We Are Our Mother of Perpetual Help Parish

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 19, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

For more than 40 years, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., has welcomed visitors to its annual summer organ recital series, providing a unique opportunity to experience the grandeur of sacred music outside the liturgical setting.

“[The series is] a promotion of an extraordinary and almost mystical form of art that has existed for centuries,” Peter Latona, director of music at the basilica, told CNA.

Held on Sunday evenings throughout July and August, the series features performances on the basilica’s renowned chancel and gallery organs — together comprising more than 9,600 pipes. 

Each recital begins at 6 p.m. preceded by a half-hour carillon performance from the basilica’s 56-bell Knights’ Tower Carillon, performed by Jeremy Ng, a rising senior at Yale University and a certified carillonneur member of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America.

According to basilica officials, the organ series is intended to offer a musical experience as profound as the visual beauty of the church’s art and architecture.

“It provides visitors an opportunity to hear the marvelous instruments and enjoy music outside of the context of Mass in the same way they would walk through the basilica to soak in the beautiful mosaics and other works of art,” Benjamin LaPrairie, associate director of music at the basilica, told CNA.

While most concert attendees sit in the pews facing the “Christ in Majesty” mosaic, a few families visit the chapels, briefly praying and soaking up the beauty of the sacred space.

“Our mission as musicians of the basilica to ‘transform hearts and minds through the power and beauty of music in the Roman Catholic liturgy’ applies here as well,” Adam Chlebek, assistant director of music at the basilica, told CNA.

Each summer, musicians are selected from a global pool of applicants with the music department curating a lineup that features both emerging artists and internationally acclaimed performers. This year’s series opened with Chlebek himself, a recent graduate of the Eastman School of Music.

“Performing on this instrument, I feel a connection to the musical heritage that has been cultivated in the basilica since the organ’s installation and dedication in 1965,” Chlebek said. “I am honored to continue this heritage.”

Attendance is open to all, with a freewill offering accepted to support the program. The basilica encourages the public to take advantage of this opportunity to hear “one of the finest organs in Washington, D.C., in one of the most beautiful and inspiring sacred spaces in North America.”

Reflecting on the series — which draws about 100 attendees each week — Chlebek expressed his hopes for its impact: “My hope is that the audience comes away with their hearts and minds transformed.”

Latona noted that the audience demographic has evolved over time, now including more young people and people from diverse backgrounds.

“Our objective is to grow the audience so that more people get to share in this experience,” he  said.

The 2025 Summer Organ Recital Series runs through its final performance on Aug. 31. Details on upcoming performers are available on the basilica’s official website.

Canterbury, England, Jul 19, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

The skull of St. Thomas More may be exhumed and preserved to coincide with the 500th anniversary of his historic martyrdom, according to a spokesperson for St. Dunstan’s Church in Canterbury, England, the Anglican church in which the relic reportedly currently rests.

As the church begins the initial steps in a “permissions process,” Sue Palmer, churchwarden at St. Dunstan Parochial Church Council (PCC), told CNA the council welcomes input from everyone interested in the saint and “would very much welcome communication with the Vatican.”

“It is unusual to have any relics in an Anglican church, especially those of a Catholic saint, and the PCC see this as an opportunity for ecumenical outreach and cooperation,” she said.

After More was beheaded in 1535 on the orders of King Henry VIII, his head was initially placed on a spike and displayed on London Bridge as a warning to those who dared to challenge the authority of the monarch, but it was later retrieved by More’s daughter, Margaret Roper.

Following her death in 1544, Margaret — along with her father’s head — was buried in the Roper’s family vault in St. Dunstan’s Church, Canterbury, and it has remained there ever since.

However, plans are now in place for the quincentenary of More’s death, which will occur in 10 years, and the church wishes to explore the possibility of exhuming and preserving what remains of the martyr’s relic as a tribute to his significance for Catholics and other Christians across the U.K. and the rest of the world.

A statement issued by St. Dunstan’s Church on July 6, the 490th anniversary of More’s execution, explained: “The 500th anniversary of More’s death is going to throw the spotlight on us and our church as a center of worship, pilgrimage, education, and hospitality because the head is the only remaining relic of Thomas More — his body is somewhere in St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London, but it is not possible to determine precisely where, so St. Dunstan’s Church is really important and the focus in 10 years’ time will very definitely be on us.”

The statement continued: “We won’t be able to keep him to ourselves — ecumenically and globally we have a responsibility both to the relic and to Christians and scholars throughout the world, and judging by the comments in our visitors’ book, having the relic deteriorating in a vault is not good enough for many who venerate Thomas More.”

The statement went on to explain that the work to exhume the relic would need to begin as soon as possible, so the PCC has agreed that, subject to all the necessary permissions, the head is to be exhumed and then what remains of the relic will be conserved and exposed for pilgrims to visit and venerate.

Palmer emphasized that there are no plans to “display” the relic. “It makes him sound like a museum exhibit and our church is not a museum, nor is the relic an exhibit,” she said. “Anything considered would be done in consultation with the diocesan advisory committee, osteoarchaeologists, the wider (Catholic and non-Catholic) community, and anyone else interested in Thomas More. At all times it would be respectful and dignified, and be part of the story of our church and what it has to offer everyone.”

Palmer said there was good evidence to suggest that what remains of More’s skull is certainly within the Roper family vault. 

“Several openings of the vault in the last 200 years have noted the presence of the head in the niche, and the vault was last opened in 1997, so we have firsthand evidence of it still being there,” she said. “More’s body is in St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London, but I don’t believe it’s possible to establish which remains are his.”

About 1,500 people are believed to be buried in the crypt of the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula, the former parish church of the Tower of London, the name of which refers to the story of St. Peter’s imprisonment under Herod Agrippa in Jerusalem.

Palmer went on to explain that the next steps in the permission process would be discussions with specialists, writing a faculty application for consideration by the diocesan advisory committee, and ultimately waiting for a decision from the commissary general, which she emphasized was “not guaranteed.” The commissary general is the equivalent of a diocesan judge.

St. Dunstan’s church is open seven days a week, with many pilgrims — both individuals and groups — who specifically visit to venerate St. Thomas More.

“Many have expressed a desire to have the relic preserved and possibly placed in a reliquary above ground rather than in a sealed vault as it is at present,” Palmer said. “Conservation and the possible commissioning of a reliquary, as well as obtaining all the relevant permissions, will take time.”

Suhail Abo Dawood, a young Catholic student from Gaza seriously wounded in the Israeli attack on the Holy Family parish on Thursday, tells Vatican media that his condition is improving. "Love", says the young man, who writes a column for the Holy See's newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, "is stronger than war".

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ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 19, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV once again expressed his closeness to the people of Ukraine by sending packages of food destined to families who have suffered from the Russian army’s recent onslaught of attacks.

Thanks to the mediation of the Dicastery for the Service of Charity — the dicastery in charge of the pontiff’s charitable works also known as the Office of the Papal Almoner — and donations from the faithful, the aid will reach the village of Staryi Saltiv and the city of Shevchenkove, both affected by Russian bombing.

With this much-needed aid, which follows the aid sent in June, the Holy Father renews his gesture of solidarity with the victims of the bloody war that began in February 2022.

Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the papal almoner, told Vatican News that “charity does not go on vacation” and that Pope Leo XIV asked them to “act as quickly as possible.”

The trucks with the food packages left for Ukraine from the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Basilica of Santa Sofia (Holy Wisdom) in Rome, which has become a center of solidarity for all Romans and a point of reference for the Ukrainian community in the Italian capital. In addition to the food, essential items were also donated.

On June 13, the Holy See also sent a truck with humanitarian aid to Ukraine. Food and essential items as well as mattresses, furniture, and children’s supplies also left from the Roman basilica.

On that occasion, Krajewski stated that the Vatican’s mission of solidarity has continued uninterrupted by the invasion of Ukrainian territory by the Russian army.

On the boxes containing the aid delivered directly to families in need, the words “Gift of Pope Leo XIV to the people of Kharkiv” can be read in Ukrainian and Italian.

On July 9, Pope Leo XIV took time out from his summer vacation in Castel Gandolfo to receive the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. During their meeting, the two leaders discussed the ongoing conflict and “the urgency of pursuing just and lasting paths of peace.”

The pope also expressed his profound sorrow for the victims of the war and renewed his spiritual closeness to the Ukrainian people, encouraging all efforts aimed at the release of prisoners and the search for shared solutions.

Leo XIV also reaffirmed the Holy See’s willingness to welcome representatives of Russia and Ukraine to the Vatican for possible peace negotiations.

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

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