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President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday formally lowered the threshold for Russia’s use of its nuclear weapons, a move that follows U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to let Ukraine strike targets inside Russian territory with American-supplied longer-range missiles. The new doctrine allows for a potential nuclear response by Moscow even to a conventional attack on Russia by any nation that is supported by a nuclear power. Russia’s Defense Ministry said Ukraine fired six U.S.-made ATACMS missiles early Tuesday at a military facility in Russia’s Bryansk region that borders Ukraine, adding that air defenses shot down five of them and damaged one more. Ukraine’s military claimed the strike hit a Russian ammunition depot. While the doctrine envisions a possible nuclear response by Russia to such ...

DUBLIN (OSV News) — From Sydney to Santiago, Chile, Catholics across the globe are coming together this November to stand in solidarity with those who suffer for their faith. Persecution and discrimination against Christians around the world is getting worse — that’s the stark warning from the pontifical charity that works with thousands of vulnerable Christian communities in 140 countries. This coming Nov. 20 will mark “Red Wednesday,” a commemoration held annually by Aid to the Church in Need to highlight the fact that today one in seven Christians face extreme hostility, violence and repression because of their faith in Christ. In some countries, the observance is being extended throughout the week and is called a “Red Week.” To highlight the plight of persecuted Christians and raise aw...

PARIS (OSV News) — Miraculously missed by burning beams falling from the roof on April 15, 2019, and waiting for five years to make it back to Notre Dame Cathedral, the 14th-century statue of the Virgin of Paris made it back home Nov. 15, accompanied by thousands of Parisians praying, singing and lighting candles as they walked their Virgin to Paris’ most iconic church, restored after the fire. Since the fire, the statue, also referred to as Virgin and Child, or the Virgin of the Pillar, has been housed near the Louvre in the Church of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois, from where the procession started at 6 p.m. local time. For Auxiliary Bishop Philippe Marsset of Paris, the statue represents “a kind of miracle.” “Many Christians saw the fire as a sign of the purification God was asking his churc...

Nicaraguan regime exiles president of bishops’ conference Skip to content The president of the Nicaraguan Bishops’ Conference has been exiled by the Nicaraguan regime after he criticized a pro-regime mayor during a recent Mass.  Subscribe now Bishop Carlos Herrera, OFM, was exiled to Guatemala on Tuesday. Various local outlets confirmed the news after Herrera disappeared following a meeting with other Nicaraguan bishops in Managua, the country’s capital.  Herrera, who leads the Diocese of Jinotega, is the fourth Nicaraguan bishop to be exiled by the Nicaraguan regime.  Rolando Álvarez (bishop of Matagalpa and apostolic administrator of Estelí) and Isidoro Mora (bishop of Siuna) were exiled in January 2024 to Rome along with a group of priests. Silvio Báez (auxiliary of Manag...

KOCHI, India — This month’s delayed priestly ordination of eight deacons of the Ernakulam Archdiocese of the Syro Malabar Church (SMC) has highlighted continuing divisions in the troubled archdiocese, which remains crippled by a bitter liturgical feud that erupted three years ago. The ordination ceremony — which was delayed from Christmas 2023 because of the liturgical dispute — took place at the archdiocese’s minor seminary on Nov. 4, with dozens of police deployed outside. And while more than 200 archdiocesan priests were in attendance, the majority of them boycotted the Mass led by Bishop Bosco Puthur, the administrator of the archdiocese, because of the liturgy he utilized.  Alongside of this liturgical dispute, many local clergy and laity have been further incensed over Bishop Pu...

LONDON (AP) — Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, head of the Church of England and spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion, resigned Tuesday after an investigation found that he failed to tell police about serial physical and sexual abuse by a volunteer at Christian summer camps as soon as he became aware of it. Pressure on Welby had been building since Thursday, when the archbishop’s refusal to accept responsibility for his failure to report the abuse in England and in Africa in 2013 kindled anger about a lack of accountability at the highest reaches of the church. By Tuesday afternoon, Welby acknowledged that mistake. “It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatizing period between 2013 and 2024,” Welby said in the ...

Angelus Angelus Dómini nuntiávit Mariæ.Et concépit de Spíritu Sancto.Ave Maria… Ecce ancílla Dómini.Fiat mihi secúndum verbum tuum.Ave Maria… Et Verbum caro factum est.Et habitávit in nobis.Ave Maria… Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei génetrix.Ut digni efficiámur promissiónibus Christi. Orémus.Grátiam tuam, quǽsumus, Dómine,méntibus nostris infunde;ut qui, Ángelo nuntiánte, Christi Fílii tui incarnatiónem cognóvimus, per passiónem eius et crucem, ad resurrectiónis glóriam perducámur. Per eúndem Christum Dóminum nostrum. Amen. Gloria Patri… (ter)Requiem aeternam… Benedictio Apostolica seu Papalis Dominus vobiscum.Et cum spiritu tuo.Sit nomen Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus,Pa ter, et Fi lius, et Spiritus Sanctus. Amen. The Angelus Prayer The Angel of the Lord d...

A proposed pro-abortion amendment in Florida failed to pass on Tuesday, bringing an end to an effort to enshrine broad abortion access in the state constitution and serving abortion advocates with a major defeat in the 2024 election.  The failure of Amendment 4 offers a sharp rebuke to the pro-abortion lobby, which poured more than $100 million into Florida in an effort to enshrine abortion in the state constitution and negate the state’s Heartbeat Protection Act, one of the most pro-life laws in the country.  Prior to the Tuesday vote there were indications that the measure might fail. Less than a week before Election Day, polling indicated that support for the ballot measure was just short of the requisite 60% it needed to pass. By 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, with roughly 90% of the ...

Show Caption Hide Caption Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki signs his retirement letter Now 75, Listecki sending retirement letter to pope. But he will go on as Milwaukee’s archbishop. Chicago Auxiliary Bishop Jeffrey S. Grob, who grew up on a farm just west of Madison in Cross Plains, will be installed as the 12th archbishop of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, the Vatican announced Monday. Grob, 63, will succeed Jerome E. Listecki, who gave his notice of retirement on March 12, as bishops are required to do when they turn 75. Listecki has been Milwaukee’s archbishop since 2010. Ordained a bishop in the Archdiocese of Chicago in November 2020, Grob (pronounced “Graab”) will be installed as archbishop of Milwaukee on Jan. 14. Listecki will continue in his position...

Warda: ‘The whole Middle East is burning” Skip to content Bashar Batti Warda is the Chaldean archbishop of Erbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan.  Archbishop Bashar Warda, Archbishop of Erbil in Iraq© Mazur/catholicchurch.org.uk Ten years ago he was on the frontline over helping over 13,000 families who fled the terrorists of ISIS and found refuge in Erbil — since then he has overseen the reconstruction of towns and villages, but has also watched tens of thousands of his faithful leave the country in search of stability and peace abroad.  In recent months, the archbishop has also been a prominent figure in an internal and unresolved dispute between the patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, and a group of bishops which includes Warda .  Warda sat down with The Pillar at the end...

Notre Dame of Chartres Cathedral in France, a Christian landmark since the Middle Ages, is currently celebrating the first millennium of its foundation. This Marian shrine, whose fame almost equals that of Notre-Dame de Paris, will host a series of religious and artistic celebrations until Aug. 15, 2025.   A vast renovation and embellishment project has been developed in the cathedral’s crypt for this occasion, in collaboration with the French Ministry of Culture. It will feature a new jubilee itinerary, a special pilgrimage focusing on conversion and baptism.  For Father Emmanuel Blondeau, rector of the cathedral for the past eight years, this jubilee, which promises to swell the stream of visitors from around the world, represents a privileged means of offering a powerful exper...

When the final document of the Synod on Synodality’s was confirmed on Oct. 26, it emphasized that the possibility of women deacons remains unsettled. “The question of women’s access to diaconal ministry remains open,” reads the document, which was expressly approved by Pope Francis after each of its 155 paragraphs were affirmed by 355 voting members. “This discernment needs to continue.” But that language wasn’t included in the initial draft that members of the monthlong assembly were presented with earlier in the week.  In fact, according to a copy of the draft obtained by the Register, there was no mention of the possibility of women deacons at all. The language’s last-minute insertion may be an indication of why the paragraph in question received significant push-back from synod de...