Hours after the United States bombed the sites of three nuclear-enrichment facilities in Iran, Pope Leo XIV called the situation in the Middle East “alarming” and said diplomacy was the only responsible way forward. “Every member of the international community has a moral responsibility: Stop the tragedy of war before it becomes an irreparable abyss,” the pope said at the June 22 Angelus. A ceasefire between Israel and Iran seems to be holding.
U.S. Supreme Court decisions: The Supreme Court ruled June 26 there is not a private right to bring a lawsuit challenging South Carolina’s decision to end Planned Parenthood’s participation in the state’s Medicaid program, a ruling that will likely allow other states to remove Planned Parenthood from their Medicaid programs. Among June 27 rulings, the Court ruled in favor of an interfaith group of Maryland parents who sought to opt their children out of classroom instruction pertaining to books containing LGBTQ+ themes to which they object on religious grounds. The justices also upheld a Texas law requiring age verification to view online pornography, and limited the ability of federal judges to issue nationwide injunctions in a case concerning an executive order to end birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. to parents without legal status or temporary visa holders.
A suicide bombing struck a Greek Orthodox church in Damascus, Syria, during a June 22 Divine Liturgy; at least 20 were killed and more than 60 injured at Mar Elias, a Greek Orthodox church in the city’s Dweila neighborhood.
In the midst of what felt like death and destruction in fire-ravaged Altadena, a spiritual sign of life appeared the evening of Friday, June 20: A monstrance containing the Eucharist carried through the streets in one of the final Eucharistic processions of the 2025 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage. The three-year National Eucharistic Revival closed in Los Angeles on Corpus Christi Sunday with a call to “become Eucharistic missionaries.”
Twenty U.S. Catholic bishops have individually signed onto an interfaith effort opposing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which would enact key provisions of President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda on taxes and immigration. In a separate June 26 statement, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops again reiterated support for or opposition to various provisions in the bill under consideration in the Senate.
In France, a new initiative is taking a data-driven look at Catholicism. The “Observatory of Catholicism” officially launched this June, aiming to provide reliable, science-based insights into the church’s evolving role in French society.
Tensions escalated in the West Bank on June 26 as Israeli settlers attacked the Christian village of Taybeh, setting a fire at its eastern entrance. While no injuries were reported in Taybeh, the nearby village of Kafr Malik suffered deadly violence— three Palestinians were killed and several homes and vehicles were torched.
In Seville, Spain, a restoration of the beloved 17th-century statue of Mary Most Holy of Hope Macarena (Our Lady of Hope of Macarena) has sparked backlash from local Catholics. Unveiled June 20, the restored image appeared with longer eyelashes and a paler face, changes that many said distorted her traditional sorrowful expression.
Pope Leo XIV celebrated an early evening Mass June 22 outside Rome’s Basilica of St. John Lateran for the feast of Corpus Christi before joining thousands of people for a procession to the Basilica of St. Mary Major, about a mile away. Among this week’s papal events were audiences for the Jubilees of Governments, Seminarians, Priests and Bishops, and a meeting with individuals in recovery for substance abuse. In an audience with participants in the plenary assembly of a Vatican coalition of Catholic charities, Pope Leo XIV called on everyone to root out false narratives being used to fuel today’s wars, conflict and violence; he also wrote a letter to a Peruvian journalist on the need in the church for “a culture of prevention that does not tolerate any form of abuse,” and a message to priests on the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. His Wednesday general audience, reflected on the healing of a woman who touched Jesus’ cloak and the raising of a girl from the dead.
A government-ordered euthanasia facility operated by the British Columbia government’s Vancouver Coastal Health Authority is now fully operational at a Catholic-run hospital in downtown Vancouver. The provincial government forced the euthanasia facility onto the current site of St. Paul’s Hospital in November 2023 in response to persistent pro-MAiD activism and media pressure; the hospital’s health care system has long maintained policies consistent with the church’s pro-life teaching.
