A federal judge in Georgia Aug. 20 temporarily blocked part of a state law banning certain types of medical or surgical gender reassignment procedures for minors who identify as transgender while a challenge to that law plays out in court.

The French army general appointed by President Emmanuel Macron to oversee the reconstruction of Notre Dame Cathedral will not see the reopening of the pearl of France Dec. 8, 2024. Army Gen. Jean-Louis Georgelin died Aug. 18 while hiking in the Pyrénées mountains.

Thanking a group of European lawyers for their attention to environmental protection laws, Pope Francis said he was preparing another document on the subject.

Christians must stand firm in their faith but that is not the same as being rigid and unwilling to bend out of compassion for another, Pope Francis said.

A community of cloistered Carmelite nuns in Arlington, Texas, said they no longer recognize the authority of Bishop Michael F. Olson of Fort Worth, claiming that he has interfered with and humiliated them since initiating an investigation into their prioress in late April.

A federal appeals court threw out a Maryland lawsuit Aug. 14 from parents challenging guidelines barring teachers from notifying parents if a student identifies as transgender. In New Jersey, a case is under consideration by a judge after the state government objected to three Monmouth County school districts implementing new policies requiring school staff to notify parents in such cases.

An Alabama priest disgraced after abandoning his parish to travel to Italy with an 18-year-old woman described himself as “married” to her in a Valentine’s Day letter.

The recently released cinema biopic “Oppenheimer” dramatizes the progressive development, assembly, testing and detonation of the world’s first atomic bomb which then led to the dropping of two such bombs over Japan in the twilight days of World War II.

This spring Trapezium Brewing Co. in Petersburg, Va., launched the second release of his signature “Father Brian’s Bourbon Barrel Brown Ale,” where hundreds of family, friends and past parishioners toasted the beloved priest.

“For us, it’s like a miracle,” Msgr. Terrence Watanabe, the Honolulu Diocese’s vicar of Maui and Lanai, said about Maria Lanakila Catholic Church in the town of Lahaina being seemingly untouched by the fierce Maui wildfires Aug. 8-9.