We Are Our Mother of Perpetual Help Parish

The Dicastery for Evangelization continues to have a profound impact on the lives of religious sisters, especially those from regions that fall under the jurisdiction or competence of the Dicastery—primarily in Asia and African countries. Through scholarships provided by the Dicastery, these religious women study at pontifical universities, particularly at the Pontifical Urban University (Pontificia Università Urbaniana).

Read all

 

Pope Leo XIV encounters the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors in the Vatican.

Read all

 

The Jubilee of Movements, Associations, and New Communities is set to take place in Rome on June 7-8, with over 70,000 pilgrims expected to participate in the events that will culminate in the Mass of Pentecost Sunday with Pope Leo XIV.

Read all

 

As tensions between Russia and Ukraine continue to escalate despite international efforts to broker a ceasefire, Pope Leo XIV Wednesday afternoon had a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The finishing touches of the rituals and the Missal of the Amazonian Rite will probably be concluded in July, according to one of the heads of the process.

Amid the escalating violence in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions, a less visible but devastating crisis is taking hold: Human trafficking.

In this interview with Vatican News, Cardinal Seán O’Malley talks about the work of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors; raising awareness in the Church about clerical abuse; and the Church’s priorities, especially the need to put victims and their families first.

Read all

 

Pope Leo XIV meets with officials of the Vatican Secretariat of State, and invites them to never let ambition or rivalry stand in the way of serving as a community that acts as a hub between the Holy See and the Church around the world.

Read all

 

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 4, 2025 / 17:35 pm (CNA).

A report from the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee revealed that the 2023 anti-Catholic Richmond FBI memo involved coordination with field offices around the country and that similar disparaging language about certain Catholics was found in at least 13 separate documents.

In February 2023, the FBI retracted a memo from the Richmond, Virginia, field office that detailed an investigation into so-called “radical traditionalist” Catholics after the internal document was leaked to the public and prompted heavy pushback.

The memo called for the FBI to develop sources within parishes that offer the Latin Mass and online Catholic communities for the purpose of “threat mitigation.” Relying almost entirely on designations from the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the memo expressed concerns about a potential link between “radical-traditionalist” Catholics and racially motivated violent extremism.

Although the FBI removed the document from its systems and asserted the issue was isolated to one product from one field office, the new report found that multiple field offices were involved in producing the memo and that it was distributed to more than 1,000 FBI employees throughout the country.

The report reveals that analysts at the Richmond field office had consulted with the offices in Louisville, Kentucky; Portland, Oregon; and Milwaukee to gather information about “radical traditionalist” Catholics in preparation for the Richmond office’s report.

Conversations with the Louisville office reportedly helped Richmond analysts conclude that the beliefs of “radical-traditional Catholicism” are “comparable to Islamist theology.” Less is known about what was discussed with the Portland and Milwaukee field offices, but the report found that Richmond’s analysts had phone conversations with them about the subject.

After the Richmond field office produced the memo, the report found that it was sent to other field offices throughout the country.

The report cites an email exchange from the Richmond office to the office in Buffalo, New York, which notes that two “radical traditionalist” Catholic groups are in Buffalo’s area of responsibility.

Some FBI officials in the Milwaukee and Phoenix field offices were concerned about the memo, according to email exchanges. The report notes, however, it’s unclear whether the concerns were shared with the Richmond field office. 

One official questioned: “Is anyone really asking for a product like this?” and complained that “apparently we are at the behest of the SPLC” and another responded: “Yeah, our overreliance on the SPLC hate designations is … problematic.”

According to the report, the Richmond FBI had produced a draft of a second memo on the same subject, which was intended to be distributed to the entire FBI. This was shelved following the backlash to the initial leaked memo.

The draft contained similar assertions of a link between “radical traditionalist” Catholics and racially motivated violent extremism and called for source development within parishes that celebrate the Latin Mass and within Catholic online communities. The draft, which was being written in 2023, asserted that the threat of violence will likely increase during the election cycle.

Although the second draft expressed similar concerns, one noticeable difference is that it did not reference the SPLC.

The report also revealed an internal FBI email, which acknowledged that the phrase “radical traditionalist Catholic” appeared in 13 separate FBI documents and five attachments throughout the agency.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley is requesting that the new FBI director under President Donald Trump — Kash Patel — provide the committee with those documents and any other documents that “purport to tie religious groups to violent extremism based on SPLC and other biased sources.”

The report also chastises former FBI Director Christopher Wray, accusing him of “misleading testimony on the scope of the memo’s distribution” when he classified the memo as “a single product by a single field office.”

“I and other members had already expressed concern as to whether the memo’s production was isolated to Richmond or part of a larger problem,” Grassley wrote. “Testimony calling it the work of a single field office was misleading at best and appears to be part of a pattern of intentional deception.”

Grassley further notes that internal emails demonstrate that FBI leadership was aware that the scope of the issue extended beyond the Richmond office and accuses the agency under Wray’s leadership of “[obstructing] my investigation by not providing these answers for many months.”

He told Patel he is “determined to get to the bottom of the Richmond memo, and of the FBI’s contempt for oversight in the last administration.” 

“I look forward to continuing to work with you to restore the FBI to excellence and prove once again that justice can and must be fairly and evenly administered, blind to whether we are Democrats or Republicans, believers or nonbelievers,” Grassley added.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 4, 2025 / 17:06 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call Wednesday afternoon.

“The pope made an appeal for Russia to take a gesture that would favor peace, emphasizing the importance of dialogue to create positive contacts between the parties and seek solutions to the conflict,” Holy See Press Office Director Matteo Bruni said in a statement.

Bruni told members of the press that the Holy Father appealed to the Russian leader about the humanitarian situation in Ukraine and advocated for the facilitation of aid into affected areas.

The two leaders also discussed Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi’s efforts to facilitate prisoner exchanges. 

“Pope Leo made reference to Patriarch Kirill, thanking him for the congratulations received at the beginning of his pontificate, and underlined how shared Christian values can be a light that helps to seek peace, defend life, and pursue genuine religious freedom,” Bruni added. 

“Gratitude was expressed to the pontiff for his readiness to help settle the crisis, in particular the Vatican’s participation in resolving difficult humanitarian issues on a depoliticized basis,” the Kremlin said in a statement following the call, according to Reuters. 

The Kremlin’s statement further said Putin stressed his belief to the Holy Father “that the Kyiv regime is banking on escalating the conflict and is carrying out sabotage against civilian infrastructure sites on Russian territory.”

Pope Leo XIV’s first call with Putin comes just over three weeks after his first call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on May 12. At the time, Bruni confirmed the two leaders had spoken after the pope expressed concern for Ukraine during his May 11 Sunday address.

“I carry in my heart the sufferings of the beloved Ukrainian people,” Pope Leo had said after singing the Regina Coeli prayer with approximately 100,000 people.

“May everything possible be done to reach an authentic, just, and lasting peace, as soon as possible,” the Holy Father continued.

At the time, Zelenskyy shared a photo on X of him purportedly having a telephone call with Pope Leo. After expressing gratitude to the Holy Father “for his support for Ukraine and all our people,” Zelenskyy said he and the pope specifically discussed the plight of thousands of children deported by Russia.

“Ukraine counts on the Vatican’s assistance in bringing them home to their families,” he added. 

Reiterating Ukraine’s commitment to work toward a “full and unconditional ceasefire” and the end of the war with Russia, Ukraine’s president said he also invited the Holy Father “to make an apostolic visit to Ukraine.” 

The final Easter message delivered by Pope Francis the day before his death included a prayer for the embattled country: “May the risen Christ grant Ukraine, devastated by war, his Easter gift of peace and encourage all parties involved to pursue efforts aimed at achieving a just and lasting peace.”