Tymoteusz Szydlo, 25, son of Poland’s Prime Minister was ordained on Saturday May 27 in a ceremony attended by the Polish head of government and her family in the southern city of Bielsko-Biala. Prime Minister Szydlo’s other son, 23-year-old Blazej, is a medical student.

Within the next 10-20 years, a new and controversial fertility technology called in vitro gametogenesis could make it possible to manipulate skin cells into creating a human baby. However, this groundbreaking research has caused push-back from some critics, like Fr Tadeusz Pacholczyk, director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Centre, who says IVG would turn procreation into a transaction.

“IVG extends the faulty logic of IVF by introducing additional steps to the process of manipulating the origins of the human person, in order to satisfy the desires of customers and consumers,” Fr Pacholczyk told CNA in an email interview.

“The technology also offers the possibility of introducing further fractures into parenthood, distancing children from their parents by multiplying the number of those involved in generating the child, so that 3-parent embryos, or even more parents, may become involved,” he continued.

However, Fr Pachol-czyk hopes that potential parents will come to realize that children should not products that can be ordered or purchased by consumers, and should rather be seen as a gift. “Turning commer-cial laboratories to crea-te children on our behalf is an unethical step in the direction of treating our offspring as objects to be planned and created in the pursuit of parental grati-fication, rather than gifts received from the Lord.”

Paris turned off the lights of the Eiffel Tower at 12:45AM on May 27 to pay tribute to the victims of the attack in Egypt’s Minya that left at least 28 people dead. The symbolic blackout of the monument was announced by the Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo on Friday, May 26  night from her Twitter account, Efe news reported.

Hidalgo lamented that the Christian community in Egypt was again the target of a barbaric and cowardly attack, adding that her thoughts are with the victims and their families. On May 26 night, the Eiffel Tower was shut down from 12.45 AM (local time) as a sign of sympathy to Egyptian Copts, said her second tweet.

A life-size mural depicting Pope Francis with a saintly halo kissing U.S. President Donald Trump sprouting devil’s horns appeared on a wall near the Vatican on May 11 , less than two weeks before they are due to meet. The mural, which was painted on paper and pasted on to the wall during the night, was the latest work by street artists depicting the pope to appear in Rome in recent months.

This one shows Francis, wearing a simple crucifix around his neck, embracing Trump, who wears a gold watch and sports a pistol in a holster. The pope’s halo is the same bright yellow colour as Trump’s hair. The two are locked in a mouth-to-mouth kiss.

The caption written on the sash of the pope’s cassock reads “The Good Forgives the Evil.” It is signed “TVBoy,” who is believed to be Italian street artist Salvatore Benintende.

Scientists from around the world are meeting at the Vatican Observatory in Castel Gandolfo for a conference that seeks to bring together science and religion in the continuing search for truth in understanding the mysteries of the universe.

The scientific conference titled, “Black Holes, Gravitation-al Waves and Space-Time Singularities,” is an opportunity to show that “the church supports good science,” said Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno, director of the Vatican Observatory.

“We are hoping that this meeting will also be an encounter of people with very different opinions but very close friendships that come from having the same common desire to understand the truth of the universe and how we can understand that truth,” he said. The 2016 discovery of the existence of gravitational waves, predicted nearly 100 years ago by Albert Einstein in his general theory of relativity, was to be one of the topics of discussion. The discovery could open a new chapter in understanding celestial events and black hole regions in the universe, something that previously could only be hypothesised.

The conference will also celebrate the scientific legacy of Msgr. George Lemaitre, one of the fathers of the theory that the expanding universe could be traced to an origin point, also known as the “Big Bang theory.” The conference will also celebrate the scientific legacy of Msgr George Lemaitre, one of the fathers of the ‘Big Bang theory’

Though the flow of Syrian refugees into Europe has slowed since 2015, hundreds of thousands of Syrians were still seeking asylum there last year. If many in Eastern Europe had their way, however, the number would be zero. In nine out of 15 Eastern European countries and areas surveyed in 2016, at least half the population believed their country should not accept any Syrian refugees. Many of the countries with the strongest opposition to allowing Syrian refugees are located along the Balkan route that once channelled asylum seekers from Greece to Germany.

European leaders effectively closed the route last March and signed a deal with Turkey to send migrants back if they did not apply for asylum or if their claim was rejected. All of Gallup’s surveys in Eastern Europe took place after the agreement with Turkey.

Anti-refugee sentiment is highest in EU member states such as Hungary, which has erected border fences to keep migrants out and, just last month, passed new controversial laws that would confine asylum seekers to camps constructed from shipping containers. Seven in 10 Hungarians in 2016 said their country should not accept any Syrian refugees. Sentiment was similarly high (66%) in non-EU member state Macedonia, which was on the front lines of the migrant wave in 2015 and sealed its border with Greece to keep them out.

As we approach the 100th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima, one aspect that often goes unnoticed is the subtle connection with Islam – Aleteia new service reports. The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to the three shepherd children near the city of Fatima, Portugal, a place named after both a Muslim princess and the daughter of Mohammed. Some stories say that after her capture, Fatima fell in love with Goncalo and the two were soon after betrothed. Before their marriage Fatima was baptized into the Catholic faith and took the name Oureana. The Portuguese cities of Fatima and Ourem are said to be named after this Muslim princess.

Franklin Graham, son of the famed evangelical preacher Billy Graham, urged fellow Christians to struggle against a “Christian genocide” that he says has killed in greater numbers than most believers can fathom. Graham, who has been criticized by some evangelicals for calling Islam “evil” and for portraying Presi-dent Trump as aligned with the Christian church, spoke at a conference aimed at highlighting an issue many feel is ignored by politicians and the media.

“I am sure the number of Christians who are in prison or martyred each year would stagger our mind if we really knew what the total number really was. And it would send us to our knees in sorrow and in prayer.”

It’s not clear on what Graham’s numbers are based.

The nonprofit Christian organization Open Doors — which tracks Christian persecu-tion globally, and the increasing number of Middle Eastern Chri-stians who seek safety outside their homelands — estimates that every year around 4,000 Chri-stians are killed because of their faith worldwide.