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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This episode is brought to you by the Benedict XVI Institute’s Reverent Liturgy Project, offering the practical wisdom of priests who have successfully adopted classically Catholic worship practices to priests who want to embark on the same journey but need a roadmap to get started.

To learn more, visit ReverentLiturgy.org

He recently ministered to Catholic death row inmate Leroy McGill and celebrated Mass for him on the morning of his execution. McGill was executed by lethal injection May 20 at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence, Arizona, after being convicted of first-degree murder, for a brutal crime, reportedly committed under the influence of methamphetamines. When he died, after more than 20 years in prison, McGill was reported in the local press as “by all accounts, a changed man.”

Wetzel spoke with The Pillar about what it’s like to accompany an inmate who is about to die, how he prepared for the experience, and his spiritual reflections in the days since then.

The interview is below. It has been edited for length and clarity.

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How is the experience of ministering to someone on death row different from accompanying someone dying in a hospital?

When my dad was dying, or when grandma’s dying, you’re kind of guessing, you’re like, “Okay. They could pass tonight, tomorrow.” But, with an execution, you know it’s going to be 10:00 on a Wednesday.

When I enter a hospital, I’m kind of confident that the space is already claimed by the Lord, or maybe there’s family surrounding, already praying a rosary. But since this was the execution chamber of Arizona, I just got a sense that I should just say some extra prayers, because I don’t know how many people have ever prayed in this building.

In other ways, it’s not so different. What sticks out to me is “the wages of sin is death,” which means that all of us come to the table with brokenness, with the reality that my sin personally has brought condemnation and death, eternal death, that I can’t save myself from my sin.

So then when I’m approaching someone in the prison — and now in particular this person to be executed — my heart is filled with a kind of hope, and with solidarity, knowing that I need a savior just as much as this person. They’re not some sort of second-class Christian. [Before conversion], St. Paul approved of the death of St. Stephen, Moses killed someone, David was complicit in the death of Bathsheba’s husband.

But God is bigger than our sins. I’m bringing that hope to the table in my prison ministry, just as fully as I would if I were to accompany someone in hospice.

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How do you minister to someone who is about to be executed?

I didn’t know how the day would turn out. I’m just kind of being present with the Lord. I’m bringing to the table the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The day-of [execution] reading had to do with not belonging to the world, and the passage where Jesus says, “Now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share in my joy completely. I gave them your word. Keep them from the evil one.”

After having celebrated Mass, I’m in a different room, just until it’s time.

And I’m just quiet, a little conversation here and there with those that are around me, but really just kind of praying the rosary, the divine mercy chaplet, and sitting and particularly praying just deliverance prayers. I brought my deliverance prayer book.

It’s weird to be participatory in an evil. Someone is going to be killed, and that’s a crazy thought. I’m not praying for the event to go smoothly. I’m not blessing the event. I’m just saying, “Lord, this is the last moments of someone’s life, so I need you to drive out any evil spirit that would try to interfere with the possible salvation of someone at the last moments of their life.”

And so when it came to the moment [of execution], there was no dread. The Lord was with me, and I did what I needed to do. I prayed Psalm 23, the apostolic pardon, and then the “Go forth Christian soul” prayer from the Anointing of the Sick book. And then just pure attentiveness: “Oh, Lord, I’m going to keep praying under my breath.” And I just sensed the Lord’s presence through it all.

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How did you prepare spiritually for the experience?

I made sure to turn off my phone -- Instagram, the social media stuff, checking the news -- and I was just trying to pay attention to life. I think what the Lord helped me understand then is this: you already pray your holy hours, you pray your rosary on the way to work. So, then maybe just to be a little more silent, a little more reflective and almost reverential for the Spirit to do something, to make sure that those last conversations are guided by Him, that they’re sensitive to whatever the Lord wants.

The readings in the days leading up to the execution were beautiful. What I noticed the Lord was doing was giving readings that were very pregnant with meaning. In Acts of the Apostles 20, Paul says, “The Holy Spirit has been warning me that imprisonment and hardships await me, yet I consider life of no importance to me if I only finish my course and the ministry I received from the Lord Jesus.” So as I’m thinking of preparing this person, I’m looking at these readings, and it’s like the Lord is already showing his grace to let the scripture, the lectionary speak for that moment.

The night before, I wondered, is this a day to fast in preparation? But I knew, because it’s online, what Leroy’s last meal was: some Irish food, cottage pie, onion rings, chocolate cake. And I realized, Oh, you know what? Before I drive out to the prison, let me just be in solidarity with him, by having a favorite food of mine: tripas tacos.

I turned off my phone and I was just enjoying a meal at around the same time that I know he was having his last meal, just as some sort of spiritual lifting up of the heart and an appreciation of life and preparation for the next day.

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What else stands out to you about that day?

In our last interaction [before the day of execution], I had written a list of prayer requests and passed it to Leroy – “for this person in my family, for prison ministry in general, for a place of healing and reconciliation for the diocese of Phoenix’s incarcerated population,” that sort of thing.

It was right there in his Bible, and he just showed it to me, and it just kind of moved my heart.

When you’re dealing with a hospice patient, they’re not always conscious or they may be in pain and distracted. To ask for someone to pray for you when they’re in purgatory and in heaven is just a really different conversation.

There was this inner peace within my soul and then almost a confidence that like, “Hey, whenever you get to heaven, make sure to pray for these things.”

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What has your experience been in the days since the execution? Do you have any spiritual reflections or insights?

What first comes to mind is the word gratitude. All of us have charisms and gifts, and to be in this job, this job that I love so much, I was grateful to be in a spot that I needed to be as a priest.

My priesthood has been unfolding to be in this moment, having come from an incarcerated-affected background, having come from the police raiding my house as a kid, that now I’m on the other side and it’s just a joy to be there.

That week was a hard week…But with that theme of gratitude, [I was able] to have a prayer day at our retreat center, to have my priestly support group, to have continued to pray my holy hour and celebrate Mass.

I’m open to understanding that this will affect me deeper, or it might come in waves. I recognize that people process at different times in different ways.

But also there’s that deeper sense that this is a continuation of abiding in the ocean of God’s mercy. When life gets harder or it’s more difficult, or it’s more traumatic, to whom shall we go, Lord? You have the words of eternal life. And so with the proper prayer and supports, it continues to be something to be with the Lord in, a space of intimacy and vulnerability, that the Lord is who he says he is and he’s going to provide for us, as life still has the struggles -- and sometimes in the priestly ministry, very deep and difficult circumstances, as you accompany the people of God.

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You are the head of prison ministry and restorative justice in your diocese. In your view, how does the idea of restorative justice fit into the Catholic understanding of justice?

While justice requires that we take responsibility for our sins, our dignity is never lost. And so this idea of restorative justice is the idea that those who are incarcerated, and also family members of the incarcerated, and also victims, at times have been so wounded that they forget or they seemingly lose the dignity of how precious they are in the eyes of the Lord.

So I find my restorative justice ministry as a part of setting captives free, to be able to bring healing and reconciliation to those who have been deeply affected by crime – both the incarcerated and the victims. When our blessed Lord wants to set captives free, he wants to save us from our sins and envelop us in his mercy, then he is elevating us and restoring us to the preciousness that we have in his eyes by his grace and healing.

Again, that 100% includes not only victims, but also the incarcerated. Mother Teresa talks about loving the poorest of the poor, that if indeed the wages of sin is death, then these individuals absolutely just as much are in need of and are entitled to the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, because he has willed it. He has chosen to set captives free, to save us from our sins. No one is a second-class Christian, if we choose to repent and return to the Lord, who saved every single one of us from eternal death.

Many times in prison, once things have settled down and you’re outside of the world, you come to a freedom that you could never have on the outside. I’ve seen this multiple times in prison ministry. Many come to this falling in love with the Lord, this repentance, and that there’s this deeper meaning, there’s this deeper intercession that transforms the incarcerated heart, that they know they’re not second-class Christians, that an incarcerated individual comes to this understanding.

There’s a permission to fall completely in love with Jesus and to be redeemed by him. And I’ve seen it in multiple situations.

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The consecration was proclaimed jointly by Ecuador’s President Gabriel García Moreno and Archbishop José Ignacio Checa y Barba at Quito Metropolitan Cathedral.

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The act inspired a global wave of national consecrations that continues to this day, most recently with the June 11 consecration of the U.S. to the Sacred Heart by the country’s bishops.

The movement is likely to continue in the coming years, with England and Wales reportedly among the countries preparing for national consecrations.

What’s the background to this phenomenon? And which countries have been consecrated so far?

How did the practice begin?

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus has deep historical roots. But the devotion took on its modern form following the visions of Jesus reported by St. Margaret Mary Alacoque between 1673 and 1675 in Paray-le-Monial, France.

Amid these intense spiritual experiences, the Visitation nun wrote prayers of personal consecration to the Sacred Heart. She shared these with her Jesuit confessor, St. Claude La Colombière, who consecrated himself to the Sacred Heart and dedicated his life to spreading the devotion.

Thanks in part to the global network of the Jesuit order, the devotion spread far beyond Europe. Among the most receptive regions was Latin America. Historians point out that the Sacred Heart devotion — with its stress on personal prayer, home enthronement, and family consecration — helped to nurture the faith in areas that suffered an acute shortage of priests.

That was not the case, however, in Ecuador, which had relatively robust priestly numbers. In the early 19th century, Ecuadorians engaged in a decades-long struggle to gain independence from the Spanish Empire. Local clergy played a prominent role in the battle. The country’s first provisional constitution, for example, was written by a priest.

Despite gaining full independence in 1830, Ecuador suffered from internal division and instability in the decades that followed. When Gabriel García Moreno secured power in 1860, he believed that the country’s ills stemmed from its lack of a strong national identity. He saw the Catholic Church as the one institution that united Ecuadorians of all political persuasions, so he sought to form an alliance with it.

When García Moreno received a proposal to consecrate the young republic to the Sacred Heart, he embraced the idea, after initial hesitation about whether the country was spiritually worthy of the honor.

By consecrating Ecuador to the Sacred Heart together with the country’s leading churchman, García Moreno made a powerful statement about Ecuador’s identity, affirmed strong Church-state ties, and also sent a message of solidarity to Pope Pius IX, who had lost the Papal States four years earlier.

García Moreno’s unapologetically public faith earned him enemies: he was assassinated after attending Mass in 1875, just a year after the national consecration.

Archbishop José Ignacio Checa y Barba was also killed, on Good Friday in 1877, after drinking from a literal poisoned chalice.

Although Ecuador was the first state to be consecrated to the Sacred Heart with full state backing, it wasn’t absolutely the first national consecration. That took place in Ireland on March 30, 1873, when the Irish bishops consecrated their nation to the Sacred Heart. There was no question of state support at the time because the country was then under British Protestant rule.

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Which nations have been consecrated?

Ecuador’s consecration to the Sacred Heart gained international attention. Catholics around the world saw it as an inspiring act of national devotion and support for Pius IX.

In 1875, two countries followed Ecuador’s example: El Salvador and Uruguay. The consecration in Uruguay was performed by Bishop Jacinto Vera, then serving as apostolic vicar of Montevideo. Vera was beatified in 2023.

In his 1899 encyclical Annum sacrum, Pope Leo XIII consecrated the entire human race to the Sacred Heart. The encyclical helped to inspire the national consecration of Venezuela in 1900 and Colombia in 1902.

Moments of national peril were another driver of consecrations. In 1915, as World War I tore Europe apart, both France and Germany underwent national consecrations by their respective episcopates, even as their soldiers clashed along the Western Front.

Subsequent events showed there is no simple link between national consecrations and peace and prosperity. After years of bloodshed, there was a brief pause, before war engulfed France and Germany once again, at the cost of millions of lives.

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This bitter reality was also evident in Spain, where King Alfonso XIII consecrated the country to the Sacred Heart in 1919. This remains the only occasion on which a monarch has presided at a national consecration.

The ceremony took place at Cerro de los Ángeles (Hill of the Angels), located in what is traditionally considered to be the center of the Iberian Peninsula. Photographs taken at the time show Alfonso XIII reading the act of consecration at an outdoor altar. Other images show throngs of people beneath the soaring Monument to the Sacred Heart of Jesus that was inaugurated on the same day as the consecration.

The monument, which was topped by a statue of the Sacred Heart, only stood for 17 years. In 1936, Republican militia seized the shrine and used the statue for target practice, before destroying it with dynamite. Images of the monument’s destruction were widely circulated in the Catholic world and came to symbolize the persecution of the Spanish Church.

A new monument was inaugurated in 1965, with the ruins of the original preserved nearby.

As the horrors of the 20th century piled up, more nations underwent consecrations, including Brazil and Portugal in 1931, Argentina in 1945, and Chile in 1946.

The Philippines became the first Asian nation to be consecrated to the Sacred Heart in 1956, in an act led by President Ramon Magsaysay.

Ghana became Africa’s first nation to undergo the consecration in 1957, three days before it achieved independence from British rule.

The national consecration movement has picked up pace again in the 21st century — another turbulent period in world affairs.

On March 25, 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world, Cardinal Antonio Marto consecrated 24 countries to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima, at the request of their bishops’ conferences.

In a single act, Africa gained three new consecrated nations: Kenya, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. Also, consecrated that day was India, the world’s most populous nation.

As it stands, nearly 40 nations — roughly one in five of the world’s countries — have been consecrated to the Sacred Heart. It’s impossible to say how many definitively because there is no central database and sources are rife with contradictory information. This overview only includes national consecrations that are well attested in published sources, including Church documents.

Other countries have received different kinds of consecration. For example, Venezuela was consecrated to the Blessed Sacrament in 1899 and Rwanda was consecrated to Christ the King in 1946.

If you live in a country that is not yet consecrated to the Sacred Heart, there is no cause for despair. Pope Leo XIII’s consecration of the whole human race to the Sacred Heart means that no one is excluded on the basis of nationality.

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The policies, documented in the motu proprio Vos estis lux mundi, represented at the time the promise of a new approach to a serious problem, which had come to the fore with the McCarrick scandals of 2018, subsequent grand jury reports, and emerging accounts from Catholics who said they’d manifested concerns to bishops, and been met with silence, or with the appearance of cover-ups.

When it was promulgated, the U.S. bishops’ conference president Cardinal Daniel Dinardo said it would “empower the Church everywhere to bring predators to justice, no matter what rank they hold in the Church. It also permits the Church the time and opportunity to bring spiritual healing.”

Cardinal Sean O’Malley, then leading the pope’s safeguarding commission, said the plan would move the ball in the Church on “disclosure, transparency, and accountability with regard to any occurrence of sexual abuse, or intimidation, or cover up in the life of the Church.”

Transparency has not been a feature of Vos estis’ implementation in the U.S., and because of that, it is nearly impossible to assess whether the goal of internal accountability has been achieved.

But public accountability is easier to assess. With the Vatican and local officials rarely acknowledging Vos estis investigations, and results only being apparent when they lead to resignations — sometimes even made under the guise of “health reasons” —- most observers have concluded that Vos estis investigations have hardly moved the needle on the question of public accountability.

And with a growing number of reports that initial third party reporting systems did not function as intended, or that the Dicastery for Bishops has been slow to respond to reports sent to Rome — most likely from the challenge of chronic understaffing — it’s possible that, in some places, the existence of Vos estis processes have actually diminished public confidence in ecclesial investigation processes, rather than bolstered them.

But some bishops and experts have told The Pillar they see another challenge to a sense of increased public accountability in the administration of Vos estis investigations: the seemingly binary choice given to investigators and ecclesiastical officials engaged in the processes — the sense that a Vatican-ordered investigation will lead either to a solicited resignation, or to no publicly known result at all.

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Both bishops and safeguarding experts have told The Pillar that if Vos estis investigations were more publicly acknowledged, with their results and consequences to be publicly known, it would seem more likely that the could Church consider a broader range of end results than resignation, especially if bishops are found to have been in some way negligent in the administration of their duties, but not to the point of necessarily warranting removal.

To be clear, there are certainly cases when removal for mishandling an allegation of abuse or misconduct is demonstrably warranted, and with very little likelihood of objections raised. But there are also cases in which a bishop might have mishandled some element of a case, even badly, without malice, and properly be investigated for it, without it necessarily warranting his removal.

In short, canon law recognizes that in ordinary circumstances, most sanctions and restrictions come by gradation, according to the gravity of the offense or circumstance. It’s plausible to consider that the same is true in cases warranting Vos estis investigations — that while zero tolerance remains appropriately the gold standard for abuse itself, administrative issues may well admit to a graduated scale.

In light of that, it’s worth asking whether Vos estis could be a more effective tool if it led to publicly known consequences beyond removal — both for ensuring better governance from bishops, and for helping to shore up public confidence in the Church’s commitment to safeguarding.

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But if so, what might they be?

One option for bishops found to have mishandled some element of a case, especially without malice, might be dubbed the “Hunthausen solution.”

In 1985, because of a track record of doctrinal failures, Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen of Seattle was given an auxiliary bishop with particular competences and faculties, especially surrounding liturgy, priest formulation, and catechesis. In essence, Hunthausen saw the Vatican carve out certain areas of his responsibility, while allowing him to remain diocesan bishop — a prospect foreseen by canon 403 §2 of the Code of Canon Law.

In Hunthausen’s case, it didn’t work, and the auxiliary was gone from the diocese in less than 18 months.

But the Vatican has seen fit to try a similar approach in its own governance: given concerns about his track record and competence in administering disciplinary cases, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez was in 2023 appointed prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, but with only limited involvement and oversight into disciplinary cases, being explicitly exempted (or excluded) from cases involving the abuse of involving minors.

While unusual, that approach seems to have worked in the DDF’s discharge of duties in recent years, and a similar arrangement could be considered for bishops found in the course of a Vos estis investigation to have handled cases incompetently.

There is another option that could be considered, in cases in which some fault has been found, but not sufficient as to suggest removal: public disclosure and public apology.

There are, in the life of the Church today, two practices that exist in considerable tension with one another. The first is the reflexive ecclesial penchant for sequestering information under the highest levels of confidentiality. The second is the bishops’ frequent recourse in recent years to apologies for failures to appropriately handle allegations of abuse.

The challenge with those apologies is that they are generally non-specific expressions of regret, however sincere, for generalized and depersonalized “failings.”

Such apologies can have only limited effect. But Vos estis investigations afford the opportunity for a “paradigm shift,” as it were — for a disclosure of how cases came to be mishandled, and then a genuine apology from the person directly responsible.

Given that option, it could be interesting to see whether some prelates chose resignation instead. But some bishops have proven themselves eager to learn how better to handle cases, and might well welcome the opportunity for a specific and public apology, to the extent it’s called for.

At the same time, it’s worth asking whether Catholics would forgive a bishop who offered apologies for mishandling, in some way, a very serious case. It has been long the fear that a bishop who admits to specific wrongdoing would find himself unable to recover from reputation harm, which is part of the reason there has been no public disclosure when removal is not judged to be warranted.

But there is beginning to be some precedent for an alternative path. While once, any accusation against a priest was regarded as a “death sentence,” today, priests have apologized in some circumstances for failures of prudence or judgment, and been — to some extent — reincorporated into their communities.

Whether that could be possible for bishops who fail to handle cases administratively is hard to predict, but The Pillar has spoken with whistleblowers in some cases who say that acknowledgment of wrongdoing and sincere contrition — with firm purpose of amendment — would do a lot to restore their own trust in their leaders, especially if it was accompanied by a demonstration of plans for local policy or process change.

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Vos estis lux mundi was meant as a creative application of ecclesiastical principles to address an emerging problem — and to effect “a continuous and profound conversion of hearts.” Some of those hearts belong to bishops, and some to Catholics hoping for the Church’s transparent application of justice. For both groups, the use of a broader range of responses, and the necessary disclosure of information that would entail, might well be an effective mechanism.

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Italian bisho…

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Happy Friday friends,

For reasons of, I assume, terrible coincidence, this last week has seen several friends of mine, and friends of the Pillar family all, dealing with urgent medical emergencies. They’ve all been in my prayers this week, and if you’ve room I’d ask you to include them in yours, too.

It’s a sobering thing, standing in close proximity as families you care about see their lives upended, forced to confront the fundamental precariousness in which we all live but spend so much of our time skating over the top of.

Speaking only for myself, I see-saw violently in my own spiritual life between either treating Providence with a kind of unhealthy fatalism or petitioning the Almighty over daily trivialities. Neither is especially healthy, since neither reflects the real relationship I am called to have with God.

The truth is my life neither runs on rails like an inevitable pre-planned journey, nor is it simple chaos, practical and moral, which I can more or less successfully mitigate by the right kind of Divine propitiation.

Christian life is the messy mashup of individual choices, accumulated experiences (good and bad), unexpected consequences and unforeseen events, all set within and under an overarching love, which is its ultimate context and narrative force.

It is, in this sense, family life centered around the generative love of God within the Trinity.

I suppose like a lot of parents, I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to make things secure, safe, stable. Where, my mind often goes, is security to be found, for me and those I love?

While it might drive me to prayer at times, fundamentally, this is an impulse to approach God out of fear, not faith. And the hard truth of the Gospel is, I think, that security, at least in the earthly sense, is nowhere to be found.

Instead, in prayer and through the Church, I am reminded, though never often enough, that it is love I should be looking for — the love which saves and consoles and redeems and which faith, when I have it, instinctively grasps for.

It’s this love which is the rock on which I am supposed to build my house, in the image of the Gospel parable. Watching the storms hit those close to me this week reminds me I have a lot of work to do on its foundations.

Here’s the news.

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The News

An Italian archbishop has faced criticism, even from other bishops, after signing a petition to exclude a well-known Israeli novelist from a local literary festival.

Archbishop Franco Moscone of Manfredonia-Vieste-San Giovanni Rotondo has been accused of antisemitism after signing up to an appeal organized by the Communist Refoundation Party calling for Eshkol Nevo’s exclusion from the Libro Possibile festival.

Moscone said that said he signed the petition not because Nevo is Israeli, but because he believes the novelist has not sufficiently opposed what Moscone describes as a genocide in Gaza which he has compared to the Holocaust.

Nevo, in fact, is an outspoken opponent of the conflict in Gaza and a frequent and strident critic of the current Israeli government.

The archbishop is no stranger to controversy, read all about it here.

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A priest in the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas, used embezzled parish money to fund cruises, casinos, and a variety of medical treatments, according to an affidavit in the case.

Fr. Richard Storey, was arrested last month after an internal audit at his former parish alleged that he stole nearly $160,000 prior to his resignation. He faces charges of theft of property or services worth $100,000 — a crime classified in Kansas as a level five felony charge, which can be punished by up to 10 years in prison.

Storey had already resigned as pastor of Curé of Ars Parish in Leawood, Kansas, last September, when police launched a separate criminal investigation into unspecified allegations involving an adult.

He had served as pastor of the parish for a decade prior to his resignation.

Read the whole story here.

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Archbishop Hubertus van Megen touched down in Berlin Monday to begin his challenging new assignment as the apostolic nuncio to Germany.

The 64-year-old Dutchman was greeted at the airport June 15 by a delegation representing the German government, the bishops’ conference, and the diplomatic corps.

He succeeds the Croatian Archbishop Nikola Eterović, who was nuncio to Germany from September 2013 to April 2026, a turbulent period — to say the least — in relations between the German bishops and the Vatican.

Who is van Megen? And what challenges await him at the nunciature in Berlin? Read all about it here.

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Peruvian President José María Alcázar met Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican yesterday, formally inviting the pontiff to visit Peru in November.

Both the Peruvian bishops’ conference and Alcázar have said the trip is expected to take place that month. But a papal visit could be complicated by Peru’s fraught political climate and a series of scandals involving members of the country’s episcopal hierarchy, where Leo served as a missionary and bishop for nearly three decades.

The Peruvian trip will for sure be a kind of homecoming for Leo, but that doesn’t mean it will be without some very real challenges for the pope. Read all about it here.

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A total of 196 new priests are scheduled to be ordained in Poland this year, continuing a long-term decline in numbers.

This is expected to be the first year in the 21st century with fewer than 200 priestly ordinations in Poland. There were 208 new priests in 2025 and 235 in 2024.

The drop in priestly ordinations is likely to be felt far beyond Poland, because the country has traditionally supplied priests to other European countries, both East and West. Poland has also long been an important source of missionary priests to Africa, Latin America, and Asia.

But despite the ongoing decline, Poland remains the European country with the most priestly vocations. And that is its own potential problem.

Read the whole story here.

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Since he became pope last year, Leo XIV has become the recipient of many gifts, including an increasingly large collection of sports jerseys.

It seemed to us that it was getting a bit out of hand, and more than a little silly. And we thought it would make a nice bit of early weekend reading to do a quick tour of some of the more obscure team shirts given to the pope.

Instead, in an act of unprovoked and unbridled violence against various cities, teams, sports, and even entire countries, Michelle La Rosa turned in one of the funniest things I have read all year.

Read it here.

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As Magnifica humanitas illustrates with its more than 42,000 words in English, popes today love to write long encyclicals.

Francis was also known to cruise past the 40,000 words mark, which he did twice, in Laudato Si’ and Fratelli tutti. St. John Paul II as you might expect, still holds the record, though, with Evangelium vitae ringing in at well over 48,000 words, inclusive of its 142 footnotes.

As Bronwen McShea explains in a column this week, it didn’t used to be like this — Leo XIII’s Rerum novarum was fewer than 14,800 words.

In fact, popes of the past regularly produced encyclicals that were in the range of 500 to 1,500 words.

But what were such business-like encyclicals about, and to whom were they addressed? Read all about it here.

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For the first time in over 50 years, the Church in the U.S. will begin praying a new translation of The Liturgy of the Hours. Ascension is designing an edition with exceptional readability and top-of-the-line materials to faithfully serve the Church’s daily prayer for generations. Preorders open July 1.

Ecclesiastical dark matter

At the U.S. bishops conference meeting last week, one of the less remarked upon sessions was a presentation from Bob Cunningham, the executive director of the Catholic Prison Ministries Coalition.

It was a deeply sobering and spiritually challenging speech he gave, sadly somewhat lost amid the more immediately news-y events of a new USCCB president and apostolic nuncio, and the bishops’ vote to revise the Dallas Charter.

Cunningham noted — I say “noted,” though it came as a numerical shock to me — that a very conservative estimate of the number of self-identified Catholics currently incarcerated in the United States stands at, in Cunningham’s estimation, close to 400,000 people — possibly more if you factor in ICE detention centers.

For comparison, that is larger than the Catholic population of the Archdiocese of Denver.

The thrust of what the bishops were told was that the essence of prison chaplaincy in the United States is just showing up. There is no community of Catholics more marginalized, in a practical sense, than those in prison. And what they need, what they crave most of all, and ultimately what benefits them the most, the bishops were told, isn’t programs or curricula, but real pastoral human contact.

“Encounter” was the term used, though I think I would rather the more visceral word communion. I know myself some people who have spent more than a little time engaged in prison ministry and from all I hear this is what is desired above all, not to be acknowledged as a statistic but to be known as a person.

Introducing Cunningham to the assembly, Bishop William Wack of Pensacola–Tallahassee described receiving a letter from a local inmate which, as he put it, “convicted” him. “We need a shepherd,” Wack recalled reading. “No matter what we’ve done, or where we are or for how long, you’re our bishop and we are your sheep, please come and visit us.”

I would imagine such a letter would strike a bishop exactly as Wack reported it struck him. But I am not sure it should hit any of the rest of us any less hard. Somewhere between a quarter and a half a million of our brothers and sisters are in prison. Have we visited them, as Christ commanded us? I know I have not.

On the podcast last week, JD and I talked about the scope of prison chaplaincy in this country — which really ought to rank as a diocese, at least by the numbers — a personal ordinariate, in canonical terms.

We also talked a bit about the enormous logistical hurdles which can make just getting in to see our brothers and sisters in Christ anything but straightforward. And that is before we talk about the known barriers to bringing them the sacraments that crop up in different states and can sometimes be entirely arbitrary.

Since then, I have been wondering about the effects on the Church, as a spiritual ecclesia, of a situation in which hundreds of thousands of Catholics are cut off from the rest of us, often totally forgotten.

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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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Archbishop Franco Moscone of Manfredonia-Vieste-San Giovanni Rotondo has been accused of antisemitism after joining an appeal calling for Nevo’s exclusion from the Libro Possibile festival, scheduled to take place in July in the town of Vieste.

Moscone has previously drawn criticism for comparing the situation in Gaza to the Holocaust. The archbishop said he signed the petition not because Nevo is Israeli, but because he believes the novelist has not sufficiently opposed what Moscone describes as a genocide in Gaza.

Nevo, however, has repeatedly and publicly criticized both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

The grandson of former Israeli PM Levi Eshkol, Nevo lives in Tel Aviv and is best known for his novel “Nostalgia,” set in 1990s Israel.

However, Nevo has become an even more prominent figure in Italy through a column he wrote for the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera between November 2023 and October 2025, chronicling life in Israel after the Oct. 7 attacks and throughout the war in Gaza. In the articles, he repeatedly called for an end to the conflict, criticized the Israeli government, and lamented the suffering caused by the war.

The petition signed by Moscone was launched by the regional secretary of the Communist Refoundation Party, Sabino De Razza, and anthropologist Laura Marchetti.

The petition starts by saying that the request to exclude Nevo “stems from the pain, dismay, and outrage we feel over what the Israeli government and military are doing in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”

“Entire families have been wiped out. An entire people has been subjected to bombings, sieges, forced displacement, starvation, and deprivation…Compounding this tragedy is the expansion of Israeli military operations to other areas of the Middle East, particularly Lebanon, where bombings and incursions have caused civilian casualties [and] widespread destruction.”

The petition then says that it doesn’t intend to dispute Nevo’s works or freedom of speech.

“We believe, however, that intellectuals bear a special responsibility during the most tragic moments of history. It is not enough to portray humanity: we must defend it. It is not enough to celebrate dialogue: we must denounce war,” it says in an apparent reference to Nevo’s own criticism of Netanyahu.

“It is not enough to evoke coexistence among peoples: we must take a stand when thousands of civilians are killed, when boys and girls die under bombs, when entire communities are deprived of their land, their homes, and their future,” the petition adds.

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In a Jun. 14 interview, Moscone said that the petition is “not about censoring a writer or banning his works. The point is another: what role should an intellectual have today in the face of tragedies involving thousands of people?”

The archbishop said the petition “invites consideration to the appropriateness of hosting him at a festival without his ever having expressed a clear position on what the Israeli government is doing.”

He criticized Nevo for not “having the courage to offer a contribution of criticism and clarity… The current situation in Israel is no longer sustainable. One expects an intellectual to say things as they are. This particular intellectual has not done so.”

In an uncommon move among Italian bishops, Archbishop Michele Pennisi, emeritus archbishop of Monreale, publicly criticized Moscone, saying that “the Israeli government’s policy must be condemned, but that doesn’t make it plausible to exclude a writer from the festival simply because he is Israeli. It constitutes an act of anti-Semitism. Everyone should be able to freely express their opinions without being required to explicitly declare their compliance with the order.”

On the day the petition was released, Nevo spoke at an event in Bologna, where he said “not only am I ashamed [of the Israeli government], but Ben-Gvir represents neither me nor the values ​​of my country nor Judaism… in four months, my country will vote. I will do everything I can – I’m just a writer – so that this man is no longer part of the government.”

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This is not the first time Archbishop Moscone has drawn criticism for his statements on global affairs.

In March 2025, Moscone took part in a march for peace in Puglia, where he was one of the speakers. During his address, he said that “since 1947 the Gaza Strip and Palestine have been an open-air concentration camp. Since October 7, 2023, they have become an extermination camp.”

“What has always struck me is that the people behind this concentration camp [in Gaza] are the very people who were victims of concentration camps until the end of the Second World War,” he added.

In a June 2025 address, he also encouraged Italy to leave NATO, saying “we must have the courage to free ourselves from this American leash. And, I say this without caution and without mincing words, in my opinion this means leaving NATO.”

“A second missed opportunity was the Minsk Agreement (Belarus). If the West had respected them, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would not have happened,” he added. “Pope Francis was right when he said, ‘We’ve gone barking at Russia’s doorstep.’ I was living in Poland when it joined NATO, and I said to myself, ‘We’re headed for a new world war.’”

In the same address, he had said that Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretariat of state, had asked him “to be ‘prudent’ when discussing certain topics, which is a way of giving me a friendly reprimand!”

Moscone has also spoken against American foreign policy, and in one interview questioned the idea that Iran was actually rearming itself.

“The West, in recent decades, has fueled tensions and then wars. I’m not saying that regimes like Assad’s in Syria or Saddam Hussein’s in Iraq were paradises, but there were no civil wars before international intervention,” he said.

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Moscone’s archdiocese is also at the center of one of the largest financial crises in the Italian Church.

On May 27, the pope signed a chirograph establishing a commission for the direction and oversight of the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza (House for the Relief of Suffering), a large hospital in San Giovanni Rotondo – part of Moscone’s archdiocese – founded by Padre Pio in 1956 and overseen by the Vatican Secretariat of State.

According to several reports, the hospital has a debt close to €250 million. The hospital is also in the middle of a €32 million dispute with regional authorities, and in a tense internal situation over new labor contracts.

In April, 1,300 workers filed a court injunction demanding payment of a 2024 contractual adjustment, which would provide each of the workers with an average €170 for every month since the adjustment.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin went to the hospital on May 5 to celebrate its 70th anniversary, while workers organized a demonstration protesting contractual adjustments and management decisions, such as the extension of night shifts to 12 hours.

After a TV program on Rai 3 – one of Italy’s public TV stations – claimed that the total debt had grown to €250 million and that issues included inflated paychecks and administrative corruption, Gino Gumirato, the director of the foundation, said that the foundation actually owed “only €108 million.”

Local outlet Il Post reported on May 28 that the debt included €116 million to suppliers, €40 million to banks, and €5 million in unpaid wages to employees, plus the €32 million in dispute with the regional government of Puglia.

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A New Jersey appeals court rules that Seton Hall will not need to fully disclose a report detailing its response to abuse allegations against former…

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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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The priest, Fr. Richard Storey, was arrested last month after an internal audit at his former parish alleged that he stole nearly $160,000 prior to his resignation.

He faces charges of theft of property or services worth $100,000 — a crime classified in Kansas as a level five felony charge, which can be punished by up to 10 years in prison.

Storey had already resigned as pastor of Curé of Ars Parish in Leawood, Kansas last September, when police launched a separate criminal investigation into unspecified allegations involving an adult.

He had served as pastor of the parish for a decade prior to his resignation.

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A partially redacted affidavit was released in the case last week. It said an audit of Curé of Ars Parish for the years 2021-2025 revealed unauthorized spending totaling nearly $160,000.

The unauthorized spending was allegedly carried out on the parish credit card and via another avenue, which was redacted in the document.

“Father Storey personally wrote checks on the fund and was in possession of the [redacted] checkbook,” the affidavit said.

Court documents allege that Storey used the church credit card to pay $77,000 for cruise vacations, nearly $24,000 for a “casino cash withdraw[al],” and $27,000 for travel expenses to London, Paris, Dublin, and New York.

The audit also uncovered more than $11,000 in unauthorized pharmacy, medical, dental, and eyewear expenses, as well as nearly $6,000 in retail spending at Jos. A. Bank, Nordstrom Rack, and other retailers.

Additionally, parish records suggest Storey made unauthorized “donations” to church fundraising efforts from the church credit card and the other redacted account, for a total of more than $30,000 — apparently to make fundraising efforts appear more successful than they’d been.

“These transactions artificially inflated the reported fundraising totals without generating any new external funds,” the affidavit said.

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Storey resigned as pastor of Curé of Ars on September 17, 2025 after the Prairie Village Police Department notified Storey and the archdiocese that he was under investigation for unspecified potential illegal actions against one adult, seemingly unrelated to his alleged financial crimes.

The archdiocese, at the time, said that after being informed of the criminal investigation, they had initiated a preliminary canonical investigation and temporarily suspended Storey from the public exercise of ministry.

A criminal report obtained by The Pillar states that the alleged offense began on March 12, 2022 and occurred until November 11, 2022. The alleged incident was reported three years later on September 9, 2025.

The report lists one victim, but information about the victim and the alleged crime has been redacted.

Prairie Village, a township that borders Leawood to the north, has not filed any charges against Storey yet.

After Storey’s resignation, the parish initiated a financial audit, following standard diocesan protocol for parishes undergoing a change in pastoral leadership.

That audit discovered the missing funds, and led archdiocesan authorities to contact police.

The Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas said in a statement that it is “fully cooperating with local law enforcement” and is conducting an internal canonical process as well.

“This news is deeply painful for all of us in the Catholic community, particularly given the nature of the allegations involving resources entrusted to the Church through the sacrifice and generosity of the faithful,” said Archbishop Shawn McKnight.

During the last year of his pastorship, Storey launched and coordinated a $12 million capital campaign at Curé of Ars. To date, the “Cultivating through Christ Capital Campaign” has raised $6,434,054.50. The campaign is raising money to replace the church’s roof and refurnish the interior.

The capital campaign was approved by the archdiocese in late January 2025 and remains ongoing.

Curé of Ars intends to file an insurance claim to recover the financial losses.

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Robert Warren, an assistant professor of accounting at Radford University, a retired IRS investigator, and an expert in theft and fraud in ecclesiastical contexts, called the affidavit shocking.

Warren has advocated in recent years for the implementation of internal controls to prevent financial fraud in parishes and other Catholic institutions.

Among the measures he encourages is having several people involved in financial transactions and record-keeping, in order to make it more difficult for fraud to take place.

The affidavit released last week said the unauthorized charges were hidden among legitimate expenditures on the credit card and other account.

“Archdiocese staff stated that Father Storey did not keep consistent records or provide documentation for much of the spending, making it difficult to know how many other charges were for personal benefit,” the document said.

Curé of Ars Parish in Leawood is far from alone in facing financial crimes. Parishes in Florida, Missouri, New York, Alabama, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts and Iowa are among those which have been victims of financial crimes in recent years.

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Our late Holy Father, Francis, also surpassed 40,000 words twice, in Laudato Si’ and Fratelli tutti.

St. John Paul II still holds the record, though, with Evangelium vitae. It rang in at well over 48,000 words, inclusive of its 142 footnotes.

Traditionally, encyclicals were much shorter than this, because they started out in the 18th century as litterae encyclicae—literally “circular letters” to be shared with various individuals and groups. Similar to encyclicals or circulars used by lay authors in diverse secular contexts, they were typically addressed to particular categories of readers, such as the bishops of a specific kingdom, not to the whole Church as is customary today.

Older encyclicals certainly varied in length, depending on their purpose and audience. But even some of the well-studied, longer ones of the late 19th and early 20th centuries look modest alongside the book-length ones of today. Leo XIII’s Rerum novarum is just shy of 14,800 words in Latin. Pius X’s Pacendi domini gregis, despite condemning innumerable Modernist errors, is the same length.

Although it seems unimaginable today, popes of the past regularly produced encyclicals that were in the range of 500 to 1,500 words.

But what were such business-like encyclicals about, and to whom were they addressed?

Let’s take a look.

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The 64-year-old Dutchman was greeted at the airport June 15 by a delegation representing the German government, the bishops’ conference, and the diplomatic corps.

Van Megen, who previously served as the nuncio to Kenya, will formally assume the new post when he presents his credentials to German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

He succeeds the Croatian Archbishop Nikola Eterović, who was nuncio to Germany from September 2013 to April 2026, a turbulent period in relations between the German bishops and the Vatican.

Who is van Megen? And what challenges await him at the nunciature in Berlin?

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Who is the new nuncio?

Hubertus Matheus Maria van Megen was born in Eygelshoven, a village near the border between the Netherlands and Germany, on Oct. 4, 1961.

“Germany was very close to my village,” he recalled recently. “Even as children, we would cross the border to get into Germany. To play or to go shopping with my parents. Or to go even to church there at times.”

Through his grandparents, van Megen’s family has roots in Aachen and Düsseldorf in Germany and in Eupen, in Belgium’s German-speaking region.

Van Megen, who is known to friends as Bert, is fluent in German, a skill he says he picked up from the radio, television, and the streets of Germany, rather than through formal study.

But while the archbishop is culturally familiar with Germany, he recognizes that his knowledge of the country is nevertheless limited.

“I have never lived in Germany. I have never experienced the Church from the inside out in that sense. This will be a new challenge,” he said in an interview with Vatican Radio.

Van Megen appears to be the first Dutchman to serve as apostolic nuncio to Germany. If that is the case, it’s interesting to consider why the Holy See has chosen this option now.

Historically, the Vatican has tended to opt for nuncios who were neither German nor from immediately neighboring countries. In practice, this has largely meant Italians.

But perhaps now — and this is speculative — the Holy See is looking for someone who already has a strong affinity with the country, yet isn’t linked to the German Catholic establishment. Why? Because van Megen is arriving at a delicate moment in Germany-Vatican relations, but won’t need years to familiarize himself with his host country.

Although van Megen grew up on Germany’s doorstep, he wasn’t shaped by German ecclesiastical culture. He was ordained a priest of the Dutch Diocese of Roermond in 1987, worked locally as a chaplain, and entered the Holy See’s diplomatic service in 1994.

After postings in Sudan, Brazil, Israel, Slovakia, the UN in Geneva, and Malawi, van Megen was appointed apostolic nuncio to Sudan in 2014 and raised to the rank of archbishop. He was named nuncio to Eritrea the same year.

In 2019, he was transferred to Kenya. As he left Khartoum for his new assignment, the Sudanese capital was gripped by tension, with tanks on the street and sporadic shooting. He had expected a modest reception in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Instead, he was greeted by a choir and a large contingent of bishops — a joyous scene that was caught on camera.

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Van Megen recently recalled that the large-scale welcome raised eyebrows in Kenyan government circles. One official jokingly noted that van Megen hadn’t yet presented his credentials to the president, “and here you came in like a pope.”

Later in 2019, van Megen was also named nuncio to South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation.

The archbishop has said that, after more than a decade in Africa, he will deeply miss the continent.

“I’ve always enjoyed being in Africa — perhaps because the continent is so full of color, so full of life, so full of children, so full of energy — in a way that we in Europe can hardly imagine anymore,” he told Vatican Radio.

He has characterized the Church in Germany as being “old and gray” — adding, with a touch of self-deprecation, that he is old and gray too.

Van Megen’s experience of a growing Church in the Global South may be another reason for his selection. Pope Leo XIV clearly wants to encourage a new missionary dynamism in the Church of Europe, partly by drawing in leaders from outside the continent. In November 2025, for example, he named an Indian-born Carmelite priest as Germany’s first non-European Catholic bishop.

Describing his approach as nuncio, van Megen said his task was not just to understand local theological outlooks, but to grasp the emotions that lay behind them.

“It’s about how people experience the Church and, above all, God — in their spiritual lives and in their daily lives,” he said.

“And I think I need to accompany them in that, and above all, I need to understand it first. Not so much rationally, but with my heart.”

“I think that if I can manage that, if I can walk alongside people in that — including within the Church in Germany — then I will have already fulfilled a large part of my mission.”

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What are the challenges?

The post of nuncio to Germany is considered one of the most senior Vatican diplomatic appointments. It is also one of the most challenging, because of the tense relations between German Catholic leaders and Rome.

The background is likely familiar to many readers. In 2019, the German bishops and the lay Central Committee of German Catholics launched the “synodal way,” an initiative intended to introduce sweeping changes to Catholic teaching and practice in the wake of a harrowing clerical abuse scandal.

The synodal way culminated in 2023 with 150 pages of resolutions that included appeals for women deacons, a re-examination of priestly celibacy, lay preaching at Masses, a larger lay role in selecting bishops, and a revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church regarding homosexuality.

Along the way, organizers breezed past multiple “stop signs” from the Vatican. Perhaps most significantly, they defied Rome by drawing up plans for a permanent synodal body, composed of bishops and select laity, that would have substantial decision-making powers over the Church in Germany.

The Vatican and the German bishops averted a major showdown by launching a series of talks that resulted, in 2024, with a concession from the bishops that no permanent synodal body would be established without Rome’s approval.

In March 2026, bishops’ conference chairman Bishop Heiner Wilmer handed the new body’s statutes in to the Vatican for consideration. The institution’s first meeting is already planned for November 2026, but Wilmer has cautioned that Rome may not follow the German timetable.

This is the point at which van Megen is entering the picture. Can he help guide the Vatican and the German bishops to a mutually satisfactory solution concerning the new body? What if there is too little common ground and Rome nixes the plan, or just lets the statutes gather dust on a musty Vatican shelf?

While the synodal body is arguably the biggest issue, it’s far from the only one. What will van Megen do about the German Church’s blessing guidelines, which remain in place despite the Vatican’s explicit rejection?

What will he make of the recent document from Germany’s largest Catholic women’s association, calling for abortions in Catholic hospitals? The kfd is subject to the oversight of the German bishops’ conference. Will van Megen press the conference to intervene?

How will he tackle the deep fissures within the German bishops’ conference, where a minority resists the synodal way agenda while the majority seeks to advance it to the maximum extent possible?

When advising on the appointment of new bishops, will he seek to bolster the minority, strengthen the majority, or try to forge a missing center?

Given these difficulties, you might forgive van Megen for booking an immediate return flight to Nairobi. But he insists he’s relishing the new role.

“I’m also looking forward to German culture, German music, German literature, German food, and, of course, the German language,” he told Vatican Radio.

So even if the next few years prove strenuous, van Megen will have the consolations of Brecht, Beethoven, and bratwurst.

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Jerseys can be good gifts. For example, Leo received a Chicago White Sox jersey - his favorite hometown team - with his papal name on it. That’s a very cool gift.

At least, it was a cool gift the first time he got it. By now, he has a few. Maybe he wears one of them when he watches a game once in a while. But he doesn’t need 12 of them.

And that doesn’t mean that every jersey is a good gift for the Roman Pontiff. In fact, many of the ones he has been given are downright absurd, having no connection to the teams (or even sports) the pope follows, and thereby wasting space in a presumably small papal closet.

The Pillar thought it would be nice to compile a list of the worst sports jerseys Pope Leo has received so far. And of course, the editors decided to assign Michelle – the least attuned to the world of sports – to write it.

So here you go. The definitive Pillar countdown of Pope Leo’s lamest sports jerseys.

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5. Giro d’Italia

This is an Italian bike race. Bikers wear different colored jerseys, but the leader wears pink for some reason, so that’s the jersey they gave to the pope. You can tell from his face that he’s less than enthusiastic about this gift. And who could blame him? That pink is not in the pope’s color wheel. Not even close.

And since he’s a boomer American priest, he’s probably obligated to insist jokingly to everyone within earshot that it’s “rose, not pink”

4. Philadelphia Flyers

This is a great jersey…if you like losing teams. Leo has not lived in a city with a professional hockey team for quite some time, but if he followed the sport at all, he’d surely cheer for his hometown Chicago Blackhawks. In the last five years, the Flyers have lost more games than they’ve won, and they’ve missed the playoffs 7 of the last 10 years.

The family who gave this to Leo is probably great. And it’s cool they wanted to share their enthusiam. If they’re Pillar readers, we’ll send them some t-shirts.

But still, this jersey would be cooler if it had been handed to Leo by the Flyers’ crazy-looking mascot. Otherwise, it’s a no for me.

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3. Chicago Cubs

I had to double check this one. Get this: Chicago has TWO professional baseball teams. In the same city. No idea how that came to be, but it seems greedy and superfluous given how many cities out there would surely be grateful to have a single professional baseball team. Like Denver, for example.

Anyway, apparently there’s a pretty big rivalry between the two teams — though Ed says Cubs fans don’t actually care about the White Sox at all, it’s just the South Siders who are obsessed.

Either way, people have an intense loyalty to one or the other, and not both. Of course, Pope Leo loves the White Sox, so a Cubs jersey seems like a lousy gift, if not an act of provocation. Obviously, it was given as a joke, by another Chicago native bishop and crosstown rival. But still, I bet Leo’s burned it by now.

2. Tennessee Volunteers

A volunteer is a great thing to be. It’s a horrible name for a sports team. Also, this jersey is so unattractive - it looks cheap and the colors are blah. And who wants a jersey for a college sports team they don’t follow? (And let’s be honest, for a league they couldn’t care less about).

And one more thing: If you’re going to get a jersey for a Peyton Manning-team (which these Volunteers apparently are?), it should be for his very best team, the Denver Broncos.

This one was lame.

1. French Bleus

Who knew France had a basketball team? Do the French people know? Do the French players know?

I hate to tell the French president this, but people outside of France definitely do not care about French basketball. And even if France was serious about basketball, I bet the very best French player probably couldn’t even win an NBA championship this year.

Pope Leo is known to play tennis, so that would have been a much stronger option. Or maybe a Tour de France jersey - that’s a cool sporting event (and they don’t wear pink).

But a French basketball jersey is lame. As a gift, it’s just insulting. Straight to the back of the papal closet. Because no one would buy this on ebay. Even from the pope.

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Bonus: The world’s tiniest crystal football

It’s not a jersey, but the U.S. State Department’s gift to Pope Leo deserves a special mention.

A crystal football could be a cool gift for the first American pope – a nod to a uniquely American sport is a great reminder of his roots in the US of A.

But for some reason, the State Department decided it was imperative that the football be roughly the size of an egg. Everything about this gift is absurd. The presentation on a tiny but very formal dish. The way Marco Rubio holds the miniature football delicately but awkwardly between his fingers. The way both Rubio and the pope look like they’re about to lose it.

There’s just no way to take this one seriously. In fact, it’s so bad, it’s great.

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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.

😇 Today’s saint: St. Hervé (Roman Martyrology).

📜 Today’s readings: Wednesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time 2 Kgs 2:1, 6-14 ▪ Ps 31:20, 21, 24 ▪ Mt 6:1-6, 16-18

🗞 Starting seven

1: Pope Leo XIV reflected on his trip to Spain at his June 17 general audience (full text, photos, full video, video highlights).

2: Leo XIV also welcomed the U.S.-Iran peace deal, scheduled to be signed June 19.

3: Italian bishops’ conference president Cardinal Matteo Zuppi has led tributes to Cardinal Camillo Ruini, who died June 16 at the age of 95.

4: The Archdiocese of Panama and the Archdiocese of San Juan, Puerto Rico, have sent altar breads to Cuba amid a production shortage on the island caused by power cuts.

5: Hungary’s new Prime Minister Péter Magyar visited Cardinal Péter Erdő at the Primate’s Palace in Budapest June 16.

6: Edgar Beltrán assesses the challenges of a papal visit to Peru.

7: And Paul Kengor compares and contrasts Pope Leo XIV and Archbishop Fulton Sheen.

🇻🇦 Today’s Bollettino

• Papal audiences:

  • Members of the presidency of Colombia’s bishops’ conference.

  • Members of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Formation for the Protection of Minors (full text, vaticannews.va).

• General audience (Italian full text).

• Notice that Cardinal Camillo Ruini’s funeral will take place at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica June 18, at 4:30 p.m. local time.

• + Pope Leo XIV told journalists in Castel Gandolfo June 16 that he is “considering making another appeal” to the Society of St. Pius X (full video).

• + Patricia Leonor Comandari Zanotti, El Salvador’s incoming ambassador to the Holy See, presented copies of her credentials June 16 to Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States.

• + Archbishop Gallagher attended a June 16 event at Rome’s Casa Russa, organized by the Russian embassy to the Holy See.

• + The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and Ending Clergy Abuse held their first in-person meeting in Rome June 15-16.

• + The Dicastery for Culture and Education welcomed Taiwan’s bishops June 15 and Macao and Hong Kong’s bishops June 16, during their respective ad limina visits.

• + Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, the Holy See’s permanent observer to the UN in Geneva, said June 17 that the real cost of a global increase in arms spending and a reduction in aid “falls on the poorest and those in need.”

• + The Joint Coordinating Committee of the International Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church is meeting June 15-19 at Hungary’s Pannonhalma Archabbey.

🔍 Stories to watch

🇺🇸 Pauline Sr. Mary Augustine Nemer, who made a significant contribution to the creation of the African Bible, died in Boston, Massachusetts, June 16 at the age of 87.

🇨🇴 Colombia’s bishops have asked Catholics to observe June 19 as a day of prayer ahead of Sunday’s presidential runoff election.

🇨🇩 Priests in the Congolese Archdiocese of Kinshasa have deplored the rise in “organized crime directed against our parishes and other structures.”

🇪🇸 Organizers have estimated that around 2.5 million people took part in Pope Leo XIV’s June 6-12 visit to Spain, generating an economic boost of more than $174 million.

🇦🇱 In a June 9 statement, Albania’s bishops urged politicians to listen to citizens’ concerns amid protests over the country’s rapid touristic development, especially in protected natural areas.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 At a June 11 meeting in Glasgow, Scotland’s bishops reviewed responses to a consultation on diocesan boundaries and “discussed concrete proposals for the future.”

🇵🇱 The diocesan phase of the beatification cause of Fr. Paweł Kontny — who was killed while defending two girls from Red Army soldiers in 1945 — formally opened in Katowice, Poland, June 16.

🗓 Today’s anniversaries

Pope Martin I was arrested in 653; Pope Adeodatus II died in 676; Bl. Pietro Gambacorta died in 1435; English Cardinal Basil Hume died in 1999.

📅 Today’s events

Start of the inaugural Borgo Laudato Si’ Dialogues at the Borgo Laudato Si’ in Castel Gandolfo.

📅 Coming soon

June 18 Cardinal Camillo Ruini’s funeral takes place at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica, at 4:30 p.m. local time.

June 19 Installation of Archbishop Guy Boulanger as the Archbishop of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada, in the Saint-Michel Basilica-Cathedral, at 7 p.m. local time.

June 20 Papal visit to Pavia and Sant’Angelo Lodigiano, Italy; 100th anniversary of the opening of the 28th International Eucharistic Congress in Chicago; Bishop Michael Sis ordains Francisco Camacho, Humberto Diaz, and Mauricio Romero as priests of the Diocese of San Angelo, Texas, at the Cathedral Church of the Sacred Heart in San Angelo, at 10:30 a.m. local time; Archbishop William Lori ordains five men to the priesthood at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Homeland, Baltimore, at 10 a.m. local time; Bishop David Walkowiak of Grand Rapids, Michigan, ordains Deacons Charles Leidel, Logan McGahan, and Hunter Ostapowicz to the priesthood at the Cathedral of Saint Andrew, at 10 a.m.; Cardinal Robert McElroy ordains five priests for the Archdiocese of Washington at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, at 10 a.m.; Couples for Christ holds a 45th anniversary celebration at the New Clark City Athletics Stadium in Tarlac, Philippines; Lyon’s Archbishop Olivier de Germay ordains 12 members of the Community of Saint Martin as priests at the Notre-Dame de l’Épine Basilica in Évron, France.

June 21 Angelus; Installation of Bishop Heiner Wilmer as the new Bishop of Münster, Germany; Bishop Michael Pham celebrates Juneteenth Mass at St. Rita’s Church in San Diego, California, at 10 a.m. local time.

June 22 Pope Leo XIV visits the World Food Program’s Rome headquarters; Next hearing in the Vatican financial trial appeal process; Start of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences’ plenary assembly in Bali, Indonesia.

June 23 Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich presides at the annual Te Deum in Notre-Dame Cathedral, Luxembourg, at 4:30 p.m. local time.

June 24 General audience.

June 25 Zoom webinar on “AI, Media Literacy, and the Vision of Magnifica humanitas,” with speakers including Sr. Nina Krapić, deputy director of the Holy See press office, from 2:30 p.m. Rome time.

June 26 Start of a two-day extraordinary consistory of the College of Cardinals.

June 27 Final session of the Archdiocese of Adelaide Synod in Hahndorf, Australia.

June 28 Angelus.

June 29 Mass with the blessing and imposition of palliums upon new metropolitan archbishops at St. Peter’s Basilica at 9:30 a.m.; Angelus at noon; 10th anniversary of the publication of the apostolic constitution Vultum Dei Quaerere; Bishop Daniel Miehm is installed as the Bishop of London at St. Peter’s Cathedral Basilica in London, Ontario, Canada; Bishop Steven Lopes ordains Deacons Joseph DeCaria, Christian Francke, Brian Wehrle, and Andrew Yaremko to the priesthood for the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston, Texas, at 6:30 p.m. local time.

June 30 Episcopal ordination and installation of Fr. John Gomez, the new Bishop of Laredo, Texas.

July 1 SSPX episcopal consecrations; Start of the Catholic Saints of America event, organized by the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion.

July 2 The beatification of Fr. Francis Xavier Truong Buu Diep (1897-1946); Installation of Bishop Evelio Menjivar-Ayala as the 10th Bishop of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia, at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Wheeling, at 2 p.m. local time; The U.S. National Eucharistic Pilgrimage culminates at the Cathedral Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul in Philadelphia.

July 3 Pope Leo XIV is awarded the Liberty Medal.

July 4 Papal visit to Lampedusa, Italy; Cardinal Ladislav Nemet, S.V.D., leads the Slovak Cyril and Methodius National Pilgrimage to Nitra.

July 7 Episcopal ordinations of new Washington auxiliaries Fr. Robert Boxie and Fr. Gary Studniewski at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, at 2 p.m. local time.

July 8 Pilgrimage to the Norwegian island of Selja in honor of St. Sunniva.

July 9 100th anniversary of the death of Mother Mary Alphonsa (Rose Hawthorne Lathrop).

July 11 Episcopal ordination of Fr. Emilio Biosca Agüero, O.F.M. Cap., the new Bishop of Venice in Florida; Episcopal consecrations of Fr. José Dionisio Gómez Gouveia and Fr. José Manuel León, C.P., new auxiliary bishops of Caracas, Venezuela.

July 18 Cardinal Michael Czerny, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, turns 80.

July 20 Start of the plenary assembly of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences in Jakarta, Indonesia.

July 23 50th anniversary of the death of Bl. Basil Hopko.

July 24 Start of the We Believe Festival at St. Mary’s College, Oscott, England.

July 26 6th World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly; 10th anniversary of the murder of Fr. Jacques Hamel.

July 28 Episcopal ordination of Fr. Michael Castori, S.J., the new Bishop of Honolulu, Hawaii, at the Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus.

July 29 Brazil’s Archbishop Heitor de Araújo Sales turns 100.

Aug. 1 50th anniversary of the start of the 41st International Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia.

Aug. 3 125th anniversary of the birth of Bl. Stefan Wyszyński.

Aug. 6 Papal visit to Assisi.

Aug. 11 Brazil’s Archbishop Pedro Antônio Marchetti Fedalto turns 100.

Aug. 15 Archbishop Jeffrey Grob ordains Deacons John-Magdalene, Isaiah, and Moses to the priesthood for the Immaculate Heart of Mary Province of Discalced Carmelites, at the Basilica of Mary, Help of Christians, at Holy Hill in Hubertus, Wisconsin.

Aug. 22 Papal visit to Rimini; Leo XIV visits San Marino.

Aug. 24 Ecuador’s Bishop Raúl Holguer López Mayorga turns 100.

Have a happy feast of St. Hervé.
-- Luke

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Both the Peruvian bishops’ conference and Alcázar have said the trip is expected to take place that month, with the president stating that it would likely occur between Nov. 10 and 16.

But a papal visit could be complicated by Peru’s fraught political climate and a series of scandals involving members of the country’s hierarchy, where Leo served as a missionary and bishop for nearly three decades.

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Conservative candidate Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of Peruvian autocrat Alberto Fujimori, is favored to win a razor-thin presidential run-off against Roberto Sánchez, a self-proclaimed social Christian, who has claimed to have been influenced by liberation theology and is supported by far-left parties.

Fujimori holds a lead of roughly 30,000 votes over Sánchez in an election that saw more than 18 million votes cast. Though she has not yet been officially declared the winner, she is widely expected to emerge victorious. Electoral authorities have said the final count could take up to a month.

If confirmed, the result would mark the third consecutive Peruvian presidential election decided by less than half a percentage point. Keiko Fujimori lost narrowly in 2016 and 2021, after also being defeated in 2011 by a margin of nearly 3%.

Peru has endured a decade of political instability, with nine different presidents taking office over the past 10 years. Six Peruvian presidents this century have ended up in prison, faced criminal investigations, or been implicated in self-coup attempts.

Moreover, Peru’s unusually permissive impeachment mechanism has exacerbated the crisis. The country’s parliament is consistently fragmented among small and often unstable parties, which frequently break into even smaller factions, fueling political confrontations, corruption allegations, and impeachment proceedings.

Pedro Pablo Kuczynski was elected as president of Peru for a five-year period, winning by 0.24% over Keiko Fujimori in 2016.

Kuczynski underwent a first impeachment attempt just a year and a half into his presidency. After defeating the impeachment, Kuczynski pardoned Alberto Fujimori, Keiko’s father, in prison since 2005 for his role in several massacres and corruption cases during his presidency.

The move was widely decried as a quid pro quo after Fujimori’s party voted against the impeachment.

Just three months later, Kuczynski’s party became embroiled in a corruption scandal that ultimately led to his resignation, shortly before the Peruvian Congress was set to vote on a second impeachment attempt.

He was succeeded by his vice president, Martín Vizcarra. Vizcarra was himself impeached in November 2020 amid allegations of corruption during his time as a governor between 2011 and 2014, becoming the second Peruvian president in less than three years to be removed from office. He was replaced by Manuel Merino, then president of Congress.

Vizcarra’s impeachment led to massive protests, as many in the country saw his dismissal as a legislative coup. The protests led to Merino’s resignation just five days later. Manuel Sagasti, who had replaced Merino as president of the Peruvian Congress, was then appointed as president.

Sagasti led the country until July 2021, when Pedro Castillo took power after defeating Fujimori again by just 0.26%.

Castillo’s presidency was also short-lived. He faced two separate impeachment trials in December 2021 and February 2022. He was set to face a third impeachment trial in December 2022, which was largely expected to succeed.

Castillo responded by announcing the dissolution of Congress, the installation of a state of emergency, and a curfew.

Castillo’s actions were widely condemned as a self-coup. Most of his cabinet resigned, Congress impeached him, and he was arrested hours later while attempting to reach the Mexican embassy to seek asylum.

Castillo was succeeded by his vice president, Dina Boluarte, whose presidency was marked by extraordinarily low approval ratings, with some surveys showing support at virtually 0%. Although she survived six impeachment attempts, Congress ultimately removed her from office in October 2025 by a vote of 121–9.

She was replaced by the president of the Peruvian Congress, José Jerí, who would himself be impeached in February 2026 for several corruption and sex scandals. He was replaced by Alcázar, who will presumably serve as president until July 28, the date in which his successor, presumably Fujimori, will start her presidency.

Fujimori is therefore likely to assume the presidency in a country that remains deeply divided, much as it was when she narrowly lost the previous election. Her party holds only a minority of seats in both chambers of Congress and appears to have few viable options for building a stable legislative coalition.

Fujimori won the first round of the presidential election with just 17.19% of the vote in a field of more than 30 candidates. As in 2021, Peru’s fragmented political system produced a dispersed result, with nine candidates winning at least 3% of the vote. In the 2021 election, nine candidates likewise received at least 4%.

While Fujimori has acknowledged her father’s authoritarian tendencies, she has generally stopped short of condemning specific human rights abuses committed during his presidency, including the forced sterilization of Indigenous women, massacres linked to the government’s counterinsurgency campaign against the terrorist group Shining Path, and the persecution of political opponents.

Given that backdrop, and Fujimori’s relatively limited political base, it is conceivable that by the time Pope Leo XIV visits Peru in November, her administration could already be facing impeachment proceedings or another major political crisis.

While such a scenario remains speculative, Peru’s recent political history suggests that it cannot be entirely ruled out that Fujimori may no longer be president by the time Pope Leo XIV visits the country in November.

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With such a divided and complicated political environment, Pope Leo emerges as perhaps the sole potentially unifying figure in the country, of which he retains citizenship from his time as bishop there.

In some South American countries facing severe political crises, the Catholic hierarchy has at times provided a focus of national cohesion. Venezuela’s bishops, for example, have often acted as a moral and institutional reference point amid the country’s prolonged political and humanitarian crises.

In Peru, however, the hierarchy has often found itself drawn into the same political battles that have divided the country. In fact, Leo might reasonably consider the recent litany of ecclesiastical controversies and scandals to be barely less messy than the country’s recent political history.

The Church has also been shaken by corruption and abuse scandals, while the fallout from the dissolution of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV), a now-dissolved religious community founded in Peru, continues to generate local controversy.

In fact, the pope himself has previously been accused of mishandling an abuse case during his time as Bishop of Chiclayo — though those accusations did not appear to be borne out.

Three sisters - Ana María, Aura Teresa and Juana Mercedes Quispe - claim that Prevost failed in 2022 to open an investigation into the accusations of sexual abuse dating back to 2007. They said that any documentation that may have been sent to Rome was purposely designed to look inadequate so as to prevent action on the case.

The Diocese of Chiclayo has maintained that the accusations had been handled according to canonical norms and in line with Church policy — and that the then-Cardinal Prevost had met with the young women in April 2022, and encouraged them to take their case to the civil authorities, while opening an initial canonical investigation.

The diocese further said that the results of their initial investigation were sent to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), along with notice that the civil investigation had been shelved for lack of evidence and because the statute of limitations had expired.

The priest accused of abuse eventually was laicized, but the sisters have objected to the fact that he was allowed to petition for laicization instead of undergoing a canonical trial — a resolution routinely deployed by the dicastery in Rome.

The pope was also involved during his time as a bishop in the investigation against the SCV.

Criticism of the movement emerged in the early 2000s, with allegations that founder Luis Figari had committed sexual, physical, and psychological abuse within the community, and charges that Figari’s conduct had impacted the ethos of the community.

In 2011 and 2013, allegations that Figari had sexually abused minors and adults had been received by the Archdiocese of Lima. The publication of a 2015 book, “Half Monks, Half Soldiers,” sparked broader criticism of the organization, with more allegations against Figari, and the claim that the group’s approach to formation and obedience was coercive, manipulative, or abusive.

Then-Bishop Prevost met with alleged victims of the group in 2018, at a time not many took their claims seriously. The alleged victims also credit him with arranging a meeting with Pope Francis in 2022 that triggered another Vatican investigation that eventually resulted in the suppression of the group.

In August 2024, the Vatican formally expelled Figari — by then long prohibited from contact with the community he founded. Over the next two months, more than 10 additional members of the community were expelled, among them Archbishop Jose Antonio Eguren, the former archbishop of Piura and Tumbes in Peru.

Several former members and associates of the SCV have questioned the actions of its apostolic commissary, Msgr. Jordi Bertomeu, an official of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith who became one of Pope Francis’ most trusted lieutenants on clerical abuse cases.

Some former members have accused Bertomeu of acting out of ideological prejudice rather than genuine concern for victims, and have challenged the canonical validity of several of his decisions.

While Bertomeu has moved forward in his role as commissary, and has led a process of financial reparation for some of the alleged victims, the pope appointed three adjunct commissaries in November 2025.

Other controversies in the local Church have also taken place. In April of this year, the Peruvian bishops’ conference announced that its secretary general, Bishop Antonio Santarsiero OSJ, would temporarily step down from his position while an investigation is conducted following the emergence of abuse allegations against him concerning several alleged victims, including a minor.

Last year, The Pillar broke the news in June 2025 that the Archdiocese of Lima was accused of mishandling an investigation into Fr. Nilton Zárate Rengifo, who had been accused of harassing a religious sister, solicitation in the confessional, and attempted absolution of an accomplice in a sexual sin, but had not been subject to a formal canonical process.

After the allegations against Zárate broke, the priest sent a letter to Lima’s Cardinal Carlos Castillo Mattasoglio, formally requesting his dismissal from the clerical state.

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In 2020, Castillo appointed Fr. Luis Sarmiento as rector of the archdiocesan seminary, despite the fact that he had in 2018 been dismissed as a formator, because of a pattern of inappropriate behavior with seminarians. About a year after his 2020 return to the seminary as rector, Sarmiento was accused of sexual misconduct by a number of seminarians. Instead of opening a canonical investigation against the rector, Castillo opted to dismiss the seminarians who came forward with the allegations, keeping Sarmiento in his post until 2023.

Spanish outlet El País reported in January 2025 that Castillo’s predecessor in the Peruvian capital, Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani, was the subject of a Vatican-imposed penal precept restricting his ministry following accusations of sexual abuse dating back to the early 1980s, first raised in 2018.

Cipriani originally claimed in a January 2025 statement that the precept was imposed only verbally, but he later admitted that he did receive — and sign — written notice of a penal precept which imposed formal restrictions on his public ministry and living arrangements in 2019, shortly after his resignation was accepted at the age of 75.

However, Cipriani claims that Pope Francis verbally lifted the restrictions on his ministry in a Feb. 4, 2020 private audience that was not recorded in the Vatican’s daily bulletin. Francis reappointed Cipriani as a member of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints the following year.

In September 2025, Bishop Ciro Quispe López of the Territorial Prelature of Juli resigned after an apostolic visitation in his diocese, which investigated allegations of corruption and misconduct against him.

Several media reports claimed that Quispe had 17 different female romantic partners, including religious sisters and novices. The bishop was also accused of stealing $25,000 intended for a UN-funded social program in the city of Juli.

Additional allegations include awarding inflated contracts from the prelature to some of his romantic partners, including an architect hired for several diocesan projects.

According to local media reports, Quispe is also said to have removed furniture from a diocesan retreat center and transferred it to a chicken barbecue restaurant he owned in another city.

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If Pope Leo’s trip to Peru is confirmed, he will arrive amid a complicated political and ecclesial landscape — but one that is nevertheless deeply familiar to him.

Peru was once one of the epicenters of liberation theology in Latin America. In response, Pope St. John Paul II sought to reshape the country’s episcopate, a project closely associated with Cardinal Cipriani and marked by the appointment of a number of theologically conservative bishops, several of whom had ties to Opus Dei.

That trajectory shifted under Pope Francis, who appointed bishops more associated with liberation theology, including Cardinal Castillo in Lima and other prelates generally regarded as more theologically progressive.

The result has been an episcopal conference marked by significant internal divisions, both over how the bishops should respond to Peru’s recurring political crises and over the broader direction of the local Church.

During his time as a bishop in Peru, Bishop Prevost was largely seen as a bridge-builder in the episcopate. Now, as pope, Leo XIV has an opportunity to shape a new generation of Church leadership in Peru. Several major dioceses are currently led by bishops past retirement age, including the Archdiocese of Lima.

Ironically, the prospect of a papal visit may have temporarily delayed that process of renewal. For months, rumors have circulated that Cardinal Castillo could be replaced, but the pope appears reluctant to make major personnel decisions before the trip or before the country’s political situation becomes clearer.

The visit is widely expected to be a moment of national unity. Yet it will also require careful navigation. Leo remains one of the few figures capable of commanding respect across Peru’s political and ecclesial divides, but any intervention on public affairs will be scrutinized. If he avoids discussing the country’s political tensions, he may be accused of silence. If he addresses them directly, his words will inevitably be interpreted as an intervention in the political process.

For many Peruvians, the visit of a pope they consider as one of their own would be among the most positive national events in years. For a few days, it may even eclipse the country’s political and ecclesial conflicts.

But Leo XIV is likely to find that the success of the trip will depend on his ability to walk a political and ecclesial tightrope.

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Poland’s Catholic information agency KAI reported that 130 of the candidates will be diocesan priests and 66 will serve within religious orders.

This is expected to be the first year in the 21st century with fewer than 200 priestly ordinations in Poland. There were 208 new priests in 2025 and 235 in 2024.

The drop in priestly ordinations is likely to be felt far beyond Poland, because the country has traditionally supplied priests to other European countries, both East and West. Poland has also long been an important source of missionary priests to Africa, Latin America, and Asia.

Despite the ongoing decline, Poland remains the European country with the most priestly vocations. In France, for example, there were 90 new priests in 2025. In Germany, there were 25.

Poland has a smaller overall population than France or Germany, but it has a larger number of baptized Catholics and a significantly higher Mass attendance rate than either country.

The new priests in 2026 will be spread unevenly among Poland’s dioceses. Tarnów, commonly described as the country’s “most religious” diocese because it has the highest level of Mass attendance, will have 14 ordinations in 2026, one more than in 2025.

The next highest figures are found in the two dioceses in the capital, Warsaw. The Diocese of Warsaw-Praga, covering the east of the city, will have nine new priests. The Archdiocese of Warsaw, in the west, will have eight, five of whom studied at the Redemptoris Mater seminary, linked to the Neocatechumenal Way.

The Archdiocese of Kraków, which is strongly associated with St. John Paul II and was once a hotbed of vocations, will only have four new priests in 2026, down from seven in 2025 and 13 in 2024.

KAI reported that the number of Latin Catholic dioceses with no ordinations has risen from six in 2025 to seven in 2026. Poland’s three Greek Catholic eparchies — which only serve a fraction of the population compared to the Latin Catholic dioceses — had no new priests in either year.

KAI noted that some dioceses will have no ordinations this year because of a change to seminary formation, which now lasts seven years rather than six due to the addition of a propaedeutic (preliminary) year.

In May, the Military Ordinariate of Poland had its first priestly ordinations for 14 years.

According to the Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae in Polonia, a yearly numerical overview published by the Institute for Catholic Church Statistics, almost all of Poland’s 42 Latin Catholic dioceses saw a decline in incardinated priests between 2018 and 2024.

The total number of diocesan priests nationwide fell between 2018 and 2024 from 24,876 to 23,274, a drop of 6.4%. The sharpest fall was in the Diocese of Łomża, in northeastern Poland, where the figure decreased from 588 to 512, an almost 13% reduction.

The biggest outlier was the Warsaw archdiocese, where priest numbers rose from 855 to 909, a more than 6% increase.

Commenting on the steady overall decline in priestly numbers, Fr. Jan Frąckowiak told KAI that it could be seen as a return to normality for the Church in Poland.

“The systematically declining number of newly ordained priests is caused by the fact that we are now descending from the peak of vocations in the entire 1,060-year history of the Church in Poland,” said Frąckowiak, a seminary rector in Poznań and chairman of the country’s Conference of Rectors of Diocesan and Religious Major Seminaries.

“Never before in history did we have more than 40 dioceses, almost every one of which had its own seminary — usually very large — and, moreover, a full seminary. This happened only once in history, and at present it seems that we are returning to the historical norm.”

Addressing the causes of the decline, he said: “I would point, for example, to demographic decline, a lower proportion of believers and practicing Catholics in society, and a reduced ability among the younger generation to make definitive commitments.”

Poland’s fertility rate fell to a new low of 1.068 in 2025, well below the replacement level of 2.1. The country’s state statistics agency has projected that the population could fall from around 37.3 million currently to 29.4 million by 2060, a decline of more than 20% over the next 35 years.

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