God put the desire to be a priest in Father Emil J. Kapaun’s heart at an early age, Bishop Carl A. Kemme of Wichita, Kansas, said during a homily Sept. 26 in Pilsen, the hometown of the war-hero priest and sainthood candidate.

Pope Francis said the Second Vatican Council so shaped his theological and pastoral vision that perhaps he has not been as explicit as he should have been in highlighting those ties, especially when it comes to his contributions to Catholic social teaching.

Cardinal Raymond L. Burke said he is continuing steady progress in his recovery from COVID-19, but explained that it is slow going in a letter to supporters and friends.

Canada’s Catholic bishops have “unequivocally” apologized for the Catholic Church’s role in the residential school system and have raised the possibility of a visit by the pope to Canada as part of the “healing journey” between Canada’s Indigenous peoples and the church.

Hawaii bid aloha to Father Emil J. Kapaun, a U.S. Army Korean War chaplain and candidate for sainthood Sept. 23.

While denouncing as an “abuse of power” coercive measures to promote vaccination against COVID-19, a leader of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X said getting vaccinated “may sometimes be an eminently prudent act in the moral sense of the term.”

The bishops of the Armenian Catholic Church elected Archbishop Raphaël François Minassian, the ordinary for Armenian Catholics in Eastern Europe, to be their church’s new patriarch.

In anticipation of possible vandalism by anarchist and/or Antifa groups over Columbus Day weekend, members of Holy Redeemer Parish in North Portland plan to pray in eucharistic adoration and keep watch on church grounds the nights of Oct. 8-11.

Bishops and others in the Catholic Church often lament the declining number of Christians, but rarely do they examine their own behavior and failure to show others how much God loves them, Pope Francis told the presidents of European bishops’ conferences.

The Women’s Health Protection Act of 2021, introduced in the U.S. Senate and House June 8 and currently moving through various committees in both chambers, “is nothing short of child sacrifice,” said Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco.