I’m Luke Coppen and I aim to guide you each weekday morning to the most interesting Catholic news and commentary.

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The bishops outlined the possible scenarios for changes to Scotland’s diocesan structures Sept. 20, following a consultation process announced in March.

The bishops launched the consultation following a request from the Vatican to explore whether the current situation of eight dioceses is still suited to the Church’s needs.

In their introduction to the seven options, the bishops wrote: “This is not simply a question of boundaries, administrative adjustments or the sharing of resources more effectively.”

“Primarily it is about how we can better proclaim the Gospel, support our clergy, religious and lay people, and strengthen our parishes and communities for evangelization.”

Here are the seven possibilities suggested by the bishops and what they would mean for Scotland’s Catholics.

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1. Maintain the current structures

This is actually the seventh and final option presented by the bishops. But it’s worth considering it first, since it offers a useful baseline for understanding the other options.

As can be seen from the map above and the graphic below, Scotland’s eight dioceses vary considerably in terms of geographical size and Catholic population.

It’s worth specifying that we are speaking here solely about the Latin Catholic dioceses. Scotland is also served by Eastern Catholic jurisdictions (the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of the Holy Family of London and the Syro-Malabar Catholic Eparchy of Great Britain) as well as personal jurisdictions (the Bishopric of the Forces and the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.)

Of Scotland’s eight dioceses, the Diocese of Argyll and the Isles covers the largest geographical area (12,004 square miles) but also has the smallest Catholic population (9,990 in 2023, according to the website catholic-hierarchy.org).

Conversely, the Archdiocese of Glasgow (318 square miles) covers the smallest geographical area and has the largest Catholic population (223,270 in 2023).

The present configuration of dioceses dates to 1947. That was when two more dioceses (Motherwell and Paisley) were added to the original six associated with the restoration of the Scottish Catholic hierarchy in 1878 (Aberdeen, Argyll and the Isles, Dunkeld, Galloway, Glasgow, and St. Andrews and Edinburgh).

The eight dioceses are currently organized into two ecclesiastical provinces: Glasgow (including Motherwell and Paisley) and St. Andrews and Edinburgh (including Aberdeen, Argyll and the Isles, Dunkeld, and Galloway).

2. Argyll and the Isles and Paisley merge

The first proposed change is a merger of Argyll and the Isles, Scotland’s largest diocese by geographical area, with Paisley, which was created in 1947 from the Archdiocese of Glasgow.

Paisley served 88,970 Catholics in 2023, making it Scotland’s fourth most populous diocese. A merger with Argyll and the Isles would increase the Catholic population to 98,960, still comfortably leaving the diocese in fourth place.

‎3. Argyll and the Isles and Glasgow merge

In this scenario, Scotland’s largest diocese by geographical area is merged with the diocese with the largest Catholic population. This would, of course, create Scotland’s geographically largest and most populous diocese.

The head of a hypothetical Archdiocese of Glasgow and Argyll and the Isles would be responsible not only for large urban parishes, but also for far-flung communities, such as the parish on the Isle of Barra in the Outer Hebrides, about an hour’s flight from Glasgow.

‎4. Paisley and Galloway merge

Combining these two dioceses would essentially expand the southern Diocese of Galloway northwards.

The merged diocese would have a total Catholic population of 131,786, using the 2023 figures. This would make it Scotland’s third-largest diocese by Catholic population, ahead of the Archdiocese of St. Andrews and Edinburgh.

5. Galloway and Motherwell merge

A merger of Galloway and Motherwell — which was created from the Glasgow archdiocese in 1947 — would create an even larger southernmost diocese, both in terms of geographical area and population.

A hypothetical Diocese of Galloway and Motherwell would serve 197,008 people, according to 2023 figures, taking it closer to parity with the Archdiocese of Glasgow.

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‎6. St. Andrews and Edinburgh and Dunkeld merge

This merger would create a large diocese spanning much of central and eastern Scotland.

The combined diocese would leapfrog Motherwell to become the second-most populous in Scotland.

‎ ‎7. Motherwell, Paisley, and Galloway merge

A triple merger would arguably be the boldest of the seven options. The hypothetical diocese of Motherwell, Paisley, and Galloway would cover a swathe of southern Scotland and comprise almost 286,000 Catholics, putting it well ahead of the Archdiocese of Glasgow.

It would, in a sense, reverse the creation of Motherwell and Paisley in 1947, when Scotland’s diocesan structure expanded from six dioceses to eight.

But instead of restoring the Motherwell and Paisley dioceses to the Glasgow archdiocese, the change would incorporate the newer dioceses into the Galloway diocese, creating a new configuration for the Catholic Church in Scotland.

The seven options seem to form a spectrum, with preserving the status quo at one end and introducing a triple merger at the other.

In a perhaps surprisingly transparent move, the Scottish bishops also named eight proposals that they considered but decided not to pursue.

The first, and arguably the most complex, was to split and absorb the Aberdeen diocese. The idea was to divide Aberdeen at the Great Glen, which runs diagonally across the Highlands, incorporating the northern part into Argyll and the Isles and the southern part into Dunkeld.

The other seven rejected ideas were more straightforward: merging Dunkeld and Aberdeen; merging Argyll and the Isles and Aberdeen; merging Argyll and the Isles and Dunkeld; merging Glasgow, Motherwell, and Paisley; merging Glasgow and Paisley; merging St. Andrews and Edinburgh and Galloway; and merging Glasgow, Paisley, and Argyll and the Isles.

Referring to the seven options that they are committed to considering, the Scottish bishops stressed that they are “possibilities for further discernment, not decisions or an agreed map for the future.”

“As your bishops, we recognize that dioceses are communities of faith with their own histories, relationships and traditions. Any change must therefore be approached with prayer, sensitivity and care for the people and communities involved,” they wrote.

“Synodal discernment also asks each of us to look beyond our own self-interests and to consider what will best serve the Catholic Church in Scotland as a whole.”

The bishops added: “Everyone in every parish is encouraged to make their voice heard when opportunities for consultation are announced locally by their diocesan bishop.”

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Hey everybody,

Today’s the feast of St. Thomas of Villanova, the Augustinian friar who was in the 1500s the Archbishop of Valencia, and who was a fiery preacher, an ecclesial reformer, and so committed to the margins of his diocese that he became known as the “father of the poor.”

If you’ve heard of him at all, you probably associate the saint most with his namesake university in Philadelphia, which means that until last year, you probably associated him with basketball, the most famous thing to come out of Villanova University before the election of Pope Leo XIV last year.

Would Thomas of Villanova have liked basketball? I don’t know. He didn’t like bullfighting, but bullfighting is different from basketball, because basketball players don’t get stabbed the entire game, and then roasted for public consumption immediately after a loss.

(Though in fairness, if the WNBA could figure out a way to put Caitlin Clark through that treatment on a nightly basis, I’m guessing they’d try it.)

But while Villanova himself was a cool guy, I thought I’d use his feast to tell you a little something about his university.

In 1796, an Augustinian friar named Fr. Matthew Carr arrived in the United States at the request of Bishop John Carroll, who had begged Irish religious missionaries to come to the new nation.

Almost by default, Carr became the provincial of newly established Augustinian province, and he started building a church with a spate of donations from America’s founding fathers, including 50 bucks from George Washington himself. The church was St. Augustine, and it opened in June 1801. From the parish sprung a school, St. Augustine’s Academy, the first educational foothold for the Augustinians in the U.S.

Forty years later, friars from the parish bought a big tract of land outside Philly to expand that school, and in 1842, they opened the Augustinian College of Villanova, which was both a religious novitiate and a college for the thousands of Irish immigrants who had begun pouring into Philadelphia.

Well, those immigrants weren’t too popular among the “heritage Americans” of the day. Philadelphia had become a hotbed of anti-immigrant sentiment; with a rising political movement of Protestants — many of whom claimed to trace their ancestry to the American Revolution — who opposed the presence of filthy Irish Catholics in their city, and especially the prospect that those Irish Catholics might become American voters, and an influential political force.

In Philadelphia, the tension was centered around a Bible — Catholic clergy opposed the use of the King James Bible for the education of Catholic children in public schools, and they wanted the Vulgate added to the curriculum — and the nativist Protestants opposed that prospect. “If you come to our country,” they reasoned, “you should use our Bible. Or, at least, the Bible from the country we used to belong to.”

1844 was an election year, and that led to a lot of anti-Catholic campaigning in the City of Brotherly Love, especially from folks running a nativist mayoral candidate. And in a move that can only be seen as trolling, the nativist political candidates and their supporters made it a point that spring to give speeches in Irish Catholic neighborhoods.

Well, that led to fights, and then gunfire. The fights led to marches. And the marches led to arson, with nativist gangs burning Catholic houses, and then Catholic fire stations, and then Catholic churches.

St. Augustine’s Church, which George Washington had helped pay for, was burned to the ground by gangs claiming to carry the mantle for Washington, and promoting a version of America he would not recognize.

The church fire put the Augustinians on their heels, and they had to close their fledgling college. They couldn’t reopen it for a year. They couldn’t graduate their first class until 1847. But they endured. And then they graduated another, and another.

Has the Catholic identity of Villanova wavered over the years? Yes. Has it been sometimes lost in the ra-ra of basketball, “elite” academics, and a false notion of academic freedom. Yes.

Villanova graduated a pope, but is it the model Catholic university? There are some very good things going on there, but ample problems, too.

But it’s worth remembering those early days, when the very existence of Villanova was a testament to the Catholics who endured extraordinary prejudice to be a part of this country. And to the Augustinian friars ready to form them, under the mantle of their patron, the “father of the poor.”

May St. Thomas of Villanova intercede for the complexities of the Church in this country. We surely need it.

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The news

First, if you’re tracking this at home, The Pillar learned yesterday that the Vos estis lux mundi investigation into Baton Rouge Bishop Michael Duca has been completed, and sent to the Dicastery for Bishops for a determination about what comes next.

We’ll continue to keep you updated on this important story.

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An alleged victim of Fr. Marko Rupnik says that she has not been consulted about a decision in Fátima not to remove mosaics created by the disgraced artist, and that Rupnik’s style gives his work “a feeling… of invasiveness.”

Farbrizia Raguso spent two decades in the Rupnik-associated Loyola Community, where she says that Rupnik spiritually and psychologically abused her.

She told The Pillar that: “The experience of standing before [Rupnik] mosaics brings a feeling of inner invasion. Because of the insistent use of gold and harsh colors; the size of the figures; the unsettling feeling caused by their black, bottomless eyes; and also, in some cases, by their bodily postures. … We do not feel welcomed as we should, as we do before the authentic art of Byzantine icons, which allow us to enter into a spirit of deep prayer.”

Read more from Raguso, right here.

The St. Paul Center App | Bible Study On-The-Go
Read and understand the Bible with St. Paul Center’s new app! With today’s leading Catholic Scripture scholars as your guides, the St. Paul Center app empowers you to read the Bible from the heart of the Church. Download the app for free at either the Apple or the Google app stores. https://stpaulcenter.com/app

Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignace Youssif III Younan is pushing back against a move to see him deposed as leader of his Eastern Catholic Church, and especially against claims that he has been negligent in calling for a synodal gathering of Syriac Catholic bishops.

The patriarch says he might take legal action against “fabrications, lies, and vulgar verbal attacks” against him.

Younan seems resolved not to become the first Eastern Catholic patriarch removed under a Pope Leo policy that would let the Church’s bishops depose him.

At The Pillar, we’ll continue to bring you in-depth coverage of this fascinating story. Here’s the latest.

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The new Archbishop of Prague will lead a penitential pilgrimage in October in reparation for sins committed within the Church.

This is exactly the kind of thing which victims and their advocates called for in the wake of the 2018 ecclesial scandals — a serious-minded and spiritually sober effort to address sins against human dignity committed in the context of the Church.

Read about it.

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A Mexican diocese and the country’s bishops’ conference have called on authorities to carry out a thorough investigation after a Catholic priest was found dead this week in a region known for organized crime.

Here’s the story.

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The U.S. bishops’ conference announced last week the establishment of a task force on artificial intelligence.

From the sound of it, the focus of the task force will be to lobby Congress for AI safeguards and reforms. But in an analysis on the subject, I wonder if there isn’t an area of focus that would have decidedly more impact on the lives of Catholics. Read it here.

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Finally, to Princeton University. Home to groundbreaking research, one of America’s first two college football teams, and the setting to Russell Crowe’s masterpiece, “A Beautiful Mind.”

Princeton is also home, it turns out, to thriving Catholicism, thanks to some initiatives from chaplain Fr. Zachary Swantek.

Michelle La Rosa talked with Fr. Swantek about his mostly-homegrown approach to Catholic formation, the importance of beautiful liturgy, and the work of his pastoral ministry.

(And by the way, when I found out Michelle interviewed this guy, I was on a personal level delighted. About a million years ago I went to high school, and to some fantastic Supertones concerts, with Zach. Er, Fr. Swantek. Good dude, in my estimation.)

Here’s what he had to say about faithful formation in the Ivy League.

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Bible songs

There is a debate on the internet right about director Greta Gerwig’s plans to cast Meryl Streep as Aslan in an upcoming film version of “The Magician’s Nephew.”

I can’t tell whether there is a substantial contingent of Christians who care about Greta Gerwig’s casting of a Narnia movie, or whether there is instead just a group of trolls hoping to meme some outrage into existence.

I don’t care at all who Greta Gerwig casts as Aslan in her Narnia movie. That’s not because I don’t care about the source material: I do. I care about the Chronicles of Narnia deeply. They’re formative in my life and worldview.

But they’re books. And I have a strong policy of not watching the film versions of books that matter to me. I have not seen Scorsese’s “Silence,” and, for that matter, I didn’t care for the 10 minutes of “The Chosen” I saw one time — a TV series based, somewhat loosely I gather, on my four favorite books.

My recommendation to you is the same. If you can read the book, don’t see the movie. It’s not good for your mind to rely on someone else’s vision of a place and a people you yourself were meant to take joy in imagining.

But what about a musical version of a book? Or, even more interesting, a musical version of The Book.

This morning, I got a press release for the recently launched app “Music Bible,” which has “transformed the complete Bible—word for word—into more than 30,000 songs spanning hip-hop, jazz, country and other genres.”

The long and short of it is this — an AI developer, and, according to the press release, 70 staff members “working around the clock” — turned every chapter of the Bible into songs sung by robots, in genres which include “workout,” “all female,” and “children.”

The press release took great pride in emphasizing that the AI did not change a single word of the Bible as it translated texts into lyrical flow. I have asked “Music Bible” about who was funding this round-the-clock effort, but I’ve not yet heard back on that.

I downloaded it, so you wouldn’t have to.

And I decided to test the limits of this wondrous idea with a verse designed almost providentially for exactly this moment.

Now, if you grew up Catholic, you might not know much about Deuteronomy 25:11-12. But let me assure you that every Evangelical kid in the land knows the passage by heart, and finds as many opportunities as he can to giggle through it at Sunday School.

It describes a frightful situation, which was apparently common enough in ancient Israel to merit a pair of verses entirely to itself.

And I’ve given it to you in the RSV, because homeschooled Evangelical kids seem to know that one by heart.

“If men get into a fight with one another, and the wife of one intervenes to rescue her husband from the grip of his opponent by reaching out and seizing his genitals, you shall cut off her hand; show no pity.”

Here it is as a country ballad. I was surprised, I must admit, that the AI chose a woman as the singer for this particular bit of Bible.

Here it is as a smooth bit of hip hop.

Listen, perhaps I’m being unfair to choose a funny verse. Perhaps I should get serious. And the most famous piece of Scripture-set-to-music is probably Bach’s “St. John Passion.”

And well, it’s pretty good and everything. But consider that you haven’t yet heard the Passion of Our Lord in the high-tempo, spin-class-energy genre of “workout,” sung by a robot with the quaver of earnest conviction in his voice.

The dictates of prudence won’t allow me to publish excerpts of that. Perhaps you’ll hear it at Mass soon enough.

Leave a comment

—
Before you go, please keep in your prayers the Beltran family. Our intrepid Rome correspondent and his wife welcomed into the world yesterday Francisco Javier Mateo, their third beautiful child.

Please be assured of our prayers, and please do pray for us. We need it. See you in St. Louis.

Yours in Christ,

JD Flynn
editor-in-chief
The Pillar

The St. Paul Center App | Bible Study On-The-Go
Read and understand the Bible with St. Paul Center’s new app! With today’s leading Catholic Scripture scholars as your guides, the St. Paul Center app empowers you to read the Bible from the heart of the Church. Download the app for free at either the Apple or the Google app stores. https://stpaulcenter.com/app

Among the recommendations contained in the assessment are improved procedures for listening to abuse victims, better record-keeping, reparation measures for victims, and clear codes of conduct.

The evaluation was a pilot project for the Transparency Commission, an international group of experts on clerical abuse, which hopes to carry out similar assessments in other dioceses.

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The independent commission, which is funded by Notre Dame Law School and the Universidad Villanueva Foundation in Spain, consists of more than a dozen experts from eight countries, specializing in the areas of canon law, theology, accountability, communications, sociology, and other fields.

The Transparency Commission was tasked last year by Archbishop José Domingo Ulloa Mendieta of Panama to evaluate the local Church’s management of abuse complaints over the past 25 years.

The commission reviewed the archdiocesan archives, conducted interviews, collected testimonies, and examined local media reports. It released the findings of its evaluation on Tuesday.

The commission said there were 37 complaints of sexual abuse received by the Archdiocese of Panama from 2001-2025. The commission examined 24 of those complaints. The other complaints involved incidents outside of the archdiocese’s jurisdiction or the time period being considered, or did not involve the abuse of minors or vulnerable persons.

The commission noted that there were likely more instances of ecclesial abuse that took place in the archdiocese during this time, but were not reported. It observed that a number of obstacles to reporting abuse persist in Panama.

The archdiocese has made progress in its handling of abuse cases over the past 25 years, the commission said, including by introducing safeguarding guidelines in 2015 and developing a ministry office to respond to allegations in 2024.

However, the report determined, there are still significant areas in which the archdiocese is not taking sufficient action to prevent and respond to abuse allegations.

Records surrounding abuse complaints are “manifestly insufficient,” the commission found. It noted that there was no evidence to suggest that information had been intentionally hidden or destroyed, and that the insufficiencies are likely due to a lack of resources and procedures.

The commission emphasized that “a rigorous and complete record is needed, one that makes it possible to reconstruct what happened and to account for the Archdiocese’s actions.”

In particular, it said, the incomplete records make it impossible to determine what consequences, if any, were carried out for individuals found guilty of abuse, and there are no records of reparation measures offered to abuse victims.

The records that do exist suggest a need for changes in policies in how complaints are received and responded to, the commission said.

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“In only 2 of the 24 cases do the files record that the victim was heard, compared with at least 8 in which the accused was heard,” it found.

It called for the archdiocese to build on the work of its new pastoral ministry and listening office in order to offer a more comprehensive response to victims.

“Procedures for receiving and accompanying victims are needed that are independent of the canonical-legal process, centered on victims’ rights, and designed to prevent re-victimization,” the report said.

Furthermore, the commission said, the archdiocese needs to enact additional preventative measures to avoid cases of abuse.

“Codes of conduct for interaction with minors and vulnerable persons, rules for the digital environment, and safeguarding clauses for third parties working with the Archdiocese must be put in place,” it said.

The commission applauded the Archdiocese of Panama’s initiative in calling for an independent review and publicizing the report.

“This initiative does not arise in response to an external complaint, but rather as a voluntary exercise of institutional responsibility,” the commission said.

“What we have today are committed individuals; what’s missing are systems that don’t depend on the goodwill of each individual.”

Among its recommendations, the commission said the archdiocese should “guarantee cooperation with civil justice in accordance with the current reporting obligation, establishing documentary confirmation of each communication.”

In addition, it called for enhanced efforts to offer pastoral care to victims and survivors, separate from the canonical investigation, “so that the person initiating and directing the proceedings is not the only person responsible for the care and support of the victim.”

It encouraged the archdiocese to strengthen the screening and formation of clergy members and other pastoral workers, and to adopt processes to avoid revictimization, for example by “reduc[ing] unnecessary repetitions of the incident.”

The commission also emphasized the need for due process for the accused and a commitment to “publicly restore the good name of the person found to be unjustly reported.”

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I’m Luke Coppen and I seek to guide you each weekday morning to the most interesting Catholic news and commentary.

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This episode of Sunday School is brought to you by the Pillar’s exclusive breviary partner, Ascension Press, publisher of the new translation of the Liturgy of the Hours.

With exceptional readability and top-of-the-line materials, this is a breviary that will faithfully serve the Church’s daily prayer for generations.

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Already read the readings? Skip ahead to 5:50.

Reading 1 - Ezekiel 18: 25-28

Psalm 25: 4-9

Reading 2 - Philippians 2: 1-11

Gospel - Matthew 21: 28-32

That is the conclusion of an analysis of new data by the Swiss Institute of Pastoral Sociology in St. Gallen, published following media reports of a surge in adult baptisms, especially in neighboring France.

There were 339 adult baptisms in 2025 in Switzerland, a Central European country with a population of 9 million people, 2.68 million of whom are Catholic.

The 2025 figure is the highest in more than a decade and marks an increase of 30% from 2024, when there were 261 adult baptisms, up from 223 in 2023.

Arnd Bünker, the head of SPI St. Gallen, said the data up to 2025 did not indicate a trend of renewed affiliation with the Church among secularized young people or adults. But the figures did show that adult baptisms now account for a higher proportion of total baptisms, rising from just 1% in 2015 to 2.6% in 2025.

Bünker said that while the rise in adult baptisms was modest, the phenomenon’s visibility had increased significantly in recent years. He argued that their visibility was magnified by media interest and a tendency among newly baptized adult Catholics to share their experiences online.

“Whereas adult baptisms were previously communicated to the outside world rather cautiously, today they are presented much more confidently,” he wrote Sept. 18.

“Both Church officials and the newly baptized themselves are driving this communication. Their self-presentation on social media is an important aspect of this communication and turns what is statistically a small phenomenon into a comparatively high-profile one, especially as secular media are also increasingly reporting on adult baptisms.”

Bünker said the magnifying effect was enhanced by a tendency among dioceses to centralize the preparation of catechumens, bringing them together in larger groups.

“An adult baptism ceremony involving many candidates is more likely to attract public and journalistic attention and visibility than smaller, more modest decentralized baptism ceremonies,” he noted.

The overall number of baptisms in Switzerland decreased in 2025 for the third consecutive year, down to 12,809 from 13,548 in 2024.

Bünker said the declining total number of baptisms was influenced by a range of factors including a fall in the overall number of births in Switzerland, a decrease in the number of Catholics, and a drop in Catholic marriages.

He also noted that a growing proportion of Swiss Catholics were choosing not to have their children baptized.

In 2015, Catholic baptisms amounted to 62.6% of the estimated number of births among the Catholic population in Switzerland. By 2024, this figure had fallen to 57.9%.

The new statistics confirmed that the number of Swiss Catholics formally leaving the Church is continuing to decline.

The number of Church “exits” fell to 27,878 in 2025, down from 36,782 in 2024 and 67,497 in 2023.

The spike in departures in 2023 has been linked to the publication in September that year of an independent pilot study on abuse in the Catholic Church in Switzerland. The pilot study coincided with the airing of allegations against several members of the Swiss bishops’ conference, prompting the Vatican to order a preliminary investigation.

Formally leaving the Church in Switzerland generally requires the submission of a written declaration of withdrawal to the local Church authority. But the exact procedure depends on the canton in which the person lives.

In many of Switzerland’s 26 cantons, religious communities must have a democratic organization if they want to be recognized under public law and collect church taxes. So in addition to the normal diocesan structure, the Catholic Church in Switzerland also has democratically organized regional bodies known as cantonal churches, which are recognized as corporations under public law.

The declaration of withdrawal marks the end of a Catholic’s membership in the local public-law corporation and, if applicable, the requirement to pay Church taxes. It does not necessarily mean that the Church no longer sees the person as a member of the broader religious community.

Responding to the new statistics, Bishop Beat Grögli of St. Gallen said that faith could no longer be taken for granted, but needed to be explained and justified.

“Mature faith speaks above all through personal witness. The testimonies of young people and adults challenge us; they prompt us to question our practices and provide impetus for change,” said Grögli, the Swiss bishops’ representative for pastoral issues.

“The Church is becoming more missionary and respectful, more self-confident and more synodal, and more engaged in dialogue.”

The day after Bünker published his analysis, Bishop Joseph Maria Bonnemain of Chur presided at a baptism and confirmation ceremony involving five young adults in the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul in Winterthur.

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The statement followed speculation that Patriarch Ignace Youssif III Younan had moved to convene the synod of the Eastern Church in response to a move by Syriac bishops to remove him, the first use of a new law issued last month by Leo XIV to create a mechanism for removing an Eastern patriarch.

The September 17 statement, released in multiple languages via the patriarchate’s website, said it was necessary to “refute all past and potential future writings, rumors, claims, fabrications, and lies that mislead public opinion and distort facts that are as clear as day.”

The patriarchate’s statement did not indicate what “fabrications and lies” it was aiming to refute, but indicated the prospect of future legal action, presumably against media outlets and social media posts covering the escalating tension within the Eastern Catholic Syriac Church.

The statement explained that the patriarch “currently refrains from responding to these claims, fabrications, lies, and vulgar verbal attacks,” while at the same time “it reserves full rights to respond and take legal actions at the appropriate time against those who market and circulate them.”

But the statement did address the allegation, first made by bishops of the Syria Church, that Youssif has not convened a meeting of the Church’s full synod for a number of years.

That charge is believed to be one of the central allegations circulated among the Eastern Church’s bishops which contributed to a Sept. 4 decision to attempt removing Youssif, which came just days after Pope Leo XIV issued the motu proprio Mutua concordia, allowing for the prospect of Eastern Catholic bishops moving to remove their patriarchs.

“Regarding the claim that His Beatitude [ the patriarch] did not convene for a Synod meeting over the past three years, this claim is entirely unfounded,” the statement said.

“His Beatitude had convened for a Synod to be held in November 2024, which was subsequently postponed by mutual agreement with the Fathers of the Synod until July 2025 due to the war in Lebanon at that time, when the ‘so-called Synod’ was convened in Rome.”

The “so-called Synod” referred to in the statement was a gathering on the bishops of the ordinary synod of the Syriac Church which was received in private audience with Pope Francis and discussed, according to reports at the time, governance issues in the Eastern Church as well as the ongoing practical challenges facing the Church, the ancient territory of which includes the modern states of Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq.

The statement added that the patriarch and the Church permanent synod — a kind of standing executive body among the bishops — had already decided at a July meeting to convoke a full synodal meeting of the Church’s bishops.

“Prior to the issuance of the Apostolic motu proprio by His Holiness the Pope Leo XIX [sic] on August 29, the Fathers agreed to convene an Ordinary General Synod in the second half of November. Consequently, His Beatitude issued a formal invitation to the synod’s fathers on September 2 to hold the Synod meeting from November 17 to November 20, 2026.”

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The date of September 2 is significant because on Sept. 4, senior bishops of the Syriac Church’s synod formally triggered the legal mechanism for a vote to remove the patriarch, according to the norms of Mutua concordia. However, the patriarch’s call for a November meeting of the synod was only made public following the Sept. 4 decision.

That the patriarch’s call was only made public after the announcement of the effort to remove him led to speculation that Youssif had only called the synodal meeting in November in direct response to the attempt to remove him.

“Therefore, this clarification was necessary,” the statement said.

The papal motu proprio, formally issued on Aug. 28, amended the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, the body of canon law which applies to all the 23 Eastern Churches in communion with Rome, in addition to their individual governing laws.

The reform created a mechanism by which the bishops of an Eastern Church’s synod can convene a meeting to vote for the removal of the patriarch or major archbishop of an Eastern Church if they were found to have caused “irreparable damage” to the communion of Church.

According to Leo’s new law on the subject, a synodal meeting to remove an Eastern Catholic patriarch should be called by the senior bishop of the synod who is in favor of removal. A two-thirds majority of the voting members of the synod, usually the diocesan bishops of the Eastern Catholic Church, is required to effect the removal, and the pope must confirm a removal decision.

While the law does not define legal criteria for defining or establishing the alleged irreparable damage to internal communion, it does require that the patriarch be allowed to defend himself before the synod.

In the Syriac Catholic Church, the bishops are expected to convene in late September or early October for a meeting that could conclude with the deposing of the patriarch, although Youssif’s own announced gathering of the synod would see them instead meet in November.

Patriarch Youssif, 81, has led the Syriac Catholic Church since 2009, his formal title is Patriarch of Antioch and All the East of the Syrians.

Dissatisfaction among Syriac bishops has reportedly centered around Youssif’s refusal to convene governing synodal meetings for the Eastern Catholic Church, despite repeated requests from bishops over the past three years. Sources close to the Syriac Church have told The Pillar that a patriarchal call for a synod this year is likely to be seen as “too late,” among broad episcopal frustration with Youssif.

There are some 160,000 members of the Syriac Catholic Church, with the majority living in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon. Roughly 16,000 Syriac Catholics live in the United States, worshipping in the 11 parishes of the Eparchy of Our Lady of Deliverance.

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I’m Luke Coppen and I aim to guide you each weekday morning to the most interesting Catholic news and commentary.

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But the campus is also home to a thriving Catholic presence, with the Aquinas Institute serving as the hub for Catholic campus ministry at the university.

Fr. Zachary Swantek is the Catholic chaplain and director of campus ministry at Princeton University.

Swantek spoke with The Pillar about the burgeoning Catholicism at Princeton, Catholic life on an Ivy League campus, and how he works to unite “serious intellectual formation and an unapologetically Catholic spiritual life” in his work with students.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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You recently held a Eucharistic procession that attracted 200 participants. How did that come about?

Well, we do this procession each year for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. And every year it just keeps growing bigger and bigger -- from about 100 students a few years ago, to 150, and now over 200. It’s a beautiful witness where the Catholics are not just this hidden group on campus, but are active and public in their worship.

We do the procession after the 4:30 Mass on Sunday. We go out of the chapel and then we go to Nassau Hall, which holds the president’s office and the main administrative building, which is this iconic building from the 1700s on campus. We go to the lawn there, and we do a blessing. And all the students are kneeling there for the blessing and singing the Tantum Ergo. And then we go around the building and then back to the chapel.

It’s just really beautiful. We have the altar servers with candles, the crucifix, and myself with the monstrance. People see this, and they see that it’s really beautiful. They’re taking pictures or videos or even joining us and following us along, and then they end up with us in the chapel for the final blessing.

Have you seen a broader growth in Catholic life on campus as well?

Oh yes. Our numbers both for Sunday and daily Mass have doubled in recent years. In 2019, we had 40 students participating in Bible studies. Now we have 40 students leading Bible studies on campus, and more than 250 students participating in them weekly in their dorms.

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Wow, that’s a tremendous amount of growth in a few years. To what do you attribute that?

In part, we’ve developed a program where the students are Bible study leaders. So it’s not just an event that students attend, but the students are actually being formed to be these intentional missionary disciples through their friendships. We give them training and formation in four areas: prayer and having an interior life, the sacramental life, having authentic Christ-centered friendships, and evangelization, just sharing their faith in normal ways with their friends.

The Bible studies focus on the Sunday Gospel. During the week, they meet to go dive deeper into that Gospel. We’re happy students are coming to Mass on Sunday. But rather than just check off the box or fulfill the obligation of going to Sunday Mass, we want them to normalize praying with the Gospel after Mass, and talking about it with their friends, and then applying it to their lives as well.

This has had a great effect, because it has helped them to really apply the Gospel and live it out in their lives. Students start challenging one another to go to Mass if they’re not going. Or perhaps encouraging one another to go to daily Mass or adoration or confession or to do service – all these different ways where they can grow in their faith and get more involved in the community.

Why did you decide to create this particular style of Bible study program? Is it only present at Princeton?

It’s something we developed ourselves. Currently, it’s just present here. But there have been other schools that are now reaching out to see if we could share with them our program.

There are some phenomenal campus ministry programs out there. When I worked at other universities, I worked with FOCUS missionaries and with St. Paul’s Outreach, and they were both wonderful. But when I came to Princeton, we didn’t have that, so I sought to evaluate what would be the best next step.

I saw that the students were extremely busy and over-programmed with all of their commitments. And so I wanted to offer Bible studies where they could just reflect on the Sunday Gospel, but then learn how to do that with friends, and share it with others.

I found this works really well for the students, because they all are overachievers. They want to do a great job and are very knowledgeable, but this way all the pressure isn’t on them to have this perfect Bible study. They don’t need to be an expert and teach so much as just be able to facilitate and lead, and most of all, through the witness of their own life.

And then we have bigger public events too. We have Eucharistic processions. We have stations of the cross. We also have large monthly gatherings -- social events to celebrate different things throughout the year, like St. Thomas Aquinas’ feast day or a Christmas party and Easter party.

The monthly social events are right on campus, so the students can see how large the Catholic community is, but also so they have something easy to invite their friends to with no commitment. That could be an entry into the community, but then from there they could go to Mass or to a Bible study or to a seminar.

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As an Ivy League school, Princeton is obviously a very intellectual place. Would you say that people are drawn to the intellectual side of Catholicism? And do you offer resources with that in mind?

Absolutely. The students are definitely already very accustomed to asking questions in life and really pursuing answers seriously. And so it’s great that in this campus ministry, they receive both the serious intellectual formation and an unapologetically Catholic spiritual life and very reverent liturgies.

It’s kind of normal that after Mass or after adoration, you’ll find students talking and just asking these deeper theological questions of one another. Also, it’s great that at the Aquinas Institute, we have a wonderful staff including four people who have doctorates, who can really take their questions seriously.

For example, our OCIA director has a PhD from Princeton in philosophy, so he is well-equipped to answer their questions while also being a serious Catholic in the practice of his faith. That helps because students come from all different places and with all different questions. Recently, we even had two doctoral candidates from the philosophy department convert to Catholicism. So it’s great when they come to OCIA or they come to one of our seminars, they’re often met with the same intellectual rigor that they’re finding at the university.

And in order to really help them build up their faith and answer their questions, we offer seminars throughout the semester on all different topics, to have a really well-rounded faith. We have a two-year cycle that repeats, so throughout their time here as an undergrad, they would have two chances to take each of these seminars if they wanted to.

We also have guest speakers and retreats and conferences. We’ve been blessed to have guest speakers like Bishop Erik Varden, Cardinal Sarah, Cardinal Mueller, Mary Ann Glendon. It’s been really wonderful to be able to bring the great caliber of speakers they might get at the university, bringing in these great Catholic voices as well.

As far as the growth in Catholics on campus, are you seeing people who are already Catholic but are becoming more active in their faith? Or are these converts who were not previously Catholic?

It’s a real mix. There are some who are Catholic already, but then they grow tremendously in their faith. I think having community helps -- perhaps for the first time having people their own age that they’re talking to about their faith and asking questions, and then also that they’re going to Mass with or going to adoration with

But certainly also there are lots of conversions to Catholicism happening as well. All sorts -- Protestants, people from other faiths, and people with no faith at all.

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The Church in the U.S. has seen a lot of infighting in recent years – arguments about liturgy, politics, etc. Do you see those tensions reflected in the Catholic community at Princeton? Have you made an effort to create a sense of unity?

Certainly, students come from all different backgrounds, so it is to be expected that they have different experiences and different opinions. But what we try to do is really give them the formation to really help them to think with the Church -- through the liturgy itself and through my preaching, but then also through the training we offer for the Bible study leaders and through the seminars. We try to help them not to see the Church with political labels of left and right, or liberal or conservative, but to try to just be orthodox within the Church and do what the Church asks of us.

I wouldn’t want anyone to feel like a certain type of Catholic isn’t welcomed. If they come to the Mass, they see that it’s very beautiful and serious and reverent, but I try to have a very merciful, pastoral approach in which I, as a priest and chaplain, am very available to them. I certainly expect and understand that they’re going to have all the normal challenges that young people and college students have, so that they don’t feel out of place or that they don’t belong somehow.

How have the university administration and staff responded to the growing Catholic presence on campus? Are they friendly to Catholic events? Do they make it difficult?

I’ve been pleasantly surprised. We’ve been very well received at the university’s Office of Religious Life. I have a monthly meeting with all of the chaplains, so they’re aware of what we’re doing, and they’re very supportive and encouraging. They’re amazed at how much Catholic life at Princeton has expanded.

The president of the university writes a lot about religious liberty, something that’s not just important to him intellectually, but also in practice at the university. So we felt very supported.

And there are also some professors who are Catholic or Catholic-friendly and have been very supportive to students in their research and in their writing on different topics for their senior thesis. Certainly Robert George has been a long-term witness on the campus and a voice for Catholic morality, and that helps too.

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Are you aware of similar growth in Catholic life happening at other Ivy League schools?

Yes, and it’s great to see that it isn’t only here, but in many places. And also in the non-Ivy League schools, there has been growth. It’s been good to communicate with and connect with other chaplains, and then sometimes being able to participate in different conferences or events with other campus ministries.

I think it shows that with young people, there’s a real search for truth, and that the wonderful mix of faith and reason is giving an answer to young people’s desire for transcendence, and something that they can’t really manufacture for themselves, that they have to really enter into and participate.

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Fabrizia Raguso has known Father Marko Rupnik for more than 30 years, and has come forward publicly to allege the priest spiritually and psychologically abused her.

Raguso moved to Portugal as a sister of the Loyola Community in 2000, and though she left the order in 2021 she continues to live in the Portuguese city of Braga.

Raguso believes the Shrine of Fátima must undergo a process of discernment regarding what to do with the 500 square-meter mosaic inside the Basilica of the Most Holy Trinity. But as the question is deliberated, Raguso says she has not been contacted by Portuguese ecclesiastical authorities to share her experiences as a victim.

Rupnik is currently being subjected to a canonical trial at the Vatican, accused of abusing dozens of women sexually, spiritually and psychologically.

This interview was conducted in Portuguese and has been edited for length and clarity.

What was your relationship with Father Marko Rupnik?

In March 1990, I had just finished my degree in psychology and was doing a postgraduate degree in family therapy in Rome. At the same time, I was very active in the youth sector of Catholic Action and was collaborating with the movement’s national center. Fr. Rupnik was invited to run a workshop for young people in the movement.

Through that experience, he discovered the world of Catholic Action’s national youth ministry in Italy and became very interested in integrating himself into this world. He stayed in touch with one of the leaders of our sector, and from there arose the opportunity for me to do spiritual exercises under his direction.

By October, 1999, I had already made the decision to enter religious life. In August of the following year, I left for Slovenia to enter the novitiate of the Loyola Community.

Looking back, and with my experience as a psychologist, I see that the spiritual exercises were—for me and for many other people in Slovenia and Italy—a space he used to direct and structure people’s lives according to his own will, with great force.

Marko Rupnik has been accused by dozens of women of sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse. But you are one of the few who has come forward publicly.

There are six of us who have come out publicly, in different ways. We hadn’t had contact with each other for many years, because the other five had already left the community at different stages, and we have very distinct personal stories regarding our relationship with him and the abuse within the community.

Even after his 1993 departure [from the Loyola community in Slovenia], a process of psychological-spiritual abuse began—in this case, on the part of his former friend and co-founder of the community itself, Ivanka Hosta.

You say you suffered psychological and spiritual abuse. But do you personally know people who were also victims of sexual abuse?

From the Loyola Community, I know all of them, because there were never many of us and we had the opportunity to know each other closely. In some cases, we even lived together for some time within the community.

So you have no doubt that the abuse happened?

These are proven facts. We have accounts from people accusing him in different contexts. There are about 30 people, and they do not all come from the Loyola Community. Many have no connection to one another and didn’t know each other, but they testify to abuse, including during the time the works were being constructed and assembled, as in the case of Sister Samuelle, [ed. note: an artist who described the work environment with Rupnik as one of sexual coercion and psychological and spiritual manipulation].

In what way did the abuse you suffered affect your faith life?

In my case, I can say that I had not the merit, but undoubtedly the grace to maintain a deep connection with what my experience of faith had been up until the age of 30, which means until I entered the Loyola Community. Specifically, everything that had been my experience of faith and my ecclesial experience within Catholic Action. That was a lifeline for me from a psychological standpoint, but also a spiritual one.

There has been a major debate about what to do with Rupnik’s works. The Ssrine of Lourdes chose to remove the mosaics, but Fátima chose to keep them, and in Brazil, the Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida just unveiled new mosaics, after the abuse came to light. Defenders of the works say it is necessary to distinguish between the art and the creator.

In this case, and keeping in mind that some abuse occurred within the context of artistic creation, is it possible to make that distinction?

Any experience, and especially any work of art, needs to be contextualized. Looking at events from other eras using present-day parameters is completely incongruous. But we also cannot do the opposite: looking at the present through the parameters, vision, sensitivity, or socio-cultural context of the 16th or 15th century. Today, we look at things with 21st-century sensitivity, with a critical, theological, and also ethical consciousness specific to our time.

The example usually cited in these discussions is Caravaggio, who was a murderer but continues to be recognized as a great artist. But works like “The Conversion of Saint Paul” were not designed for prayer. Of course, whoever commissioned those works might have desired a certain evangelization, but we know those times were primarily marked by the desire to affirm the temporal power of the Church.

Rupnik, on the other hand, adopted the style of Eastern Christian iconography. Byzantine art is a way of proposing the Gospel through images, and therefore, before these works, we are invited to pray. Rupnik himself confirms this reading of his art as having an evangelizing function. That is why the way we understand these works today is clearly much more compromising.

You have been in Portugal for 26 years. Have you ever entered the Basilica of the Most Holy Trinity in Fátima?

Yes, though with great difficulty. And also other places, such as the Church of Saint Pio in San Giovanni Rotondo, which is very close to my place of birth and has 54 mosaics by Rupnik. The experience of standing before these mosaics brings a feeling of inner invasion. Because of the insistent use of gold and harsh colors; the size of the figures; the unsettling feeling caused by their black, bottomless eyes; and also, in some cases, by their bodily postures. These bodies give us a feeling, as I said, of invasiveness. We do not feel welcomed as we should, as we do before the authentic art of Byzantine icons, which allow us to enter into a spirit of deep prayer.

In the case of Fátima specifically, due to the sheer size of the mosaic itself and the way it is constructed, the feeling I personally have always had is one of feeling trapped, invaded—not an experience of contemplation.

These aspects you mention are primarily aesthetic. But this must also be informed by your personal story…

Evidently, yes.

The Bishop of Lourdes, in France, ordered the existing mosaics at the shrine to be covered, and has now stated that in doing so he was following the guidance of Pope Leo XIV and that they will be removed or covered permanently. What do you think of this decision?

This process of discernment—regardless of how the decisions are ultimately made—seems to me a serious way of positioning oneself not only in relation to the past, but also to the present and the future. What we want is for people to acknowledge this extremely painful, extremely invasive history, given the number of people who have been involved and the length of time it has gone on.

Discernment is timely, and I do not believe that the decisions made in this spirit can be associated—as many denounce—with the phenomenon of “cancel culture.”

Unlike the Shrine of Lourdes, the Shrine of Fátima said it does not intend to cover or remove the mosaic. What are your thoughts on that?

In this situation, I consider the Portuguese Church’s position to be one of non-transparent silence, which is a common position.

The Church is quite divided on this issue, and that is also demonstrated through this silence, which ends up being complicit, or not entirely liberating, because it ignores the impact it will have and the constant need we have to take a stand. From an ethical point of view, as the Word of God itself teaches us, we cannot be lukewarm.

Have you ever been contacted by anyone from the shrine, or from the Portuguese hierarchy, to share your opinion as a victim regarding what should be done with the mosaic?

The only official interactions I have had in Portugal were with the Archbishop of Braga, mainly due to the need to clarify my pastoral responsibilities after I left the Loyola Community. No other figure with ecclesial responsibility in Portugal has contacted me. I am always available, but there has been no sign whatsoever.

And do you know if any other victim was contacted by the shrine?

As far as I know, on the part of the Fátima Shrine, no.

Some suggest that keeping the mosaic could be a demonstration of respect for the team that assembled and helped develop it, who are not to blame for the abuse and may even include victims. What do you think of that argument?

It seems very weak to me. My position might seem fundamentalist, but it is based on accounts from people who collaborated on the works, and personal accounts that have not come to light publicly, but which I know personally. Having this slightly broader knowledge, I consider that argument inconsistent.

There is also the option of keeping the mosaic, but leaving some kind of memorial or plaque associated with it, describing what happened.

That is one of the possibilities. It is important that there be a process of discernment and understanding that takes into account the motivations that led to the commissioning of the work, the people who contributed financially to its execution, and also the spiritual consequences for people who find it difficult to be in these churches.

I was involved in a case like that for another worship space. It is not public yet, so I cannot reveal more than this, but it was a discernment experience that lasted several months and that reached certain conclusions, although our role was solely advisory. But this is a necessary process. It’s better than just following the latest emotional fad.

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Fr. Román de la Cruz, 48, was the parish priest of Huejutla. He was shot dead and his body was left on the side of the Tolago-Tetlapaya highway in the Lolotla district of Hidalgo on Tuesday, 15 September. According to local press, a threatening note was found beside his corpse, but the content of the note has not been made public.

The region in which Fr Román was murdered is notoriously dangerous due to the activities of criminal organisations that fight over trafficking routes, including illegal fuel trade.

“The Mexican bishops’ conference expresses its indignation, sadness, and solidarity with the Church of Huejutla, Hidalgo, following the murder of Father Román de la Cruz Hernández on September 15^th”, reads the statement from the Mexican Episcopal Conference.

“We fraternally join Bishop José Hiraís Acosta Beltrán, Bishop of Huejutla, his priests, consecrated religious, and all the lay faithful of this local Church. Together with him, we call upon the relevant authorities to conduct a thorough investigation to clarify these events and ensure swift justice is served.”

No motive has been proposed for the murder, but the region where Fr Román’s body was found is known to be home to several criminal organizations which act with extreme violence towards each other, the authorities, and civilians perceived to get in their way.

While it is possible that Fr. Román was simply in the wrong place, at the wrong time, social media personalities have pointed to a dispute between the priest and the local mayor as the reason for his murder.

The “Y que viva Cristo Rei” YouTube Channel is hosted by a man who goes by the name of “The Legendary Fr. Daniel”, and who wears a clerical collar, but hides his face. The real name and religious affiliation of the host are not known, but the channel is very critical of the ruling Morena party in Mexico, and espouses conservative content, including tributes to the Cristero movement, which fought a civil war against the anti-clerical government of Mexico in the 1920’s. The channel has 127 thousand subscribers.

“Fr. Daniel” recently published a video highlighting online criticism by Fr. Román against the mayor of Huejutla, made on the parish’s Facebook page, as well as other news reports of people accusing mayor José Alfredo San Román Duval and his family of violence against rivals and critics.

In the Facebook post, Fr. Román criticised Duval for not completing roadworks, forcing elderly indigenous people from the region to be taken to hospital appointments in wheelbarrows, because buses and trucks cannot get through.

The YouTube personality’s evidence is circumstantial, but it has caused some impact in a country where the overlap between criminality and politics is widespread and those who defend the interests of civilian communities, particularly indigenous ones, are often targeted for reprisals.

Only two days after Fr. Román was found dead, Guillermo Amador the mayor of the nearby city of Jaltocán, warned the local priest, Fr. José Rosario Arévalo, “to focus on his sermons and not interfere in politics”, due to an alleged dispute over the ownership of a plot of land. Jaltocán is only 10 km from Huejutla, and both municipalities are run by the Morena party.

Writing for Mexican newspaper La Jornada, Hidalgo correspondent Ricardo Camacho, links the two events, denouncing an atmosphere of intimidation against the Catholic Church “which historically has had a strong presence and influence among the region’s indigenous groups.”

“This is because the Church has sided with them in demanding their rights, as occurred in the 1970s when they fought to reclaim their land—which was then in the hands of landowners who used paramilitary groups to stop them, engaging in the killing of peasants and their leaders.”

Mexico has been one of the most dangerous countries in the world for priests in recent decades. Over the past five years eight priests have been murdered, three in 2022, two in 2023, one in 2024 and one in 2025, according to data collected by pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). Fr. Román is the first to have been killed in 2026.

Most of these have been victims of criminal organizations such as drug cartels.

ACN’s Religious Freedom in the World Report, published in 2025, highlights violence against the Church in Mexico, claiming that “the number of extortions, short-term kidnappings, instances of crossfire, and assaults inside churches and evangelization centers has increased drastically. Laypeople have been murdered within religious premises and communities.”

The report adds that “these crimes are not mere statistics; they reflect the harsh reality of a Mexico plagued by violence, where priests and evangelisers become symbols of hope amid terror.”

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Archbishop Stanislav Přibyl announced the Oct. 5 walking pilgrimage to Hájek, near Prague, in his first pastoral letter since his installation in April.

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In the Sept. 6 letter, Přibyl addressed recent scandals affecting the Prague archdiocese.

He appeared to refer to the case of Antonín Juriga, a permanent deacon and former executive director of the archdiocese who was arrested by Czech police Aug. 6 and charged with rape, abuse, extortion, and making threats. Juriga is also being investigated for possible financial offenses.

The archbishop also seemed to allude to recent abuse allegations against a priest of the archdiocese.

Přibyl said he was “painfully aware” that trust in the Church had been damaged.

“Most recently, it suffered a serious blow from grave suspicions of reprehensible moral and financial offenses, even violence, about which the media have recently reported, as well as a case of abuse by a priest,” he wrote.

“I assure you that I acted immediately and firmly. Now it is necessary to allow the competent authorities and institutions to investigate all the suspicions properly and to draw the appropriate consequences from them.”

“I share with you, including through this letter, the pain, frustration and shame caused by the scandal that has been given.”

Přibyl is the successor of Archbishop Jan Graubner, who retired in February 2026 at the age of 77. Graubner was in turn the successor of Cardinal Dominik Duka, an anti-communist dissident who died in November 2025. Both Graubner and Duka faced public criticism over their handling of abuse cases but rejected coverup allegations.

Přibyl, 54, is a Redemptorist who previously served as secretary general of the Czech bishops’ conference and bishop of Litoměřice. He chairs the bishops’ conference safeguarding commission. In June 2026, he signed a memorandum between the conference and the abuse survivor organization Someone Will Believe You (Někdo Ti uvěří).

In the pastoral letter, Přibyl said that restoring trust could not be achieved with “merely human solutions.”

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“Even more important is to ask the Lord for the healing of the wounds of the past and for the grace of a new beginning,” he wrote. “For this reason, I would like us, together as a diocese, to make a penitential pilgrimage to Hájek near Prague on Monday, Oct. 5, 2026, the day after the feast of St. Francis, the saint of peace and poverty.”

The pilgrimage will start at the Church of St. James in Hostivice, a town in the Prague-West District, with Mass two hours later at Hájek, a Marian pilgrimage site.

Přibyl said the Mass would include “a penitential devotion, during which we will ask the Good Lord for forgiveness of our sins.”

“I will be first, because I too am a sinner,” he wrote. “We will also make reparation for sins committed within the Church which have rightly scandalized so many people. Finally, we will ask for the conversion of our hearts and for a blessing upon our archdiocese.”

The Prague archdiocese serves around 558,000 Catholics out of a population of 2.3 million.

In the pastoral letter, the archbishop also looked ahead to 2030, when state funding for the Church’s basic operations and clergy salaries will end under the terms of a 2012 church-restitution settlement.

“The time when complete financial separation from the state will take place is inexorably approaching,” he wrote.

“Although those responsible for administering Church property should be good stewards, I do not think their mission is to turn the Church into a rentier living solely from the proceeds of its granaries (Lk 12:16-19), shares, or other investments.”

“The intention of securing the Church materially for the future is unquestionably commendable; nevertheless, I would like to shift the emphasis. To live and prosper, we do not primarily need material capital, but above all the involvement of people, mutual trust, a sense of belonging and a willingness to bear responsibility together.”

“If there are people, the Church will always prosper. If there are not, what good will its investments be?”

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Fatima t…

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The USCCB said Sept. 16 that the task force will “focus on promoting policies and practices that protect human dignity, religious liberty, democratic institutions, workers, families, and vulnerable populations.”

It is not immediately clear what policies the bishops will advocate for, or even in what forum. But it seems likely that the intended scope of the bishops’ project will be the deciding factor in how effective the task force might actually be.

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The task force was announced Wednesday as an initiative of the USCCB’s administrative committee — the governing body consisting of the conference officers, committee chairs, and regional representatives — which is meeting this week in Washington to plan the conference’s November plenary assembly.

The membership of the task force has not been announced, but the group will be chaired by San Jose’s Bishop Oscar Cantu, who is in principle the prelate of Silicon Valley, and who has been active since the promulgation of Magnifica humanitas in meetings and conversations with tech leaders about AI and its potential.

As a task force of the USCCB, the group will operate for two years, and then bishops will decide whether to bring its work to a close, or to establish the task force as a committee of the conference.

The announcement itself was preceded by a “private meeting” between the administrative committee and tech officials, which was mentioned on twitter.com by USCCB officials and by Charlie Camosy, the CUA moral theologian who has emerged in recent months as a bridge in conversation between tech leaders and the Church’s theological community — and who characterized the confab as an “extremely candid conversation.”

The gathering was followed, according to the USCCB’s announcement, by a meeting of more than a dozen bishops “to Capitol Hill, to meet with members of Congress urging for the enactment of meaningful safety guardrails on Artificial Intelligence and to support legislation to protect children online.”

The announcement suggests that when the bishops’ conference says the bishops will advocate on policy, they have in mind federal lobbying — that they will join in the emergent calls of tech leaders and others for Congressional legislation that would see a slowdown of AI development and the mandated creation of independent third party safety reviewers, possibly akin to the National Transportation Safety Board’s work to review aviation, railroad, and other transit disasters.

The Pillar requested an interview with Cantu on Wednesday, or with staffers assigned to the task force. While the USCCB told The Pillar that its membership did not intend to give interviews on the subject, Cantu was interviewed by OSV News, and focused his remarks on federal lobbying on the subject — both from the bishops themselves, and from U.S. Catholics, from whom Cantu called for an “all hands on deck” approach on the subject.

But in a column on the subject this week, Camosy himself quoted an Axios assessment that AI regulation in the near and medium-term future is “almost unimaginable” in Washington.

This might mean that USCCB lobbying on the subject will be a matter of tilting at windmills. That isn’t necessarily problematic. Quixotic quests can be meaningful expressions of prophetic witness — and can sometimes bear fruit in the long run. The Church’s aim of seeing Roe v. Wade overturned, for example, seemed like a fantasy, until about five minutes before it wasn’t.

But it does mean that from the perspective of immediate accomplishment on civic policy, the bishops should have limited expectations about what the task force can actually do.

But bishops — diocesan bishops, especially — have another arena in which they might have immediate and clear effect on the impact of AI in American life and culture: the ecclesial institutions they actually govern.

While big picture questions loom about AI and the American future, most people experience its effects in their ordinary and day-to-day lives. And it is in the arena of everyday life that some of the most pressing questions about AI loom for the Church.

Can AI design the renovation of a parish sanctuary? Can it create the designs for stained glass windows? Can AI write a priest or deacon’s homily? Can it write the opening hymn of a Sunday liturgy, or the prayers of the faithful?

Can an AI chatbot evaluate students in Catholic schools? Can it evaluate men for admission to seminary, or seminarians for admissions to orders? Can an LLM trained on psychological journals and statistical data evaluate the suitability of a cleric for orders?

Can an AI chatbot write the libellus for a tribunal process? Can it assist judges in evaluating proofs and arguments in a marriage case — can it be asked by judges to weigh in on what their finding should be? Can AI write advocates’ briefs for priests accused of serious misconduct? Can it draft diocesan particular law? Can it draft universal law?

Why or why not?

How much can a bishop’s pastoral letter be generated, edited, or polished by Claude? Is it ok to ask Grok to make images of the Blessed Virgin Mary? Of Jesus Christ? What about flyers for the parish bazaar? Where’s the line?

Can an AI chatbot triage arrivals at a Catholic Charities shelter? Can it train employees to work with the mentally ill? Can seminarians practice hearing confessions with AI avatars?

To date, diocesan policies on AI usage is relatively limited, with only a few dioceses promulgating much on the subject, and most policies limiting their guidance to the expectation that the use of AI in the Church’s life must be disclosed.

But that doesn’t answer everything. If a deacon or priest explains from the ambo that AI “helped” with his homily, can he deliver one written mostly by a robot? If Claude’s name is in the corner, can AI-created stations of the cross adorn the Church?

The Church is facing real questions about AI everyday. The answers to those questions have implications for evangelization, education, employment, and the power of the Church’s prophetic witness. And the bishops’ task force could go a long way to answering them — for the universal Church, in fact — especially if they harness the input of theological and canonical experts to develop from Magnifica humanitas a set of principles by which the Church herself makes decision about the use of AI in her own life.

The task force has broad ambitions. Cantu told a reporter this week that if bishops could “speak with clarity,” they might well “save human dignity and even humanity.”

As they work toward those broad ambitions, there are a host of pressing issues — more granular and specific than “sav[ing] … humanity” — which might benefit from their close attention.

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Happy Friday friends,

No one enjoys slighting the French more than me. It really is one of life’s innocent little pleasures. There’s something about the Gallic national character which, for some of us, just aches for deflating a bit.

Don’t get me wrong, I like both France and the French, generally speaking. Food, wine, language, art, architecture — to say nothing of the inherent beauty of the country itself — all make it a wonderful place. And, I don’t hesitate to say it, the vast majority of French people tend to be pretty salt-of-the-earth types, open minded, interested and interesting, and just generally good company.

The truth is that when people like me admit to enjoying needling “the French” what we really mean is “Parisians.”

Paris is to France what New York City is to the United States; a permanently dysfunctional, crime ridden, overhyped and overpriced tourist trap, where the food is subpar, the streets unswept, and the locals contemptuously superior. It’s the kind of combination that gives honest people the urge to provoke them — this is how and why Chicago deep-dish pizza was invented.

I mention all this because the French, or rather the Parisian, press are in a bit of a flap this week because, apparently, the Vatican have said a polite but firm non to a host of requests for Pope Leo’s upcoming visit to the country. I read with interest that the Holy See has declined for the pope to be received with a full military guard, invested with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, subjected to a state banquet and shackled to President Macron for a private tour of Notre Dame.

Now, I would like to think that Leo, as a son of Chicago, is just showing some no-nonsense Midwestern impatience with unnecessary pomp and circumstance and a native allergy to jagoffery. But I don’t think that is quite it.

France is in the midst of the same toxically acrimonious political cycle as the rest of the West right now, and the list of things to which Leo has said thanks-but-no-thanks is being widely interpreted there as the Vatican cannily avoiding the pope’s trip being co-opted into a weeklong series of presidential photo-ops.

It seems clear enough to me that Leo has always intended his brief swing through France as a pastoral visit by the chief shepherd of Christ’s flock, not a state visit by the Father of Princes and Kings. This distinction is both formal and fairly obvious from a diplomatic perspective, and well established in papal travels.

St. John Paul II’s trip to the UK in 1982 was the first in history by a reigning pope, but while he met with Queen Elizabeth II in her capacity as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, not head of state, he — by mutual agreement — steered clear of the head of government, Margaret Thatcher. By contrast, Benedict XVI’s visit in 2010 was a full blown state occasion with all the sorts of fanfare, literal and metaphorical, for which Macron has apparently asked, and been denied.

I would expect that Leo’s expectations for the trip had been made clear from the get-go and the Élysée was simply hoping to squeeze some extra juice out of a pope in his rookie season. The Vatican state department aren’t newbies though, and Leo is no rube.

I’m glad he’s keeping his diplomatic powder dry, and reserving the head-of-state star power of the papacy for when he, and he alone, chooses to deploy it. The question is, where will that be? That will be worth watching.

Here’s the news.

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The News

The international Marian shrine of Fátima, Portugal, does not plan to remove or cover a massive Rupnik mosaic, despite other countries moving to do so.

Indeed, some Portuguese ecclesiastical leaders have told The Pillar that they believe that art from the allegedly sexually abusive Rupnik should be judged distinctly from the man who created it.

With the prospect of a papal visit to Fátima next year, it is possible the shrine will face ongoing questions over the controversial mosaics, especially since this doesn’t seem to have been Pope Leo’s take on the whole affair.

Read all about it here.

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The Syriac Catholic Church has become the first Eastern Church sui iuris to initiate a process to depose its patriarch, following the promulgation of canonical reforms by Pope Leo XIV on Aug. 29.

The senior bishop of the Eastern Church’s synod of bishops initiated the process for a vote to remove the patriarch Patriarch Ignace Youssif III Younan on September 4, just days after Pope Leo XIV issued the motu proprio Mutua concordia, allowing for the prospect of Eastern Catholic bishops moving to remove their patriarchs.

In the Syriac Catholic Church, the bishops are expected to convene in late September or early October for a meeting that could involve deposing the patriarch, although Youssif has responded to the move by himself calling for a synod that would gather in November.

I wrote at the time the new law came out that it looked a lot like clearing a path for increased Roman intervention in the leadership disputes of Eastern Churches, and I frankly don’t see how the Vatican stays out of this one.

Read the whole story here.

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Leading Church figures gathered in Austria this week to devise a “roadmap” for synodality in Europe.

More than 180 people representing 31 countries and 29 bishops’ conferences attended the Sept. 14-17 symposium “Shaping Synodality in Europe: From Vision to Roadmap” in Wels, a city in Upper Austria with Roman roots.

The event was organized under the patronage of the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences, and there were two competing visions of synodality: one emphasizing structural change and the overriding value of equality, and another seeing the process largely in terms of encouraging improved communication between the laity and hierarchy.

These rival visions have some very different priorities and plans, and it is very much worth keeping an eye on what’s happening.

Read the whole story here.

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Staying in Austria for a moment, the country’s largest Catholic women’s organization urged the country’s bishops Tuesday to open the role of bishops’ conference general secretary to lay people.

The appeal was prompted by the announcement that Fr. Peter Schipka, the general secretary of the Austrian bishops’ conference since 2011, will step down in November. Schipka chose to resign two years before the expiration of his latest six-year term to serve as a professor of education.

The Austrian Catholic Women’s Movement noted that canon law does not require a bishops’ conference general secretary — who plays an administrative and coordinating role within a national bishops’ conference — to be a priest.

But the phenomenon of appointing lay people to the top administrative role in a bishops’ conference is relatively new — and has a historical connection to the Church in the United States.

Read all about it here.

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When presidents of bishops’ conferences and Eastern Catholic patriarchs gather in Rome next month to discuss Amoris laetitia, their meeting will have been organized largely by the Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops.

But the meeting is not a synod. And its thematic framework was originally published by the Dicastery for the Laity, Family, and Life.

As Edgar Beltran wrote this week, the now-leading role that the secretariat has taken on in preparing for the meeting is part of what seems to be a growing influence of the Secretariat of the Synod under Pope Leo. That’s an interesting, and I think unexpected development for a lot of people.

You can read the whole analysis here.

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A professor of theology at The Catholic University of America was recently announced as the new head of cultural outreach at the Department for Homeland Security’s Office for Partnership and Engagement.

The move is, in many ways, not unusual. Tenured professors at many academic institutions, including CUA, take leaves of absence either to work on special projects or to serve in some external role for a period of time. In the case of Catholic U., faculty stints in government service are not at all uncommon.

But this particular appointment has drawn attention since the professor is taking up a post at the government department responsible for one of the Trump administration’s more controversial policy areas — immigration enforcement, detention, and deportation.

Those policies, and the manner of their implementation, have drawn public and direct criticism from bishops across the country, including Washington, D.C.’s own Cardinal Robert McElroy, along with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Pope Leo XIV.

As such, many have asked if there is tension between such a government role and an ongoing status as a tenured theologian at the university most closely linked to the ecclesiastical hierarchy.

In fact, the unique status of CUA and its theology faculty actually add layers of canonical nuance to the whole issue.

How? Well, that’s interesting, and The Pillar explains.

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In nomine ecclesiae

I’m somewhat curious to see how the appointment of a Catholic theology professor as head of “cultural outreach” for the Department of Homeland Security is going to shake out.

As a general principle, I think it wonderful that my alma mater Catholic U. makes faculty free to serve in government. The founding mandate of Pope Leo XIII was, after all, to give the republic her best citizens. It seems totally reasonable that the terms of academic tenure allow for this sort of thing. Plenty of professors before, and I hope after this, have and will continue to do so.

While I think it’s reasonable to allow that things might get “interesting,” should the immigration enforcement debate heat up again between the Church and the Trump administration, I guess I err on the side of assuming the appointment will likely be the last time it is especially newsworthy — at least I assume that’s the plan. After all, the cast iron rule of political comms is that any time a government official becomes the story, instead of the message, that’s a failure.

But, as our explainer unpacked, this appointment comes with a particular complication because this professor comes from — and while on leave maintains a place at — an ecclesiastical faculty. This poses a potential wrinkle, as I see it. One that I would suggest everyone involved might consider addressing before it has the chance to become “a thing.”

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I’m Luke Coppen and I aim to guide you each weekday morning to the most interesting Catholic news and commentary.

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While Church leaders in Fátima say they do not plan to cover the Rupnik mosaic, some Portuguese ecclesiastical leaders have told The Pillar that they believe that art from the allegedly sexual abusive Rupnik should be judged distinctly from the man who created it.

With the prospect of a papal visit to Fátima next year, it is possible the shrine will face ongoing questions over the controversial mosaics.

Rupnik is currently on trial in the Vatican, accused of multiple counts of sexual, spiritual, and psychological abuse of dozens of women. Some cases of abuse are alleged to have taken place as part of the creation process of his artwork, which has been featured prominently in numerous sites across the world.

The disgraced priest, who was expelled from the Jesuits in 2023, was previously briefly excommunicated for the canonical crime of absolving a sexual partner, though later reinstated.

Amid global outrage over the priest’s conduct, some shrines and churches have begun covering mosaics created by Rupnik and his studio, which can be found in churches around the world.

But last year, the Fátima shrine issued a statement saying it would not remove the Rupnik mosaic.

“The Shrine of Fátima categorically condemns the acts committed by Father Rupnik and has already expressed its solidarity with the victims,” the statement said. “We are not considering removing the mosaic panel by the Aletti Centre, which is located in the Basilica of the Holy Trinity. However, since we became aware of the allegations against Marko Rupnik, we have suspended the use of the image, both in its entirety and any details thereof, in our promotional materials.”

The decision to leave the mosaic untouched runs counter to that taken recently by the shrine in Lourdes, France. The bishop of Lourdes recently told a French magazine that he was following Pope Leo’s guidance in ordering the mosaics at the site to be permanently covered.

In an interview with Paris Match, published Aug. 31, Bishop Jean-Marc Micas of Lourdes said that Pope Leo asked him during an audience how the shrine was handling the Rupnik image at the site, and expressed approval for the decision to cover it.

The bishop said Pope Leo told him that he had personally ordered the Vatican to stop using Rupnik’s images in its communications materials.

After those statements, The Pillar asked the Fátima shrine whether its position about its own Rupnik mosaic had changed, but was told there is no update to the shrine’s stance.

The Pillar spoke with a number of bishops and influential Church figures in Portugal about the controversial mosaics. Several defended their continuing presence at the holy sites, saying the artist and the artwork should be viewed separately.

One cleric, who asked not to be identified because he holds positions of responsibility within the shrine, said destroying the artwork could be seen as “puritanism.”

The cleric suggested that maintaining the art might in fact be a way of honoring those who had worked on the project with Rupnik, and who were not responsible for his crimes, but may even have been victims themselves.

Bishop Virgílio Antunes, president of the Portuguese bishops’ conference and chairman of the National Council of the Fátima Shrine, said that in his view, “one cannot separate the artwork from the context and the circumstances in which it was created.”

Still, he continued, neither he nor the bishops’ conference “believe that, at this moment, there are reasons to propose any change to the position already taken by the shrine” — namely, keeping the mosaic in place.

Antunes acknowledged to The Pillar that the bishops’ conference has not held any specific consultations with victims on the matter.

The bishops’ conference “naturally recognizes the importance of listening to and supporting the victims, and of taking into consideration their suffering and dignity, and hopes that this is being done at the most local levels and within the framework of the canonical process reportedly underway at the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith,” he said.

Sofia Marques, part of the Portuguese Jesuits’ safeguarding team, told The Pillar that the presence of a 500 square-meter mosaic in the sanctuary of the Basilica in Fatima could very well be “a source of suffering for people who have been hurt, not only Rupnik’s victims, but any victim of abuse in a Catholic setting, be it sexual or spiritual in nature.”

But in her view, a top-down decision to remove or cover the mosaic may be an inadequate solution.

“My concern in this case is that any unilateral decision might not feel like a protection of the victims, but once again of disenfranchisement, an exercise of power in which their opinions are not taken into account,” she said.

Marques instead suggested the creation of a memorial sign or “trigger warning” near the mosaic to recognize the suffering of victims.

While the controversy over the Rupnik image continues, it is possible that the pope himself could take action ahead of a possible visit to Fatima for the anniversary of the apparitions.

The shrine’s own bylaws state explicitly that “as part of its specific oversight of shrines, it is the responsibility of the Apostolic See to issue guidelines, which will be followed by the Shrine.”

The bishops contacted by The Pillar confirmed that if the Vatican were to order the removal of the mosaic, the shrine would comply, though they were skeptical that the pope would exercise this option.

One bishop suggested that Leo could visit Fátima without entering the Basilica of the Holy Trinity, where the Rupnik image is located. Both Pope Francis and Pope Benedict held open-air masses in Fátima, without ever visiting the basilica, which was built in 2007.