We Are Our Mother of Perpetual Help Parish

Fort Worth, Texas, skyline. / Credit: The Safety Kingpin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Houston, Texas, Jul 18, 2025 / 14:30 pm (CNA).

Catholic Charities Fort Worth (CCFW) announced July 17 that it will continue leading the Texas Office for Refugees until September 2026, reversing an earlier decision to step down later this year due to challenges imposed by the Trump administration’s funding cuts to refugee programs. 

The move follows urgent pleas from approximately 60 refugee service providers across Texas, who warned that CCFW’s withdrawal would jeopardize $200 million in critical federal funding for over 118,000 refugees.

In early June, CCFW announced plans to relinquish its role in October as the state’s replacement designee for the Texas Office for Refugees, a role the nonprofit took on in 2021 after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott withdrew the state from the federal refugee resettlement program in 2016.

This prompted a swift response from providers, who sent letters to the group warning that its abrupt exit would disrupt critical refugee services. 

“To do this in this climate is not moral in a lot of ways,” said Kimberly Haynes, Texas director of Church World Service, who urged CCFW to stay for another year to ensure a stable transition.

Haynes told the Houston Chronicle in June that CCFW’s departure could force her organization to lay off employees and close programs, including the Refugee Cash Assistance, Medical Assistance, Immigration Legal Services, and Social Adjustment programs, affecting 80% of its services in Dallas and Houston.

CCFW President and CEO Michael Iglio said in a statement shared with CNA the reversal came after “deeper reflection” and “thoughtful feedback” from providers. 

“We recognized that an early withdrawal could risk serious disruptions in services,” Iglio stated, adding that stepping down prematurely was a decision the agency “could not in good conscience allow.” 

By continuing through September 2026, when its contract ends, CCFW aims to safeguard services and facilitate a responsible transition.

CCFW sued the Trump administration and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in March, alleging an unlawful freeze of $36 million in funding. Although payments resumed after a program integrity review, the incident highlighted the precarious funding environment for refugee programs.

The decision comes amid broader challenges for refugee services under the second Trump administration, which froze the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program in January, disrupting $100 million in aid for Houston-area refugees alone.

As a result, the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston in February laid off 120 employees who mostly worked in refugee assistance.

Catholic social teaching on immigration, which is built on Jesus’ call to welcome the stranger (cf. Matthew 25:35), underpins CCFW’s commitment to refugees. The agency’s decision to stay aligns with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ advocacy for humane immigration policies.

Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel, and Pope Leo XIV. / Credit: Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0/Vatican Media

ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 18, 2025 / 14:00 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV received a phone call Friday from Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, following yesterday’s Israeli army attack on Holy Family Church in Gaza.

According to a statement from the Holy See Press Office, the pope received the call at Castel Gandolfo, where he is on vacation.

On July 17, the Israeli army struck with a projectile Holy Family Parish, the only Catholic church in the Gaza Strip, which had been used as a shelter for more than 600 people since the beginning of the war in October 2023.

The attack killed three people and left a number of injured, some of them seriously.

During the conversation, the Holy Father renewed his call for the urgent reactivation of the negotiation process in order to establish a ceasefire and end the war.

He again expressed his deep concern for the humanitarian situation of the population in Gaza, “whose heartbreaking price is being paid, in particular, by children, the elderly, and the sick.”

Finally, Pope Leo XIV reiterated the urgency of protecting places of worship and, above all, the faithful and all people living in both Palestine and Israel.

Also on Friday, the Holy Father called Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, to whom he expressed his strong condemnation of the attack and asserted that “it is time to stop this slaughter.”

Israel Defense Forces stated that “fragments of a projectile fired during a military operation in the area mistakenly hit the church” and that the cause of the incident is currently under investigation.

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

The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, and Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III, leave the church after a visit to Holy Family Parish in Gaza on July 18, 2025. / Credit: Caritas Jerusalem

Rome Newsroom, Jul 18, 2025 / 13:30 pm (CNA).

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa and Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III visited Gaza on Friday, offering spiritual support and humanitarian aid to the Holy Family Church community.

Both religious leaders led an ecclesiastical delegation into Gaza to “offer condolences and solidarity” with both Christian and non-Christian families living at the Holy Family Church compound, one day after shrapnel from an Israeli military attack fatally wounded three people and injured several others on the premises.

Approximately 600 people are living in the compound of Gaza’s only Catholic church. Most are Orthodox Christians, Protestants, and Catholics, but there are also more than 50 Muslim children with disabilities living there with their families.

The church has sheltered hundreds of refugees since the Israel-Hamas war broke out in October 2023. The compound includes the church, a school, a convent, a multipurpose center, and a building for the Missionaries of Charity.

In a statement Friday, the Latin Patriarchate said it “remains steadfast” in its commitment to the Holy Family Church community and the entire population of Gaza.

In coordination with humanitarian partners, the delegation was able to deliver “hundreds of tons of food supplies as well as first-aid kits and urgently needed medical equipment” to refugees and ensure the evacuation and transportation of injured individuals to medical facilities outside Gaza.

According to the Latin Patriarchate, Pizzaballa will continue to “personally assess the humanitarian and pastoral needs of the community to help guide the Church’s continued presence and response.”

Upon their entrance into Gaza, Pope Leo XIV called Pizzaballa to “offer his support, closeness, and prayers” for the ecclesiastical delegation and the people left shaken by the Israeli attack. 

Meanwhile, the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem, the ecumenical body that brings together the principal Christian churches in the Holy Land, on Friday condemned the latest “atrocious attack perpetrated by the Israeli army.”

“We, the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem, call upon world leaders and United Nations agencies to work towards an immediate ceasefire in Gaza that leads to an end of this war,” the statement read.

“We also implore them to guarantee the protection of all religious and humanitarian sites, and to provide for the relief of the starving masses throughout the Gaza Strip.”

Pizzaballa and Theophilos III’s visit to Gaza comes days after the two leaders visited the Palestinian village of Taybeh, where they spoke out against “systemic and targeted” attacks against Christians by illegal Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

A view of the damage to Holy Family Church in Gaza City following an Israeli strike on the church in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City on July 17, 2025. The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said an Israeli strike on Gaza’s only Catholic church killed three and injured several people on July 17, including the parish priest, as well as causing damage to the building. / Credit: OMAR AL-QATTAA/AFP via Getty Images

Rome Newsroom, Jul 18, 2025 / 13:00 pm (CNA).

Israel said Holy Family Church in Gaza was “mistakenly” hit during a Thursday military operation and “regrets” damage done to the city’s only Catholic parish.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) shared a post on X on the evening of July 17 saying “fragments from a shell” hit the parish church, which has become a shelter for more than 500 people since the Israel-Hamas war broke out in October 2023.

“The cause of the incident is under review,” the X statement read. “The IDF directs its strikes solely at military targets and makes every feasible effort to mitigate harm to civilians and religious structures, and regrets any unintentional damage caused to them.”

Saad Issa Kostandi Salameh, 60; Foumia Issa Latif Ayyad, 84; and Najwa Abu Daoud, 70, were fatally wounded by shrapnel that scattered across the compound after the explosion. 

Holy Family Church pastor Father Gabriel Romanelli, a native of Argentina and friend of the late Pope Francis, was also among those injured by the Israeli attack.

The Latin Patriarchate in a July 17 statement strongly condemned “this targeting of innocent civilians and of a sacred place,” adding that it “will continue to stand by the side of the community of Gaza” and other Christian communities in the Holy Land.

“The time has come for leaders to raise their voices and to do all [that] is necessary in order to stop this tragedy, which is humanly and morally unjustified,” the statement read. 

The attack occurred days after Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa and Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III spoke out on July 14 against “systemic and targeted” attacks against Christians by illegal Israeli settlers in the West Bank. 

“The Church has had a faithful presence in this region for nearly 2,000 years,” the Monday statement read. “We firmly reject this message of exclusion and reaffirm our commitment to a Holy Land that is a mosaic of different faiths, living peacefully together in dignity and safety.”

null / Credit: Brian A Jackson/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Jul 18, 2025 / 12:30 pm (CNA).

A federal court on July 18 blocked a controversial Washington state reporting law that would require priests to violate the seal of confession, siding with the state’s Catholic bishops who brought suit against the measure earlier this year.

The law, passed by the state Legislature earlier this year and signed by Gov. Robert Ferguson, added clergy to the list of mandatory abuse reporters in the state. But it didn’t include an exemption for information learned in the confessional, explicitly leaving priests out of a “privileged communication” exception afforded to other professionals.

In the ruling, District Judge David Estudillo said there was “no question” that the law burdened the free exercise of religion.

“In situations where [priests] hear confessions related to child abuse or neglect, [the rule] places them in the position of either complying with the requirements of their faith or violating the law,” the judge wrote.

Estudillo noted that the measure as passed “modifies existing law solely to make members of the clergy mandatory reporters with respect to child abuse or neglect.” 

As written, the law is “neither neutral nor generally applicable” insofar as it “treats religious activity less favorably than comparable secular activity,” he said.

The state could have made clergy mandatory reporters while allowing a narrow exception for confession, Estudillo said, as more than two dozen other states already have. 

The order bars the Washington state government from enforcing the law.

The ruling comes after the bishops sued Ferguson, state Attorney General Nicholas Brown, and more than three dozen prosecutors over the controversial reporting law. 

On July 15 those prosecutors filed a motion in the court promising not to appeal the injunction against the law or any final judgment of the court in exchange for largely being excused from the ongoing legal proceedings. Ferguson and Brown are still subject to the suit.

The lawsuit argued that the law violated the free exercise of religion protected by the First Amendment by infringing on the sacred seal of confession as well as both the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and the state constitution.

The Washington bishops’ effort drew support from a broad variety of advocates, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the U.S. Department of Justice, a coalition of Orthodox churches, and Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota.

Barron earlier this month argued to the court that a penitent who is “aware the priest might (let alone must) share with others what was given in the most sacred confidence” of confession
“would be reluctant indeed to ever approach” the sacrament. 

The Department of Justice, meanwhile, said the law “appears to single out clergy as not entitled to assert applicable privileges, as compared to other reporting professionals,” including lawyers, doctors, and social service workers. 

The law even drew international rebuke when the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy — which represents over 500 Roman Catholic priests and deacons from the U.S., Australia, and the United Kingdom — last month issued a statement criticizing the passage of laws “which attempt to compel ordained priests to disclose the identity and content of what a penitent has confessed.”

The group criticized governments for specifically targeting priests while at the same time “respect[ing] and uphold[ing] the institutions of attorney/client and doctor/patient privilege.”

Though the Washington bishops had mounted an aggressive challenge to the state law, Church leaders there assured the faithful that the seal of confession would remain inviolate regardless of any legal stipulations one way or the other. 

“[S]hepherds, bishops, and priests” are “committed to keeping the seal of confession — even to the point of going to jail,” Spokane Bishop Thomas Daly said in May. 

Church canon law dictates that a priest who directly violates the seal of confession is automatically excommunicated. Barron earlier this month told the court that “few religious practices are more misunderstood than the sacred seal of confession in the Catholic Church.”

Catholics believe that penitents who seek the sacrament of confession are “speaking to and hearing from the Lord himself” via the priest, the prelate wrote. 

As a result, “absolutely nothing ought to stand in the way of a sinner who seeks this font of grace,” Barron said.

Pope Leo XIV called Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa on Friday, July 18, 2025, just before the cardinal entered Gaza following the July 17 attack on Holy Family Parish in Gaza. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/EWTN News

ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 18, 2025 / 12:09 pm (CNA).

“It is time to stop this slaughter.” With these words, Pope Leo XIV on Friday expressed his firm condemnation of the Israeli army’s July 17 attack on the Catholic Church of the Holy Family in a call to the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa.

As reported by Vatican News, the pontiff placed the call to Pizzaballa as the cardinal was traveling to the Gaza Strip with Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III.

The two religious leaders entered the area — whose borders remain blocked — with hundreds of tons of humanitarian aid to assist Gazan families regardless of their religion. They also offered their comfort to the families of the victims of the attack, which directly hit the roof of the church and left three dead and 10 wounded, including the parish priest, Father Gabriel Romanelli.

As the two made their way to Gaza to visit the stricken parish, families of the victims, and the entire community, Pizzaballa said they received the call from Pope Leo, who, as the cardinal described it, “called us to express his closeness, care, prayer, support, and desire to do everything possible to achieve not only a ceasefire but also an end to this tragedy.”

According to the prelate, during the conversation, the pope repeatedly expressed his outrage at the violence of the Israeli armed forces. “He repeatedly stated that it is time to stop this slaughter, that what has happened is unjustifiable, and that we must ensure there are no more victims,” he explained. 

Pope Leo XIV has repeatedly expressed his concern about the situation in Gaza since the beginning of the military offensive. His call on Friday added to a series of gestures of solidarity toward local Christians and the entire Palestinian people.

On Thursday, as soon as he learned of the attack, he sent a telegram signed — as is customary — by the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, to lament the loss of life and injuries “caused by the military attack” and to demand a ceasefire.

For its part, the Israeli government expressed its regret over the attack on the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza, attributing it to “a stray projectile” during the fighting in the Strip.

In a message on the social media platform X, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated his government was investigating what had happened and expressed his commitment to protecting civilians and holy sites.

The Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem described the attack as a “crime” against a holy site. At the time of the bombing, the Catholic parish complex was housing some 600 displaced people, including many children and people with disabilities.

Among the dead were the groundskeeper and two elderly women who were being cared for by Caritas at the time of the attack. The parish priest, Romanelli, suffered minor injuries to his leg.

This is not the first time Holy Family Parish has been attacked. In December 2023, two women inside the compound were killed by an Israeli sniper. Seven people were also injured during that shooting. At the time, the Jerusalem Patriarchate condemned the “cold-blooded” attack on the parish perimeter, where there were “no combatants.”

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