U.S. bishops joined Pope Francis in expressing sadness after seeing photos of the lifeless bodies of a migrant father and his daughter who drowned near the U.S. border with Mexico.

“This image cries to heaven for justice. This image silences politics. Who can look on this picture and not see the results of the failures of all of us to find a humane and just solution to the immigration crisis?” the bishops said in a June 26 statement.

“Sadly, this picture shows the daily plight of our brothers and sisters. Not only does their cry reach heaven. It reaches us. And it must now reach our federal government,” said the statement, issued by Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Bishop Joe S. Vasquez of Austin, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Migration.

The photos of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez and his 23-month-old daughter, Valeria, lying face down in the shallow waters of the Rio Grande sparked outrage against the U.S. government due to squalid conditions at migrant facilities as well as increasingly harsher policies against immigrants, many of whom are from Central America, fleeing their countries due to violence, poverty and corruption.

“We can and must remain a country that provides refuge for children and families fleeing violence, persecution and acute poverty,” the bishops said. “All people, regardless of their country of origin or legal status, are made in the image of God and should be treated with dignity and respect.”

In response to journalists’ questions on June 26, Alessandro Gisotti, interim Vatican spokesman, said Pope Francis saw “with immense sadness” the photos. “The Pope is profoundly saddened by their death and is praying for them and for all migrants who have lost their lives while seeking to flee war and misery,” Gisotti said.

Theology develops through dialogue, not an aggressive defense of doctrine that seeks to impose its beliefs on others, Pope Francis said. Like Charles de Foucauld and the slain Trappist monks of Tibhirine in Algeria, fidelity to the Gospel “implies a style of life and of proclamation without a spirit of conquest, without a desire to proselytize and without an aggressive intent to refute,” the Pope said on June 21 in a speech at the Pontifical Theological Faculty of Southern Italy in Naples.

He also cited the writings of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Italian philosopher Lanzadel Vasto as examples of non-violent teaching and warned that opposing sides in theological debates may be prone to the “Babel Syndrome.”

While some believe the biblical story of the Tower of Babel is about “the confusion that comes from not understanding what the other says,” the “Babel Syndrome means not listening to what the other says and believing that I know what the other person is thinking and what the other will say,” the Pope said. “This is a plague.”

The Pope travelled to Naples to deliver the closing address at a two-day conference on the theme “Theology after ‘Veritatis Gaudium’ in the context of the Mediterranean.”

Paris Archbishop Michel Aupetit took the occasion of the first Mass in Notre Dame cathedral since its 15 April fire to remind the French that the now closed building was a house of prayer and not just a national heritage monument.

Aupetit and about 30 worshippers wore white hard hats during Mass in the Chapel of the Virgin at the cathedral’s eastern end, where light streaming through the stained glass windows showed no damage there from the blaze that destroyed the cathedral’s roof.

Much of the cathedral’s fragile glass has been removed and its window frames bolstered by wooden supports. The fire prompted an outpouring of public support and President Emmanuel Macron has pledged to have it reopened in time for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

In his sermon, Aupetit pushed back against the overwhelmingly secular discourse about the cathedral, insisting that “the profound reason for which Notre Dame cathedral was built (was) to show the desire of man for God.”

Its only purpose was to be a house of worship and it “cannot be reduced to a national heritage monument,” he said, adding that France’s secularist policies had resulted in “the abysmal religious ignorance of our contemporaries.”

According to Culture Minister Franck Riester, total pledges to reconstruct the cathedral amount to about 850 million euros, of which about 80 million have been paid so far.

In a remarkably frank and detailed speech, the Vatican official heading the department charged with reviewing clergy sexual abuse allegations told an assembly of Catholic journalists on June 19 that his investigators and the press “share the same goal, which is the protection of minors, and we have the same wish to leave the world a little better than how we found it.” Msgr John Kennedy, who since 2017 has headed the discipline section for the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, described the personal toll on the 17 people in his office as they have reviewed an ever-growing tide of cases involving clergy sexual abuse or related crimes.

“I can honestly tell you that, when reading cases involving sexual abuse by clerics, you never get used to it, and you can feel your heart and soul hurting,” Msgr Kennedy said. “There are times when I am poring over cases that I want to get up and scream, that I want to pack up my things and leave the office and not come back.”

Requests to officially renounce the Catholic faith, known traditionally as apostasy, have been on the rise in France, a sample survey by La Croixconfirms. And the survey suggests that the practice is linked to publicity over controversial issues such as clerical sex abuse.

But the numbers involved are relatively small compared to some media reports suggesting there had been a “flood” of requests by people to have their names removed from baptismal registers.

To measure the real extent of the phenomenon, it is necessary to solicit information directly from dioceses, since the French Bishops’ Conference (CEF) does not keep national records.

“We are sometimes accused over this, but we are not an association with membership lists,” said Father Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, spokesperson for the conference.

Among the 15 dioceses surveyed by La Croix, some did not respond or stated that they did not wish to provide figures.

All the others confirmed an increase in requests to renounce membership of the Catholic Church since August 2018, with a further acceleration since the beginning of 2019.

In Bordeaux, the counter is already at 40. In 2018, it totalled 57, including 35 in September-and October, says Marc Ruellan, an archivist in the archdiocese.

In Paris, last year’s figure of 76 requests was almost reached in the first five months of 2019 with 70 individuals seeking to leave the Church. In Strasbourg, with 174 requests in 2019, the previous figures have already been exceeded: the diocese had recorded 104 apostasies in 2018, and only 37 in 2017.

Franco Zeffirelli, the famed film director and film, television and opera producer, died on June 15, 2019, in Rome at the age of 96. He was born out of wedlock near Florence, Italy, in 1923. His mother, a widow, was not able to give him her married surname or that of his father, so she gave him the name “Zeffirelli.” The story of him being named after a word in a Mozart opera seems to be one of those myths that grows up around famous people.

Zeffirelli was raised by a close relative after the death of his mother when he was just 6 years old. He graduated from the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence in 1941 and enrolled in the University of Florence to study architecture. He learned to speak English well. His education was interrupted by World War II when he fought as a partisan and then became an interpreter for the British army. After the war, he decided to study theater and became a scene painter and assi-stant director for Luchino Visconti’s 1948 “La Terra Trema.” He and Visconti had a long love affair and lived together for several years. Zeffirelli worked with directors Vittorio De Sica and Roberto Rossellini and continued to design sets for plays, some of which he directed. He then redirected his efforts to cinema.

Zeffirelli, a Catholic whose faith influenced his work, was an enigma. He was sexually abused by a priest at a young age but said, even though the priest asked forgiveness, he was unharmed by the abuse. He was also an active homosexual who rejected the term “gay” as vulgar. Notwithstanding his lifestyle, Zeffirelli was friends with Pope Paul VI and met with Pope Francis in 2016 to present a copy of his book Francesco with photos from the set of the film “Brother Sun, Sister Moon.” According to the Associated Press, Zeffirelli was “one of the few Italian directors close to the Vatican and the church turned to Zeffirelli’s theatrical touch for the live telecasts of the 1978 papal installation and the 1983 Holy Year opening ceremonies in St Peter’s Basilica.”

On May 28, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution establishing on August 22 as the Day to Commemorate Victims of Violence Based on Religion.

The resolution invites all member states, relevant organisations, civil society, individuals and the private sector to observe the international day and show appropriate support for victims of religiously motivated violence.

In the wake of recent religiously motivated terrorist attacks, the resolution notes a serious concern for “continuing acts of intolerance and violence based on religion or belief against individuals, including against persons belonging to religious communities and religious minorities around the world, and at the increasing number and intensity of such incidents.” Poland initiated work toward the commemorative day, but united with Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland, and the United States to co-draft the resolution.

Ultimately, 88 UN member states voted to co-sponsor the resolution.

“The right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, which is commonly referred to as the right to freedom of religion or belief, is a universal right of every human being and the cornerstone of many other rights,” Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Jacek Czaputowicz said in his keynote speech before the vote.

In response, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom in Washington issued a statement praising the resolution.

Discussing the Syrian civil war on June 10, Pope Francis said God hears the cry of orphans and widows, and that His wrath will be visited on those who deal in arms trafficking while speaking of peace.

“I think with sadness, once again, of the drama of Syria and the dense clouds that seem to thicken above it in some areas that are still unstable and where the risk of an even greater humanitarian crisis remains high. Those who have no food, those who do not have medical care, who have no school, orphans, the wounded and widows raise their voices up high,” the Pope said on June 10 to participants in the plenary assembly of the Reunion of Aid Agencies for the Oriental Churches.

“The hearts of men may be insensitive, but that of God is not: wounded by the hatred and violence that can be unleashed among his creatures, always able to be moved and take care of them with the tenderness and strength of a father who protects and guides. But sometimes I also think of the wrath of God that will be unleashed against the leaders of countries that talk about peace and sell weapons to carry out these wars. This hypocrisy is a sin.”

Francis’ meeting with ROACO was at the Vatican’s Consistory Hall. The organization unites funding agencies to provide services to members of the Eastern Catholic Churches.

A total of 35,141 people die from gun violence in the United States each year, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which averaged deaths over a five-year period through 2018. That’s 96 people each day.

According to the centre:

1,24,760 people are shot every year;

17,207 children and teens are shot every year;

Seven children and teens die from gun violence in the United States every day.

Between 2000 and 2017, 250 FBI-designated “active shooter” incidents occurred in the United States.

There are more guns than people in the United States.

At the start of June, which is Gun Violence Awareness Month, the United States received its latest tragic reminders of the gravity and magnitude of the gun violence problem. In Virginia Beach, Virginia, a gunman killed 12 people while firing indiscriminately in an office building. In Chicago, 10 people were killed and 52 wounded in gun violence across the city during the week-end.

Since 1994, the U.S. bishops’ conference has supported a number of “reasonable measures to address the problem of gun violence,” including an assault weapons ban, universal background checks, and limitations on high-capacity weapons and ammunition magazines. With each successive mass shooting, bishops are quick to offer prayers and statements of their condolences.

However, as gun violence continues to affect and take thousands of lives each year, some Catholics are expressing a desire for a broader and more prophetic denouncement of American gun culture from the church across the board, laity and clergy alike.