However, while the Church in the country is expanding, its demographics also reflect the rapid aging of the general population in the East Asian nation.

According to new statistics published this month by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea (CBCK), there were 6,006,832 Catholics in South Korea in 2025, an increase of 9,178 from the previous year.

Overall, Catholics make up 11.4% of the population in South Korea.

Catholicism took root in the country — whose culture was deeply shaped by Buddhism and Confucianism — in the late 1700s and grew amid intense persecution that saw the creation of countless martyrs.

The Catholic Church’s expansion in South Korea in the last 30 years has been described as “explosive.”

In 1995, the country was home to 2,885,000 Catholics. A decade later, in 2005, that had risen to 5,015,000. But the annual growth rate has slowed significantly.

Catholicism’s visibility is likely to be further increased when the nation hosts World Youth Day in 2027. An estimated 1.5 million people from more than 200 countries attended the closing Mass at last year’s World Youth Day in Lisbon.

South Korea is currently facing a demographic crisis, with both the lowest birth rate and the most rapid population aging of any country in the world.

With more than 20% of its population aged 65 or older, South Korea is considered a “super-aged” society.

The Church is similarly seeing its members age. Some 29% of Catholics in the country are 65 or older, as are almost 20% of diocesan priests.

Despite the growth in the local Church, recent years have seen a decline in priestly vocations.

Seventy new priests were ordained in South Korea in 2025, down from 96 three years earlier.

The country had a total of 854 students enrolled in seminaries in 2025, compared to 1,030 three years earlier.

The statistics from the bishops’ conference showed that just under 1 million Catholics – some 15% – attend Mass on the average Sunday.

A total of 64,073 people were baptized in South Korea in 2025, up from 51,307 the year before. Adult baptisms outnumbered baptisms of children by a 4-to-1 ratio.

Baptism numbers have been rising in the country each year since 2020, but they remain well below pre-pandemic levels, when there were more than 80,000 baptisms a year.

There were 11,854 children baptized in South Korea in 2025, nearly identical to the number baptized three years earlier. However, the number of adult baptisms grew significantly, from 26,031 in 2022 to 48,342 in 2025.

The other 3,877 baptisms in 2025 are categorized as “baptisms in danger of death” and do not have an age range provided.

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JD plays a round of occupational ‘Good, Better, Best’ in honor of the feast of St. Joseph the Worker.

There is no bonus episode this week.

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While a local whistleblower filed in February a report with the U.S. bishops’ third-party reporting system, he says he was told by officials in the Archdiocese of New Orleans that they have not yet received direction on the matter from the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops.

Vos estis lux mundi, the Vatican’s policy on addressing allegations of abuse or neglect of duties by bishops, requires that the dicastery “provid[e] the appropriate instructions on how to proceed in the specific case” within 30 days of receiving a complaint.

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An adult Catholic male in the Diocese of Baton Rouge told The Pillar that in September 2025, he met with Fr. Charbel Jamhoury, a Lebanese Maronite priest who was then pastor of St. Isidore the Farmer parish in Baker, Louisiana.

Soon after, the man reported to the diocese inappropriate conduct on the part of the priest.

The man, a frequent parish volunteer and sacristan in his 60s, said that Jamhoury had spent several months developing a relationship with him, frequently asking for his assistance with projects in the rectory and inviting him for coffee.

In hindsight, the man said the priest was aiming to gain his trust. “There were numerous coffee meetings with him, and he constantly called me, asked me for opinions on this, and opinions on that. And I honestly think that the Lord had me blinded till that last meeting,” he told The Pillar.

The man alleged that in late September, Jamhoury met with him in the parish rectory and attempted to coerce him into a sexual relationship — reportedly holding the man’s hand, recounting a history of his own sexual activity, touching the man’s lips, kissing his fingers, urging the man to massage him, and proposing sexual contact.

Further, his report to the diocese alleged that Jamhoury disclosed to him prior possible acts of child sexual abuse — specifically, oral sex with minors, allegedly recounting his preference for such activity in graphic detail.

For his part, Jamhoury told The Pillar that he “absolutely” did not try to initiate sexual contact with the man, and did not recount to the man a history of oral sex with minors. He also denied holding the man’s hand, kissing his fingers, or touching his lips.

Instead, the priest said that the man “was abusing me,” though he declined to elaborate on the nature of that abuse.

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After the incident, Jamhoury’s parishioner reported the incident to the diocese in October 2025, and a preliminary investigation into the allegations was commenced — even while the priest reportedly told parishioners he had been falsely accused of misconduct.

The priest was not removed from ministry, nor was the investigation formally announced in the parish.

“From the day after it happened, [Jamhoury] was in defense mode,” the man told The Pillar.

But the man said his initial interactions with diocesan officials were discouraging.

At an initial meeting with diocesan officials, he said, “I didn’t know the procedure and the protocol. I just knew that I was supposed to be bringing this to the Church’ s attention.”

“But the very first question kind of blew my mind.”

“It was basically like ‘what are you trying to get out of this?’ Did I want money? Am I trying to get paid for this?”

The man said he wondered if he had done the right thing, but “I was led by the Holy Spirit to bring this priest to exposure.”

As the investigation proceeded in October 2025, the man said he received no updates, and that in the following weeks, his family did not receive status updates or any other information from the diocese, hearing only once, from diocesan vicar general Fr. Jamin David, that the matter was “in the bishop’s hands.”

While he was waiting, the man confided in a friend, Luke Zumo, a local physical therapist who is active in the Baton Rouge diocese.

Zumo requested a meeting with the bishop in late November and early December, and was invited instead to meet with Fr. David on Dec. 11, 2025.

He told The Pillar that he expected at the meeting to speak to the alleged victim’s character — a man whom he described as “a man with no guile in him; a man who is humble and childlike and docile.”

“I was there to tell them that [the man] would not make this up — he could not make this up.”

“This is,” Zumo alleged, “a good man who was targeted, groomed, and manipulated by an experienced groomer.”

Zumo said that at the December meeting, he told diocesan vicar general Fr. David he was most concerned about the priest’s alleged attestation of other sexual abuse — and about how the diocese had handled it.

“I said, ‘I’m here, Fr. Jamin, as a Catholic, to tell you that I know what you have in writing on your desk. I know that Father Charbel made a vile and explicit mention of a desire and a history of activity with minor boys of a certain age. And if my priest at my parish were accused, if there were allegations of this type of statement and behavior, and he were neither removed from the parish temporarily, nor were I alerted to the fact that there were these allegations, let me tell you, Father, I would be feeling a lot of strong feelings’.”

Zumo said he told the priest that he would inform families in the parish about the allegations if the diocese did not plan to do so. And he said that while David told him that the priest had admitted to “boundary violations” — asking for a backrub and holding the man’s hand — David did not address the other allegations in question.

Zumo told The Pillar that he asked the vicar general to inform Baton Rouge’s Bishop Michael Duca about his concerns, and that he submitted on the same day a letter to Bishop Duca outlining his concerns.

A week later, on Dec. 17, with no response to his letter, Zumo told David that as a mandated reporter, he felt obliged to contact local law enforcement officials, to express his concern about a possible admission of child abuse.

“So I called the sheriff’s office and reported what I know to the sheriff’s office,” he recalled. He made an appointment to speak with an investigator the next day.

“And then, three minutes after I hung up the phone, Bishop Duca called me.”

According to Zumo: “[Duca] says, ‘Luke, you don’t need to call law enforcement. You’re just going to muddy the waters. There are no victims in this case and Fr. Charbel is not a danger to anyone.’”

Zumo said he was dumbfounded that the bishop would discourage him from contacting law enforcement officials. He said Duca asked him for a meeting — the same meeting Zumo said he’d been trying to schedule for weeks.

“And I said, ‘Well, Bishop Duca, I’ve already reported this to law enforcement as a mandatory reporter for our diocese, so I’m not sure what we’ll talk about at this point. I’ve been trying to talk with you for the last three weeks.’”

Still, the next day, Zumo met first with investigators, and then with the bishop.

He said the bishop told him that Jamhoury had admitted to boundary violations and was in need of help. But Duca allegedly added that he did not have a priest to replace Jamhoury at his parish, and that “if we just dramatically yank him from the parish, that’s going to destroy his reputation and it’s going to destroy his life. So I’m just trying not to destroy this priest’s life.”

Duca reportedly told Zumo that he wasn’t sure who to believe in the case, while Zumo insisted that a failure to take the alleged child abuse admission seriously was a “betrayal” to the families of the diocese.

Zumo again emphasized, he told The Pillar, that if the diocese did not remove Jamhoury, or alert families of the substance of the allegation, he would begin speaking publicly.

Ten days later, the weekend after Christmas, Fr. David celebrated Masses at St. Isidore’s parish, announcing that Jamhoury would be taking a prolonged retreat for healing. Zumo said the announcement implied the priest had health issues, as did an email sent to parishioners.

Zumo said that in late January, Jamhoury returned to Baton Rouge. Duca allegedly disclosed that Jamhoury admitted to misconduct with a second adult male.

The man Jamhoury allegedly attempted to coerce in September, along his family, met with Duca in early February. Duca reportedly told them that Jamhoury had undergone an assessment, and was judged psychically and psychologically fit to resume priestly ministry.

But on February 7 and 8, Duca celebrated weekend Masses at the parish, and announced that Jamhoury had been removed as pastor.

A few days later, Duca emailed Jamhoury’s alleged victim explaining that the priest — who was not incardinated in the Baton Rouge diocese — had been prohibited from public ministry in the diocese.

“We have removed his safe environment credentials and will not be reassigning him to any assignment in the diocese. He is forbidden to do any ministry in the Diocese. He has agreed to this and we are working to help him settle affairs here and to move most probably to his monastery in Lebanon,” the email said.

But while a Feb. 10 announcement from the diocese said that Jamhoury had been removed as pastor in response to “a report of serious boundary violations,” the report did not mention that the priest was forbidden to undertake ministry in the diocese, or that his safe environment credentials had been removed.

And while reports to the diocese included Jamhoury’s alleged admission of sexual activity with minors, the Jan. 10 statement said “no allegations of physical sexual abuse or criminal activity have been reported to diocesan officials in this situation or at any time during Father Charbel’s service in the diocese.”

The statement, Zumo argues, was misleading, and failed to accurately reflect the reality of the allegations made against Jamhoury. And given that the priest did not return to Lebanon, and has continued to visit with families in the diocese, he regards the situation as potentially dangerous.

Further, Zumo said, Jamhoury has reportedly told local Catholics that he was “exonerated,” or that it was the man who made sexual advances toward him. That, Zumo insists, has created a dangerous situation.

“If you ask the average Catholic in Baton Rogue, they think everything is fine with Fr. Charbel,” Zumo maintained. “And he’s still moving around freely, and telling people lies about what happened. But the diocese won’t clear up what’s not true about what they’ve said.”

For its part, the diocese of Baton Rouge told The Pillar by email that in response to a report of “serious boundary violations,” and “after extensive conversation with all parties involved and an investigation which also included interviews by law enforcement, the diocesan investigation, and the full health assessment of Father Jamhoury, Bishop Duca determined that Father Charbel be removed from his office as Pastor of St. Isidore effective immediately, and this was accomplished in early February.”

The diocese did not respond to follow-up questions from The Pillar.

In addition to denying the allegations, Jamhoury told The Pillar that the allegations against him were not public “because this is the decision of the bishop and myself not to make it public when this started.”

Jamhoury said that when the allegations were first raised against him, he “decided to leave [the diocese]” in order to avoid the prospect of a lawsuit against the diocese.

But the priest suggested the diocese had not handled the case according to a defined process, adding that he has “not received” from the Baton Rouge diocese the substance of the complaint against him.

Duca, Jamhoury said, “didn’t want to give me the complaint.”

He added that while he initially planned to leave Louisiana, that plan changed when he learned that Duca’s withdrawal of his safe environment “credential” meant that he would not be able to serve in another U.S. diocese.

“I told [the diocese] it’s unfair, and you are building a statement against me based on unknown facts,” he said, referring to the allegation against him.

Jamhoury added that he underwent a psychological assessment at the request of the diocese, in order to cooperate.

But “when I heard [the parishioner] saying words like this, I told the diocese — I suggested for this guy … an investigation and to check on his mental status,” the priest said.

“And I said that they can not … find something wrong on my behalf because of [his] words, when they don’t know exactly if they are correct or not,” the priest insisted.

Jamhoury said he told Duca: “I’m not leaving Baton Rouge until I get my credentials” — adding that he was working to enlist both a civil and canon lawyer to assist in his defense.

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—
For his part, Zumo made a report to the Catholic Bishop Abuse Reporting Service in mid-February, regarding “concerns of Bishop Michael Duca and his Vicar General Fr. Jamin David interfering in an abuse case and minimizing/ignoring the potential involvement of minors.”

Zumo’s report said that Duca and Jamin failed to inform the Office of Child and Youth Protection and diocesan review board of the allegation, and “also withheld it from local law enforcement” — all in violation of the diocese’s own “policy regarding sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable adults by diocesan personnel.”

He reported that despite “an explicit admission from the priest that he misses oral sex with pubescent age boys,” the diocese “ignored the priest’s mention of desiring oral sex with pubescent age boys,” when it should have been handled through a diocesan process, and reported to local law enforcement.

Further, Zumo reported that Duca discouraged him from making a law enforcement report, minimizing the situation as a “misunderstanding.”

“To this day, the diocese has not revealed the true nature of the allegations to anyone. Neither the priests nor the laity of the Diocese of Baton Rouge are aware of the actual allegations, and thus parents have not been given the opportunity to speak with children or vulnerable adults under their care to find out if there was ever a problematic interaction with Fr. Charbel Jamhoury,” Zumo reported.

Because the Diocese of Baton Rouge is in the metropolitan province of New Orleans, the report was forwarded to the New Orleans archdiocese.

Zumo said he has been informed by archdiocesan officials that the complaint was sent in early March to the Dicastery for Bishops in Rome, which is required by Vos estis lux mundi to “proceed without delay, and in any case within thirty days from the receipt of the first report by the Pontifical Representative or the request for the assignment by the Metropolitan, provid[e] the appropriate instructions on how to proceed in the specific case.”

But Zumo says he was told in late April by archdiocesan officials that they have not yet received a response from the Vatican dicastery, and do not know when to expect one.

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As he waited, Zumo and other local Catholics decided they had an obligation to speak publicly, in order to warn other families.

In a “letter to laity” they distributed to families, Zumo and others explained that the allegations against Jamhoury “include statements made by Fr. Charbel that are concerning for minors.”

“Due to the serious nature of the allegations and our Bishop’s proportionate response, it would be prudent to have an informed conversation with your children (or any vulnerable person under your care) to learn if they ever experienced an uncomfortable or inappropriate interaction with Fr. Charbel, or if they witnessed anything inappropriate between Fr. Charbel and another person,” the letter said.

“If you learn anything of concern or have personally experienced any problematic behavior from Fr. Charbel firsthand,” the letter urged, Catholics should contact police investigators and the diocesan director of child and youth protection.

“Our sincere request is that this letter not be shared on social media but only amongst those who have come into contact with Fr. Charbel. As Catholics, we must remember the gravity of the sin of detraction. Please be sure that you use discretion and only share this letter with whom it is necessary with the intent of seeking healing for any potential victims. Social media is rarely the forum for pursuing truth and healing in a Christ- like manner. We love our Diocese and our Bishop. We love our priests and our laity. The goal of this letter is solely to present you with the necessary information to have informed conversations with vulnerable people in your household and to empower potential victims who have remained silent for any reason to come forward, bring their wound to the light, and seek healing,” the letter concluded.

The Archdiocese of New Orleans has not responded to requests for comment from The Pillar.

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The Missionaries of St. John the Baptist are seeking to build a Marian grotto on the grounds of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in the Diocese of Covington, Kentucky.

The Missionaries ran the parish before the group was canonically suppressed two years ago. Now, as a civil corporation, the group stills own the parish church and the land it sits on, and has a licensing agreement allowing the parish to use the church building.

But the proposal for a new grotto failed to adhere to zoning ordinances. And while the local board of adjustments granted an initial variance, that decision is now the subject of a court challenge — in a case that could see its way to the Supreme Court.

The unusual case includes a number of legal questions, one of which involves the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which says that government land use ordinances may not impose a “substantial burden” on the free exercise of religion, unless there is a compelling government interest in doing so, and it is done in the least restrictive way possible.

The attorney general of Kentucky says the case could have significant nationwide implications for religious freedom.

Meanwhile, the local Catholic diocese says it is not involved in the lawsuit and does not have a comment on it.

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At the center of the case is a group called the Missionaries of St. John the Baptist, erected in 2019 as a public association of the faithful in the Covington diocese, with the goal of ministering to Catholics drawn to the Traditional Latin Mass. The Missionaries were entrusted with the care of Our Lady of Lourdes, a personal parish in Park Hills, Kentucky where the Latin Mass is celebrated.

The Missionaries intended to eventually be established as a religious institute dedicated to the celebration of the pre-conciliar liturgy. But that goal was never realized, because Bishop John Iffert of Covington suppressed the Missionaries of St. John the Baptist in 2024.

In announcing the suppression, Iffert cited Pope Francis’ 2021 apostolic letter Traditionis custodes, which severely restricted the use of the preconciliar liturgy, as well as “consistent disparagement of the current form of the Roman Rite by members of the association.”

The suppression came months after Iffert had removed most of the faculties of the only two priest members of the Missionaries.

After being suppressed as a public association of the faithful, the Missionaries of St. John the Baptist was established as a non-profit civil corporation.

Though the group no longer administers Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, the Missionaries continue to own the church building and surrounding property. The parish, which is part of the Diocese of Covington, has a license agreement with the Missionaries to use the church building.

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In 2021, when the Missionaries were still a canonically recognized public association of the faithful, they proposed plans to build a 16x39-foot grotto on the church property, consisting of a shrine, plaza, walking path, and retaining wall.

The proposal would require a conditional use permit and variance. Local ordinances require church buildings to be located on an “arterial street,” a major public street designed for significant traffic. However, the proposed location of the grotto was not along the correct type of street.

Some residents of the neighborhood voiced concerns that the new construction might affect local traffic and parking. But after holding a public hearing on the matter, the Park Hills Board of Adjustment granted the conditional use permit and variance for the project in April 2021.

A local couple, who lives across the street from the proposed grotto, challenged the board’s decision in a circuit court, which sided with the Missionaries and the board of adjustment.

The circuit court ruling was appealed. In 2023, the Kentucky Court of Appeals reversed the decision, finding that the board of adjustment had exceeded its statutory authority in approving the project.

In its ruling, the appeals court rejected the claim that the zoning ordinance imposed a substantial burden on the free exercise of religion.

“The application of the ordinance to prohibit construction of the grotto may make practice of religion somewhat more difficult for the church’s congregation or the adherents of the Catholic faith broadly, but the Zoning Ordinance is not inherently inconsistent with their religious beliefs,” the ruling said.

That ruling was also appealed, and the Kentucky Supreme Court heard the case, issuing a December 2025 ruling agreeing with the appeals court’s decision.

On the religious freedom question, the state supreme court said the local zoning ordinance was not unfairly singling out religious groups with its “arterial street” requirement, because the same requirement also applies to institutions of higher education, nursing homes, police stations, and fire stations.

However, attorneys for the Missionaries argue that numerous other nonreligious facilities do not have to meet the “arterial street” requirement, including parks, golf courses, rec centers, country clubs and libraries.

Supporters of the Missionaries have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on the case. Among these supporters is a coalition of 20 state attorneys general, led by Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman.

“In this country, we cannot allow a heckler’s veto to trump religious liberty,” Coleman said in an April 28 statement.

“We’re asking the U.S. Supreme Court to provide nationwide clarity and stand with people of faith who simply want to worship without unlawful government interference.”

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The Diocese of Covington, meanwhile, told The Pillar that it does not have a comment on the court case.

A spokesperson for the diocese emphasized that the Missionaries of St. John the Baptist were canonically suppressed as a public association of the faithful, and that the civilly incorporated entity bearing that name is “separate and distinct from the Catholic Church and the Diocese of Covington and is not part of any structures of the Catholic Church.”

“With respect to the grotto lawsuit, the Corporation [the Missionaries of St. John the Baptist] is acting independently in the exercise of its own religious rights as a private entity,” the spokesperson said. “The Diocese of Covington, Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, and the Catholic Church are not parties to the lawsuit.”

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The Episcopal Conference of Bosnia and Herzegovina said April 29 that it was dismayed by a declaration issued by the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the country’s highest Muslim representative body.

It said: “The Bishops’ Conference of Bosnia and Herzegovina expresses deep regret over the content and tone of the statement by the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in which, without any concrete evidence, the Catholic Church and unnamed ‘Church circles’ are linked to alleged projects of dividing Bosnia and Herzegovina.”

“We reject such claims as unfounded, irresponsible, and harmful to interreligious dialogue and overall relations in society. The Catholic Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina, through the Bishops’ Conference of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its institutions, consistently advocates peace, justice, dialogue, and equality among the constituent peoples and citizens, without any hidden political agendas.”

The Muslim body released a statement April 28 condemning the presentation of a memorandum at a conference in Zagreb, Croatia, calling for a political reorganization of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a country of around 3.2 million people.

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Bosnia and Herzegovina’s current political structure emerged from the Bosnian War of 1992-1995, which followed the breakup of Yugoslavia. The war ended with the Dayton Agreement, which defined Bosnia and Herzegovina as a single sovereign state, but with two component entities: Republika Srpska, mainly populated by Orthodox Christian Serbs, and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, largely populated by Muslim Bosniaks and Catholic Croats.

Bosniaks form a majority in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Croats have consistently complained of being marginalized within the entity’s political apparatus.

Church leaders have said that the Catholic population of Bosnia and Herzegovina has shrunk by approximately half over the past 30 years, with many families emigrating for economic reasons.

The April 24-25 TradFest conference in Zagreb included a discussion on the topic “Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Failed State and the Imperative for a Third Croatian Entity.”

This third Croatian entity would entail the creation of a new component of Bosnia and Herzegovina mainly populated by Catholic Croats. Advocates of a third entity believe it would put the Croat population on an equal political level with their Serb and Bosniak counterparts.

But any discussion of altering the status quo in Bosnia and Herzegovina is extremely sensitive, as many fear any changes to the political structure could lead to a resumption of war.

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s foreign ministry sent a protest note to the Croatian government, criticizing the views expressed at the conference.

Participants in the Zagreb discussion included retired Cardinal Vinko Puljić, who led an archdiocese covering the eastern parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1991 to 2022.

Puljić, who famously appeared alongside Pope Leo XIV on the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica after the 2025 conclave, gave a presentation at the conference on “Croatian Catholics in Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Time for Stability.”

In its April 28 statement, the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina said it “completely rejects the ideas of the memorandum on the ethnic division of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was presented in Zagreb recently and is backed by radical right-wing political and Church circles.”

The Muslim body claimed the ideas expressed at the Zagreb conference were reminiscent of the 1986 SANU Memorandum, which argued that Yugoslavia’s political structure discriminated against Serbs and is seen as a precursor of the breakup of the country, which resulted in ethnic cleansing.

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The Bosnian bishops rejected the historical comparison in their response to the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

They said: “It is particularly concerning that historical tragedies and legally established crimes are being instrumentalized for political point-scoring and the discrediting of other religious communities. Such rhetoric does not contribute to confronting the past but deepens mistrust and needlessly raises tensions.”

The bishops emphasized that Bosnia and Herzegovina is a state with three constituent peoples, according to the Dayton Agreement.

They said: “Such a constitutional arrangement is not a mere formality, but the foundation of stability, balance, and peace. It is unacceptable that any constituent people, regardless of its size or territorial distribution, be denied, diminished, or have their rights stripped away by a majority vote.”

“It is a great injustice and immoral to relativize, limit, or practically render impossible the rights of any nation, and it represents a direct departure from the Dayton constitutional framework and opens the door to new instabilities. The deprivation or denial of rights cannot be the path to a just society, but rather leads to a deepening of mistrust and political tensions.”

The bishops argued that social harmony should be promoted through the reform of the country’s electoral laws. It also called for the “full and consistent protection” of the rights of Bosnian Croats, “including their legitimate representation and real equality in all institutions and at all levels of government.”

They said: “We call on the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina and all its representatives, as well as all societal actors, to be responsible in public discourse, to refrain from unsubstantiated claims, and to engage in an honest dialogue based on respect for the constitutional order and the dignity of every nation and every human being.”

“Bosnia and Herzegovina does not need new accusations and divisions, but a serious and sincere conversation among all its peoples and communities.”

The bishops added: “The Catholic Church will continue to participate in this openly, clearly, and without hiding behind political constructs.”

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Happy Friday friends,

And a happy feast of St. Joseph the Worker.

For a lot of families, this is peak sacramental season, full of First Communions and Confirmations — we’re packing the car and heading off this afternoon to be there for one of our godchildren’s big day tomorrow.

While I am keenly aware I ought to do and say something, I’m always slightly on the horns about how best to emphasize the importance of a First Communion to a godchild.

Obviously, you want to impress upon them the solemnity and cosmic significance of what they are now partaking — and celebrate their arrival at the Lord’s table. But I am leery of trying to give them too much theology about it all, tempting as I know it is to explain to children the metaphysical niceties of accidental nature vs. true substance and transubstantiation.

In fact, First Communions are one of the occasions on which I am reminded most powerfully of Christ’s exhortation that we become more like little children.

There is, at least for me, a strong urge to overcomplicate and hyper-rationalize the Eucharist. It can sometimes feel a bit like I measure my disposition to receive the sacrament by my intellectual focus and appreciation for it; that if I think hard enough about what I am receiving the significance of it will necessarily effect some kind of conversion on my part.

Of course, the Eucharist isn’t a puzzle to be solved, it is a physical point of contact with God, a tangible ingestion of grace, an encounter with the reality of Christ’s sacrifice and the power of his resurrection.

The good it can do me is in proportion to my understanding of how much I need it, rather than what it “is” in Aristotelian terms. That’s the thing I have to figure out how to say, with faith, to my godchild this weekend, and to myself first.

Anyway, here’s the news.

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The News

The Vatican’s financial watchdog announced Thursday that it saw an increase in suspicious activity reports in 2025.

The Supervisory and Financial Information Authority’s latest annual report, published April 30, detailed 78 reports of suspicious activities in 2025, 73 of which came from the Institute for the Works of Religion, or IOR, the only financial institution under its direct supervision.

The supervisory authority, known by its Italian acronym ASIF, attributed the rise in suspicious activity reports in 2025 partly to improved procedures at the IOR, following a “targeted inspection of reporting activities.”

It also cited “activities related to the extraordinary events affecting the Catholic Church and the Holy See in 2025,” possibly linked to the Jubilee Year and papal transition.

Coincidental with the report’s release, the bank’s outgoing president Jean Baptiste de Franssu, who stepped down as president of the IOR’s board of superintendence earlier this month, gave an interview to a French publication in which he recalled being surprised when he arrived in the Vatican:

“I didn’t expect such a lack of professionalism, such disregard for the rules, and such a thirst for power among so many people,” he recalled.

Read the whole story here.

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Two days before the Kansas City Royals unveiled plans for a new ballpark, the team’s owner called the local bishop, Bishop James Vann Johnston.

There had been some changes to the proposed stadium’s location, he was told. The church tower of Our Lady of Sorrows, a historic Kansas City parish, would now sit about a hundred yards from home plate.

The bishop talked to The Pillar this week about how the Royals’ ownership has been working with the diocese on the future of the parish, and how he plans to make the faith part of the game day experience.

Read the whole conversation here.

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As the Society of St. Pius X continues preparations to consecrate several bishops without a papal mandate, leaders within the group have begun preparing the ground for the seemingly inevitable canonical consequences.

But as they do so, the society’s leadership and supporters have repeatedly complained that Pope Leo has refused to grant an audience to their superior, Fr. David Pagliarani.

The narrative being spun is that if Leo won’t even hear the society out, how can the pope expect some kind of reconciliation and hope to avoid the illicit consecrations in July.

In an analysis this week, I took a look at that narrative and concluded that actually Leo’s refusal to meet with Pagliarani is probably a supreme act of pastoral charity for the SSPX superior — and that the pope is doing his best to give the society as much time as possible to reconsider its position and threat towards the Church.

Simply put, Pagliarani has been explicitly clear that he and the society “cannot find agreement on doctrine” with the Vatican, which is a passive aggressive way of saying they dissent from authoritative Church teaching, and that they intend to consecrate bishops with or without the pope’s permission.

My read of the situation is there is simply no chance this guy can sit down with the pope and not do a schism, Leo knows that, and the pope is trying to save him from himself.

Read the whole thing.

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The German bishops released this week a new national framework for priestly formation that introduces significant changes to the selection and formation of candidates for the priesthood.

The 203-page document, known as the Ratio Nationalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis, replaces guidelines issued in 2003 and was approved by the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Clergy in March.

Read all about what’s changing for priestly formation in Germany right here.

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Everyone is talking about the bumper rise in adults who entered the Church this Easter, by some estimates an increase of nearly 40 percent.

But, as Jose Manuel de Urquidi wrote in a column this week, not everyone is necessarily asking the right kind of questions to help us understand how this happened.

This is a fascinating unpacking of what the data does and doesn’t tell us about the now-famous quiet revival, and an interesting look at the competing theories for what is driving it. But most importantly, it’s a great diagnosis of what we don’t know because we haven’t yet asked.

Read the whole thing.

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The law of attraction

I have been thinking about the story out of Kansas City, and the bishop’s obvious enthusiasm for the church’s potential for evangelization a lot this week.

It’s to be seen how the diocese will make the most of the site, and what practical means it will deploy to spread the Gospel to the crowds, but the upside here is self explanatory. If there is an American demographic more primed to hear about beauty, order, creation, fallenness, sacrifice and redemption than baseball fans, I cannot imagine who it would be.

Of course, the “how” of spreading the Gospel is something that parishes and dioceses are always considering. I am myself a big believer in the “retail” approach — personal to person, in the flesh, cor ad cor and all that.

But as with all issues of human communication, I am both aware and somewhat resigned to the reality that in the era of online everything and social media as the center of gravity of public impressions, it is certainly the case that you can’t ignore the digital space.

My observation would be that — and I think this has been borne out in political practice, too — you can seed the ground for people’s impressions and preconceptions incredibly effectively via the online world. But, in the end, individual interpersonal contact remains the most potent and most lasting form of communication.

Most people can never quite remember where they read that thing that first comes to mind when you broach a subject with them, but they rarely forget a conversation with someone who actually looked into their eyes and spoke to them about the reality of their lives.

For this reason, I remain somewhat lukewarm about the whole “online evangelization” thing. This isn’t to say that good people aren’t doing good work — they surely are. For all their sincere efforts and real successes, though, I am just not sold that the Church’s digital presence is, in the round, able to achieve a net good.

The reason for this is a combination of ancient and modern, let me explain.

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

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The Catholic Church in South Korea reaches a new milestone. An interview this week details Sabastian Sawe’s devotion to his faith.

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The Supervisory and Financial Information Authority’s latest annual report, published April 30, detailed 78 reports of suspicious activities in 2025, 73 of which came from the Institute for the Works of Religion, or IOR, the only financial institution under its direct supervision.

Although the watchdog announced last year that it received 79 suspicious activity reports in 2024, the new report revised the 2024 figure downward to 43. It is not unusual for annual compliance reports to make retrospective adjustments of figures.

The supervisory authority, known by its Italian acronym ASIF, attributed the rise in suspicious activity reports in 2025 partly to improved procedures at the IOR, following a “targeted inspection of reporting activities.”

It also cited “activities related to the extraordinary events affecting the Catholic Church and the Holy See in 2025,” possibly linked to the Jubilee Year and papal transition.

ASIF argued that the overall quality of the reports remained high, as a stable proportion of around 20% were sent on to the Vatican City State’s Office of the Promoter of Justice. In 2025, 16 reports were forwarded to the office, up from 11 the year before.

The new report said the level of suspicious activity reports in 2025 was “in line with expectations and the trend of the previous years.”

It added that refinements to the reporting process and sharper intelligence analysis could also be seen in other indicators of ASIF’s performance in 2025.

The report noted that ASIF’s preventative measures in 2025 included three suspended transactions and operations, up from two in 2024, relating to a total of 522,000 euros (around $612,000).

In 2025, ASIF recorded 196 incoming cross-border cash declarations, amounting to 13.6 million euros (around $16 million), and 328 outgoing declarations totaling 5.1 million euros ($6 million).

In comparison, in 2024, there were 137 incoming declarations worth 21.7 million euros ($25.5 million), and 336 outgoing declarations of 6.1 million euros ($7.3 million).

In the introduction to the new report, ASIF director Federico Antellini Russo wrote: “Following a period of stabilization in 2024, further consolidation has been implemented in the system for reporting potential suspicious activities, and the subsequent financial intelligence activities, in terms of analysis and domestic and international cooperation.”

He added that “during 2025, ASIF significantly increased its activities in support of the transparency of the economic and financial systems of the Holy See and the Vatican City State.”

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The ASIF annual report was released on the day that the French Catholic weekly news magazine Le Pèlerin published an interview with Jean-Baptiste de Franssu, who formally stood down as IOR president April 28 after a 12-year tenure.

De Franssu gave a candid account of his efforts to overhaul the institution, which was mired in scandal for much of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

When de Franssu arrived as president in 2014, the IOR had lost almost 150 million euros. Angelo Caloia, who led the institution from 1989 to 2009, was ultimately sentenced in 2021 to nine years in prison for money laundering and embezzlement.

Asked if he had expected to find a high degree of malpractice when he arrived in Rome, de Franssu said: “I didn’t expect such a lack of professionalism, such disregard for the rules, and such a thirst for power among so many people.”

The French asset management executive said he encountered strong opposition to his efforts to overhaul the IOR, but was determined to be “even more resilient than the resistance” to the reforms.

At one point, he said, “a 30-page document attacking me was circulating within the curia, detailing all the alleged misconduct throughout my career.” But with the support of Pope Francis, he was able to transform the institution, he said.

In March 2019, de Franssu triggered the events that led to a major Vatican financial trial, when he refused to authorize a 150 million euro loan from the IOR to the Vatican Secretariat of State, related to a luxury property in London.

He told Le Pèlerin: “For three months, we requested documents, to no avail. We turned down the loan. What a messy situation. I was summoned to the Secretariat of State. ‘On what grounds are you turning it down?’ I was asked. I replied, ‘In the name of international financial regulations.’”

“We obtained the documents. We immediately realized there had been embezzlement. We alerted the pope. He reacted immediately. He banged his fist on the table.”

Although de Franssu expressed great admiration for Pope Francis, he acknowledged policy disagreements with the Argentine pope.

He said: “We wanted to set up an open-ended investment company (SICAV) in Luxembourg. Subject to European regulations, it ensured that investments would be made in the most transparent, controlled, and monitored manner possible.”

“Some people convinced the Holy Father that we wanted to engage in tax speculation. Which was preposterous. The pope asked us not to create this SICAV. We complied, albeit reluctantly.”

De Franssu said that despite the ups and downs of his tenure he never considered resigning.

“What I do know is that no other position I’ve held elsewhere — not even a more comfortable one — would have fulfilled me as much as this assignment at the Holy See,” he said.

“I took immense pleasure in working alongside Pope Francis. He was a great prophet. And he will be recognized as such; I believe this with all my heart. I had my share of difficult moments with him… But many saints were known to be real troublemakers.”

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

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Two days before an MLB team unveiled plans for a new stadium, the team’s owner called the local bishop.

The owner wasn’t looking for a blessing or advice. He wanted to invite the prelate to the press conference.

Bishop James Vann Johnston of Kansas City-St. Joseph was a bit confused. Why did the Kansas City Royals want a Catholic bishop at a stadium announcement?

That’s when team owner John Sherman did explaining — there had been some changes to the proposed stadium’s location. One of the bishop’s parishes would have a new neighbor.

In original discussions, Our Lady of Sorrows, a historic Kansas City parish, might have been about a mile from the new stadium.

In the new plans, home plate could sit about a hundred yards from the church tower.

In renderings he saw, “the edge of the stadium is in the parking lot of the church!” Johnston told The Pillar.

“The stadium is literally feet from the church.”

The press conference came last Wednesday, as the Kansas City Royals announced plans for their new home in Kansas City, Missouri’s Crown Center. And Johnston told The Pillar that in his view, the new stadium offers a new basepath for evangelization.

“I was called by the owner of the Royals inviting me to the press conference. He said, ‘Everyone thinks the stadium’s going to be in Washington Park, but it’s actually going to be in Crown Center and it’s going to be right next to the church,’” Johnston recalled.

“Sherman added, ‘I’d like you to be there because we want you to be involved in the discussions and the planning around the project,’” the bishop told The Pillar.

“The new stadium presents a wonderful opportunity to give the church and the parish a new chapter in its history,” Johnston said. “We want people to make the parish a part of their game day experience.”

As people make their way to the stadium, “we will consider [convenient] Mass times, and how to keep the church open for those who would want to come in for confession, or for adoration or prayer,” the bishop explained.

“For those that are not Catholic, I think it gives us a great gateway to other people who might not otherwise have a relationship to the Church,” Johnston said.

Crown Center, near downtown Kansas City, is a shopping center and entertainment complex close to the city’s restaurants, hotels, downtown apartments and condos, and the nearby Union Station. At the center of the area is the headquarters for Hallmark, the famous greeting cards company.

Initial plans for the new stadium proposed that the stadium be built in Washington Park, a neighborhood near Crown Center, but about a mile away from the church.

Instead, Hallmark is partnering with the Royals to build the 85-acre development site, which will include Hallmark’s new company headquarters, shops and restaurants, and the “world-class stadium.” The project is expected to cost roughly $2 billion.

At the edge of the development site stands Our Lady of Sorrows.

“Mr. Sherman, and David Hall, who is the CEO for Hallmark, both told me that they want this ballpark to be a neighborhood ballpark,” Johnston said. “They want this stadium to blend into the neighborhood.”

“They told me that they’re committed that the church spire will be the tallest thing. It will be taller than the stadium itself!”

Our Lady of Sorrows has a long history — founded by German immigrants in 1922, the city of Kansas City has grown and developed around it. The church has become a popular wedding venue, and is frequently filled with young professionals and medical staff for Sunday and daily Masses.

But in recent years, the parish has changed, as longtime parishioners move from the area.

“It’s dwindled in terms of its parish size as the old parishioners move out, but there are a lot more young adults that live down there that are going to Mass and many of the hospital workers and medical students go there,” Johnston said. “The church itself is beautiful. It’s an iconic church, beautiful on the outside and the inside.”

The bishop noted that Our Lady of Sorrows is one of several parishes benefiting from a growing number of young adults in the region interested in Catholicism.

“We’ve seen an increase exponentially here, and not only there at Our Lady of Sorrows … but all three of our downtown parishes have seen that. We have one of the most dynamic young adult ministries in the nation here — City on a Hill — and we have seen really great growth in the number of young adult Catholics involved.”

The bishop said he sees the Holy Spirit in the number of young adults taking up the practice of the faith.

“I think there’s something ultimately attributable to the work of God through the Holy Spirit, and I think the Holy Spirit’s using some of the dislocation that people have felt, the shaking of people’s realities … part of that has been COVID, part of it is attributable to, I think, just the rancor that people experience in almost every quarter of life, and some of the disconnect that they feel.”

“I don’t want to beat the drum too hard on the effects of social media, but I do think a lot of these things have combined to shake people, almost existentially, and that’s resulted in an opening of the heart, I think, to the presence of God and maybe a seeking for something true, which can be counted on.”

“I think people are looking for something in this time of great instability and upheaval. In my opinion, there’s been an almost existential upheaval that’s been happening for a couple of decades now, and I think younger people — without a lot of past experience or biases that previous generations had — are more open to religion.”

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In the near term, Johnston believes the stadium’s presence will be a benefit for the parish, with residential development likely bringing more Catholics to the area.

That could change the experience of parish life, and might change the parish financial future, too, Johnston conceded.

“There’s going to be a big commitment to more residential and commercial investment in that area, which I think is going to lead to a lot more people living downtown. I have great hopes that this will help the parish, not only financially, but with growth and parishioners,” Johnston said.

“The church has been an iconic part of Kansas City for a long time, but I think now it’s even going to be more recognizable, almost as a landmark that’s associated with the stadium,” Johnston said. “It’ll be so close that when it’s on TV, the church will be right there with the stadium.”

The bishop told The Pillar that he’s excited on a personal level that the new stadium will mean he can walk to games. A Braves fan in childhood, the Royals won him over, he said,winning the 2015 World Series a few days before his installation as the new bishop.

“I’m excited because I live downtown and once the stadium’s here, I’ll be able to just walk to a ball game and I’m a baseball fan,” Johnston said. “The 2015 victory parade was the day before my installation Mass and so I’ve adopted them very readily.”

But he’s mostly excited for what the stadium could mean for the Gospel.

“With a lot of visitors — a lot of people coming through — it’ll be a way for us to have some encounters with others that are not Catholic or not Christian,” Johnston said.

“It will be a way for us to do some evangelization that really works in that context.”

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There have been many hypotheses, from a simple “market correction” held over from COVID to a full-scale political shift. Are these new converts looking to cash in on the latest trend, or is there a deeper need for the sacraments being realized? What role did the digital world play in these conversions? France is asking those questions. And, until we do the research, we’re simply throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks.

The last major American study of OCIA motivations was a USCCB survey from 2000, when 88% entered for marriage or family reasons and only 12% for a personal spiritual quest. This publication’s own data team has shown that the current increase is more of a rebound to pre-pandemic levels than a historic peak, with most dioceses still below 2000. That analysis keeps the conversation honest. But whether it is a boom or a rebound, the people behind the numbers are real, and we have almost no insight into what moved them.

Sherry Weddell of the Catherine of Siena Institute, who has spent decades training parishes to form intentional disciples, says those proportions have likely inverted, especially among young adults. Still, we are guessing.

France, on the other hand is not guessing.

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For months, the society’s leadership have insisted they will go ahead with the consecrations, currently scheduled for July. In February, Rev. Davide Pagliarani, the superior general of the SSPX, said the decision to consecrate new bishops was made after he requested an audience with Pope Leo XIV in August 2025 which remains ungranted, and after he recently received a letter from the Vatican “which does not in any way respond to our requests.”

Pagliarani has stated that consecrating new bishops is essential to securing the society’s future, ensuring that it has the sacramental means to ordain priests. He has also stated that the work of the society is itself essential because, according to him, “in an ordinary parish, the faithful no longer find the means necessary to ensure their eternal salvation.”

At the same time, the SSPX have insisted that any dialogue with the Vatican must include matters of doctrine and ecclesiology over which the society “disagrees” with the Church, “particularly regarding the fundamental orientations adopted since the Second Vatican Council” — something the Holy See has said it will simply not accept.

Through all of this, the society’s leadership has appeared to strike a tone of aggrieved seekers of compromise, while insisting their illicit consecrations will go ahead without papal mandate.

Last Sunday, the society’s Bishop Bernard Fellay appeared to warn supporters of the group that “there is an enormous probability that all of you, we included, may be excommunicated, declared schismatic” by the Vatican if the consecrations proceed as expected.

Although Fellay claimed “there is a very high probability” that everyone — bishops, priests, and laity — affiliated with the SSPX would be canonically excommunicated “because they [the Vatican] already said it in public,” the Vatican has made no such statement, and the assertion is not supported by the relevant canon law on the subject.

However, the bishop’s statement appears in line with an SSPX communications strategy, to portray itself as a the victim of a vindictive and unreasonable Vatican, unwilling to meet its supposedly modest requests.

Key among these “requests” has long been an audience for its superior with Pope Leo XIV. And, as the scheduled consecrations draw closer, those around the SSPX and sympathetic to it have increasingly highlighted Leo’s refusal to meet with Pagliarani as evidence that Rome isn’t interested in reconciliation — and is even goading the SSPX into a fuller and more formal breach.

But while that portrayal might serve a convenient narrative, the reality is Leo’s refusal to meet with the SSPX leadership is more likely to be an act of charity towards the society’s leaders, and a desire to keep a moment of ultimate crisis at bay for as long as possible.

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Throughout the months since the SSPX announced their intentions to consecrate several bishops without a papal mandate, the society has pushed the public message that it will do so as a kind of reluctant last resort, a regrettable necessity forced upon it by the Vatican.

According to the SSPX narrative, Leo has declined all good-faith requests to sit down, hear them out, and understand their concerns. If only he would, the suggestion is, the society could be properly recognized by the Vatican and integrated back into the Catholic Church.

The problem with this framing — indeed with the SSPX’s conception of dialogue — is that it tries to pitch the society as both a true expression and member of the Catholic communion under the authority of the pope and, at the same time, when necessary, autonomous, and a kind of legitimate interpreter of doctrine apart from the Holy See.

Following meetings with Cardinal Fernandez at the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in February — talks the Holy See said it hoped might persuade the SSPX to pause their plans for illicit consecrations — the society’s leadership essentially closed off any future for the negotiations.

According to a statement from Pagliarani, serious disputes of doctrine related to the Second Vatican Council remain between the society and the Church, but no real substantive progress is possible because, essentially, only the Church can pronounce on these matters authoritatively, but also the Church is wrong.

“In the shared recognition that we cannot find agreement on doctrine,” Pagliarani, “it seems to me that the only point on which we can agree is that of charity toward souls and toward the Church.”

In other words, the SSPX will not ascribe to the Church’s authoritative teaching on the council, and instead proposes that the Vatican simply allow it to get on with its own self-ascribed pastoral ministry free from further sanction.

Pagliarani has attempted to strike a similar “agree to disagree” posture with the pope personally over the matter of SSPX episcopal consecrations, claiming that “this was not a decision that we could take without concretely manifesting our recognition of the authority of the Holy Father.” Of course, Pagliarani has “manifested this recognition of the pope’s authority” by publicly setting out to defy it.

Through all of this, the Vatican has refused to be drawn into a war of words with SSPX leaders, limiting itself to expressions of acute concern and hope that that leaders will reconsider their plans before it is too late.

In that situation, Leo’s refusal to meet with Pagliarani has come under repeated fire. Surely — the argument has been made by supporters of the society — if the pope had a real concern for avoiding a canonical act of schism by the SSPX leadership, he would want to press his plea for restraint in person?

But a different assessment of the situation might conclude that, in fact, Leo’s refusal to meet with Pagliarani is an act of mercy — and an ultimate expression of the pope’s hope that reconciliation might still be possible.

If that sounds counterintuitive, consider what exactly constitutes the canonical act of schism, and how any meeting between Leo and Pagliarani would inevitably play out.

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It is worth remembering that the threatened illicit consecrations would themselves be specific canonical crimes, with set penalties for all involved.

At the same time, on the previous occasion when the society has proceeded to consecrate bishops on its own authority, Pope St. John Paul II issued a declaration of schism, with the penalty of excommunication.

Schism is defined in canon law as “the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or refusal of communion with members of the Church subject to him.” Communion, in turn, is constituted in three parts: sacraments, hierarchy of governance, and doctrine.

As regards the previous SSPX consecrations, “the root of this schismatic act can be discerned in an incomplete and contradictory notion of Tradition,” wrote John Paul.

“Especially contradictory is a notion of Tradition which opposes the universal Magisterium of the Church possessed by the Bishop of Rome and the Body of Bishops. It is impossible to remain faithful to the Tradition while breaking the ecclesial bond with him to whom, in the person of the Apostle Peter, Christ himself entrusted the ministry of unity in his Church.”

According to John Paul, “this act was one of disobedience to the Roman Pontiff in a very grave matter and of supreme importance for the unity of the Church, such as is the ordination of bishops whereby the apostolic succession is sacramentally perpetuated. Hence such disobedience - which implies in practice the rejection of the Roman primacy - constitutes a schismatic act.”

As to the idea of a meeting between Pope Leo and Pagliarani, the priest has already made it clear, in writing to Cardinal Fernandez, the SSPX cannot and will not accept that the Vatican’s position that “the texts of the Council cannot be corrected, nor can the legitimacy of the liturgical reform be challenged,” and thus “we cannot find agreement on doctrine.”

In fact, the division is so acute that Pagliarani has affirmed in a recent interview that he believes it is a “fact that, in an ordinary parish, the faithful no longer find the means necessary to ensure their eternal salvation.”

These are not abstruse quibbles of theology. Given that they are instead explicit renunciations of the Church’s authority, and ministry, the pope would be obliged to challenge Pagliarani on them, and correct him.

Similarly, Pagliarani has made much of the society’s recognition of the authority of the pope in the matter of episcopal consecrations, even while setting out to defy it.

Since the proximate substance of any meeting with Leo would be the cancellation of the scheduled consecrations in July, Leo would have to repeat his withholding of a mandate for the consecrations to go ahead, with Pagliarani either accepting or rejecting this.

Simply put, it is not possible for the pope to meet with the superior of the SSPX and ignore his numerous public statements on Church teaching and papal authority. Crucially, being warned personally by the pope would mean Pagliarani would have no choice but to respond — either accepting or rejecting the correction.

If he did not accept the correction, instead reaffirming the SSPX’s doctrinal disagreements with the Church over Vatican II or holding out the possibility of continuing ahead with the illicit consecrations, the superior would have placed what most canonists would consider an act of schism — refusing the authority of the pope to his face.

If this were how any meeting between Leo and Pagliarani were to play out, far from being a moment of conciliation, it would instead accelerate the very scenario Rome is hoping to forestall: an explicitly schismatic act from the SSPX leaders.

Given the tone and content of Pagliarani’s public statements in recent months, it is unlikely he would reconsider his most assertive statements. In fact, they are the very basis on which the SSPX justifies the supposed necessity of its continued existence and extreme actions.

It is because, according to Pagliarani, the means of salvation are not available in normal parishes that the SSPX must continue. And the SSPX cannot continue its self-ascribed ministry unless it has priests, which it cannot continue to ordain unless it has bishops to ordain them.

QED, because the Church’s ordinary ministry is salvifically ineffective, the society is justified in whatever means it chooses to continue its work. To concede ground on any of the points would be to undermine the entire rationale of the SSPX’s current self-articulation.

This being the case, it is hard to conceive of a meeting between Pagliarani and Pope Leo which didn’t end in an explicit formal statement of rupture by the SSPX superior with the pope.

In which case, Leo’s continued refusal to arrange a meeting is perhaps better seen as an act of pastoral concern for Pagliarani’s best interests, rather than high-handedness.

Leo likely hopes — or at least prays — that between now and July, the SSPX leaders might reconsider their planned actions, and appreciate the consequences. Meeting with them would seem most likely only to cut that time short.

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The 203-page document, known as the Ratio Nationalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis, replaces guidelines issued in 2003.

The new Ratio Nationalis, issued April 28, is based on the Vatican document Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis, approved by Pope Francis in 2016.

Each of the world’s bishops’ conferences is expected to adapt the universal Church norms to their local context. The German update was prepared over several years by members of the bishops’ Commission for Vocations and Church Ministries.

The new text incorporates changes to priestly formation introduced in the Ratio Fundamentalis, most notably the introduction of a mandatory propaedeutic (preliminary) stage of formation before the formal study program begins.

The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Clergy approved the German Ratio Nationalis March 11. The document, which sets binding standards for priestly formation in Germany’s 27 dioceses, will come into effect Oct. 1.

What’s the background to the new document? And what’s changing?

What’s the context?

Like most European countries, Germany has seen a sharp drop in priestly ordinations in the 21st century.

The decline has been particularly acute in Europe’s most populous nation. In 2015, 58 men were ordained priests for Germany’s 27 dioceses. In 2025, the number fell to 25, the lowest on record.

German priests frequently serve alongside full-time male and female pastoral workers, who assist with catechesis, youth work, and administrative tasks, and even preside at funerals. The number of lay pastoral workers increased from roughly 5,200 in 1990 to 7,516 in 2021, but has since declined.

Germany has a long tradition of lay activism that has evolved into a dense network of lay groups, under the auspices of the Central Committee of German Catholics, known by its German initials, ZdK.

The ZdK and the German bishops jointly sponsored the “synodal way,” the 2019-2023 initiative that sought to introduce sweeping changes to Catholic teaching and practice in the wake of a devastating abuse crisis.

While priests did participate in the synodal way, the main protagonists were arguably lay people and bishops. At the event’s second plenary assembly in 2021, a motion asking whether the Church still needed the sacramental priesthood was approved for debate.

Ultimately, the synodal way did not declare the priesthood redundant. In 2022, participants approved the document “Priestly existence today,” which appealed instead for a shake-up of priestly training in the wake of the abuse scandal.

In 2023, they also endorsed the text “The celibacy of priests – strengthening and opening,” which challenged the mandatory celibacy requirement for Latin Rite priests.

But a 2024 study suggested young German priests had limited interest in the synodal way’s priorities. They showed little enthusiasm for the abolition of priestly celibacy, greater democratization of the Church, or giving lay people more power. Most believed instead that reform could best be achieved by a stronger focus on communicating the content of the Catholic faith and “more offerings with spiritual depth.”

The synodal way’s approach to the priesthood upset aspiring priests, according to Fr. Dirk Gärtner, the head of Germany’s seminary rector association.

“They felt challenged and, at times, misunderstood,” he said.

The team preparing the new Ratio Nationalis did not work in isolation. It sought feedback on a draft text from seminarians, seminary rectors, and theologians. It also consulted the Advisory Board of Abuse Victims, founded by the German bishops in 2020.

Bishop Michael Gerber, head of the Commission for Vocations and Church Ministries, stressed that the document was also developed in conjunction with the Vatican.

“We engaged in constructive dialogue with the relevant Roman authorities, particularly regarding specific issues relevant to the German context — such as the significance of state-run faculties for priestly formation [theological faculties at state universities],” he said.

“I am very grateful that we can now present a document that responds to the challenges of our time with insights from the human sciences, but also with spiritual and theological depth.”

What’s new?

Germany’s 2003 Ratio Nationalis was a 111-page text that sought to overhaul priestly formation for the 21st century. Building on norms last updated in 1988, it broke the process down into three stages: initial training, preparation for ordination, and ongoing formation.

The new Ratio Nationalis is significantly longer and more systematically organized. Its seven chapters cover the current context in Germany, the foundations of priestly training, its goals, the people and places involved in formation, the basic and ongoing formation phases, the organization of studies, and special norms.

One of the most obvious novelties is the focus on synodality, a concept popularized more than a decade after the 2003 text’s publication. The new document wants to prepare priests to operate in a synodal context, where decisions are discerned through a prayerful dialogue between clergy, lay people, and bishops.

Bishop Gerber argued that the new text aligns closely with the final report of the synod on synodality’s study group on “The revision of the Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis in a missionary synodal perspective.”

He said that “both documents clearly show that a synodal approach should be embedded in priestly formation, but also, conversely, that the formation of those in the clergy at all levels is fundamental to building a synodal culture in the Church.”

Another distinctive element is that the new document mentions the word “abuse” 29 times, compared to zero in the 2003 text. After all, it wasn’t until 2010 that the German Church began a systematic reckoning with abuse.

The text says that abuse prevention should be a core element of priestly formation. This refers not only to sexual abuse, but also to the abuse of power and spiritual abuse. This is the first time that Germany’s priestly formation guidelines have referred explicitly to spiritual abuse, the subject of a groundbreaking document by the German bishops in 2023.

The document says candidates should be subject to psychological screening and evaluation, and receive ongoing training on respecting boundaries and cultivating healthy relationships.

Unlike the 2003 text, the new Ratio Nationalis offers an extended reflection on sexuality and celibacy.

“The challenge of integrating one’s own sexuality into a chaste, celibate life is a lifelong task,” it says.

It adds: “For final admission to priestly ministry, a sufficiently mature handling of one’s own sexuality, as well as respect for the sexuality of others, is therefore required.”

The document does not dwell on the much-discussed topic of homosexuality, referring only in a footnote to the 2005 Vatican Instruction on the admission to seminaries of “persons with homosexual tendencies.”

The new text mentions the word “women” twice as many times as the 2003 Ratio Nationalis. It calls for women to have an expanded role in the formation process.

“For many years, the cooperation of women as mentors and lecturers has proven successful,” it says. “To connect complementary perspectives of men and women, the reciprocal, cooperative intertwining of educational responsibilities could be a valuable measure in the future.”

“This could occur, for example, when a female director of pastoral services is included in the seminary faculty, and conversely, the rector is integrated into the faculty of pastoral services.”

Summing up the underlying shift in the new document, Bishop Gerber said: “The development of a dialogical existence is essential for a priest. That is why formation should not focus solely on the acquisition of individual skills, but above all on personal development.”

“This means that the prospective priest gains as realistic a picture of himself as possible and finds a way to integrate new experiences throughout his life into a process of ongoing personal maturation.”

Critics have argued that by stressing psychology, process, and synodality, the document downplays the importance of doctrinal and spiritual formation. They contend that what the German Church really needs is not more accomplished facilitators of dialogue, but leaders with a solid doctrinal grounding.

There is also the question of whether the document’s “dialogical” vision of the priesthood will appeal to the pool of would-be seminarians who — if the 2024 study of Germany’s younger priests is any indication — may prefer a focus on doctrinal clarity, spiritual development, and being equipped for evangelization.

The new document will likely guide priestly training for the next 20 years or so. Observers will be looking to see if it has a discernible impact on the number of priestly ordinations in Germany. Yet it may be hard to establish cause and effect even years after the new text’s introduction.

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Reading 1 - Acts 6:1-7

Psalm 33: 1-2, 4-5, 18-19

Reading 2 - 1 Peter 2: 4-9

Gospel - John 14: 1-12

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Show notes:

Belarus reportedly frees Polish Carmelite friar

Vatican restricted retired Belgian bishop

Armenian cathedral demolished in disputed region

German Church leaders defend blessing guidelines

Swiss Catholics out of doghouse over Eucharistic desecration

Brazil has a Catholic 'data center.' Why the US probably won't

Study: Catholic schools vary widely on inclusion of students with disabilities

FOX News: UnitedHealthcare fires woman over ‘Aww, they missed?’ comment on Trump assassination attempt

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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You can listen to JD read this Pillar Post here: The Pillar TL;DR

Hey everybody,

My son Daniel will be confirmed on Saturday, and I’d appreciate your prayers for him.

For his confirmation saint, he picked Blessed Solanus Casey — we just call him Fr. Solanus at our house — so we’ve been talking about our favorite Capuchin a lot lately.

Fr. Solanus is funny.

He sang badly, all the time, to the annoyance of everyone in the house.

He poured all his breakfast foods, including coffee, into the same bowl, and ate them as a penitential morning mash-up.

He had a way with bees, handling them without harm.

And he did the thing with the ice cream. On a hot summer day in 1941, a lady stopped by one morning to give Fr. Solanus some ice cream cones, to thank him for helping her with a problem. Solanus wanted the ice cream, but he was busy enough that morning that he put the cones in a desk drawer, without thinking at all about the mess he might have later — no air conditioning and all, it being 1941.

Then almost an hour later, a Capuchin novice stopped by the desk, to thank Fr. Solanus for praying for him about a dentist appointment he’d been nervous about. The novice was excited because he thought he was going to lose a tooth, and the dentist (maybe through Solanus’ intercession) found it had no problems at all.

Well, Father wanted to celebrate with the novice, and he remembered about the cones. So he reached into the drawer, and, amazingly, found them still frozen, as cold as if they’d been in the freezer.

There are some cool miracles in Solanus’ life, but if you ask me, the little ice cream miracle is among the most impressive, because it’s the sign of a God who cares enough to console, in even the little things.

But Fr. Solanus isn’t a sort of cartoon character of holiness, playing his fiddle and working fun miracles. He was a man of flesh and blood, and he dealt with disappointments, in family life and in the Church. Two of his siblings died in childhood, of the same diphtheria which left him frail. He proposed to a girl, and her mom was so appalled she sent the girl to boarding school. He might have witnessed a traumatic murder (accounts vary, and he didn’t talk about it much).

He was a high school seminarian, but was basically pushed out, because he didn’t have the Latin and German required for class lectures; formators thought he was incapable, when it was really a language issue. The stigma followed him into the Capuchins, where bad grades — and perhaps a genuine inability to “play the game” — saw him ordained a simplex priest, with no faculties to preach or hear confessions. He was a priest of Jesus Christ, and given the work of novices and lay brothers.

You could take those things, and let them add up to a life of bitterness. You could harbor resentments or grudges. It’d be easy. Solanus just made other choices, cooperating with grace, and living a fulfilled life in circumstances he didn’t predict.

At our house, we’ve been talking about a particular spiritual discipline of Fr. Solanus.

During his life as a Capuchin, he got into the habit of “thanking God first.”

When he needed something, Fr. Solanus made an act of the will, to thank God for it even before it arrived. He encouraged other people to do the same.

It’s a little thing, but it strikes me as remarkable, for a few reasons:

First, thanking God first disposes us to see Providence, when we’re tempted to see only our own efforts. Second, thanking God first inclines us to gratitude, when we’re often inclined to grumble or resentment about what we don’t have yet. Third, thanking God first purifies our intentions — no one would have the audacity, I hope, to thank almighty God for providing something he wanted for the wrong reasons.

Thank God first.

It’s simple. But I’m impressed that a man whose life might have gone otherwise found a way to live in joy and satisfaction, and I suspect this is a key component.

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The news

More than seven months ago, a Polish Carmelite was arrested in Belarus on espionage charges. On Tuesday, he was freed.

Twenty-seven-year-old Brother Grzegorz Gaweł was detained last September, when Belarussian authorities said he was carrying a sensitive military document documenting a Belarussian exercise conducted jointly with Russia.

The Polish government insisted the brother was not a spy. While he has not been tried, he was released Tuesday as part of a prisoner exchange.

Read about it here.

—
A Belgian diocese confirmed this week that the Vatican imposed confidential disciplinary measures on its former bishop in 2021.

The Diocese of Namur said April 21 that retired Bishop Rémy Vancottem was informed five years ago that he could no longer celebrate Mass in public or participate in bishops’ conference bodies due to his mishandling of an abuse case.

Here’s the story.

Apostolate leaders—clergy and laity alike—are often well formed in theology, yet underprepared for budgeting, fundraising, and team management. Catholic International University’s fully online MA and Graduate Certificate in Ecclesial Administration & Management provide practical, mission-driven training you can apply immediately. Study anytime, in fidelity to the Magisterium: www.catholiciu.edu/pillar

An Orthodox cathedral in the disputed region between Armenia and Azerbaijan was destroyed this month, with Armenian Apostolic Church leaders saying the move was designed to “erase the Armenian trace” from the region.

Readers of The Pillar know that the Nagorno-Karabakh region is populated by ethnic Armenians, but claimed by Azerbaijan, in a dispute that has left more than 100,000 people displaced from their homes and hundreds dead.

Armenian human rights leaders say the situation is a kind of ethnic cleansing, part of a long history of ethnic persecution by Azerbaijanis.

Now, for the Holy See, this situation points to Vatican-Azerbaijani ties which have been criticized in recent years. A non-profit foundation connected to the Azeri government has invested a lot of money in Rome, helping to restore St. Paul Outside the Walls basilica and other important works of art and history in Rome — along with giving support to a Vatican-affiliated pediatric hospital.

Observers suggest links between the Vatican and the former Soviet republic were strengthened thanks to Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, who is now prefect of the Dicastery for Eastern Churches and was the apostolic nuncio to Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia from 2001 to 2011.

During Gugerotti’s service as nuncio, Azeri authorities signed a bilateral agreement with the Holy See in 2011, appointing an ambassador the same year, and began to have frequent meetings, both in Azerbaijan and the Vatican, with Holy See officials.

How long can that situation last? Will Leo give it another look? I’ve been wondering that myself.

—
Leading German Church figures have defended the country’s guidelines on the blessing of same-sex couples in response to critical comments made by Pope Leo XIV on an airplane last week.

Bishop Georg Bätzing, who oversaw the guidelines’ introduction in April 2025 when serving as chairman of the German bishops’ conference, insisted that they posed no threat to Church unity.

That insistence comes after the pope said the Apostolic See has intervened already to make its views known with the German bishops, about “guidelines” that would seem to allow for liturgy-like blessings of same-sex couples.

Here’s the latest.

—
A Swiss diocese has announced that three people who shared the Eucharist with their dogs have not been excommunicated because they “did not act with sacrilegious intent.”

Yes. You read that right.

Last October, at a Mass connected to a pet blessing, three people fed the sacred host, or parts of it, to their dogs. The Diocese of Chur investigated, and has announced that the people involved did not have sacrilegious intent, and thus, did not incur an excommunication.

On the law, I find this a bit interesting. The relevant canon prohibits taking the Eucharist for a “sacrilegious purpose” — and I think taking the Eucharist to feed it to your dog is an objectively sacrilegious purpose. In that sense, I’m not sure how germane the intent actually is.

It is true that a person can’t incur a canonical penalty if they were absolutely ignorant of the law in question — but it’s also true that “crass or supine” ignorance does not suffice — in other words, you can be culpably ignorant of some law, and still legally culpable of breaking it.

I haven’t read the acts of the case, but I’m surprised the bishop has hung his reasoning on the idea of sacrilegious intent — not exactly a strong legal argument, instead of some question about their ignorance of the law and the nature of that ignorance.

On the other hand, we’re working from a press statement now, and I’d really prefer to work from the decrees and acta of the preliminary investigation in this case. So if you work in the Diocese of Chur, well, you know how to get a hold of me — and I think this case merits just a bit more scrutiny, if we can muster it.

You can read our reporting here.

And by the way, I heard in my inbox from a few of you, who thought our headline — referencing the Chur Catholics as “out of the doghouse” — was a bit flippant, given the gravity of the situation.

I’ve also heard from a few who really liked it.

I wrote the headline, and I take ownership for it, and I appreciate hearing views on both sides. In truth, the headline is intended to convey the surreality — the absurdity, if you will — of a situation stranger than fiction. That’s all. It’s not meant to disrespect the situational gravity.

Some of you agree with our reasoning there, and some of you don’t, and I’m glad you told me either way. The Pillar actually is a community, your views actually are relevant to our deliberations, and I like thinking about stuff like this from more than one angle.

In other words, thanks for being engaged, Pillar readers, and for having the chutzpah to tell us what you think.

I don’t want to bark on about this all day, but your views, perspectives, and considerations are always in my mind, and they’ll be on this too. So thanks.

And thanks for, you know, supporting a community like this, where we can talk about these things sanely, by subscribing to The Pillar. If you haven’t yet, do it now:

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—
The Brazilian bishops’ conference last week approved the creation of a national data center, which will aim to make information sharing between the country’s dioceses easier, while making available to both Church officials and the public information about the status of the nation’s clerics.

U.S. Catholics — especially clergy — have called for a system like this for quite some time.

But in my estimation, we’re probably not getting one.

Here’s why.

—
And a new study from the NCEA and the National Catholic Partnership on Disability finds that U.S. Catholic schools vary widely in their willingness to enroll and include children with disabilities.

The study is interesting, because it conveys schools which believe they can enroll more children with disabilities, schools which have had success, and that some schools say they are “not interested” in serving children with significant special education needs.

I am not unbiased on this front. I have spent the past decade, at least, working with schools to help them enroll children with disabilities — my own children with Down syndrome, and others.

Here’s what I’ve learned: When administrators decide that enrolling parishioners with disabilities is a core element of Catholic school identity — when they say “yes” to life, in other words, financial and practical obstacles are almost always easily overcome.

It’s just true — enrolling children with disabilities can so positively transform school culture, pedagogy, instruction, etc, that doing so leads to more success, more viability, and more resources.

But if administrators view that kind of thing as an “extra” — if they’re not firmly committed to making their school work for their parishioners, no amount of money will make a difference.

The biggest obstacle is not financial, it’s dispositional.

And that’s a shame, because, in my view, schools which open their doors to children with disabilities actually witness to the dignity of the human person.

In short, if you want to create a culture of life, you have to do so tangibly. And when you do, the “Catholic” in “Catholic education” becomes all the more rich, and all the more real.

If you’re a pastor or a school administrator, and you don’t believe me, just reach out. I’ll help. We can do this.

—
Ok, so there was on Saturday an assasination attempt on President Trump, during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

It is not the first attempt on Trump’s life, and I’ll bet it won’t be the last.

America has fallen into its predictable patterns: A swath of Americans say this proves Trump’s heroism, a swath say the attempt was staged, and a swath, like this woman, have taken to social media to lament that the president wasn’t killed.

I’m not surprised that woman was fired, by the way — she worked for United Healthcare, whose CEO was killed in December 2024 by Luigi Mangione, who has been turned into a folk hero in some circles, and — all the more bizarrely — is celebrated in some corners of the internet as a basically a heartthrob sex symbol. (Our country is in a really, really weird and troubling place, guys).

For a while Trump will probably appear behind bulletproof glass in public, though, as usual, the security cordon around him will gradually return to the status quo.

The status quo, by the way, is still a pretty tight perimeter of security — The U.S. president is one of the most protected men on earth, which is evidenced when the Secret Service periodically finds and arrests someone hiding out on a golf course or pretending to be part of his security detail.

It’s reasonable that a nation would take its leader’s security as seriously as possible, given that an assination on any political leader has the potential to throw a country — or the world — into chaos.

Which is why I’ve been thinking about the dispositional openness of the Roman pontiff.

I have spent, in my life, a great deal of time in the Vatican City State, much of it behind the scenes. I can assure you that the pope’s security matrix is more sophisticated than the visible presence of Swiss guardsmen wielding halberds in his presence.

But for a global leader of his stature, the pope’s security team is not what you might expect — and I’ve often looked around at papal events, thinking just how much at risk the pontiff puts himself.

Of course, canon 1370 assures an excommunication for the Catholic who uses violence against the pontiff, but I suspect that has less deterrent effect than we canon lawyers hope it will.

In short, as the 1981 shooting of John Paul II proved, the pope is often exposed, and vulnerable to the prospect of assassins, whether motivated by politics, religion, or garden variety nuttery.

I don’t think that’s just because the Apostolic See isn’t sophisticated enough for better security.

I think it’s instead because the nature of the Petrine office is to be willing to die for the faith and for the Church.

When popes were martyred, that meant they were as likely as anyone to be arrested by Roman authorities, and killed for professing faith in Jesus Christ.

For Pius IX and his immediate successors, it meant accepting to be a “prisoner of the Vatican,” because of the political situation in Italy.

Today, it means that the pope, as the vicar of Christ, chooses to be among the people to whom he professes the Gospel, for whom he witnesses to Jesus Christ — even if he puts himself at real risk to do so.

I expect that 1981 won’t be the last time someone gets close to killing the pope. I suspect eventually in the modern era it will happen. And I suspect that a man like Leo knows he could be safer if he chose, in countries around the world and at home, to be just a little bit more removed from the thronging crowds wanting a piece of him.

He wades into the crowd anyway. Safety is not the paramount concern of the Christian. We place our hope in something greater.

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Gotta be the shoes

Ok, a couple of last things.

Humans have been running the marathon distance since 490 BC, when a guy named Pheidippides ran 26.2 miles to Athens from the Battle of Marathon, to alert the Greeks that they’d repelled the Persians, and should not be tricked by a Persian ship in the Athens harbor.

No one knows how long the run took old Pheidippides (especially since the whole thing is a legend), but we’re pretty sure it was longer than two hours.

In fact, since 490 BC, no one had ever run an official marathon race in fewer than two hours.

Until this weekend, when two men did it.

At the London Marathon, Kenyan Sabastian Sawe beat a once-unbreakable record with a 1:59:30 marathon time.

Eleven seconds later, Ethiopian Yomif Kejelcha took second place with 1:59:41.

Nobody did it, and then they did.

This is an incredible moment of human achievement. It is a triumph of athletic virtue, an extraordinary moment in athletics, and we’re lucky to be alive when it happened.

I told this to some friends on Monday, who hadn’t known about the race, and their response was deflating. “Big deal,” one friend said. “It’s the shoes.”

Of course it’s the shoes. These guys ran on precision engineered sneakers, each pair weighing less than a deck of cards, with u-shaped carbon lips replacing the carbon plates that had ushered in the supershoe era.

These shoes are ugly, expensive, and engineered by some of the brightest minds on the planet, for one purpose: To take a well-trained and talented East African distance runner across a finish line in under two hours.

And they did it. The shoes worked as well as the runners did. That’s half the excitement.

When people went back around the moon this month on Artemis II, no one said, “big deal, it’s the computers.”

Instead, we celebrated the minds that made the technology, and the astronauts who made use of it.

We should do the same here: It’s cool that we live in a time when Adizeo Adios Pro Evo 3, worn on the right pair of feet, can contribute to a marathon raced in under two hours.

Less than 120 years ago, when Johnny Hayes set the first 26.2 world record, at two hours and 55 minutes, he did it wearing footwear he endorsed: The O’Sullivan’s Live Rubber Heels, attached to his racing flats.

They were the best gear that engineers could offer, and Johnny jumped right into ‘em. Same for Sebastian Sawe. Who wouldn’t, actually?

And now, the same shoes can be yours for the low price of $500. If you think it’s just the shoes that propelled Sebastian Sawe into history, pick up a pair.

Maybe you’ll hit a sub-2 marathon, too? If you do, I’ll bet you’ll think it’s a big deal.

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—
Next, reports emerged yesterday that a Minnesota lawyer and activist named Will Stancil had inside information on the plans of ICE agents in Minnesota this winter because the federal agents couldn’t resist bragging: They’d reportedly meet local girls on Tinder, and brag to them about what they were doing all day, and what their plans were. According to reports, those girls would share those plans with anti-ICE protestors and activists.

Now, whatever you think of the political players, their causes, and their methods, the point I want to make is different: Take seriously that strangers you meet on the internet are not a repository for the casual conferral of confidential information.

In fact, take seriously that your phone, and the apps inside it, and the people inside those apps, are all more or less aimin to spy on you.

Recall that last month, a French sailor’s use of a location-based exercise app allowed journalists to find the precise location of his ship, the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle. Recall that troop movements around the world have been frequently discovered by soldiers’ use of hookup apps — and that both Ukrainian and Russian intelligence agencies have set up blackmail and extortion operations using the apps, to trick or force soldiers into giving out even more information.

And recall that we’ve been warning about the security threat to the Vatican posed by location-based hookup apps since 2021.

But there is another lesson here, and it’s a personal one: Fellas, be faithful to your wives for at least two reasons. The first is that you owe it to her, yourself, and to Almighty God to be faithful.

The second is that if some other lady is interested in you on the internet, there’s a decent chance it’s a clandestine intel operation, or at least a bot farm blackmail ring. Be honest with yourself: You are not Brad Pitt or Timothee Chalamet, but you probably know some trade secret, or have a few bucks worth extorting.

Don’t be immoral, and don’t be so dumb, so vain, or so craven as to flatter yourself. If you’re tempted along those lines, just go for a run — I can recommend a good pair of sneakers.

—
Finally, next year is the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s death. For classical music fans, this is the year of Ludwig.

So enjoy this classic take on his Sonata #14:

Please be assured of our prayers, and please pray for us. We need it.

And thank God in advance.

Yours in Christ,

JD Flynn
editor-in-chief
The Pillar

Apostolate leaders—clergy and laity alike—are often well formed in theology, yet underprepared for budgeting, fundraising, and team management. Catholic International University’s fully online MA and Graduate Certificate in Ecclesial Administration & Management provide practical, mission-driven training you can apply immediately. Study anytime, in fidelity to the Magisterium: www.catholiciu.edu/pillar

The Armenian Apostolic Church decried the demolition of the Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in the city of Stepanakert, saying it aimed to “erase the Armenian trace” from the region.

The development comes less than three years after a military offensive by Azerbaijan led to the dissolution of the self-declared Republic of Artsakh in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, an area internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but historically populated and controlled by ethnic Armenian Christians until 2023.

The 2023 offensive prompted the flight of more than 120,000 ethnic Armenians and left hundreds dead. Human rights groups and Armenian leaders have described the exodus as a case of ethnic cleansing.

Armenia, a country roughly the size of the state of Maryland, has a population of roughly three million people. It is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran to the south. Around 95% of the population belongs to the Armenian Apostolic Church and 0.6% belong to the Catholic Church.

Several human rights organizations and Armenian activists described the demolition of the cathedral as a part of a broader pattern of systematic cultural erasure in the region.

The demolition took place shortly before the 111th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, during which an estimated 1 to 1.5 million ethnic Armenians were killed and millions more were forcibly deported by the Ottoman government during World War I.

The Azerbaijan government has not announced the cathedral’s demolition or publicly explained it, though pro-government media outlets said the Armenian government was responsible for the destruction of Azeri religious monuments in the region, seeming to suggest retaliation for those alleged crimes as justification.

Armenian news outlet Hetq claimed to have verified the church’s demolition with satellite images that showed the white paving stones around the cathedral, but not the church itself, which prompted several human rights organizations and media publications to verify the reports.

The cathedral started being built in July 2006 and consecrated in April 2019 and was the largest Armenian church in all of Nagorno-Karabakh. The cathedral was used as a bomb shelter during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020 but did not suffer significant damages.

Armenian cultural heritage watchdog Monument Watch had reported that the Church of Saint Jacob, built in 2007 and located in the same city, had also been demolished in early April.

The Armenian Apostolic Church is the ancient national church of Armenia, and is one of the Oriental Orthodox Churches, a roughly 70 million-strong communion that also includes the Coptic Orthodox Church.

The Oriental Orthodox Churches diverged from the Church after the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D., largely because of differences over formulas used to define Christ’s nature. In recent decades, the disagreement has come to be seen as primarily semantic, with all sides professing the same faith in Christ’s divinity and humanity, albeit in different language.

The Armenian Apostolic Church said in an Apr. 23 statement that “It is obvious that the Azerbaijani government continues to target Armenian Christian holy sites with the aim of erasing the Armenian trace from Artsakh.”

“This state-level vandalism once again proves that Azerbaijan’s anti-Armenian policy has not changed, which makes statements about establishing a stable and lasting peace with Armenia questionable.”

Church authorities also called Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to take “urgent and effective steps” to stop the Azeri regime from wiping out Armenian cultural heritage in the region.

However, when asked about reports of the cathedral’s destruction on April 18, Pashinyan said: “My concern is the historical and cultural monuments located in the territory of Armenia.”

Last week, Pashinyan was asked again about the demolition, and he said that the Armenian government was currently seeking to obtain more information but said he was reluctant to make the destruction “a subject of international discussions at the state level.”

‘On such issues, especially at this stage, one must be prudent, because they are a double-edged sword’, Pashinyan said.

Pashinyan’s government recognized the Azeri sovereignty over the region in 2022 and has repeatedly said that the issue is closed for his administration.

The demolition comes amid a confrontation between the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Armenian government.

Prosecutors opened a criminal case against the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church and barred him from leaving the country in February.

Karekin II, the Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, was due to travel to Austria for a Feb. 16-19 meeting of the Armenian Apostolic Church’s Bishops’ Synod, of which he is president.

Armenian authorities accuse Karekin II, who has led the Armenian Apostolic Church since 1999, of the obstruction of justice. The Church dismisses the charges as unwarranted interference in its internal affairs.

On Jan. 4, 2026, Pashinyan, who has served as PM since 2018, posted a video in which he read aloud a statement that set out a “roadmap” for the reform of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

The text called for the removal of Karekin II, the election of a new Catholicos of All Armenians, and the introduction of new measures to ensure financial transparency and upright conduct among clergy.

The video showed eight Armenian Orthodox bishops signing the document at Pashinyan’s residence. Two others, who were not present, also endorsed it.

One of the 10 signatories of the reform roadmap text was Bishop Gevork Saroyan, head of the Diocese of Masyatsotn. On Jan. 10, Karekin II removed Saroyan from his post, citing abuse of office.

On Jan. 14, a civil court ordered that Saroyan be reinstated. Karekin II responded on Jan. 27 by dismissing Saroyan from the clerical state.

On Feb. 14, the Prosecutor General of Armenia opened a criminal case against Karekin II, accusing him of obstructing the court order to reinstate Saroyan. The Church leader was also reportedly blocked from attending the synod of bishops of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Austria.

Karekin II’s legal representative described the move as “direct interference in the internal affairs of the Church.”

Pashinyan claimed that the meeting in Austria was part of a plan to create a “puppet Catholicosate” outside of Armenia.

He said: “I will not allow this. Armenia is not going to remain an observer. The reaction will be very tough. We will redirect the attention of those who have their eyes on the treasures of Etchmiadzin, hidden under the mask of benefactors, in a completely different direction. If additional measures are needed, they will be taken.”

—
The Vatican has been criticized for its ties to the Azeri regime, which is accused by human rights organizations of ethnically-based persecution of Armenian Christians in border territories.

Azerbaijan signed agreements in September with the Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital and the Vatican Apostolic Library and Apostolic Archives, alarming critics who accuse the Azeri regime of human rights abuses against the Armenian minority and of practicing “caviar diplomacy” by using its cultural and economic power to shape Vatican policy in the South Caucasus region.

In April 2025, the Azeri regime held a conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University, prompting widespread backlash.

The conference was entitled “Christianity in Azerbaijan: History and Modernity.” But Armenian activists and Church leaders called the event part of a broader campaign to erase Armenian Christian heritage from disputed territories.

Promotional materials for the conference included distinctly Azeri reads on West Asian history, including a display of the medieval Armenian monastery of Dadivank, with the claim that it belonged to the “Caucasian Albanian” culture, an Azeri government claim widely disputed by historians.

“This has no basis in reality. They say these are Caucasian Albanian churches, but Caucasian Albanians disappeared in the 8th century,” Orthodox Archbishop Vicken Aykazian, ecumenical director of the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church of America, told The Pillar back in April 2025.

Despite these controversies, the conference received a letter of congratulations from Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches.

Months before the 2020 offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan’s First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva was awarded the Order of Pope Pius IX at the Vatican.

Ilqar Mukhtarov, Azerbaijan’s ambassador to the Holy See, received the same distinction on April 3, 2025.

The Heydar Aliyev Foundation lists the Vatican Apostolic Library and the Vatican Museums among its partners and several restoration projects that it is supporting at the Vatican.

The list includes the Roman Catacombs of Marcellinus and Peter, the Catacombs of Commodilla, and the Catacombs of San Sebastiano, the restoration of a statue of Zeus in the Vatican Museums, the restoration and translation of more than 3,000 books and 75 manuscripts in the Vatican Apostolic Library, the restoration of a bas-relief with the encounter between Pope Leo the Great and Attila the Hun in St. Peter’s Basilica, and the restoration of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.

According to Italian outlet Irpi Media, the donations amounted to 640,000 euros (around $730,000). But an Azeri official said publicly in 2020 that the figure was “over 1 million euros.” Many of the restoration works came after 2020, suggesting the actual sum could be even higher.

One of the largest restoration projects was unveiled in 2024, when the Vatican City State Governorate announced an agreement between the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls and the Heydar Aliyev Foundation.

Observers suggest links between the Vatican and the former Soviet republic were strengthened thanks to Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, who is now prefect of the Dicastery for Eastern Churches and was the apostolic nuncio to Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia from 2001 to 2011.

During Gugerotti’s service as nuncio, Azeri authorities signed a bilateral agreement with the Holy See in 2011, appointing an ambassador the same year, and began to have frequent meetings, both in Azerbaijan and the Vatican, with Holy See officials, among them then-Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, and Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the then-president of the Pontifical Council for Culture.

According to Irpi Media, Ravasi is another central figure connecting Azerbaijan and the Vatican.

Ravasi opened the doors to Azeri-funded restoration projects in the Vatican with a 2012 agreement to restore Roman catacombs, as well as another to translate and restore manuscripts in the Apostolic Library.

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