Catholic News

Police in Bangladesh arrested three Muslim men on April 30 in connection with a late-night assault on an Oblate missionary and a robbery at a Catholic church in the country's capital, authorities said.

Officers raided the area on the night of April 30 and detained the suspects, according to Tanvir Ahmed, deputy commissioner of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police. Ahmed said the men had prior robbery cases against them and that police were continuing to investigate.

"The Christian community was celebrating Easter Sunday a month ago and the robbers thought the father had extra money, so they committed this robbery," Ahmed told EWTN News.

According to police, the men arrived at the church on a rickshaw; the driver kept watch outside while two others scaled the perimeter wall, cut through a grille, and entered the priest's bedroom.

The predawn assault

The arrests follow an attack at around 2:30 a.m. on April 28 on Father Subash Pulok Gomes, OMI, 51, an Oblate missionary who lives in the compound of De Mazenod Catholic Church in Baridhara, Dhaka's diplomatic enclave.

The intruders made off with cash, the priest's passport, and other documents, according to the police account. Gomes is currently undergoing treatment.

"They beat me and tortured me and tied me up and then fought with me, and my nose and face were injured," Gomes said.

A day after the incident, the priest filed a general diary with police describing the assault.

"When I was crying, they covered my face with a cloth and beat me," he said in his statement. "Two unidentified people beat me and took 250,000 [taka; $2,037] and other valuable papers including my passport that were kept in the cupboard in the room."

According to the statement, one of the assailants called the other "Mizan" — a name commonly used among Muslim men in Bangladesh — and tried to calm the priest before the men left with the cash and documents.

Following the incident, the priests, in consultation with their superior and other Church authorities, filed only the general diary rather than pursuing a formal criminal case.

"For religious and spiritual reasons, I and the Church authorities will not file any case regarding the incident. I request that the incident be recorded in the general diary for future reference," Gomes said.

A priest told EWTN News that Gomes is now undergoing mental trauma. A second robbery occurred at a Catholic residence on the same night, lay leaders and Church authorities said, expressing concern over the incidents.

A pattern of attacks

The De Mazenod Church has been targeted before. On May 4, 2022, police arrested a 26-year-old Muslim man, Mohammad Nahid Sheikh, for hurling bricks at the church and damaging an image of the Virgin Mary.

In April of that year, a young man attacked a Catholic church in Joypurhat in northern Bangladesh and destroyed statues of Jesus, Mary, and St. Teresa of Calcutta.

More recently, attackers detonated a homemade bomb outside St. Mary's Cathedral in Dhaka on Nov. 7, 2025; hours later, another device exploded inside the compound of St. Joseph's Higher Secondary School and College in the Mohammadpur neighborhood. About a month earlier, on Oct. 8, 2025, a similar device was detonated at the gate of Holy Rosary Catholic Church, founded by Portuguese missionaries in 1677 and one of the oldest Catholic institutions in the country.

In 2001, 10 Catholics were killed and dozens injured in a bomb blast during a Sunday Mass in Gopalganj, in southern Bangladesh, but the incident is still being investigated.

Christians account for less than 0.5% of the population of Bangladesh, and religious minorities together make up around 8% of the more than 180 million people in the Muslim-majority South Asian nation.

Christian leaders demand investigation

Christian leaders are calling for justice. After the latest robbery, representatives of the Bangladesh Christian Association met with priests at De Mazenod Church and demanded a government investigation.

The association's president, Nirmal Rozario, said the incident was very unfortunate and posed grave risks to religious life in the country.

"We condemn this incident and demand a fair investigation from the government into this incident and all the incidents that have happened to Christian minority communities in the past," Rozario told EWTN News.

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For the first time, the Sudeten German Association, uniting descendants of those expelled from Czechoslovakia after World War II, will gather in Brno, the second-largest city in modern-day Czech Republic. They were invited by the cultural festival Meeting Brno for part of its multiday program in late May. Both entities will discuss reconciliation and commemorate the victims of the Shoah.

German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt is expected to come, too. The gathering is titled "All Life Is Meeting."

A reconciliation Mass will be celebrated at the Brno Exhibition Centre as part of the gathering.

Ulrike Scharf, Bavarian state minister for family, labor, and social affairs, told EWTN News that the event "shows that we are reconciled, that we have become friends."

Scharf, whose agenda includes Sudeten Germans in Bavaria, stressed that reconciliation is "the essence of Europe." In this "wonderful" European community, "it is crucial that we meet in friendship," the politician explained.

Yet the decision created a polemic in Czechia, with public figures weighing in and a series of protests, one of which was attended by the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Tomio Okamura. Rather than reconciliation, they see the gathering as a provocation and relativization of history.

The critique came also from Miloš Zeman and Václav Klaus, who served as presidents as well as prime ministers of Czechia. "We have nothing to reconcile with the Germans," Klaus said, clarifying that he does "not feel not reconciled" with them.

"We did not trigger two world wars" and "are not the cause of tens of millions of victims" of World War II, Klaus explained, arguing that as prime minister in 1997, he signed, together with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the Czech-German Declaration on Mutual Relations and Their Future Development.

Wounds that remain

However, the bishop of Brno, Pavel Konzbul, welcomed "every initiative that leads to the meeting of people, to dialogue, and to overcoming historical injustices," he underscored for EWTN News.

"Reconciliation between nations and individuals," the prelate continued, "does not happen by denying or simplifying the past but by "talking about it truthfully and with respect."

Thus, he sees "the presence of the descendants of the Sudeten Germans" in his diocese "primarily as an opportunity for such a meeting," provided "it takes place in a spirit of respect, without mutual accusations or spreading false slander, and with openness to the other."

The local bishop appealed to participants, residents, and critics to act with "calm, respect, and to a willingness to look for what can unite us."

Only "such attitudes are the basis of true and lasting peace," the bishop underlined.

When the new archbishop of Prague, Stanislav Pribyl, was the bishop of Litomerice a few months ago, he proclaimed 2026 a Year of Reconciliation to address wounds that remain from World War II and its aftermath.

Nazi Germany annexed the Sudetenland, the majority-German region in Czechoslovakia, in 1938 and later established the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in the country. Following Germany's defeat, Czechoslovakia expelled approximately 3 million ethnic Germans.

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Pope Leo XIV's prayer intention for the month of May is that everyone might have food.

In a video released on X, the Holy Father asked the faithful: "What do you feel about 318 million people experiencing acute hunger every day?"

"We need to act, but without prayer we will remain powerless," he said. "This May, I invite you to join me in prayer that we may seriously commit to avoiding food waste and to ensuring that everyone has access to quality food every day."

In the full video shared on the Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network website, Pope Leo recites an original prayer written specifically for this month's prayer intention.

Here is the pope's full prayer:

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Lord of creation,

You gave us the fertile earth and, with it, our daily bread,

as a sign of your love and providence.

Today we recognize with sorrow

that millions of brothers and sisters continue to suffer from hunger,

while so many goods are wasted at our tables.

Awaken in us a new awareness:

that we learn to thank for every food,

to consume simply,

to share with joy,

and to care for the fruits of the earth as a gift from you,

destined for all, not just a few.

Good Father,

make us capable of transforming the logic of selfish consumption

into a culture of solidarity.

May our communities promote concrete gestures:

awareness campaigns, food banks,

and a sober and responsible lifestyle.

You who sent us your beloved Son Jesus,

broken bread for the life of the world,

give us a new heart, hungry for justice and thirsty for fraternity.

May no one be excluded from the common table,

and may your Spirit teach us to see bread

not as an object of consumption,

but as a sign of communion and care.

Amen.

"Pray with the Pope" is accessible on the Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network website and its digital platforms.

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"We're already in the Good Friday" of the pro-life cause, said Ingrid Tapia, author of the book "Every Life Matters: Bulletproof Arguments," which details "the 20 best" nonreligious arguments in the defense of human life.

During her tour of Mexico to promote the book, which was released in February, Tapia spoke on April 28 with ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News, saying that the pro-life cause is a matter of "a commitment to civilization," one that means opposing "any form of human extermination — be it abortion, the death penalty, or eugenics."

She addressed a draft ruling by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, Mexico's highest judicial body, which "seeks the decriminalization of abortion and, consequently, the permission to perform abortions throughout the entire nine months of gestation."

The ruling concerns a 2024 constitutional challenge to a state law protecting life from conception in which the court states that "removing abortion from penal codes is fundamental to precluding criminal proceedings and eradicating social criminalization and that which occurs within healthcare services."

Defending life: 'A commitment to civilization'

Given the current legal and cultural juncture Mexico is facing, she explained, "we have [selected] the 20 best arguments from a nonreligious perspective to come to the defense of life and seek to dismantle, because they are either false or flawed, the 20 most popular excuses we always hear to promote the decriminalization of abortion."

"Defending life is not something proprietary to Catholics," she pointed out, although she highlighted that "Catholics have been doing so for 2,000 years, and doing it very well."

"We human beings are the ones who create the state and governments in any era and in any country," she emphasized; therefore, "we must radically oppose any branch of the government of a state arrogating to itself or assigning to itself the authority to decide which humans live and which humans die."

The discussion regarding the draft ruling at the Mexican Supreme Court was scheduled for early January but has since been postponed indefinitely.

A legal expert, Tapia served as a distinguished professor of Roman law and civil law at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico and currently teaches electoral law in the master's program in constitutional law at Pan-American University.

She has also advised the John Paul II Institute and Red Familia (Family Network), among others, on issues such as surrogacy, palliative care, abortion, advance directives, and conscientious objection. She is a member of the Interdisciplinary Family Studies Group at Pan-American University.

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Keys to the 'cultural battle'

In the "cultural battle" to defend life, she stated, "it's essential to correctly choose the terrain, to correctly choose one's weapons."

"If you defend life based on your religious position and you go before a court seeking to defend life using faith-based arguments, it is highly probable that you will fail; for constitutional or constitutional-procedural language entails certain requirements that are incompatible with the language you are employing, or want to employ," she explained.

She even warned that "it is highly probable that you will be stigmatized and dismissed right from the start," which is why it is important to avoid — to borrow a war analogy — 'bringing horses to a naval battle.'"

"That is why this set of arguments serves a practical purpose," she emphasized, for it "compiles the 20 best, truly splendid arguments for defending human life without any religious basis."

"Every Life Matters: Bulletproof Arguments," published by Ediciones MUAC, is now available for sale in Mexico in Spanish, and will be available for purchase through Amazon in the coming weeks. English and French versions are currently in the works.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

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Pope Leo XIV has appointed multiple new bishops to lead several dioceses around the United States, the Vatican announced on May 1.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a press release that Father John Gomez was appointed bishop-designate of the Diocese of Laredo, Texas, upon the retirement of Bishop James Tamayo from the position.

Tamayo has served in that role for more than a quarter-century, having been appointed to the post in 2000 by Pope John Paul II. At 76, he has reached the customary age of retirement for bishops.

Gomez was born in Colombia on Dec. 15, 1975. He received a master of divinity degree from the University of St. Thomas in Houston and was ordained in the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, on May 23, 2009.

He has served at multiple parishes in Tyler and in multiple roles for the diocese itself, including as judicial vicar and on the diocesan review board. He also served as vicar general and moderator of the curia for the Tyler Diocese from 2015 to 2023 and again from 2025.

West Virginia diocese gets new bishop; 2 new auxiliary bishops for Washington

In West Virginia, Wheeling-Charleston Bishop Mark Brennan will retire to be replaced by Bishop Evelio Menjivar-Ayala, who currently serves as an auxiliary bishop of Washington. Brennan, 79, is four years past the customary retirement age; he was installed at his present post in 2019.

Menjivar-Ayala, born Aug. 14, 1970, is a native of El Salvador; he is the first Salvadoran bishop in the history of the United States.

A graduate of St. John Vianney College Seminary in Miami, he attended the Pontifical North American College in Rome before receiving a master's degree in theology from the Angelicum. Ordained in the Archdiocese of Washington on May 29, 2004, he has served as parochial vicar and pastor at several parishes.

He was named vicar general of the archdiocese in 2023 and has served on the priest personnel board and the priest council. He was ordained as an auxiliary bishop there on Feb. 21, 2023.

With Menjivar-Ayala's departure from Washington, meanwhile — and as archdiocesan Auxiliary Bishop Roy Campbell Jr. retires — the archdiocese will receive two new auxiliary bishops: Father Gary Studniewski and Father Robert Boxie III.

Bishop-designate Studniewski is presently a priest of the archdiocese, where he serves as pastor at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in the District of Columbia. He was ordained on June 24, 1995, in the archdiocese and served as a military chaplain for nearly a decade.

Bishop-designate Boxie is also a priest in the diocese, currently serving as a chaplain at Howard University. He received engineering and law degrees from Vanderbilt University and Harvard, respectively, before studying at the pontifical universities in Rome. He was ordained on June 25, 2016.

He served at several Maryland parishes before his appointment at Howard and has also taught at the archdiocesan permanent diaconate program.

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Church leaders in Pakistan have welcomed the passage of a bill by the Punjab Assembly that classifies underage marriage as a non-bailable offense, while cautioning that enforcement challenges and systemic gaps could limit its impact on girls from minority communities.

The Child Marriage Restraint Bill 2026, passed on April 27, sets 18 years as the minimum legal age of marriage for both boys and girls. Previously, the minimum age stood at 18 for males and 16 for females in Punjab, home to Pakistan's largest Christian community.

The House also adopted an amendment directing courts not to treat the mere statement or purported consent of a child to reside with or accompany an adult contracting party as determinative in custody, residence, or protective orders.

Agreement on child protection

Moved by Ijaz Masih, a Christian member of the Punjab Assembly and former provincial minister for human rights and minority affairs, and co-sponsored by 13 members across party lines, the amendment was described as a rare instance of consensus on child protection.

Church representatives linked the law to ongoing concerns over how consent is assessed in cases involving alleged forced conversion and marriage of minority girls.

"In Pakistan's forced conversion cases of Christian and Hindu families, the statement recorded before a magistrate is often crucial because it provides a girl's testimony under judicial oversight," Masih told EWTN News, adding that proposals to annul such marriages remain under consideration.

The bill was passed amid renewed concern in Christian circles after the Federal Constitutional Court on March 25 upheld the marriage of a 13-year-old Christian girl, Maria Bibi, to a 30-year-old Muslim man.

Speaking at an April 30 Bible study session organized by the Ecumenical Commission for Human Development at St. Francis Catholic Church in Kamalpur village in the Faisalabad Diocese, Father Obaid Matthais, dean of studies at St. Thomas the Apostle Minor Seminary, questioned the effectiveness of the reform.

"How can the new law prevent forced conversion when the Muslim nikah [marriage] remains valid?" he said, warning that minority girls studying or working away from home remain at risk.

He added that such rulings "hang like a sword" over vulnerable Christian girls, particularly domestic workers and students in urban centers.

Christian leaders, including Archbishop Khalid Rehmat of Lahore, have also expressed concern that court decisions in such cases risk legitimizing disputed marriages involving minors allegedly abducted and forcibly converted, especially in the absence of updated personal laws governing Christian marriage and family life.

The proposed reform of the Christian Marriage Act of 1872 seeks to raise the minimum marriage age for Christian boys and girls to 18 and require both parties to be Christian for a marriage to be solemnized under the law, replacing current provisions that allow interfaith marriages.

Rehmat has announced the formation of a church committee to draft amendments following an ecumenical consultation held in Lahore on April 24–25.

Qamar Iqbal, assistant professor of political science, described the Child Marriage Restraint Bill as a "protective mechanism," saying it could strengthen legal safeguards if implemented effectively.

In a joint statement issued on April 29, Bishop Samson Shukardin of Hyderabad, president of the Pakistan Catholic Bishops' Conference and chairperson of the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP), together with Father Bernard Emmanuel, NCJP national director, and Naeem Yousaf Gill, NCJP executive director, described the legislation as a "defining move" to safeguard childhood and uphold human dignity.

While welcoming the law, they stressed that legislation alone is not sufficient to end child marriage and called for strict enforcement. "Union councils, nikah registrars, and police must be held accountable, and courts must enforce the law without exception," the statement said.

They urged institutions and families not to bypass the law under the guise of custom or tradition.

"The problem remains due to dual legal systems [constitutional and Sharia]. Judges are often influenced in cases involving minorities," Gill told EWTN News, adding that equal and consistent implementation could turn the law into a "cornerstone for lasting change."

Report findings

The NCJP's position aligns with findings from its April 11 report, "Captive Souls: The Untold Story of Pakistan's Minority Girls," which documented multiple cases of alleged forced conversion and highlighted recurring issues such as social exclusion, abuse, financial exploitation, and weak legal documentation.

The report recommends a state-regulated conversion process overseen by magistrates, a ban on clerics and madrassas issuing independent conversion certificates, and strict enforcement of a minimum age of 18 for both marriage and religious conversion.

It notes that Pakistan currently has no legal minimum age for religious conversion, leaving a critical protection gap.

Matthais, however, remains skeptical about prospects for reform. "It's tough. The majority will resist such changes," he said, arguing that proposed safeguards for religious minorities often face ideological opposition.

Iqbal said work on regulating conversion practices must continue, though progress remains slow due to "sensitive majority sentiments" that require careful engagement and dialogue.

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The Archdiocese of New York has agreed to a nearly $1 billion settlement for victims of clergy abuse, one of the largest abuse settlements in U.S. Church history that comes after more than half a decade of litigation.

The New York-based law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates said in a press release on May 1 that the archdiocese had agreed with an abuse victims' committee to recommend a settlement of $800 million, which would be paid "into a trust for approximately 1,300 survivors who have brought sexual abuse claims" under the state's Child Victims Act.

The proposal will still be subject to "full survivor agreement" before it can be finalized, the law firm said.

The firm said the amount, if confirmed, would be paid in two installments of $615 million and $185 million within 15 months.

The archdiocese, meanwhile, will be required "to maintain their list of credibly accused clergy on their website and continue to update it with any new, substantiated abuse claims."

The agreement also would result in a "temporary stoppage" of litigation against the diocese regarding alleged abuse.

Attorney Jeff Anderson described the proposal as "a transcendent triumph of courage by the survivors who have endured so much for so long."

"It is far from full accountability, but it is a measure of responsibility and required transparency by the archdiocese that also requires the release of documents pertaining to sexual offenders," he said.

In a statement on May 1, meanwhile, New York Archbishop Ronald Hicks said he was "cautiously optimistic" about the proposal.

"It cannot be denied that this has been a painful process — most significantly so for the victim-survivors and their families and loved ones who have suffered, in most cases, for decades," the prelate said.

"I pray that all of us, as the family of God, will come together to support and affirm these individuals and take these next steps to bring about some healing and peace," he added.

The nearly $1 billion payout would be among the largest in U.S. Church history. In October 2024 the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to a slightly larger $880 million settlement.

The New York proposal, meanwhile, is considerably larger than an earlier reported proposed settlement of $300 million the diocese was said to be considering in December 2025.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan said at the time that the archdiocese had made "a series of very difficult financial decisions" to help fund the settlement, including staff layoffs and a 10% reduction in the archdiocese's operating budget.

The New York Archdiocese also has been engaged in a bitter dispute with its longtime insurer Chubb over payouts to victims. In February of this year, the archdiocese accused Chubb of running a "shadow campaign" against it by posing as a victims' rights group.

The archdiocese in 2024 launched a lawsuit against Chubb, claiming the insurer was "attempting to evade their legal and moral contractual obligation" to pay out claims to abuse victims.

On May 1 lawyers for abuse victims said the proposed settlement also would allow victims "an opportunity to pursue recoveries from the Archdiocese of New York's insurance companies."

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St. Joseph, the beloved spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary and earthly father of Jesus, is celebrated twice by the Catholic Church every year — first on March 19 for the feast of St. Joseph, Husband of Mary, and again on May 1 for the feast of St. Joseph the Worker.

While the saint's March feast dates back to the 10th century, his May feast wasn't instituted until 1955. What was behind it?

May Day

Pope Pius XII instituted the feast of St. Joseph the Worker on May 1, 1955, so that it would coincide with International Workers Day, also known as May Day — a secular celebration of labor and workers' rights.

During this time, the Soviet Union proclaimed itself as "the defender of workers" and utilized May Day as an opportunity to exalt communism and parade its military prowess. Pope Pius XII chose the date specifically to ensure that workers did not lose the Christian understanding of work.

In his address to the Catholic Association of Italian Workers on that day in 1955, Pius XII said: "There could not be a better protector to help you penetrate the spirit of the Gospel into your life … From the heart of the Man-God, savior of the world, this spirit flows into you and into all men; but it is certain that no worker has ever been as perfectly and deeply penetrated by it as the putative father of Jesus, who lived with him in the closest intimacy and commonality of family and work."

He added: "So, if you want to be close to Christ, we also today repeat to you 'Ite ad Ioseph' — Go to Joseph!"

The Catholic Church has long placed an importance on the dignity of human work. By working, we fulfill the commands found in the Book of Genesis to care for the earth and be productive in our labors.

In his encyclical Laborem Exercens, Pope John Paul II wrote that "the Church considers it her task always to call attention to the dignity and rights of those who work, to condemn situations in which that dignity and those rights are violated, and to help to guide [social] changes so as to ensure authentic progress by man and society."

St. Joseph is considered a role model of this as he worked tirelessly to protect and provide for his family as he strove to listen to and obey God.

Even before the institution of this feast, many popes were beginning to spread a devotion to St. Joseph the Worker. One of these was Pope Leo XIII, who wrote on the subject in his encyclical Quamquam Pluries in 1889.

He wrote: "Joseph became the guardian, the administrator, and the legal defender of the divine house whose chief he was. And during the whole course of his life he fulfilled those charges and those duties. He set himself to protect with a mighty love and a daily solicitude his spouse and the Divine Infant; regularly by his work he earned what was necessary for the one and the other for nourishment and clothing; he guarded from death the Child threatened by a monarch's jealousy, and found for him a refuge; in the miseries of the journey and in the bitternesses of exile he was ever the companion, the assistance, and the upholder of the Virgin and of Jesus."

In addition to being the patron of the universal Church and workers in general, St. Joseph is also the patron saint of several professions including craftsmen, carpenters, accountants, attorneys, bursars, cabinetmakers, cemetery workers, civil engineers, confectioners, educators, furniture makers, wheelwrights, and lawyers.

This story was first published on May 1, 2024, and has been updated.

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The Catholic Church dedicates the entire month of May to the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of God and spiritual mother of all.

In the plan of salvation, the Blessed Virgin Mary holds a special place. By virtue of her role to be the mother of the Son of God by divine election, she was conceived immaculately — i.e., without the stain of original sin — and by fidelity to her son has been crowned queen of heaven and earth.

Everything Mary said and did leads to Christ. Who knows a child better than a mother? And what good and loving child does not know his or her mother and love her with all of his or her heart?

Mary knew and loved Jesus like no one else on earth — and she loves each of her children, human beings, with similar affection and tenderness.

The Church, in its wisdom, asks its children to be especially devoted to Mother Mary during the month of May and to be particularly grateful for all of her care.

A model for every Christian

Mary, the most humble of all women, is a model for everyone, today, in the here and now. She is a model in a particular way for every woman, as expressed by Pope Francis.

"There is only one model for you, Mary: the woman of fidelity, the one who did not understand what was happening to her but obeyed. The one who, as soon as she knew what her cousin needed took off [to help her], the Virgin of Promptness. The one who escaped as a refugee in a foreign country to save the life of her son," Pope Francis said during an April 2014 message to 20,000 young people gathered in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for a regional youth day.

The first disciple

Years later, during an Aug. 24, 2021, catechesis, Pope Francis called Mary "the first disciple of Jesus" and reminded us that "Mary is there, praying for us, praying for those who do not pray. Why? Because she is our mother."

The Virgin, through Jesus, has brought heaven closer to us and her life is the best proof that it is possible to reach it. Pope Francis said it best: "She shows us that heaven is within reach, if we too do not give in to sin, we praise God with humility, and we serve others with generosity" (Pope Francis, Angelus address on the solemnity of the Assumption, Aug. 15, 2022).

A version of this story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

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NAIROBI, Kenya — Before Sabastian Sawe traveled to London for the Sunday, April 26, marathon in which he would emerge the winner, the young athlete attended Mass at Holy Family Catholic Church, an outstation of St. Josephine Bakhita Lower Moiben Parish in Kenya's Catholic Diocese of Eldoret.

Speaking to ACI Africa, the sister service of EWTN News in Africa, after Sawe's record London Marathon win, Julius Kemei, chairperson of Holy Family Catholic Church, remembered the athlete asking for prayers at the end of Mass.

In the interview with ACI Africa on April 29, Kemei spoke about the marathon winner's strong Catholic roots, his active participation in Church activities, and his generosity to Church projects.

"Sabastian never misses any church service. The last time he was here, he told us that he was traveling the same day to London for a competition and asked us to pray for him," Kemei said, emphasizing: "He never misses Mass. He comes with his entire family to church. Whenever he is not around, his wife and children come."

In London, the 31-year-old Kenyan crossed the line to win in a record time of 1:59:30 — more than one minute faster than the previous 2:00:35 record set by the late Kelvin Kiptum in 2023.

Kemei, who taught Sawe at Cheukta Primary School, where the youngster's star began to shine through interschool and zonal competitions, said that with the sustained success in athletics, the Catholic Church in Moiben has a role model, a mentor, and a big supporter of the Church's development projects.

"He may be young, but he has already entered the ranks of an elder of our church," Kemei said, adding that Sawe has always been ready to donate toward Church projects.

"There is a marathon he won before this London one… and he came and gave the church Ksh 100,000 [100,000 Kenyan shillings, about $775]. There are times he offers to complete projects by himself, saying that God has already blessed him so much," Kemei said.

The church official recounted the young athlete's strong Catholic upbringing, with his entire family being the pillar of the newly established parish.

"Four families are pillars of our new parish — Sabastian's is one of them," Kemei said. "When Bishop Dominic Kimengich made us a parish before he was appointed archbishop of Mombasa, we were worried about resources. But each member of Sabastian's family donated something to our church."

Sawe's most recent donation to Holy Family Catholic Church was a large flock of sheep, which is helping to fund the construction of a new church to accommodate the parish's growing numbers.

Sabastian's grandmother also donated a cow toward the church before she died in 2022 while her grandchild found his way in the world of athletics in Spain.

Kemei agreed with media reports that Sawe has promised to complete the construction of his church back home after winning big in London.

"After he is done with the national reception in Nairobi, I know he will want to head straight to his home, and the church is one of the first places he will want to be. And he will want to know how he can support the completion its construction."

While at Cheukta Primary School, Kemei said Sawe never struck him as an extraordinary child until upper primary school when he started participating in cross-country competitions and zonal competitions, where he performed really well.

"I remember him as a very shy student. I saw his talent and nurtured it," Kemei said. "But it was after he transitioned to high school that his star started to shine brighter."

He said that Sawe comes from a family of athletes. "His paternal grandfather was a marathoner. His uncle also participated in athletics up to Uganda. And his mother was also a sprinter for those who saw her at Kasarani stadium," he said.

Sawe shows young people that everything is possible with commitment and a firm trust in God, Kemei explained. "Many youths in our parish have started going to him for mentorship. He is a great resource to our church."

This story was first published by ACI Africa, the sister service of EWTN News in Africa, and has been adapted by EWTN News.

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