A federal judge struck down as unconstitutional an Arkansas ban on some surgeries or hormonal interventions for minors seeking gender reassignment June 20, the first ruling to overturn such a law as a growing number of states with Republican-led governments pass similar restrictions.

Recognizing they lived the Christian virtues in a heroic way, Pope Francis has declared venerable Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, founder of the first Catholic order of African American nuns, and Sister Lúcia dos Santos, who, with her cousins, reported seeing Mary when she was a child in Fátima, Portugal.

On World Refugee Day, organized every year on June 20 by the United Nations, a senior official of the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) urged increased support for migrants, as he warned that Sudan’s massive human movement due to war risked becoming yet another forgotten crisis.

In a church that “bears the signs of serious crises of mistrust and lack of credibility,” members of the assembly of the Synod of Bishops will be asked to find ways to build community, encourage the contribution of every baptized person and strengthen the church’s primary mission of sharing the Gospel, said the working document for the October gathering.

A sixth former Anglican bishop has announced his decision to become a Catholic in just the last four years.

The president of Bolivia welcomed a pledge from Pope Francis “to take concrete, joint actions against the impunity of sexual crimes” in the South American country, where credible accusations of clerical sexual abuse have provoked outrage and caused a reckoning for the Catholic Church.

Pope Francis had a 40-minute private meeting at the Vatican with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel.

With a well-attended Mass that sent people forth with a rousing rendition of Richard Smallwood’s “I Love the Lord” — served up by the choir of New York’s St. Paul the Apostle Church and soloist Paulist Father Steven Bell — the third annual Outreach gathering of LGBTQ+ Catholics came to a close after a weekend of thoughtful discussion panels held at the Lincoln Center campus of Fordham University.

The Ukrainian Catholic bishops of the U.S. are calling attention to the profound psychological consequences of Russia’s war on Ukraine, urging the faithful to “be the conduits that direct God’s healing touch to our suffering brothers and sisters.”

Catholics in some of the affected states are complementing the government’s effort to prevent disaster with principles of Pope Francis’ landmark 2015 environmental encyclical “Laudato Si'” firmly in mind.