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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At the conclusion of a weeklong pilgrimage in Rome, highlighted by Archbishop Edward J. Weisenburger's reception of the pallium from Pope Leo XIV on June 29, pilgrims from the Archdiocese of Detroit and members of Archbishop Weisenburger's family take a group picture to commemorate the experience.

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

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

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

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

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

McConnell sees welcome course correction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Israel’s economic interests, particularly in offshore gas resources, intersect with recent moves toward the annexation of occupied Palestinian territories and could impact the two-state solution, Palestinian sovereignty, and regional stability.

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