A statement on June 24 released by the Holy See Press Office said Pope Francis has appointed Abp Georg Gänswein, Titular Abp of Urbisaglia, and Prefect Emeritus of the Papal Household, as Apostolic Nuncio to Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia. Archbishop Gänswein, who is 67, served as Pope Benedict XVI’s private secretary during his entire pontificate and retirement.
In December 2012, Pope Benedict XVI also appointed him Prefect of the Pontifical Household. He was ordained as archbishop in January 2013. He continued to hold both positions after Benedict resigned from the papacy about seven weeks later, in February 2013. For about seven years, Archbishop Gänswein served both Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict.

The timing at the moment seems premature, but “if there were openness on the part of the Chinese, the Pope would also go immediately” to China, a land for which he has always shown great appreciation and esteem for its people, history and its culture. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, reiterated Pope Francis’ never-hidden desire to one day visit the great and “noble” Asian country.
The Cardinal’s comments were made on 20 June, at Rome’s Pontifical Urban University at the presentation of the book “Cardinal Celso Costantini and China – Constructor of a ‘bridge’ between the East and West” – The volume was edited by Msgr. Bruno Fabio Pighin, an Italian historian and Episcopal Delegate in the postulation of the cause of beatification and canonisation of Cardinal Celso Costantini (1876-1958), the first Apostolic Delegate to China, and published in Italian by Marcianum Press.
Once again, a month after the conference held at the Urbaniana for the 100th anniversary of the Concilium Sinense, which Cardinal Costantini inspired, promoted and organized, Cardinal Parolin found himself evoking the figure of the First Apostolic Delegate to China who laid the foundations for a dialogue, of which one of the fruits, after decades, can be considered the signing of the Agreement with the Holy See on the appointments of Bishops. That agreement was signed for the first time in 2018 and then renewed twice in 2020 and 2022.

Slightly more than a week after Pope Francis addressed the G7 Session in Bari, Italy, on artificial intelligence, the Holy Father is reaffirming that the powerful technological advancement must be used ethically, to serve humanity, and that its inherent risks must be mitigated. The Holy Father’s latest words on AI came during his audience on 22 June in the Vatican with participants in the international convention on ‘Generative Artificial Intelligence and Technocratic Paradigm,’ organized by the Vatican’s Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice.
In his remarks, the Pope thanked those before him for their commitment to exploring how AI can help promote human dignity and be at the service of the disadvantaged.
“I appreciate,” he expressed, “that the Centesimus Annus has given ample space to this subject, involving scholars and experts from different countries and disciplines, analysing the opportunities and risks related to the development and use of AI.” The Pope likewise warned against the tool acting autonomously, stressing AI “is, and must remain a tool” in human hands. Moreover, the Holy Father warned against artificial intelligence perpetrating a ‘throwaway culture,’ favouring inequality, and making decisions outside of its purview.
As he encouraged them to continue examining the true purpose of AI, he asked: “Does it serve to satisfy the needs of humanity, to improve the well-being and integral development of people?” Or does it, rather, “serve to enrich and increase the already high power of the few technological giants despite the dangers to humanity?”
This, he said, is the basic question. Since the future of humanity will be played out on the front of technological innovation, he stated, “We must not miss the opportunity to think and act in a new way, with mind, heart and hands,” in order to “direct innovation toward a configuration centered on the primacy of human dignity.” This, he underscored, is not up for discussion.

“More than 365 million Christians, approximately 1 in 7, face high levels of persecution for their faith,” Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, Vatican secretary for Relations with States and International Organizations, said at a conference on religious freedom held in Rome.
The conference, titled “Religious Freedom and Integral Human Development: A New Global Platform,” was jointly organized by the Sovereign Order of Malta, the Atlantic Council, and several universities, including the Pontifical Urban University of Rome and the University of Notre Dame.
In his speech, Gallagher said attacks on churches and Christian properties “increased significantly in 2023, with more Christians than ever before reporting violent attacks.” The prelate went on to describe his concern that “according to some estimates, almost 4.9 billion people live in countries with serious or very serious violations of religious freedom.”
The Vatican diplomat underscored that religious freedom, “although not the only aspect of human rights, is probably the most fundamental,” adding that “the violation of the right to religious freedom has the effect of undermining not only one right but also the entire category of human rights,” he added.
“Religious freedom plays a decisive role in achieving integral human development,” Gallagher continued. For this reason, he added, “the state should exercise a detached neutrality and grant religious groups and all individuals an equal right to the public manifestation of their religious convictions.”

“As long as a person is alive, there is always hope, a desire to see things change for the better and believe that we can make a difference.” Speaking to Vatican News, Father Roman Ostrovskyy, Vice-Rector of the Greek-Catholic seminary in Kyiv, shares his reflections on the Bull “Spes non confundit,” with which Pope Francis recently proclaimed the upcoming Jubilee Year.
Father Roman is a biblical scholar, having studied biblical theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University, and now teaches in seminary. “I read the text of the bull carefully,” he says, “and found many beautiful and interesting themes. For example, an important passage is where the Holy Father says that the Christian life is a journey, and the goal of this journey, and also of the Jubilee Year, is the encounter with the Lord Jesus. Catholics and all Christians in Ukraine feel this protective presence of Jesus.”
“However,” he says, “on the other hand, we all see a tremendous growth in discouragement. We are in the third year of war, and people feel it deeply: they are tired, losing hope that things here can change for the better, that our voices will be heard.”
The young priest recounts that when full-scale war broke out in his country, there was much fear and confusion about what was happening. “But,” he emphasizes, “there was hope because Ukraine was defending itself strongly; some-thing was happening.”
“It is really difficult for us to think about tomorrow,” Fr Roman says. “In Ukraine, it is not realistic to plan more than a week in advance. Air raid sirens sound, adults and children hide in shelters… Everyone is waiting for what will happen next, which piece of land will be taken away. And the worst part is that we are not able to oppose it alone. Sometimes, it feels like we are being watched like a computer game, where it is interesting to see what happens, but no one wants to fully participate and help the people in need of simple assistance, and fundamentally, just stop the aggressor.”

Pope Francis has announced he is pre-paring to write a document dedicated to that devotion to “illuminate the path of ecclesial renewal, but also to say some-thing significant to a world that seems to have lost its heart.” Speaking during the weekly General Audience – his first in June, the month dedicated to the Sacred Heart – he recalled that last 27 December marked the 350th anniversary of the first of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque’s visions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
He said that, on that date, celebrations for this devotion began in many countries across the world, and that they will conclude on 27 June next year. For this reason, the Pope said, he is preparing “a document that gathers the precious reflections of previous magisterial texts and a long history dating back to the Holy Scriptures, to reintroduce today, to the whole Church, this devotion full of spiritual beauty.”
“I believe it will be very beneficial for us to meditate on various aspects of the Lord’s love that can illuminate the path of ecclesial renewal; but also to say something significant to a world that seems to have lost its heart,” he said. Thus, Pope Francis asked believers to accompany him in prayer during this time of preparation, with the intention of making this document public next September.

“All of my predecessors were priests and bishops,” Sr M. Isa-bell explained with a smile. The Schoenstatt Sister of Mary was referring to her appointment as President of the Catholic Institute of Sydney, Australia, the count-ry’s only ecclesiastical faculty, which confers Pontifical degrees in Sacred Theology. The faculty was established in 1954 for Aus-tralia, New Zealand and Oceania. Sr M. Isabell Naumann, a Ger-man-born member of the Secular Institute of the Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary (ISSM), was appointed President of the Catholic Institute of Sydney in 2018 by Archbishop Anthony Fisher, OP.
Prior to her appointment, Sr M. Isabell worked for many years as professor at the Catholic Insti-tute of Sydney. Her appointment as president of the Institute still came as a surprise. In an inter-view with Vatican News, Sr M. Isabell said, “There are not too many women who lead ecclesia-stical faculties or universities. Ours goes back to the 1880s, and it became an ecclesiastical facu-lty in 1956. All of my predece-ssors were priests and bishops.” Three years after her appointment as President of the Catholic In-stitute of Sydney, in October 2021, Sr M. Isabell was called by Pope Francis to be a member of the In-ternational Theological Commi-ssion (ITC).
In her opinion, there should be a stronger presence of women in such commissions like the ITC. She finds this important, “so that you have more complementary thinking.”
“It is very important because we might deal with the same to-pic, but you have different ways of approaching the topic, and in my eyes that is a very important complement, and that needs to come together when you deal with anything in theology,” she ex-plained, expressing her hope that there will be more women on such commissions in future.
Pope Francis often stresses the importance of woman and their role within the Church.

Pope Francis formally recognized a miracle attributed to the intercession of Blessed Carlo Acutis, paving the way for the young Italian, who died of leukemia at age 15, to become the first canonized saint from the millennial generation.
If you know anything about Carlo Acutis, you probably know that he loved going to Mass and helping the poor and downtrodden he encountered. A boy of strong faith despite not having grown up in a particularly religious household, Carlo was also known to spend hours adoring Christ in the Eucharist.
But you may have also seen him described as the Catholic Church’s first “tech-savvy” saint. And for good reason. Carlo was born in 1991 – the same year the World Wide Web came online in all its snail’s-pace, dial-up glory. And like so many of his generational peers, Carlo quickly embraced the internet’s possibilities, despite the technology still being relatively in its infancy; Google wasn’t even founded until Carlo was 7. But Carlo’s mother remembers the young whiz kid proudly describing himself as a “computer scientist” – well before he got his first computer as a gift around the year 2000.

With the document Towards October 2024 sent last December to all the bishops of the world, the General Secretariat of the Synod asked the local churches and groups of Churches to deepen some aspects of the Synthesis Report that are fundamental to the theme of the Synod, starting from a guiding question of the entire synodal process: ‘HOW to be a synodal Church in mission?’ During these months, the individual local Churches have carried out their work by sending their contribution through the Bishops’ Conferences, the Eastern Catholic Churches and the International Reunions of Bishops’ Conferences.
“I am particularly impressed to see the involvement of the entire church community in this long process of discernment”, says Cardinal Mario Grech, Secretary General of the General Secretariat of the Synod. “In addition to the reflections arising from the Synthesis Report of the First Session, the material received often adds real testimonies on how the particular churches not only understand synodality, but also how they are already putting this style into practice. The synodal Church is not a dream to be realised, but already a living reality that generates creativity and new relational models within the same local community or between different churches or church groupings’.
From Tuesday, 4 June 2024, the group of theologians, experts in various disciplines (dogmatic theology, ecclesiology, pastoral theology, canon law, etc.), will analyse all this material. ‘We are not leaving anything to chance. Each document is to be carefully read with the aim that at the end of this meeting, the group will present a text that reflects the work, questions and insights received from the grassroots” says Cardinal Grech.

The suspect, a former employee of the Fabbrica di San Pietro – the office responsible for the basilica’s upkeep – reportedly attempted to sell an 18-page manuscript, which had been missing from its archives, back to the basilica. The Italian newspaper Domani first reported the arrest on June 6, and the Vatican prosecutor’s office later confirmed it.
Though it is not clear where the manuscript was obtained, Domani reported that the suspect was arrested on May 27 after a fabricated transaction in which Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, arch-priest of St Peter’s Basilica, ex-changed a check for 120,000 euros (about $195,000) for the manuscript. Upon leaving the meeting with the cardinal, the suspect was taken into custody, interrogated and arrested.
According to Vatican News, the manuscript describes specifications for gilding the friezes on the baldachin, or canopy, that towers over the main altar of St Peter’s Basilica; the baldachin was designed and constructed by Bernini in the early 17th century. The manuscript reappeared in 2021 when a photocopy of it was used in a book on Bernini. The suspect was the editor of the volume and after its publication began negotiations with the basilica to sell the manuscript. Alessandro Diddi, the Vatican’s chief prosecutor, is expected to reach a decision about the indictment this week.