An Argentine bishop said the seminary in his diocese was ordered closed on July by a decision of the Vatican’s Congre-gation for Clergy, after a contro-versy surrounding the reception of the Eucharist during the coronavirus pandemic.
Bishop Eduardo Maria Taussig of San Rafael said on Aug. 7 that the Santa Maria Ma-dre de Dios Seminary in Mendo-za, Argentina was ordered to close in December, at the conclu-sion of the academic year, by the Congregation for Clergy, and not the Diocese of San Rafael.
“The decision took me by surprise, but it is a directive that comes directly from the Holy See,” Taussig said.
The bishop said the decision to close the seminary was deeply upsetting, and he has since been discussing with the Vatican where the former students of the school will be sent to in order to continue their studies.

Conversions involving Islam sometimes look like a one-way street in the West. Famed new believers like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Keith Ellison seem to get all the attention—along with flamboyant flirts like Lindsay Lohan. But those who leave Islam may ultimately influence the faith more than converts do.
There are about 3.5 million Muslims in the U.S., according to a 2017 Pew Research Centre survey. The data suggests that about 100,000 of them abandon Islam each year, while roughly the same number convert to Islam. Altogether nearly a quarter of those raised in the faith have left, with Iranians disproportiona-tely represented. Similar trends prevail in Western Europe, where conversions in and out of Islam appear roughly to balance out.
In the U.S., ex-Muslims’ motives for leaving vary. Asked what their “main reason” was for no longer identifying as Muslim, Pew found 25% had general issues with religion and 19% with Islam in particular. Some 16% said they prefer another religion, and 14% cited “personal growth.” More than half of them abandon religion entirely, and 22% now identify as Christian.

In a speech in Ohio, President Trump remarked that presum-ptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden aims to “take away your guns, destroy your Second Amendment,” adding: “No religion, no anything. Hurt the Bible, hurt God. He’s against God, he’s against guns.”
Biden took umbrage at this rather incoherent assertion, issuing a statement that called his faith “the bedrock founda-tion” of his life – though nowhere in his lengthy response did he mention Catholicism, the specific faith he professes. Some of Biden’s supporters used Trump’s comments as an occasion to tout Biden’s faith, such as this ina-ccurate tweet from The Lincoln Project: Joe Biden is a devout catholic and regularly attends Sunday service.
Once Trump went to church, he gassed peaceful Americans.
The theme of Biden as a devout Catholic has received plenty of media attention over his decades in public life, most often because he tends to point to his faith background to justify certain parts of his policy platform, such as his support for a vast welfare state and unlimited immigration. Just last summer, he began opposing capital punishment.

After fifteen months of suspense during which designers from around the world have come up with the most audacious if not totally bizarre designs for Notre-Dame’s new spire and roof, we finally have a verdict. President Macron and the panel of experts presiding over the fate of the 850-year-old Gothic Cathedral, which narrowly survived last year’s terrible fire, have unanimously approved almost every single recommendation made by the architect-in-chief Philippe Villeneuve.

Someone might want to remind Joe Biden, who’s just picked progressive California senator Kamala Harris as his running mate, that his vice-president-to-be believes Catholics are unfit to serve in our nation’s courts.
In late 2018, while evaluating the nomination of Brian Buescher to serve as a district judge in Nebraska, Harris posed a series of questions insinuating that his involvement in the Knights of Columbus – a charitable Catholic fraternal organization – disqualified him from serving on the bench. Here’s one of her written questions: Since 1993, you have been a member of the Knights of Columbus, an all-male society comprised primarily of Catholic men. In 2016, Carl Anderson, leader of the Knights of Columbus, described abortion as “a legal regime that has resulted in more than 40 million deaths.” Mr Anderson went on to say that “abortion is the killing of the innocent on a massive scale.”
She went on to ask Buescher whether he was “aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed marriage equality when [he] joined the organization” and whether he had “ever, in any way, assisted with or contributed to advocacy against women’s reproductive rights.”

Moscow, on August 10, Interfax – Archimandrite German (Chesnokov), who was a monk at the Holy Trinity Lavra for many years, died after a long illness caused by coronavirus, the Lavra said on its website. Father German was the most prominent exorcist of the Russian Church. For many years, he was father superior of the Church of Sts Peter and Paul, the metochion of the Holy Trinity Lavra of St Sergius in Sergiyev Posad, where he performed a special exorcism ritual every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Father German was 78.

Pope Francis, with a Rescriptum published by the Vatican Press Office, has extended the jurisdiction of the Eastern Catholic Patriarchs over the entire Arabian Peninsula, which includes the Apostolic Vicariates of Northern and Southern Arabia. The latest announcement – fruit of careful evaluation by the Pope and the appropriate Dicasteries of the Roman Curia –  is in response to requests made by the Patriarchs and Apostolic Vicars of Northern and Southern Arabia, in view of the greater spiritual good of the faithful, as well as the historical prerogatives of their jurisdiction over the territory.

At least nine Catholic bishops have died from the coronavirus worldwide as the pandemic continues to spread across the Americas. Bishop Henrique Soares da Costa of Palmares, Brazil, became the latest bishop to die of COVID-19 on July 18. He died at the age of 57. Archbishop Emeritus Pedro Ercílio Simon of Passo Fundo died at the age of 78 on June 1 of COVID-19, and Archbishop Emeritus Aldo Pagotto of Paraiba, who was already suffering from cancer, died of respiratory failure on April 14 in an intensive care unit for coronavirus patients at the age of 70.
Sixty-six-year-old Bishop Eugenio Scarpellini of El Alto, Bolivia, died on July 15 after contracting the coronavirus. In the United States, Boston auxiliary Bishop Emilio Allue died on April 26 at the age of 85 of complications from COVID-19. At least two African bishops have died from the coronavirus. Bishop emeritus Gérard Mulumba Kalemba of Mweka, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, died on April 15 at the age of 82 in a clinic in Kinshasa.

Humanity’s cultural land- marks should be preserved for their value and function, and must “neither be misused nor altered” for personal purposes, said Noura Al Kaabi, the United Arab Emi-rates (UAE) Minister of Culture and Youth.

For Al Kaabi, the decision of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoðan to turn the Basilica of Saint Sophia, now a museum, into a mosque deeply “touches the human essence” because the Unesco heritage site has “exce-ptional international value” for “all peoples and cultures.”

The UAE’s reaction is one of the most critical in the Arab world. UAE leaders committed their country to the document on human brotherhood signed by Pope Francis and Grand Imam of al-Azhar Ahmad al-Tayyeb.

With respect to Saint Sophia, the UAE Minister for Culture slams the change in status, regardless of its historical and human value, noting how it served “as a bridge connecting different peoples and cementing their bonds.” Saint Sophia, she explained, “is a unique witness to the interaction between Asia and Europe across centuries. It is a symbol of dialogue.”

Nantes’ 600-year-old Gothic Church, the Cathedral of St Peter and St Paul, one of France’s most cherished landmarks, was intention-ally set ablaze by arsonists on July 18. During the conflagration, some 16th century stained glass windows were blown out and shattered, while a priceless 17th century church organ was entirely consumed in the inferno. Repairs to the structure will take several years. In the meantime, myriad questions have been reignited concerning religious persecution against France’s Christian and Jewish communities. A spate of thefts and vandalism in French churches has led to calls for the government to act.

France’s 475,000 Jews represent less than 1 percent of the country’s population. Yet …according to the French Interior Ministry, 51 percent of all racist attacks targeted Jews.

Anne-Elisabeth Moutet also noted, “Since the 1990s, as satellite Arab channels and later the internet, started spreading the anti-Semitic propaganda that’s the norm in the Middle East, the French State was slow in acknowledging the existence of a problem, and even slower in responding.”

Communist progressives, neo-Nazis and gilets jaunes can be violent. But most vicious of all are Islamist radicals who rage in their hatred for Jews and Israel. And as for Christians? ISIS has made its intentions clear: “The Christian community …will not have safety, even in your dreams, until you embrace Islam. We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women.”