We Are Our Mother of Perpetual Help Parish

As Russian drones bomb the 11th-century Holy Wisdom Cathedral in Kyiv, Ukrainian Greek Catholic Archbishop Borys Gudziak says the cathedral holds "unique spiritual symbolism and moral significance for the nation."

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CNA Staff, Jun 10, 2025 / 16:24 pm (CNA).

Australian priest Father Liam Ryan, also known as “the surfing priest,” is making headlines after rescuing a pair of struggling surfers from a rip current — the second time the priest has saved a person in danger of drowning.

The 38-year-old priest from Our Lady Queen of Peace Cathedral Parish in Broome, Western Australia, was surfing when he saw a father and son struggling to stay afloat at Western Australia’s Cable Beach. The two were caught up in a nearby rip current.

“I saw a couple of fellows who looked like they were getting pretty close to where a little flash rip was,” he said in an interview with ABC News Australia. 

Ryan paddled over to them after he yelled out and heard no response. A few moments after reaching the area, one of the individuals climbed onto the priest’s surfboard, grateful for the help. 

“Being in a tourist town, we do get a few people who are not familiar with being around open water," he said. “[It] can look really calm, but if there’s a big tide … one minute you’re in the flags, next minute you’re on your own.”

The parish priest, who is also well known in the community for surfing and swimming in the open ocean, said this rescue was “a little scarier” than his first one almost five years ago.

On July 31, 2020, Ryan helped a surfer survive a shark attack at Bunker Bay in Western Australia. The priest was surfing while on vacation visiting his best friend when he noticed a fellow surfer — Phil Mummert — in distress. 

“I saw him off his board, looking really lost, and there was half a board floating there,” Ryan told The Catholic Leader, a publication of the Archdiocese of Brisbane.

He then saw a great white shark, approximately 13 to 16 feet long, bite Mummert’s leg. Ryan began to yell for assistance and Alex Oliver, another surfer, heard his cries for help and paddled over. Ryan and Oliver were able to hoist Mummert onto Oliver’s longboard and the two paddled him back to shore. 

According to The Catholic Leader, Mummert was “bleeding profusely” by the time they reached shore, having sustained deep shark bites in his upper leg.

Ryan shared that once Mummert was airlifted to the hospital, he took a “quiet moment of solitude in the sand dunes.” 

“I had a little bit of a cry, and just blessed the Lord,” he told The Catholic Leader. 

The priest also told The Catholic Leader that he didn’t hesitate to help.

“There’s something deep inside you that wants to help,” he said. “Christianity is built on that principle of someone giving their life for you.”

“You come face to face with what would be one of the greatest fears for a lot of people, a lot of surfers… but what gives you strength in that moment is the grace of God,” he added.

In 2022, Ryan received an Australian Bravery Award in recognition of the rescue. 

“It feels like I haven’t done anything extraordinary,” Ryan told The Catholic Leader after receiving the award. “I thank God for giving me courage in that moment, and I also remember that I was not alone.”

CNA Staff, Jun 10, 2025 / 15:51 pm (CNA).

A U.S.-based biotech company has announced the launch of Nucleus Embryo, a company that screens human embryos for desired genetic profiles, a practice the Catholic Church teaches violates human dignity and contributes to a eugenic mentality. 

People undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) will be able to screen up to 20 embryos for over 900 conditions and traits, including health risks, intelligence, and physical characteristics like height and eye color, in order to “optimize” their embryos, according to Kian Sadeghi, founder of Nucleus Genomics, parent company of Nucleus Embryo.

“I see a world where sequencing, analyzing, and editing DNA merge seamlessly to create a truly preventative health care system,” the 25-year-old Sadeghi said on the company’s website, adding: “Every parent wants to give their children more than they had. For the first time in human history, Nucleus adds a new tool to that commitment.”

Embryos that meet parental desires will be eligible for implanting, and undesirable ones will be discarded.

While the Catholic Church teaches that IVF is morally illicit because it completely separates procreation from the marital act and violates the dignity of the child, the Church also condemns preimplantation diagnosis as “shameful and utterly reprehensible,” an “expression of a eugenic mentality” that leads to the destruction of innocent human life.

Published by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the 2008 document Dignitatis Personae affirms that the human embryo cannot be treated as “mere laboratory material” because this violates its dignity, which “belongs equally to every single human being, irrespective of his parents’ desires, his social condition, educational formation, or level of physical development.”

The document explicitly condemns preimplantation diagnosis and resulting genetic enhancements because they can result in the killing of human embryos “affected by various types of anomalies,” and they “presume to measure the value of a human life only within the parameters of ‘normality’ and physical well-being, thus opening the way to legitimizing infanticide and euthanasia.”

Such procedures could also marginalize individuals, widen societal divides, and “harm peaceful coexistence among individuals,” the dicastery stated.  

The document questioned who would establish which gene edits were worthwhile and which were not, and what limits, if any, should be placed on genetic enhancements “since it would be materially impossible to fulfill the wishes of every single person.”

In the end, the common good will be harmed by “favoring the will of some over the freedom of others.”

National Catholic Bioethics Center senior ethicist Father Tad Pacholczyk told CNA that “couples will now be tempted to impose quality control and eugenics onto their vulnerable and voiceless children.”

Nucleus Embryo’s website emphasizes genetic manipulation of embryos before implantation and states: “The best time to prevent disease is pre-pregnancy. Knowing what you could pass on to your kids lets you plan with clarity and avoid future surprises.”

This is a “‘command and control’ mentality over procreation,” Pacholczyk said, which allows people to treat their “own offspring like raw material … It’s tragic when our children become a mere abstraction, pawns to be played in the end game of seeking what we want.”

“Society’s demand for physical perfection places untold pressure on couples today to ‘conform to the norm’ by aborting or otherwise eliminating any less-than-perfect children,” he continued.

“Human embryos, among the most vulnerable of God’s creatures, have been entrusted to us to be received unconditionally and lovingly by all parents, without demanding that they run any gauntlet of prenatal screening. Every child, exactly as he or she arrives into our families, is precious, good, and beautiful.”

Pacholczyk said not every use of prenatal diagnostic information is morally unacceptable, however. 

Diagnostic information that “assists in the treatment of an in-utero patient represents a morally praiseworthy use of this powerful technology.”

For example, a life-threatening disease known as Krabbe’s leukodystrophy can be treated through a bone marrow transplant immediately following a child’s birth. If the disease is diagnosed prenatally, the parents can look for matching bone marrow before the child is born. Certain other diseases, such as spina bifida, can also be surgically treated prenatally.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 10, 2025 / 15:19 pm (CNA).

Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo is asking U.S. President Donald Trump to reinstate foreign aid to Africa. 

“Targeted humanitarian aid for Africa is urgently needed, morally good, and of great strategic value to the U.S,” Ambongo, the archbishop of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, wrote in a June 8 op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal. 

“​​President Trump has made clear that he will put the needs of his country and its citizens first before attending to the needs of the world. No leader of a nation as great as the U.S. could do otherwise,” the cardinal stated. “It would be a mistake, however, for Mr. Trump to forget about Africa.”

Ambongo highlighted Africa’s rich natural resources and “bright entrepreneurial and eager young people” as important assets to the U.S., emphasizing the utility of a relationship between Africa and the United States. 

American generosity toward Africa through USAID has “transformed millions of lives for the better” in the region, Ambongo said, pointing out that American aid has helped enhance African society and avert further political and economic crises threatening the continent’s development. In the process, he noted, American economic influence in the region has been strengthened.

With the freezing of critical aid to African countries, the cardinal described Africa as “a magnet for conflicts and fights over the natural resources so important to modern technology.” 

He also noted pervasive famine and poverty plaguing many parts of the region. 

While Ambongo acknowledged the need for the U.S. to be concerned about the use of its limited resources, he noted that international adversaries will replace the U.S. if it completely withdraws all aid to Africa.

“International politics won’t tolerate a vacuum,” he predicted. “Should the U.S. abandon Africa, its place will be taken by its adversaries: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea.”

The cardinal stressed that “it isn’t too late to turn the tide” and reach a mutually beneficial solution that does not exploit U.S. resources for ideological causes that run counter to African values by providing aid that supports abortion services and contraception in the region. 

“It’s unhelpful to tie aid to ideology — to abortion or ‘population control’ — that defies the values of many African cultures,” he said. “I believe that respect for African culture can coexist with humanitarian aid. Cultural colonization needn’t be the price exacted for a moral, strategic, and humanitarian partnership.” 

Ambongo’s remarks on the politicization of humanitarian aid come after the U.S. State Department announced its plans to destroy a reserve of artificial contraceptives that was previously set aside for distribution in developing countries through foreign aid programs. 

Pleading on behalf of bishops, priests, and laypeople in Africa, Ambongo urged Trump and his administration “to reconsider aid to his friends in Africa, who have been and will continue to be important partners of the U.S.” 

“We are eager to work closely with Washington to ensure that all such aid is used well, free of the fraud and mismanagement that has occurred in the past,” he concluded. “There is too much at stake — for Africans, for Americans, and for the world.”

Vatican City, Jun 10, 2025 / 14:11 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV received papal representatives at the Vatican on Tuesday, reminding them that the Church “will always defend the sacrosanct right to believe in God” and that this life “is not at the mercy of the powers of this world.”

In the June 10 speech delivered in the Clementine Hall of the Vatican Apostolic Palace, he thanked the papal nuncios and international organizations around the world for their work.

The pontiff noted that “there is no country in the world” with a diplomatic corps as universal and united as that of the Holy See: “We are united in Christ and we are united in the Church.”

“I say this thinking certainly of the dedication and organization, but, even more so, of the motivations that guide you, the pastoral style that should characterize you, the spirit of faith that inspires us,” he added.

He particularly thanked them for being able to rely on the documentation, reflections, and summaries prepared by the diplomats when faced with a situation that concerns the Church in a particular country. “This is for me a cause for great appreciation and gratitude,” he reiterated.

‘Always be the eyes of Peter!’

Pope Leo XIV then shared with those present the account from the Acts of the Apostles (3:1-10) of the healing of the paralytic, a scene that, in his opinion, “describes the ministry of Peter well.”

For the pontiff, the man who begs for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple represents “the image of a humanity that has lost hope and is resigned.”

“Even today, the Church often encounters men and women who no longer have any joy, whom society has sidelined, or whom life has in a certain sense forced into begging for their existence,” he lamented.

After looking into his eyes, the pope recounted, Peter said to the paralytic: “I have neither silver nor gold, but what I do have I give you in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, [rise and] walk.”

After quoting this passage, Pope Leo noted that “to look into one’s eyes means to build a relationship. The ministry of Peter is to create relationships, bridges: and a representative of the pope, first and foremost, serves this invitation to look into the eyes.”

“Always be the eyes of Peter! Be men capable of building relationships where it is hardest to do,” the pope exhorted them, asking them to do so with humility and realism.

The Holy Father also placed his trust in the diplomatic corps of the Holy See so that “everyone may know that the Church is always ready for everything out of love, that she is always on the side of the last, the poor, and that she will always defend the sacrosanct right to believe in God, to believe that this life is not at the mercy of the powers of this world but rather is traversed by a mysterious meaning.”

He also encouraged them to “always have a blessing gaze, because the ministry of Peter is to bless, that is, always to know how to see the good, even that which is hidden.”

“Feel that you are missionaries, sent by the pope to be tools of communion, unity, serving the dignity of the human person, promoting sincere and constructive relations everywhere with the authorities with whom you are required to cooperate,” he urged.

In conclusion, he reiterated that their work “always be enlightened by the sound decision for holiness.”

After the speech, the papal representatives received a ring bearing the inscription “sub umbra Petri” (“under the shadow of Peter,” cf. Acts 5:15) from the pope as a sign of communion.

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

CNA Staff, Jun 10, 2025 / 13:33 pm (CNA).

The 43rd annual Paris-Chartres pilgrimage concluded on Monday with a solemn high Mass at Chartres Cathedral, marking the end of a record-breaking three-day journey that drew 19,000 participants — the largest attendance in the event’s four-decade history. 

The three-day trek from Paris to Chartres represents a demanding challenge — one both physical and spiritual — that continues to attract growing numbers of young Catholics seeking deeper spiritual experiences. 

Organized by Notre-Dame de Chrétienté, the pilgrimage began on Saturday, June 7, at Saint-Sulpice Church in Paris and concluded at the Gothic cathedral, which houses the sacred relic of the Virgin Mary’s veil.  

Bishop Philippe Christory of Chartres delivered the homily at the closing Mass, celebrated by Abbé Jean de Massia, FSSP, the pilgrimage’s general chaplain. 

Christory reportedly told the pilgrims before Mass: “We know that Pope Leo prays for every pilgrim to live a personal encounter with Christ.”

Registration for this year’s pilgrimage closed within five days of opening, necessitating a waiting list of 2,000 additional participants. The average age of pilgrims was 20 years old, reflecting a broader trend among young Catholics who are gravitating toward traditional liturgy. 

“The enthusiasm sparked by all the pilgrimage opportunities in France — especially those for young people — is a joy for the Church and a sign of its vitality,” the French Bishops’ Conference stated. 

The event’s growth in recent years has been remarkable, increasing from 16,000 participants in 2023 to 18,000 in 2024 and now to 19,000 in 2025.  

Philippe Darantière, president of Notre-Dame de Chrétienté, indicated that organizers are already planning structural changes for 2026 to accommodate even greater numbers. 

The pilgrimage maintained its traditional character, with more than 300 Latin Masses celebrated throughout the three days. Participants walked approximately 60 miles (100 kilometers) through the French countryside, praying the rosary and camping overnight at designated sites. More than 1,000 volunteers and 120 executives from Notre-Dame de Chrétienté supported the pilgrims during their journey.

The closing ceremony coincided with Chartres Cathedral’s millennium jubilee celebration, allowing pilgrims to pass through the Holy Doors and venerate the relic of the Virgin Mary’s veil.  

The Notre-Dame de Chrétienté association also consecrated itself to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, marking the 350th anniversary of Christ’s apparitions to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. 

CNA Staff, Jun 10, 2025 / 11:34 am (CNA).

The Catholic bishops in New York state are warning of a looming “nightmare” there after the state Legislature passed a measure authorizing doctors to participate in assisted suicide.

Democrats in the state Senate voted Monday to pass the “Medical Aid in Dying Act,” a measure that will allow doctors to prescribe medication to terminally ill individuals that the patients may “self-administer to bring about death.” 

The measure limits the suicide option to those 18 years or older with “an incurable and irreversible illness or condition that has been medically confirmed.” The legislation is expected to be signed by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.

‘A dark day for New York state’

New York joins 11 other states — California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Montana, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington — as well as the District of Columbia in allowing patients to take their own lives via a doctor’s prescription. 

The New York State Catholic Conference on Monday warned that the measure would bring about an “assisted suicide nightmare” similar to the suicide regime in Canada, which has expanded its own suicide program to include those who cannot consent to the procedure at the time and where violations of the law are allegedly going unreported. Euthanasia accounts for roughly 1 in 20 deaths there.

Dennis Poust, the executive director of the state Catholic conference, said on Monday that the bill’s passage marked “a dark day for New York state.”

Poust urged the governor to recognize that the law “would be catastrophic for medically underserved communities, including communities of color, as well as for people with disabilities and other vulnerable populations.”

He noted that Hochul has worked to address suicide in the state but that the assisted suicide measure “undermines those priorities.” 

“The legislation passed in the Senate and Assembly contains no requirement for a psychological screening for depression or other mental illness, and not even so much as a brief waiting period for people who might be in despair following a terminal diagnosis,” he noted. 

Poust said the Catholic conference called on the government to “expand palliative and hospice care, mental health services, and family caregiver support” rather than allow legalized doctor-assisted suicide. 

Church leaders in the state have repeatedly spoken out against assisted suicide during the Legislature’s consideration of the measure. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, last month called the proposal “a disaster waiting to happen” and a “terrible idea” that “turns everything society knows and believes about medicine on its head.”

The state Catholic conference urged voters last year to voice their opposition to the measure, calling the proposal “another assault on human life here” and “dangerous for patients, caregivers, and vulnerable populations.”

Delaware is the most recent state to legalize assisted suicide. Last month state Gov. Matt Meyer signed a bill legalizing physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill adults with a prognosis of six months or less to live.

Earlier this month, on the other hand, a bill to legalize physician-assisted suicide in Illinois was not called for a vote in the Senate before the Legislature adjourned on June 1, effectively halting its progress for the session amid ardent opposition from leading Catholic voices in the state.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 10, 2025 / 09:20 am (CNA).

Since last year, there has been a 32% decline in U.S. child abuse allegations against Catholic clergy, according to the 2024 annual report of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection.  

Overall, “902 allegations were reported by 855 victims-survivors of child sexual abuse by clergy,” the report said, compared with 1,308 allegations by 1,254 survivors last year. 

Covering July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, the annual report is based on a survey of 195 U.S. Catholic dioceses and eparchies, drawn from data collected by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University as well as an audit by StoneBridge Business Partners. 

The annual reporting stems from the U.S. bishops’ 2002 creation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, which established a framework and protocols related to allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy.

A total of 717 clerics were accused within the most recent audit period, with the majority of those accused (54%) being already deceased.

StoneBridge also pointed out several cases of noncompliance by jurisdictions and entities that are in violation of the articles established in the 2018 revision of the youth protection charter.

The Diocese of Our Lady of Deliverance Syriac Catholic Church in the USA, for example, was noncompliant due to the absence of a safe environment training program and for not completing background checks on volunteers.

The Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, Pennsylvania, meanwhile, was cited by not having a functional review board during the audit period.

“Measuring charter compliance allows each diocese/eparchy to assess strengths and weaknesses and identify programmatic areas requiring improvement, which are critical in our mission of protecting our children,” the report said.

The report restated the Catholic Church’s commitment “to work to ensure the safety of children and vulnerable adults by performing background checks on clergy, employees, and volunteers, and providing training on how to identify and report abuse signs.”

“For the U.S. Church and as articulated in the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, this commitment translates into a zero-tolerance policy toward abuse,” the USCCB report reads.

Abuse allegations have shown a steady decline since 2020, averaging a 30% decrease annually, according to data accumulated over the past five years.

Washington D.C., Jun 10, 2025 / 08:50 am (CNA).

Harvard professor of mathematics and biology Martin Nowak focused on math as a path to God during a presentation at the 2025 annual conference of the Society of Catholic Scientists in Washington, D.C.

During a June 8 lecture titled “Does Mathematics Lead Us to God?” Nowak said that among other things, math can be viewed as “an argument for the existence of God.”

Referencing St. Augustine, Nowak said math is like “an intelligible object.”

“We judge mathematics in truth by a criterion that is within us. That is, of course, the doctrine of divine illumination. So Augustine says, ‘This is possible because God is the teacher of the soul.’”

“Mathematics is not in meta,” Nowak said. He explained that math is “timeless” and “atemporal.”

“If you accept this … you have made a step toward God.” Because “you are no longer a materialist, you are no longer a naturalist in the sense you’re no longer an atheist.” 

Math provides meaning and understanding, according to Nowak. “We walk through life and the world as meaning,” he said. “You need intelligent objects, you need mathematics.”

“It is mathematics that gives meaning … We experience mathematics as we experience love. Mathematics tells us who we are, who the other is. Mathematics tells us what stuff we are made of. Mathematics enables us to see God.”

Nowak’s discussion of math was a hot topic at the conference, especially given recent attention to Pope Leo XIV having earned a degree in mathematics from Villanova University.

“Mathematics is beautiful,” Nowak noted. “If you ask mathematicians what’s the most beautiful thing they have seen in their lives, it’s some mathematical equation.”

“Why is mathematics beautiful?” Nowak asked. He explained it’s beautiful because “God is beautiful.”

“Mathematics is the set of all correct statements,” he continued. “Mathematics is about truth with a capital T.”

“We will never be done with mathematics … because it takes forever to get to know an infinite being, God.”

“I think mathematics helps us to remember that we are eternal objects, that we are not only in time and in space,” Nowak said. 

Since God transcends everything, Nowak added, God “cannot be captured or described by mathematics.” Math, he said, has more to do with the “thoughts of God.”

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 10, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

“What if the most important thing that God wants you to do is still in front of you, and that is passing on the faith to your grandchildren?” That’s the proposition Pili Abouchaar focuses on as co-founder and director of Grandly, an apostolate dedicated to helping grandparents do just that.

In an interview on “EWTN Pro-Life Weekly,” Abouchaar acknowledged that grandparents often feel helpless and hopeless in regard to this mission, but Grandly can make a difference in their approach and outlook. 

“The main thing that we try to tackle in our mission in Grandly is to try to give grandparents hope to help them bridge that generational gap between how they were raised and how youth culture is moving right now.”

The apostolate, which celebrates its 10th anniversary next year, is especially relevant now, within the context of the jubilee year and the upcoming July 27 World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, with this year’s theme being “Blessed Are Those Who Have Not Lost Hope.” 

Abouchaar said among Grandly’s offerings is “a seminar called the ‘Do It Grandly’ seminar, which grandparents can take by themselves. They can find the seminar on our website. We are also helping parishes across the United States and in other countries to host seminars for their grandparents locally.”

“Do It Grandly,” a five-session online seminar, helps grandparents embrace their unique role in fostering the faith of their grandchildren. The sessions include topics on a bold vision, renewing hope, grandparenting and youth work, the strategic grandparent, and faith to move grandchildren.

The series’ free, opening 30-minute session, titled “A Bold Vision,” covers how youth see our culture and how God is in their lives, and offers interviews and discussions with grandparents. Grandly also features on its website a variety of helpful testimonies, stories, and discussion groups.

So far, Abouchaar said Grandly has reached some 20,000 grandparents and, through them, approximately 100,000 grandchildren.  

The full segment about Grandly on “EWTN Pro-Life Weekly” can be viewed below.