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.

Preparations are underway in Norway to open a canonization cause for the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Sigrid Undset, Bishop Fredrik Hansen of Oslo announced July 8.

In Canada’s province of Québec, Bill 21, officially known as “An Act Respecting the Laicity of the State,” prohibits public servants in positions of authority — such as teachers, police officers, and government lawyers and judges — from wearing religious symbols at work. The law also extends the ban to staff at subsidized day cares, private schools and professional development centers.

Father Mike Schmitz entered the green room of the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale with his characteristic warm smile — and an extra bounce in his step.

Promising to “guard the deposit of faith pure and entire” and to “encourage the holy people of God and to guide them in the way of salvation,” Bishop Gary R. Studniewski and Bishop Robert P. Boxie III were ordained July 7 as auxiliary bishops of the Archdiocese of Washington.

The U.S. Supreme Court ended its 2025-2026 term with major rulings striking down President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship, and upholding West Virginia and Idaho state laws requiring student athletes to compete on sports teams that correspond to their biological sex rather than their self-identified gender.

Pope Leo XIV marked the United States’ 250th anniversary with a relaxed July 4 dinner at the Rome residence of U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Brian Burch, offering a rare glimpse of the first U.S.-born pope in an informal setting.

Cardinal Robert W. McElroy of Washington said his decision to remove a high-profile priest as an archdiocesan exorcist was driven by the public way he exercised his ministry, not by his specific beliefs about UFOs.