Michael Voris has alleged that a priest from Indiana’s University of Notre Dame made serious sexual advances towards him in the summer of 1981. He has also further alleged that the university covered up the incident to protect the cleric.

Voris made the comments on a relatively recently established YouTube account called “SoulsAndLiberty” and under the name “Gary Michael Voris”, which describes itself as “devoted Catholics working together to protect our American Constitutional, Democratic Republic”. The account features various videos covering religious and cultural themes.

As it happened, a week ago or so, I was sitting in the well-upholstered and elegant library of St Jean Baptiste Church in Manhattan, in the Upper East Side, with Fr Carlos Martins. I was able to ask him about the difficulties the last eight months had posed since he had to pause his ministry after having had what proved, as expected, to be unfounded accusations

I was in New York to plan a dramatic and rather exciting programme called Reclaiming Christendom that he and I, with one or two other colleagues, are planning to put together for launching later this year. But like everything else, it has had to be paused until the false charges were dropped and he was restored to his ministry.

Madonna has called on Pope Leo XIV to visit Gaza in order to "bring your light to the children before it's too late".

The US pop star, considered one of the most successful female solo acts of all time and who was born and raised as a Catholic, shared her plea on Instagram.

"Most Holy Father, please go to Gaza and bring your light to the children before it's too late. As a mother, I cannot bear to watch their suffering. The children of the world belong to everyone."

Pope Leo XIV has returned to Castel Gandolfo, the papal residence where he spent over two weeks for his summer holiday.

After arriving for what appears a short mini-break, he briefly spoke to reporters about different conflicts taking place in the world, reports the Rome-based Catholic news agency Crux.

He addressed the war in Ukraine, emphasizing that the countries involved “must always seek a ceasefire”, with his comments coming ahead of US President Donald Trump due to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska this Friday to discuss potentially ending the war.

US President Donald Trump has announced that this year's Kennedy Center honours will include the action film star Sylvester Stallone, one of Hollywood’s best-known Catholics.

In a break with tradition, the US president will also host the award ceremony this December in Washington, DC, an event that is regarded as bestowing "one of the country's highest recognitions of artists", reports the BBC.

Detroit Archbishop Edward Weisenburger has come under fire for appointing a priest linked to a group that supports women’s ordination as the archdiocese’s ombudsman.

On 18 March 2025, Archbishop Edward Weisenburger was installed as head of the Archdiocese of Detroit, one of the final episcopal appointments made by Pope Francis before his death.

Within a month, he announced a complete prohibition of the Traditional Latin Mass in parish churches, effective 1 July. Three weeks later, he dismissed three senior conservative faculty members of Sacred Heart Seminary: Dr Ralph Martin, Dr Eduardo Echeverria, and Dr Edward Peters.

On 1 August, Bishop Douglas J. Lucia, 62, of Syracuse took up the pastorate of three churches in Baldwinsville, New York — St Augustine’s, St Elizabeth Ann Seton’s, and St Mary of the Assumption. The appointment was announced in a diocesan letter dated 9 August.

“Well, today, I am able to share the news that I will be your new pastor,” the bishop wrote to parishioners. “Although I was called to be the Bishop of the Diocese of Syracuse six years ago, it has always been with the hope of continuing to be a parish priest and I guess God has taken me at my word.”

On 26 June 2015, the US Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v Hodges that the Fourteenth Amendment required states to license and recognise same-sex marriages. Now, a decade later, the Court will consider whether to take up a case calling for that decision to be overturned.

The petitioner is Kim Davis, the former Rowan County clerk in Kentucky, who was jailed for six days in September 2015 for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples on religious grounds. Davis is appealing a $100,000 jury award for emotional damages, plus $260,000 in legal fees.

Bishop Joseph Strickland is a well-known and well-loved prelate for many conservative Catholics.

Ordained for the Diocese of Dallas in 1985 and appointed Bishop of Tyler, Texas, by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012, he has in recent years become a vocal critic of certain Vatican policies which he believes go against “the truth of the Gospel.” He was removed as Bishop of Tyler in 2023 after a Vatican investigation concluded that “the continuation in office of Bishop Strickland was not feasible.”

In this exclusive interview, he discusses his initial perceptions of Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate, his fellow bishops’ response to his removal, and his reflections on the life of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the SSPX.

Pope Leo has greeted Spain’s youngest priest and his parents at the Vatican. Speaking to Fr Miguel Tovar Fernández, he advised the new cleric to “never lose your joy” and also congratulated his parents on giving their son to the Church.

Fr Miguel was ordained priest on 5 July for the Diocese of Cartagena, in south-east Spain and in the Region of Murcia. At just 24 years of age, he had to receive a special dispensation from the Pope in order to be ordained as Canon 1031 stipulates that men in the Latin Rite must be at least 25 years old before receiving ordination. He is one of five young men who were ordained during July for the diocese.

On 11 August, the Holy See published a Rescript granting Vatican City State employees expanded family rights, including paternity leave, special provisions for parents of disabled children, and updated rules for family allowances.

The document, signed by Maximino Caballero Ledo, Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, and approved by Pope Leo XIV, followed an audience on 28 July in which Mr Caballero presented to the Pope the resolutions of the ULSA Council — a body bringing together representatives of the Holy See, the Governorate, and their staff.

Called Faith Freedom and Politics: Christians in Public Life, the event will bring together a coalition of many of the biggest Christian organisations in the country, with representatives of all the main traditions, to sign up to a Declaration of Christian Conscience. This will be, it is hoped, a metaphorical public planting of the Christian standard which can in future be used as a yardstick to measure where our politicians stand on moral issues. In a year which has seen doctrinaire progressives back legislation extending abortion rights and allowing for assisted suicide, it is a first step in a battle to turn the tide. The ambition is nothing less than to change the tenor of our politics altogether; to bring Christians into the political equation so that they matter in the way they do across the Atlantic.

“I believe that children are our future” sang the late great Whitney Houston in her hit cover Greatest Love of All. Forty years later, it would seem the United Kingdom, joined by many other Western countries, has given up on that belief.

Glancing through recent reports by the Office for National Statistics, we are told we’ve simultaneously reached a record low birth rate (1.44 children per woman) and a record high number of conceptions ending in abortion (29.69%) in England and Wales.

The Lionsgate film studio has announced that Mel Gibson’s highly anticipated film The Resurrection of the Christ will be split into two parts, with each part being released in 2027 on special holy days in the Catholic calender.

In an X social media post on 5 August, the film company announced that part one of the film will be released on 26 March 2027, which is Good Friday, while part two will be released just over a month later on 6 May 2027, thereby falling on the Feast of the Ascension.

A 3,800-year-old inscription from an Egyptian mine has prompted claims after a recent re-evaluative study that it could contain the earliest known reference to Moses outside of the Bible.

The inscription was originally discovered in the early 1900s by the renowned archaeologist Sir William Flinders Petrie at Serabitel-Khadim, a turquoise mine in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. It is written in Proto-Sinaitic, one of the earliest alphabetic scripts, used by Semitic-speaking labourers during the reign of Pharaoh Amenemhat III (circa 1800 BC).

“Big bomb dropped on Hiroshima B August 5 at 7.15 pm Washington time. First reports indicate complete success." Eighty years ago, this laconic message announced to President Harry S Truman and the American people one of the atrocities of the 20th century.

Yet in the years before the war, Truman's predecessor, Franklin D Roosevelt, had appealed to the governments opposing Hitler "publicly to affirm [the] determination ... in no event and under no circumstances[to] undertake bombardment from the air of civilian populations".

If she had tried to release Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone today, she might well not have made it past the publisher: a white, cisgender woman writing about bravery, injustice and a world where good and evil actually held meaning? Not exactly in vogue.

There is something curiously medieval about the modern inquisition against JK Rowling.

An author once lauded for her imaginative portrayal of witches, warlocks and a magical world beyond the comprehension of “muggle” society, now she stands defiantly at the stake of popular culture, unburned despite the furious flames lapping all around her.

If she had tried to release Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone today, she might well not have made it past the publisher: a white, cisgender woman writing about bravery, injustice and a world where good and evil actually held meaning? Not exactly in vogue.

Pope Leo XIV paid an unannounced visit to the intensive care unit of the Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital in Rome to pray with the family of Ignacio Gonzálvez, a 15-year-old boy, who remains in critical condition after suffering complications from lymphoma.

Ignacio had come from Murcia, Spain, to Rome with his Neocatechumenal Way community to take part in the Jubilee of Youth, but was urgently admitted to hospital after collapsing unexpectedly. He is currently in an induced coma and dependent on respiratory support.

The Trump administration is not pursuing its campaign promise to mandate health insurance coverage for in vitro fertilisation (IVF), despite repeated assurances during the 2024 presidential race.

According to a report published on Sunday by the Washington Post, the White House has decided against asking Congress to introduce legislation making IVF coverage compulsory, and does not plan to impose such a requirement through executive action.

In August 2024, while campaigning for re-election, US President Donald Trump declared that his administration would ensure all IVF costs were covered either by insurance or the federal government.

In an interview with Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens has addressed the criticism she received for consistently saying “Christ is King”.

The phrase, which is found in Scripture (Revelation 19:16, Colossians 1:13, among others), has been a central tenet of Christianity since apostolic times. In 1925, Pope Pius XI formally instituted the Feast of Christ the King in the liturgical calendar through his encyclical Quas Primas. The incorporation of the feast was seen as a rebuke to secularism, totalitarianism, and the idea that religion should be private or subordinate to the state.