with the Black fertility rate sliding to one of its lowest levels on record as the overall national birth rate also sank to a historic low. Births rose among Hispanic and Asian women, but the Black decline — alongside falling teen births — is fueling…

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A hidden record of abuse at a Rhode Island orphanage is now driving new lawsuits.

Cardinal Joseph Zen is igniting a fresh firestorm with a blunt denunciation of homosexual acts, warning in a Monday blog post that “the merciful God also rained down fire to destroy Sodom.” Calling them “LGBTQ sins,” the outspoken cardinal said such acts are “the most addictive” and “completely violate the Creator’s plan for humanity,” underscoring a hardline clash that will reverberate far beyond…

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The Vatican has quietly moved again in China: a second bishop was ordained in a week under the fraught accord with Beijing, underscoring just how delicate — and controversial — the church’s deal with the communist state remains. Francis Xavier Duan Yongkun, 45, was installed as Coadjutor Bishop of Bameng in Inner Mongolia after Pope Leo approved his candidacy, following last week’s ordination of…

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A week of Catholic flashpoints is fueling a fierce debate over whether the Church is surrendering to accommodation: a Wisconsin priest dismissed the Traditional Latin Mass as fit for the spiritually immature, a Spanish bishop stayed silent after a nude pride protest outside his cathedral, Archbishop John Wester backed a proposed mosque in New Mexico, and Father James Martin’s comments on…

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Catholic Scouting has a new public name — Catholic Scouting America — and leaders say the rebrand is meant to sharpen, not soften, a century-old mission: faith, family and adventure, all anchored in Catholic values. The legal name stays put, but the message is clear: with 130,888 active Scouts and leaders across 194 dioceses and eparchies, plus service projects worth an estimated $52 million…

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Pope Leo XIV is shaking up the Vatican again — naming San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, a high-profile conservative firebrand, to the Holy See’s top court. The five-year appointment to the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura is a major nod to one of America’s most outspoken bishops, known for blasting same-sex marriage and pushing the Latin Mass, even as he keeps his post in…

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A Catholic deacon’s deadly hike turned brutal in Montana’s Glacier National Park: Anthony Pollio, 33, was mauled to death by a grizzly after apparently surprising the animal in the dark on the Mt. Brown Lookout trail, investigators say. The new report says Pollio emptied his bear spray but fell nearly 100 feet downslope as the attack continued, then climbed partway back up before the bear…

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Pope Leo XIV has approved the latest shake-up in the Irish Church: Bishop Gerard Nash of Ferns will now also lead Ossory, in a move that unites the neighboring dioceses in persona episcopi while leaving them legally separate. It’s the first such merger outside the West of Ireland, signaling that the diocesan consolidation spreading through Ireland is no longer a regional experiment but a national…

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For years, the narrative was simple: religion was fading, the pews were emptying, and faith was headed for extinction. Now the numbers are jolting the other way — Harvard’s Cooperative Election Study found Gen Z Americans identifying as Catholic jumped from 15 percent in 2022 to 21 percent in 2023 — even as trust in government, media and higher education keeps collapsing. And this isn’t a trendy…

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The Oklahoma man charged in the deadly April shooting of a Kansas priest is headed for a September competency hearing, a crucial step that could determine whether the murder case moves forward. Gary L. Hermesch, of Tulsa, is accused of gunning down Father Arul Carasala in the rectory at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Seneca, then driving to the sheriff’s office and admitting he shot him…

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In a Jubilee Year meant to celebrate St Francis, the saint just got a lot more complicated: a plain manuscript spotted at a Paris auction house turned out to be the second-oldest surviving life of Francis, written just four years after his death and hidden for eight centuries. Franciscan scholar Br William Short says the discovery proves there is still more to learn about the man behind the statue…

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Nearly 18,000 families hit by June’s devastating earthquakes in northern Venezuela have gotten emergency help through Caritas, as the Catholic Church steps into the void left by collapsing services and wrecked infrastructure. Three weeks in, more than 19,000 tonnes of aid have poured in, with 84 percent already distributed through the Church’s parish network, delivering food, hygiene kits…

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Vatican News is under fire after publishing an article that treated IVF as a given and only warned about AI taking over the process — a jarring omission for an outlet of the Holy See, given the Church’s longstanding condemnation of in vitro fertilization. The July 21 piece, focused on the launch of a fully automated AI-powered IVF lab, cited Pontifical Academy for Life member Laura Palazzani on…

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AI is exploding across modern life — writing emails, answering questions, aiding research, even posing as a companion for millions — but Bible prophecy researcher Josh Peck warns it may be more than a tech revolution, a potential end-times counterfeit. On Into the Supernatural, Peck said Satan has always copied God’s work, and AI could become the tool that helps power a deceptive kingdom described…

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Before dawn, Medjugorje awoke to horror: statues of Our Lady blackened with paint and blasphemous graffiti, and the outdoor altar at St. James Church set ablaze just days before the annual youth festival. Local authorities say multiple Marian sites — including Apparition Hill and the area near the Blue Cross — were hit in a coordinated attack, stunning pilgrims and wounding a shrine long known for…

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A Polish billionaire is bankrolling a towering 55-metre Virgin Mary statue in Konotopie, a concrete-and-steel colossus now already drawing coachloads of pilgrims and gawkers even before it’s finished. Set to be blessed on Assumption Day, August 15, the monument will be Europe’s tallest Marian statue and is meant to shove the tiny village onto the pilgrimage map — but it’s still surrounded by…

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Shock and sorrow in Bosnia’s famed Medjugorje shrine after a Marian statue was spray-painted with vile insults and an outdoor altar set ablaze overnight at Apparition Hill, even as locals rushed to clean the damage and keep the pilgrimage site open. Police have detained a Polish suspect, and amid the outrage, Catholics are answering with prayer, forgiveness and a warning against online pile-ons as…

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A New Mexico archbishop is igniting backlash after declaring Muslims have a “God-given” right to build a mosque in Albuquerque and urging Catholics to back it, calling defense of the project a “core element of Catholic teaching.” Archbishop John Wester’s statement, released amid faithful concerns over the North Valley mosque-and-community-center proposal, has sharpened tensions inside the…

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Chile’s abortion fight is heating up again as Cardinal Fernando Chomali blasts doctors who perform the procedure and seeks to turn the debate over the “Listen to Their Heart” bill toward medical responsibility, not the mother’s feelings. The proposal would require physicians to inform women of fetal heartbeat activity and offer a chance to hear it before an abortion, and Chomali says he opposes…

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A shocking legal twist could leave aging former brothers facing damages for abuse they didn’t directly deny.

A new “MyGender Dolls” line, developed at the University of Minnesota Medical School’s Institute for Sexual and Gender Health and marketed to preschool teachers, is igniting outrage for offering children as young as four dolls with removable internal and external genitals, plus more than 100 interchangeable clothing and accessory pieces. The company calls it a “therapeutic play approach” for…

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A fresh flashpoint inside the Catholic Church: the Vatican has approved another bishop in China, even as traditionalists seethe after July 1 illicit episcopal ordinations triggered automatic excommunications tied to the SSPX. Critics are now blasting what they call a double standard — asking why traditionalist clergy face the Church’s harshest penalty while China’s government-backed bishops…

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Archbishop Sample has declared the Society of Saint Pius X “in schism” — then dropped the question rattling faithful Catholics everywhere: “Where is the Pope?” His warning lands amid widening fury over Vatican silence, as traditionalists see one standard for the SSPX and another for bishops blessing same-sex unions, cardinals pushing gender ideology, and a China deal critics say abandons the…

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TUCSON — At 98, World War II veteran and retired Illinois cop Raymond “Ray” Martin Sr. has done what many never do: received Baptism, First Holy Communion, and Confirmation in one moving rite at the Villas of Marana, surrounded by family, caregivers, and fellow residents. After years of attending Mass and praying the rosary, Martin — visibly tearful, deeply grateful, and finally at peace…

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A bombshell report has blown open decades of alleged sexual abuse at prestigious Interlochen Center for the Arts, with 70 former students accusing nearly 50 adults — including staff, visiting artists, board members and even Jeffrey Epstein — of grooming, touching and assault from the 1950s through the 2010s. The 97-page investigation calls the findings “simply devastating,” and Interlochen says it…

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Wildfires tearing through central Spain have forced Augustinian nuns out of their monastery as flames closed in on Sotillo de la Adrada, underscoring the widening emergency across Spain and France, where hundreds of thousands have already evacuated. The sisters of the Monastery of the Conversion said they had “no choice” but to leave on 25 July, taking shelter about 26 miles away as firefighters…

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A tiny crucifix on referee Iván Barton’s whistle has turned into a global talking point after cameras caught it during the France-Spain World Cup clash — and Barton says it’s no stunt, but a visible sign of the faith that has shadowed his career. Under the World Cup’s brutal glare, where every call is magnified and every mistake can explode, Barton says his first pregame ritual was not physical…

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Nuns and sisters across the country have been drafted into a race against the clock to hand-make 75,000 rosaries — 3,975,000 beads — for Bishop Fulton Sheen’s Sept. 24 beatification, and they’re answering. From cloistered Poor Clares in Indiana to other convents nationwide, the hidden army is turning prayer into production for the official World Mission Rosaries Sheen designed himself…

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Berlin Pride turned grim Saturday night after a vehicle apparently plowed into a crowd near the Brandenburg Gate, leaving many injured and several in life-threatening condition, police said. The attack-like chaos shattered what had been a peaceful gathering of hundreds of thousands at one of Europe’s biggest Pride events, with emergency crews rushing victims at Tiergarten and police scrambling to…

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Typhoon Noul is bearing down on southern China, hammering Hong Kong and Guangdong with gale-force winds and soaking rain as authorities evacuate more than 340,000 people and brace for landfall. The storm, packing 90-mph sustained winds, is expected to hit around Huizhou and Shanwei early Sunday, with train service scrapped and more than 150 flights already canceled at Hong Kong airport.

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A new peer-reviewed study is jolting the abortion debate, finding traces of anti-progesterone activity equivalent to mifepristone in environmental water and municipal tap water in three U.S. cities — Austin, Blacksburg and Carbondale — with conventional treatment not consistently removing it. The findings, published July 20 in Issues in Law & Medicine, have pro-life groups demanding EPA action and…

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Britain’s first lifelong Roman Catholic prime minister has stepped into a transatlantic faith fight, with Andy Burnham signaling a very different Catholic politics from Donald Trump’s culture-war camp. Hours before entering Downing Street, Burnham visited a homelessness charity and made ending rough sleeping his first pledge, while praise for Pope Leo and Francis’ pro-migrant stance underscores…

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A traditional Catholic civil war erupts — and the next statement may change everything.

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles is drawing fire after its cathedral hosted “Aztec Mass,” a theatrical concert staged in the sanctuary with the altar area turned into a performance space — not a Eucharistic liturgy, but a mix of Ordinary-of-the-Mass text, Nahuatl poetry, dance, theater and indigenous instruments. Critics say the spectacle exposes a glaring double standard: traditional worship is…

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Amid the SSPX controversy, pressure is building on parishes far beyond the issue’s epicenter: some are now weighing more Traditional Latin Mass to answer what supporters call a hunger for reverent, traditional worship. In Malaysia, one reader says Latin is still largely absent from Masses, while praising Kuching’s Gothic St Peter Church for celebrating liturgy in both Latin and English — a…

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Five years on, Pope Francis’ Traditionis Custodes is still setting off shockwaves across the Church, as the battle over the preconciliar Latin Mass refuses to die. The 2021 decree cracked down on the old rite in the name of unity, warning it had become tied to rejection of Vatican II — but critics say it has only deepened the divide, and now the Holy See’s excommunication of the Society of St.

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Inside a cramped chapel west of Boston, a small but steadfast traditionalist Catholic flock is pressing ahead in Latin, kneeling for Communion and clinging to pre-Vatican II ritual even as the Vatican has declared the Society of St. Pius X to be in schism. At St. Catherine of Siena Church in Weston, the message is unmistakable: this is no nostalgia act, but a defiant break from the modern Church…

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A Catholic deanery coordinator in Freising, Germany, is drawing attention after helping lead an ecumenical Valentine’s Day service that included blessings for same-sex couples alongside a female Protestant minister — a striking sign of how far some church practice is moving, and a potential flashpoint for traditionalists. The service at St. Lantpert packed in about a hundred worshippers…

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The Maronites are mobilizing for a historic beatification week, with bells, candles, relics and a Mass set to honor Patriarch Elias Hoyek — a towering Church and Lebanese figure — even as Egypt’s youth ministry steps into a shocking discrimination case after a 13-year-old Christian soccer player was allegedly rejected because of his name. In the same week, pressure is mounting from Irish priests…

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Rumors are swirling through Vatican corridors that Pope Leo XIV may be preparing a sweeping Curia shake-up — and the biggest shockwave centers on Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the powerful Secretary of State who has served since 2013. Nothing has been confirmed, but talk of possible changes in key dicasteries, and even Parolin’s replacement, is growing louder in Rome, with Norwegian Bishop Erik Varden…

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From Vatican-recognized “miracle baby” to wanted fugitive: 19-year-old Tyquan Johnson is now the target of an arrest warrant in Rhode Island over a double shooting, with Newport police charging him with felony assault with a firearm and firing in a compact area and warning the public he is armed and dangerous. Police say Johnson, whose birth was officially recognized by the Catholic Church as a…

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Cardinal Antonio María Rouco Varela is blasting post–Vatican II liturgical chaos, saying widespread abuses have turned the Mass into a “parody” that has wounded the sacrament itself, the conscience of the faithful and even basic human sensibility. In a sharp interview with El Debate, the archbishop emeritus of Madrid argued that the “almost anarchic indiscipline” of the 1970s pushed many faithful…

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