Donning a hardhat and work gloves July 8, Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis and students from St. Catherine University in St. Paul helped raise a wall of the first duplex being built in the Twin Cities as part of a national Habitat for Humanity initiative called the Pope Leo Village.

When the 8:21 a.m. train left Rome’s Termini Station to Castel Gandolfo July 12, people packed like sardines into the regional cars. While two or three passengers got off at stations along the way, most disembarked at Castel Gandolfo and headed up the hill to see Pope Leo XIV during the Sunday Angelus prayer — the first this summer to be said from his lakeview residence.

Under the Italian sun of Lake Albano and the shade of Castel Gandolfo’s Borgo Laudato si’ trees, Pope Leo XIV enjoyed lunch with people experiencing social vulnerability.

Imagine being a humble noncelebrity living a quiet life as a devoted family man and suddenly realizing that Pope Leo XIV actually knows your name and possesses something you created just for him.

The University of Notre Dame is investigating anonymous allegations of abuse posted online regarding a campus rector of a women’s residence hall.

The waters of the Straits of Mackinac between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan present themselves in beautifully variegated blues. Dark indigo, rich cobalt and bright turquoise greet the passenger ferries as they sail toward the pebbled shoreline of Mackinac Island. As the boats near the docks, the well-kept, sloping green lawn of Marquette Park comes into view.

Francisco Bocel remembers the night three assassins forced him to bring them to Father Stanley Rother. Bocel shared how he still carries that traumatic moment with him — one of many being featured — in an upcoming documentary on the life of the slain priest.

A new mosaic of Our Lady of Gietrzwald was inaugurated in the Vatican Gardens in a June 30 ceremony attended by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, and Archbishop Tadeusz Wojda, president of the Polish bishops’ conference, who said the installation could deepen ties between Poland and the Holy See.

Ahead of an upcoming hearing on his nomination to lead the Department of Justice, a national pro-life group urged Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche to side with states challenging a federal policy permitting mifepristone, sometimes called the abortion pill, to be dispensed through the mail.

In a decision described as a brave and generous witness of fidelity to his little flock, Bishop Yunan Tombe Trille Kuku Andali is staying on in the Sudanese city of El-Obeid, even as organizations warned that the North Kordofan’s state capital was increasingly being encircled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, and its allies.