Three elderly women religious in Austria fled their nursing home and have returned to their longtime monastery, defying church superiors in a case that highlights the impact of Vatican regulations regarding aging members of dwindling religious congregations.

Just a few hours after Israel launched a major new ground offensive in Gaza City, Pope Leo XIV called the pastor of the city’s only Latin-rite parish to express his concern, his prayers and his closeness, the Vatican press office said.

The same week President Donald Trump spoke at a hearing of the Department of Justice’s Religious Liberty Commission in Washington, a key Catholic bishop said some of his immigration policies risk presenting the church with religious liberty challenges.

Vigilance, honesty, emotional intelligence and faith all play critical roles in healing from the long-term trauma of violent attacks, two Catholic psychologists told OSV News.

Pain must never give rise to violence, and every Catholic needs to learn to safeguard with tenderness those who are vulnerable, Pope Leo XIV said during a prayer vigil dedicated to people experiencing pain and affliction due to illness, bereavement, violence or abuse.

After 800 years of silence, the pipes from the oldest organ in Christendom played again, filling the reception hall of Jerusalem’s Franciscan Monastery of St. Saviour with the unique sound of the 11th-century liturgical chant, Benedicamus Domino Flos Filius.

From Sept. 9-13, believers from the Chaldean, Assyrian, Syriac Catholic and Syriac Orthodox churches joined together in Erbil for the Festival of the Cross.

Because “true knowledge of God is realized in a life transformed by love,” the Catholic Church needs theologians whose pursuit of understanding is framed by care for the real concerns of modern men and women, Pope Leo XIV said.

A series of excerpts was published Sept. 14, the pope’s 70th birthday, by the Catholic online news outlet, Crux, ahead of the Sept. 18 publication of the book, “Leo XIV: Citizen of the World, Missionary of the XXI Century,” in Spanish by Penguin Peru. English and Portuguese editions of the book will be released in early 2026.

The prayer service Sept. 14, the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, commemorated 1,624 Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans and Protestants who died for their faith between 2000 and 2025