Catholic News

Vandals desecrated two statues of Our Lady and set fire to the outdoor altar of St. James Church at the Medjugorje shrine in Bosnia and Herzegovina early Tuesday, July 28, days before the shrine's annual Mladifest youth festival.

The statue of Our Lady on Podbrdo, or Apparition Hill, was doused with black paint across the face, chest, and dress, with the words "Devil in a skirt" scrawled on its pedestal, local media reported. The statue of Our Lady at the nearby Blue Cross was similarly defaced, with "EVIL" written on a nearby stone slab. A banner in Polish naming the six alleged seers was left near the Podbrdo statue.

Police in Citluk received the first report at 4:30 a.m. and a report of fire at the recently renovated altar behind St. James parish church at 5 a.m., a police spokeswoman said reportedly. Surveillance footage shows a man dousing the altar with flammable liquid and igniting it. Cantonal police later confirmed to local media that a suspect was arrested Tuesday afternoon. His identity has not been released.

'Prayer, fasting, and forgiveness'

"We received with great sadness the news of the act of vandalism that damaged the places of prayer in our parish," the Medjugorje parish office said in a statement, calling on the faithful to respond "as Our Lady has been teaching us in Medjugorje for more than 40 years: with prayer, fasting, and forgiveness."

Cleanup began immediately, the parish said, and "the shrine remains open to all pilgrims."

Bishop Petar Palic of Mostar-Duvno expressed deep sorrow, urging the faithful not to let evil "infect us with its own logic," while the Interreligious Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina condemned the attack.

The Vatican granted a "nihil obstat" to devotion at Medjugorje in September 2024. Mladifest opens Aug. 1 and is expected to draw 50,000 to 60,000 pilgrims.

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Pope Leo XIV encouraged young people to use social media and artificial intelligence (AI) prudently because "they can immerse us in an unreal world."

In a video message to participants at the 2026 Halleluya Festival in Fortaleza, Brazil, the pontiff proposed St. Carlo Acutis, known for using digital technologies to evangelize, as a model for new generations.

"He shows how to keep Christ always at the center, even when using technology," he noted.

Taking that example as a reference, Leo XIV, who published his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, on AI in May, advised young people to use both social media and artificial intelligence appropriately.

"I advise you to use social media and artificial intelligence well, employing these tools in a moderate and disciplined manner, because they can immerse us in an unreal world where the ephemeral, mere appearance, and deception end up taking the place of true values ??and what really matters," he warned.

Addressing the participants at the youth evangelization event, which combines music, praise, and worship, the pontiff highlighted the spiritual fruits the initiative has yielded over the years, mentioning "confessions, conversions, and priestly and religious vocations."

"Today, I would like to say once again how good it is to be with young people. Your enthusiasm is contagious and awakens a renewed apostolic zeal in all of us," the Holy Father stated.

He also noted that young Catholics possess "a missionary vigor indispensable for transforming this world, which is in such need of the Gospel."

He thus strongly urged them: "Never lose this missionary zeal!"

The pope emphasized that there are still many people who need to discover that Christ answers the deepest aspirations of the human heart. In this context, he invited young people to proclaim the Christian faith without fear.

"Proclaim with courage that a life without Christ is a life without grace. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life," he declared, quoting the Gospel of St. John.

León XIV drew upon one of St. John Paul II's most well-known expressions to invite young people to place their full trust in the Lord.

"Do not be afraid of Christ. He takes nothing away; he gives everything," he affirmed, noting that whoever gives himself to the Savior "receives a hundredfold" and "always emerges victorious."

The pope asked the Holy Spirit to rekindle in young people a love capable of transforming their youth into an evangelizing force and to turn them into "living stones" for the building of a "city of peace."

Pope Leo XIV imparted his apostolic blessing to all the participants and organizers of the Halleluya Festival: "May God always be with you."

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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The archbishop of Berlin has condemned the deadly attack on an LGBT "Pride" event in the German capital after a minivan was driven into a crowd on Saturday evening, killing one woman and injuring at least 29 people, some of them seriously.

"How terrible! To brutally destroy such a joyful and moving celebration. In our prayers we are with all the victims and their relatives and friends, and also with all those whose joy hatred has taken away. Hatred must not win," Archbishop Heiner Koch told the German Catholic news agency KNA.

The prelate said intercessions would be offered at Sunday Masses throughout the Archdiocese of Berlin for those affected and for peaceful coexistence in society.

What happened in the Tiergarten

According to media reports, a white minivan was driven at high speed into a densely packed crowd at Tiergarten park, the venue of the annual Christopher Street Day (CSD) event, at about 10 p.m. on July 25, roughly 1,300 feet outside the secured festival area, before crashing into a tree.

The driver then attacked bystanders with a machete and fled.

The suspect, identified in German media as Abdul B., was a 21-year-old German citizen of Lebanese background whom authorities had classified as a potential Islamist attacker.

According to NZZ, the Muslim attacker had previously attempted to join the Islamic State in Syria and was convicted in May of preparing a serious act of violence, receiving a suspended juvenile sentence.

The German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel reported that he had openly sympathized with the terrorist group.

The suspected terrorist was shot dead by police on Sunday evening in Berlin's Spandau district after attacking officers with his bladed weapon.

Germany's federal prosecutor has taken over the investigation, and Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt called the incident an "Islamist terrorist attack."

'We light a candle and pray'

Hundreds of thousands of people had taken part in the 48th Berlin CSD earlier on Saturday. The event was called off after the attack. On Sunday evening, hundreds attended an ecumenical memorial service at St. Mary's Church in central Berlin, with Chancellor Friedrich Merz among those present.

The Federation of German Catholic Youth (BDKJ), which took part in the LGBT parade through its Berlin diocesan association, said it was "shocked and saddened."

"We light a candle and pray for all those affected by this terrible act," the organization said.

The Catholic Church unequivocally condemns all violence and every form of unjust discrimination against persons living with same-sex attraction. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, they "must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity" (No. 2358).

This story was first published by CNA Deutsch, the German-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

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The Vatican is participating in the international art exhibition "La Biennale di Venezia" in Italy for the fourth consecutive year. A senior Vatican official explained the Vatican's support for the exhibition and its recent focus on contemporary art.

Irish Bishop Paul Tighe, secretary of the Culture Section at the Dicastery for Culture and Education, told EWTN News that contemporary artists can reach people in ways that the Church cannot.

"Contemporary artists have their fingers on the pulse of humanity," Tighe told EWTN News. "We want to honor their lives, encourage them, and show them we are listening."

"They use different idioms — sometimes strange, sometimes difficult — to communicate and alert us to profound realities. We want artists to know the Church's engagement with art isn't just in the historical past tense; it's an ongoing dialogue today."

Why the Vatican is turning to contemporary artists

The Holy See, through the Dicastery for Culture and Education, has a pavilion at the Venice Biennale — which runs through Nov. 22 — featuring the work of American punk-rock singer Patti Smith and soft brutalist Mexican architect Tatiana Bilbao.

This initiative is among several in recent years that reflect the Vatican's focus on promoting contemporary art. On Sept. 14, Pope Leo XIV will inaugurate an exhibit on water at the Vatican Apostolic Library. In 2025, the Vatican hosted contemporary art exhibits during the jubilee year, including a gallery space on the main road leading to St. Peter's Basilica, which still features works by contemporary artists.

Tighe defended the Vatican's partnership with contemporary artists, saying that the Church has learned from them since its beginning.

"The Church has been both inspiring artists and encouraging artists, but also learning from artists," Tighe said.

"If you think of something like the Biennale, there are lots of younger people from the worlds of the arts. Many of them are probably not overly engaged with religion or with faith. There is the kind of art that speaks the language of today because of the concepts the artists of today are using. We need to engage with them."

In describing the Vatican's focus on contemporary art, Tighe likened its appeal to that of sports, encouraging Catholics to use it to open conversations about faith.

"We have given a lot of attention and emphasis to sport because, in reality, there are more people on any given Sunday engaged with sport than are engaged with faith. [We Catholics] could lament that, or we can say, 'Well, let's try and speak to them,'" he said.

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The Vatican will launch its first conference of Christians and Confucians to expand the Catholic Church's outreach to the Asian ethical tradition.

The Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue will hold the colloquium "Dialogue on the Contribution of Christianity and Confucianism to an Ideal Society: New Heaven, New Earth, and Great Unity" in South Korea from Aug. 4–5. As reported by Union of Catholic Asian News, it will convene clergy and scholars at Sogang University in Seoul to discuss universal fraternity, virtuous leadership, and ecological responsibility.

Cardinal George Jacob Koovakad, prefect of the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, is expected to attend along with other dicastery officials.

The event is also organized by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea.

The Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue has participated in similar conferences, including the 2025 workshop "Christians Fostering Dialogue with Confucians: Guidelines and Prospects" in Taiwan and the 2024 study group that developed guidelines for Confucian-Catholic dialogue.

Confucianism developed from the ethical teachings of the Chinese philosopher Kong Qiu, known in the West as Confucius. He emphasized filial piety, ancestor veneration, moral self-cultivation, and harmonious social relationships rather than devotion to a creator god.

According to 2025 estimates from the World Religion Database, approximately 8.75 million Confucianists live worldwide. The largest populations are in South Korea, with 5,616,520 people; China, with 1,737,191; Myanmar, with 813,322; Thailand, with 261,330; and Japan, with 162,179.

According to Vatican News, at the 2025 workshop, Father Paulin Batairwa Kubuya, undersecretary of the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, explained that certain Confucian teachings are already consistent with Christianity.

"Christianity and Confucianism are wisdom traditions," Kubuya said. "Confucian ethics is very strong on how people should comport themselves, how to be good citizens, and how to organize their lives. We find that these aspects correspond to Christianity."

Kubaya also expressed his hope that the future of Confucian-Christian dialogue would help Christians "look at our Confucian neighbors, look at how we can develop a better way of living together, [and] how we can enrich one another."

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St. Joseph the Worker College in Steubenville, Ohio, plans to renovate a former Masonic temple into a public theater, restaurant, and Catholic shrine.

A college representative said the idea took shape after Jacob Imam, president and founder, began praying a novena and walking around the building each workday, often returning on weekends with his family "like the Israelites circling Jericho." Spokesperson Wes Cimmarrusti said Imam's daily prayer-walks preceded an unexpected call from the Freemasons within a month, asking whether he would consider buying the property.

"We totally credit the favor and the opportunity to the intercession of St. Joseph and the power of prayer," Cimmarrusti said.

The Catholic trade school has raised $1 million and signed a purchase agreement with the Freemasons of Steubenville to buy the property in January 2027. While no date has been set for the project's completion, the college seeks to raise an additional $3 million to fully renovate the space. The renovated building will include a 500-seat auditorium that will be open to the public for artistic performances, academic lectures, and civic ceremonies. The building will also feature a restaurant, Clement's Café, named after Pope Clement XII, the first pope to condemn the Freemasons. There will also be a shrine that will display a replica of the Shroud of Turin. The college said it plans to ask a priest to bless the building.

Franciscan University to host conference in Austria on Christian healing

Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, will host its sixth annual Truth of Love Conference in Gaming, Austria.

The Sept. 4–6 conference, "Toward a Theology of Healing," will center on "wounds that touch the whole human person, including loneliness, mortality, physical suffering, and abuse and other sins." Speakers will draw from Scripture to "explore how healing is found through encounters with others and ultimately with Jesus Christ," according to a press release from the university.

"In the Gospel, Our Lord Jesus described himself as a physician and us, whom he saves, as the sick, whom he has come to heal (Matt. 9:12). And St. Ignatius of Antioch presented the Eucharist as the 'medicine of immortality,'" said Stephen Hildebrand, provost and professor of theology at Franciscan University. "These are more than metaphors, for our ultimate salvation consists in the healing, the making whole, of the human person, body and soul, and the human community."

"The Truth of Love Conference promises to be a rich exploration of this theme at the heart of the Christian message: Even in the midst of suffering and death, God will restore us and make us whole," he said.

Catholic campus ministry group names centers for inaugural service and justice grants

The Catholic Campus Ministry Association has awarded three ministries its first-ever Service and Justice Innovation Grant, created to "transform how Catholic campus ministries approach service and justice as expressions of evangelization, not just programming."

The inaugural 2026-2027 grants will go to the Catholic Student Center at Washington University in St. Louis; the St. Paul Catholic Center at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana; and to the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.

"Service and justice aren't add-ons to the Catholic mission, they're at its heart," said Rosie Chinea Shawver, executive director of the association. "What they build this year will shape how campus ministers across the country form the next generation of Catholic leaders."

Each recipient will receive a one-year $5,000 grant "to design, implement, and evaluate a new or revitalized service and justice initiative." The grant stipulates that each recipient will "function as a national think tank, learning together, pressure-testing ideas, and building a shared body of knowledge that extends far beyond their own programs."

The program will begin with a conference at the University of San Diego, where each campus will send two student leaders and one campus minister for formation and training.

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Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski urged "compassionate" immigration protections for Haitians with temporary protected status (TPS) upon expiration of their automatic work-permit extension.

As "widespread violence, political instability, economic collapse, and humanitarian suffering" continue in Haiti, Wenski said July 24 that the Caribbean nation remains unsafe as a place for migrants to return. About 353,000 Haitian nationals hold TPS status in the U.S., according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Miami's archbishop said local ministries are "preparing for the consequences" of policy changes, including the termination of work authorizations for diocesan employees. Employment authorization documents (EADs) reached a court-extended expiration July 27.

TPS is an immigration status granted to eligible foreign nationals from designated countries that are unsafe to return to due to ongoing conflict, environmental disasters, or other extraordinary conditions.

The U.S. Supreme Court on June 25 ruled that DHS could end TPS for Haitians and Syrians. El Salvador's TPS designation is set to expire Sept.?9.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation (H.R. 1689) in April that would add three more years of TPS for Haitian nationals. The legislation has stalled in the Senate.

Catholic Health Services (CHS), one of the Archdiocese of Miami's largest ministries, which employs a significant number of Haitian workers who hold TPS, "is currently evaluating the effects of the recent federal changes affecting TPS work authorization, Wenski said.

"At this time, an estimated 40 to 50 valued employees may be affected, although the final number remains under review as the organization works individually with each employee based on his or her unique circumstances," he said.

Haitian CHS workers "are more than employees — they are members of our Church and our community," Wenski said. "They care for the sick, comfort the elderly, and serve some of the most vulnerable among us with compassion and dedication."

Ahead of the deadline, Wenski said "our hearts are with our Haitian brothers and sisters who are living with uncertainty, fear, and anxiety about what the future may hold for themselves and their families."

"The Church recognizes the right of nations to secure their borders and to establish just immigration laws. At the same time, our Catholic faith calls us to uphold the dignity of every human person and to accompany those who are vulnerable," he said.

As "Haiti continues to endure profound hardship," Wenski urged "elected leaders to pursue compassionate and humane solutions that protect family unity and recognize the extraordinary circumstances facing the Haitian people."

"To our Haitian brothers and sisters: You are not alone. The Catholic Church walks with you," he said.

Haitian workers in Ohio face uncertain future

Ohio bishops also have called for continued TPS protections for Haitians, especially as Springfield, Ohio, is home to a large Haitian population. The Catholic Conference of Ohio released a June statement urging action and continued TPS.

As the Supreme Court decision has left many families worried about losing their jobs, Ohio-based organizations are also preparing to aid those facing loss of TPS.

In an interview July 24 with "EWTN News Nightly," Casey Rollins, executive director of St. Vincent de Paul in Springfield, Ohio, said the organization's team helps immigrants and nonimmigrants "while they're enduring, or while they're navigating … a crisis or a situation."

"That would be, in this case, once they lost their jobs, we will help them take care of their rent and utilities if they now can't pay that," she said.

For "over 60 years, we've helped Americans with rent and utilities and those kinds of necessities for independent living. Now we're doing that with Haitians and other immigrants who've recently lost jobs," she explained.

"We also are helping the families who, many of them, are certain to be deported," she said.

Following the loss of workers in the Ohio community, "we're going to be in trouble," she said.

For years, the area needed "more workers here," and the Haitian community was "taking a lot of these jobs."

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The peace proposed by Pope Leo XIV is "not abstract, ideological, or naive" but one that "passes through the pain, contradictions, and wounds of the world," according to Alessandro Banfi, communications director of the Oasis Foundation and coordinator of a new book collecting the pope's teachings on peace.

"Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift" is the first anthology to bring together the pontiff's principal texts on peace since his election May 8, 2025.

Published last week in Italian by the Vatican Publishing House, the volume contains speeches, messages, and other interventions on one of the central themes of Leo's pontificate. It also includes a previously unpublished foreword written by the pope.

An English-language edition is expected soon.

In an interview with ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News, Banfi said the project was intended to provide "an agile volume, accessible to everyone, that would bring together the great teaching of the first year of this pope's pontificate on the subject of peace."

Banfi said the book's introduction offers one of the principal keys to understanding Leo's thought.

Christ's peace passes through suffering

"When we carefully reread the opening lines of his introduction, we see something very significant," Banfi said. "He says that he began his ministry by proclaiming to the world the risen Christ, the Prince of Peace. But he immediately recalls that the peace of Christ passes through suffering, through the Passion and through the cross."

That statement, Banfi said, reveals the depth and scope of the pontiff's proposal.

"The peace proposed by the pope is not the abstract, naive, or ideological concept of the hippies," he said. "It is a peace that passes through the pain, contradictions, and wounds of the world."

Responding to those who dismiss pacifism as unrealistic or merely idealistic, Banfi said the Christian vision of peace is grounded in a concrete experience.

"Pacifism is often ridiculed because it is considered utopian or unrealistic, incapable of confronting the complexity of reality," he said. "But the peace proposed by the Church is born of a concrete experience. Before anything else, it is the proclamation of a gift that precedes us. Peace is a gift."

Building peace therefore requires both personal and collective responsibility, he said.

"We have the responsibility to build it, to pray for it, to promote interreligious dialogue and to ask the powerful of the earth to work for it," Banfi said. "We must act concretely to influence societies and states. But it is equally important not to forget interior peace."

Banfi said Leo's positions on peace did not begin with his election as pope but form part of a personal journey shaped by Augustinian spirituality and his missionary experience in Peru.

A pope shaped by St. Augustine

Banfi situated Leo's thinking within the Augustinian tradition, pointing in particular to the pope's reference to "The City of God" in his address to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See.

St. Augustine contrasts the earthly city, directed toward power, wealth, and pleasure, with the city of God, made up of those who live in hope, Banfi explained.

"Leo XIV bears witness to a man of great interior freedom in the face of the pressures of the world, the problems of the Church and even its internal divisions," he said. "Amid the noise of the Church and the world, this pope conveys extraordinary serenity and interior freedom."

Banfi also recalled that during the years of terrorism by Peru's Shining Path guerrilla movement, the then-missionary priest Robert Prevost refused to go into hiding or accept a security escort despite threats against members of the clergy.

"I think we often assume that a commitment to peace is limited to opposition to war, but he was also a great witness in the face of terrorism," Banfi said.

He also cited a photograph from the 1980s showing the young Augustinian taking part in a peace demonstration in Comiso, Sicily, against the deployment of NATO missiles. Prevost appears alongside other priests holding a banner reading "Young Augustinians for Peace."

Banfi cautioned, however, against confusing the Church's mission with the promotion of a merely pacifist movement.

The Church, he said, is "the bearer of a proposal for peace that is born of faith in Christ."

A message for an age marked by war

Banfi said Leo's message has particular relevance amid a global increase in armed conflicts.

"Today, more than 100 countries are involved in some way in wars or conflicts," he said. "It gives the impression that the pope is almost the only voice that continues to call for peace, that still believes in the possibility of peace."

In the book's unpublished introduction, Leo refers to the Global Peace Index 2026, an annual assessment of peace levels around the world produced by the Australia-based Institute for Economics and Peace.

Banfi said the pontiff is challenging the growing conviction that war is inevitable and that rearmament is the only way to guarantee security.

"What is happening today is that the idea seems to have taken hold that war is inevitable, even necessary, and that rearmament is indispensable," he said. "The pope is fighting precisely against this dominant mentality."

Banfi also highlighted the pope's reference in the introduction to a Bob Dylan song against nuclear war, written in 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis.

"It was a moment of enormous risk for humanity, but it was also a time when there was a widespread sense that peace could be built, nuclear arsenals could be reduced, and negotiated disarmament could advance even in the midst of the Cold War," Banfi said.

Against today's backdrop of prolonged conflicts and growing international tensions, Leo takes up Pope Francis' warning about "a third world war fought piecemeal" and points to the increasing difficulty of bringing contemporary wars to an end.

The conscience that can change history

One passage that particularly struck Banfi was the pope's reference to Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov, who in 1983 helped prevent a possible nuclear war after suspecting that a warning of an American attack was a false alarm.

The pope writes that "the conscience of one man can be worth as much as the entire world," Banfi noted.

For Banfi, the statement expresses "a truth that applies to all of us."

"Society is mistaken when it stops believing that," he said.

Banfi linked that idea to another major theme of the papal text: a radical confidence in the human person's capacity to choose what is good.

"It is the same message as his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas: an irreducible optimism about humanity," he said. "It is like when he asks in another passage of the introduction: 'Is humanity really seriously considering destroying itself?' It is a profoundly prophetic question."

The book also addresses disarmament, the importance of dialogue, international law, and the role of multilateralism.

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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The Maronite Catholic Church gathered on the evening of July 25 at the Maronite patriarchate's summer residence in Dimane, northern Lebanon, to celebrate the beatification of Patriarch Elias Hoyek, marking an extraordinary moment for both the Church and the Lebanese nation.

Cardinal Bechara Boutros Rai, the Maronite patriarch, presided over the official liturgical celebration. Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Vatican's Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, attended as the representative of Pope Leo XIV alongside patriarchs, bishops, and Lebanese officials, including President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam.

The ceremony began with a formal petition presented to the pope's representative by Bishop Mounir Khairallah, Maronite bishop of Batroun and petitioner for the beatification cause, requesting that Hoyek be declared blessed.

Bishop Hanna Alwan, patriarchal vicar general and postulator of the cause before the Holy See, then read the official biography of the new blessed, recounting the principal stages of his life.

Semeraro subsequently read the apostolic letter issued by Pope Leo XIV formally enrolling Patriarch Elias Peter Hoyek among the blessed. The decree granted the petition of the Maronite Church, its bishops, and its faithful and designated June 5 as the date of his annual liturgical memorial.

The pope's representative also presented the Maronite Church with five original copies of the decree as official documentation of the occasion.

A large official icon of the new blessed was then unveiled. His relics were brought forward in a solemn procession accompanied by 32 lit candles, symbolizing the 32 years Hoyek served as Maronite patriarch, from 1899 to 1931.

In his homily, Rai said: "Hoyek entrusted himself completely to divine providence until he became a radiant sign in the history of the Church and of Lebanon."

"The Church today is not raising a man to earthly glory," he continued, "but bearing witness to the glory God brought about in him. Holiness is not an honor bestowed by the earth but a divine gift granted to those who live the Gospel faithfully to the end."

Addressing Semeraro, Rai said the cardinal's presence embodied the depth of communion between the Maronite Church and the Church of Rome. He added that it carried a message of love and appreciation from Pope Leo XIV to a Church that has remained faithful to the faith and to its witness to Christ in the Middle East.

Rai emphasized that "the new blessed lived by his famous motto, 'My God, may your will be done.' He was a man of divine providence, combining in his person the vigilance of a shepherd, the wisdom of a leader, the heart of a father, and the faith of a saint."

"He never sought personal glory," Rai added, "but rather the glory of God and the good of the human person, believing that Lebanon is a message and that the human person is its greatest treasure."

At the conclusion of the Mass, Aoun was presented with a cedar tree carved from Lebanese stone bearing the likeness of the new blessed and containing one of his relics.

Following the final blessing, Hoyek's relics were carried in procession through the aisles among the faithful.

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

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"The Chosen" released its first official teaser of Season 6 on July 27. The upcoming season of the hit series focuses on the 24 hours of Good Friday — culminating in the crucifixion of Christ.

The trailer offers viewers a glimpse into the scourging at the pillar, Jesus' arrest and trials, the walk to Calvary, and his final, powerful words on the cross.

Season 6 of "The Chosen" will include six episodes — the first three of which will debut on Nov. 15 on Prime Video, followed by the release of a weekly episode through Dec. 6.

The season finale will be a stand-alone theatrical release on March 12, 2027.

The show's star, actor Jonathan Roumie, has spoken about his experience portraying Jesus' passion and crucifixion.

In an interview with EWTN News at ChosenCon on Feb. 20 he said: "For the first few months afterwards going to Mass — and even thinking about it now — I just get weepy. I get emotional. It's hard. It's left an indelible impression on me — mentally and emotionally sharing even just a percentage, a micron of a percentage, of the Lord's passion; playing it and reenacting it has left me absolutely humbled and moved."

The show's cast spent three weeks filming the crucifixion in Matera, Italy, in June 2025. In a press conference held at the Vatican at the end of that time, the show's creator, writer, and director, Dallas Jenkins, called the three weeks "the most challenging and difficult we had in filming," requiring him to surrender everything to Christ.

Ahead of the release of Season 6, 5&2 Studios — the production company behind "The Chosen" — alongside Capitol Christian Music Group will release a new album this fall with original songs inspired by "The Chosen." The first single, titled "All I Need Is You," is performed by country star Tyler Hubbard and will be released on Aug. 7. The full artist lineup will be revealed in the weeks ahead.

"My wife, my three kids, and I have a nightly ritual of watching 'The Chosen.' We really got into it! It's a show that I love and am connected to, so I was really excited to personally be a part of the show and part of the music," Hubbard said in a press release.

"'All I Need Is You' is a song that's out of my normal country music box. It's a song that hits close to home. I think a lot of people can relate to the need for Jesus. To write a song about something that really matters is extra special," he said.

Watch the full trailer for Season 6 below.

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