Belgian Cardinal Dominique Mathieu of Tehran-Isfahan surfaced in Rome after days of uncertainty about his whereabouts following the start of a U.S. and Israel-Iran war.
11.03.2026 00:18
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Belgian Cardinal Dominique Mathieu of Tehran-Isfahan surfaced in Rome after days of uncertainty about his whereabouts following the start of a U.S. and Israel-Iran war.
As war spreads across the Middle East following the conflict that erupted Feb. 28 between the United States, Israel and Iran, a senior Iranian cleric has turned to Pope Leo XIV.
The unsparing analysis, rare for a Vatican document, came from a study group created as part of the Synod of Bishops on synodality tasked with examining women's participation in the life and leadership of the church.
Leo also warned against what he called "the globalization of powerlessness," a temptation, he said, to "believe that an era free of conflict is unattainable."
"Our mission has always been simple: to provide primary care to people without a hospital nearby, especially pregnant mothers from villages," Sr. Lucky Gomes told Global Sisters Report.
While spelling out the Catholic Church's conditions for a just war, Cardinal Robert McElroy said that the U.S. decision to go to war against Iran fails to meet that threshold in at least three requirements.
Fr. Pierre al-Rahi, had earlier refused, along with other priests, to obey an order by the Israeli military to evacuate the Christian village of Qlayaa, a Maronite village of some 8,000 inhabitants in the Marjayoun district, a few miles from the Israeli border.
"They ask for help, and all I can say is, 'I hear you. I hear you,'" said Deacon Seigfried Presberry as he described the phone calls he receives from families after a loved one is detained by immigration authorities.
A March 5 meeting of legal and other experts at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis considered the topic "Protests and a Christian Response to Government Abuses."
"People arrive with nothing — no money, no way to move and no network to help them," said Karen Pérez, country director of Jesuit Refugee Service Mexico, or JRS-MX.
"These detention centers … cannot have empty beds, because otherwise they don't make money," said Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller. "It's business, business, business, business, business."
The long-held practice of faith leaders ministering to detained migrants has become far more contentious — and consequential — as detention numbers soar across the United States during the federal government's immigration crackdown.
On today's episode of "The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast," John Dear hosts the Rev. Amy Brooks Paradise of Greenfaith, which works to protect creation and resist environmental destruction around the world.
When a 5-inch-by-4-inch red chalk drawing of a woman's foot by Michelangelo sold at auction for $27.2 million on Feb. 5, it blew past the $1.5 million to $2 million it was expected to receive.
Ten months into his papacy, U.S. voters view Pope Leo XIV more favorably than the country's president, political parties or artificial intelligence, according to a recent NBC News survey.
With the U.S.- and Israeli-led war against Iran now in its second week, four U.S.-based sister congregations have come out strongly against the war, calling it a violation of international law and also expressing deep dismay over the loss of civilian lives.
"It's justice denied for more than 60 years for some people," Claude Leboeuf said. "These are people who brought their complaints to the diocese as kids in the 1960s, and they were ignored, ridiculed, even punished."
A major new artwork dedicated to the victims of spiritual and sexual abuse in the church is to be displayed at locations where disgraced priest artist Marko Rupnik's mosaics are still exhibited.
A Chaldean Catholic bishop in California has been arrested and jailed on several financial crimes charges.
As we journey through Lent, the cross invites us to sit with both anguish and surrender, to encounter grief in its fullness and depth.
"The appointment of Archbishop Gabriele Caccia as apostolic nuncio to the United States brings to a close the tenure of one of the most significant papal nuncios in the history of the Vatican's relationship with the U.S., that of Cardinal Christophe Pierre," Michael Sean Winters writes.
In a statement issued March 7, Cupich took particular aim at a social media video posted by the White House Friday featuring footage from the ongoing war in Iran spliced with scenes from action movies and captioned "Justice the American way."
Our God thirsts for real presence, for contentious or questioning prayer, for genuine interaction that opens us.
"Notre Dame mourns the loss of Lou Holtz, a legendary football coach, a beloved member of the Notre Dame family, and devoted husband, father, and grandfather," said Holy Cross Fr. Robert Dowd, Notre Dame's president, in a public statement.
Leo's decision to send the Vatican's UN envoy to Washington sends a strong signal about his desire to revive diplomacy at a time when the United States has increasingly turned inward.
Noem's tenure as head of DHS was marked by controversial efforts to enforce the president's hardline immigration policies, some of which have deeply concerned Catholic immigration advocates.
You do not need to be a pacifist to question Trump's war against Iran. It has serious shortcomings when examined through the lens of just war theory, says Fr. Thomas Reese.
With the war just over five days old, there is still plenty of time for reaction and commentary from Leo. If history is any indication, however, his interventions will likely contain a brand of nuance that could be unfamiliar to social media pundits, says digital editor John Grosso.
