Catholic News

LOS ANGELES — One of the largest Norbertine communities in the world, St. Michael's Abbey in Orange County, California, has elected Father John Caronan as its third abbot since its founding in 1961, succeeding Abbot Eugene Hayes, who led the community for 31 years.

Caronan will serve for a 12-year term, overseeing both the pastoral care and the governance of the community.

"I was certainly surprised that my confreres chose me to fill this important fatherly role," Caronan said. "I know that God's grace will sustain me every step of the way, and I pray that he will help me to be the kind of father that our community desires me to be. Already in the first few weeks since my election, I can see just how much his grace is helping me to undertake this task."

Born Edgar Caronan in Manila, Philippines, in 1964, he immigrated to the United States with his family in 1975 and arrived at St. Michael's Abbey a decade later, making his solemn profession in 1992. He was ordained a priest in 1994.

Caronan is a canon lawyer and spent much of his career working in the marriage tribunals of the Diocese of Orange, in which the abbey is located, and the neighboring Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He has served as the judicial vicar of both the Diocese of Orange and the Maronite Tribunal of the Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon. He has also been the regular celebrant of the Tridentine Mass at St. John the Baptist Parish in Costa Mesa, which is staffed by the Norbertine Fathers.

900 years

The Norbertine order was founded 900 years ago by St. Norbert, archbishop of Magdeburg, Germany, and vice chancellor for the Holy Roman Empire. The community's charism, according to St. Michael Abbey's first abbot, Ladislas Parker (1915–2010) in a Diocese of Orange newspaper from 1995 on the occasion of his retirement, is "to combine the contemplative life of a monk with the active life of a parish priest, and to tie this work to community in an abbey."

The Norbertines are easily recognized by their traditional white cassock — which, according to pious belief, was given to St. Norbert by the Blessed Virgin Mary as a sign of her protection and favor — and their motto, "Prepared for every good work." The essence or "heartbeat" of the order is fervent devotion to the Eucharist, which is central to Norbertine spirituality, Parker said.

The original members of the community were seven Norbertine priests who fled an oppressive communist government in Hungary in 1950. They made their way to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 1957 (the Diocese of Orange would be established in 1976), when Cardinal James McIntyre invited them to teach at Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana.

By 1960, Parker and his fellow Norbertines had collectively earned $46,000 and purchased a remote strip of cattle-grazing land at the base of the Saddleback Mountains. They established St. Michael's Priory, named for the abbey in Csorna, Hungary, and in 1984, Pope John Paul II approved the conferral of abbey status on St. Michael's.

In contrast to many religious communities, St. Michael's Abbey has enjoyed an abundance of vocations, with 68 priests and 32 men currently in formation. The growth necessitated the moving of the community from the former cow pasture to a 320-acre site nine miles away in 2021 with ample space for the community, its apostolates, and future growth.

Today, the community staffs two parishes, St. John's and Sts. Peter and Paul in Wilmington, California; administers a high school in San Pedro, California; operates a local summer camp; staffs the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, Wisconsin; and staffs Corpus Christi Priory in Springfield, Illinois. Additionally, each Sunday, individual Norbertines assist at more than 30 parishes throughout Southern California.

The order also operates a digital apostolate, The Abbot's Circle, which offers online resources to help viewers grow in their faith as well as provide news about the community.

The election for the new abbot began with a vote on the length of term the abbot would serve; Hayes was elected for life with a mandatory retirement age of 75. This time, the community opted for a 12-year term. Caronan's election followed via secret ballot; he is the first Filipino-born abbot in the history of the community.

"God has blessed our community so wonderfully in the past several decades," Caronan said. "I hope during my tenure as abbot to build upon this solid foundation in such a way that our Norbertine canonical life will flourish spiritually, that our apostolic work in the wider Church will grow, and that through the life and ministry of St. Michael's Abbey, Christ will draw many souls closer to himself."

'Patris Corde'

Caronan selected as his abbatial motto "Patris corde" ("With a father's heart"), reflecting the "fatherly governance and fatherly care" with which he hopes to lead the community, Father Ambrose Criste, director of The Abbot's Circle, shared with EWTN News. "It's representative of the type of man he is."

On Sept. 28, Caronan will receive an abbatial blessing at the abbey during a public ceremony expected to draw many prominent churchmen as well as civic officials.

Like bishops, abbots are prelates with authority over their communities, but unlike bishops they are "blessed" rather than "ordained"; hence they cannot ordain priests.

At the ceremony, Caronan will receive the traditional pontifical insignia of an abbot, including a ring, pectoral cross, miter, and crozier.

St. Michael's Abbey welcomes members of the public to join them daily for prayer as well as for special events, including the abbatial blessing and their celebration of the feast of St. Michael every Sept. 29.

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Monsignor Daniel Víctor Villalobos Ortiz has been appointed the new rector of the Our Lady of Guadalupe Basilica in Mexico City by the primatial archbishop of Mexico, Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes.

A canon of the basilica and episcopal vicar for the clergy since August 2024, he was named exorcist for the Marian shrine in February of this year.

In a July 12 statement, Aguiar announced the appointment "after hearing the proposals presented by the Venerable Chapter of Guadalupe and the Permanent Council of the Mexican Bishops' Conference."

The cardinal commissioned the rector to lead a "new phase of institutional and pastoral renewal, with the collaboration of all the priests, deacons, consecrated persons, and lay faithful who serve at this beloved shrine."

The cardinal also expressed his "gratitude for the service rendered" by the outgoing rector, Monsignor Efraín Hernández Díaz, whose resignation he accepted.

According to the Archdiocese of Mexico, the shrine receives around 35 million pilgrims each year. During the Guadalupe celebrations in December 2025 alone, some 13 million visitors came to the shrine, according to figures from the Mexico City Government Secretariat.

Who is the new rector of the basilica?

Born in Mexico City on Aug. 10, 1968, Villalobos was ordained a priest on July 12, 1998, at the basilica itself by the then-prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, Colombian Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos.

From 1997 to 2008, he served as an assistant to the then-archbishop emeritus of Mexico, Cardinal Ernesto Corripio Ahumada.

Throughout his ministry, he has held various pastoral assignments in parishes in the Mexico City boroughs of Xochimilco, Tlalpan, Coyoacán, and Álvaro Obregón.

In August 2024, he was appointed a canon of the basilica and episcopal vicar for the clergy of the Archdiocese of Mexico.

Since February 2026, he has served as an exorcist at the basilica.

The start of 'a phase to update and improve'

The basilica, Aguiar noted in his statement, "holds a privileged place in the life of our local Church and in the hearts of millions of pilgrims"; therefore, "any decision regarding this sacred site must always have as its aim to strengthen its evangelizing mission and the service it offers to the people of God."

"We have begun a phase of updating and improving administrative, operational, and pastoral processes at the Basilica of Guadalupe," the cardinal added, taking "as a reference the updates promoted by Pope Francis for the papal basilicas of St. Mary Major in Rome and St. Peter in the Vatican."

In the case of the Marian shrine, which houses the tilma bearing the image of the Virgin Mary on which it miraculously appeared nearly 500 years ago, the renewal now underway "will help distinguish the pastoral mission from administrative operations," thereby consolidating an institution that is "more efficient and organized."

Aguiar also stated that, since last year, "various administrative and operational reviews" have been conducted at the basilica and that the Mexican Bishops' Conference, the apostolic nunciature, and the Holy See were all informed of them.

"These reviews, routine in the life of any institution, have made it possible to identify opportunities to strengthen evangelization efforts, internal organization, and the services provided daily to millions of pilgrims," continued the primatial archbishop of Mexico.

"Let us allow the words that have sustained our people's hope for nearly five centuries to resonate once more in our hearts: 'Am I not here, I who am your mother?'" he encouraged.

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 U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and other Catholic organizations submitted public comments urging the Labor Department to reject a proposed regulation that would expand insurance coverage opportunities for in vitro fertilization (IVF).

Regulators will consider a rule change that would create a category of limited excepted benefits that covers IVF and other fertility-related treatments. It does not impose mandates but rather creates more opportunities for employers to offer the coverage.

In a 17-page letter submitted by the USCCB's legal counsel, the bishops expressed support for expanding fertility-related coverage that respects unborn embryonic human life and the natural procreation process — but strongly discouraged any inclusion of IVF.

"IVF, especially as practiced in the U.S., kills or freezes at least as many preborn children as abortion — at a magnitude of hundreds of thousands or perhaps over a million per year," the bishops' comment noted.

When a person receives an IVF treatment, "multiple fertilized eggs or zygotes — human beings — are produced" for every cycle, at which stage most die, according to the bishops' comment. For embryos that survive, some are implanted but "others [are] destroyed or put in inhumane cryopreservation."

The process for selecting which embryos are implanted and which ones are destroyed includes genetic screening, which the bishops' comment called a "dystopian form of modern eugenics that kills those children deemed genetically inferior." At times, when more than one embryo is implanted but the parents only want one child, the others are aborted through a process called "selective reduction," they explained.

"Promoting IVF," the statement said, "... stands in glaring contrast to this administration's other pro-life statements and actions."

The bishops said indefinitely freezing surviving embryos "is also a profound and terrible violation of their dignity and rights," adding: "Hundreds of thousands of our smallest brothers and sisters in the U.S. are experiencing this fate right now."

Additionally, the bishops warned IVF "commodifies our fellow human beings and treats them like products and property." They warned the technology violates "the exclusivity of the marriage bond in its most unique context and unnaturally [separates] the procreative aspect from the unitive aspect (that is, regarding the unity of the spouses) of the marital act."

The comment also cited practical concerns for the Labor Department, warning the inclusion of IVF could put the entire rule at risk because it may exceed the department's statutory authority and that it is arbitrary and capricious, which could be a problem in court.

If IVF is ultimately included, the bishops requested guardrails. This includes rules that prevent the destruction of embryos, prohibit genetic screening, and clearly communicate alternatives, such as restorative reproductive medicine (RRM).

Regardless of whether IVF is included, the bishops encouraged flexibility to ensure coverage of RRM is clearly included so employers "can make meaningful use of that flexibility by affording them the opportunity to know of the full range of possible fertility care that can identify and heal a patient's underlying conditions while safeguarding human life and dignity."

RRM healthcare focuses on addressing the underlying conditions that cause infertility and works toward helping the couple achieve conception naturally through the marital act.

More Catholics chime in

The bishops' concerns were echoed by other Catholic organizations, including the Catholic Medical Association (CMA), the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC), and the National Association of Catholic Nurses, USA (NACN-USA).

"In the IVF process more babies die than are ever born," the CMA comment said. "The babies that are eventually terminated, after lengthy periods of cold storage, do not voluntarily sacrifice their freedom, their potential, or their lives."

The statement promoted RRM, which CMA called "more holistic, gentler, more respectful of human life, more compassionate, more empathetic, and more generous." It stated RRM is "devoid of violence or neglect or disdain toward viable beings denied access to being 'in utero.'"

CMA also joined NCBC and NACN-USA in a joint comment, which called the initiative to expand infertility care "a valuable opportunity to advance real solutions to infertility that respects the God-given dignity of parents and of children, born and preborn."

Yet they jointly encouraged the department "to refocus the rule on therapeutic, restorative treatments and to abandon its inclusion of IVF, which is profoundly flawed both legally, therapeutically, and morally, and does nothing to address the underlying pathology."

"If IVF is included in the final rule, regulations must limit the number of embryos being engendered by the number of embryos that can safely be implanted and gestated unto birth," the statement added.

"Engendering embryos with the intent to provide 'spares' for eugenic or research purposes is an [affront] to humanity and should be prohibited; and current practices of selective reduction, especially after there has been a deliberate engendering of more embryos than can safely be gestated is an egregious [affront] to human life and should be prohibited," it stated.

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will provide up to $235 million through Catholic Relief Services (CRS) for emergency food and nutrition assistance in Sudan and Ethiopia amid widespread hunger.

"More than 110,000 metric tons of U.S.-grown agricultural commodities" will be delivered to the two East African countries under an agreement in principle between CRS and the USDA, according to a July 14 USDA announcement.

"American farmers feed, fuel, and clothe the world, and under President Trump's leadership, we're utilizing that bounty to serve those in need while ensuring that the benefits of U.S. food aid flow back to America's hardworking farmers, ranchers, and producers that make this assistance possible," Michelle Bekkering, USDA's deputy undersecretary for trade and foreign agricultural affairs, said in a statement. "We're also enforcing strict accountability so that aid goes to those who actually need it, safeguarding hard-earned taxpayer dollars, and delivering aid that builds self-reliance instead of long-term dependence." 

"Authorized under Title II of the Food for Peace Act," the announcement said, "the agreement leverages Catholic Relief Services' operational footprints in East Africa, including the Sudan Emergency Project and the Joint Emergency Operation in Ethiopia."

CRS has faced a sharp drop in federal support after the Trump administration collapsed global-health and humanitarian functions of the U.S. Agency for International Development into the State Department in 2025. USAID earlier supplied roughly half of the agency's $1.5 billion budget.

CRS President and CEO Sean Callahan said in a July 14 press release that the agreement came "at a critical moment for struggling families in Sudan and Ethiopia."

"For decades, our partnership with USDA has connected the generosity and productivity of American farmers with some of the world's most vulnerable communities," Callahan said. "We are committed to ensuring these resources are managed responsibly and translated into meaningful support for families working to overcome crisis."

"We are hopeful fellow trusted organizations carrying out lifesaving work across the world are supported in their efforts to meet these critical needs for extremely vulnerable families and communities," he said.

Callahan told EWTN News that CRS tracks the delivery of food commodities "to the last mile and employs robust monitoring, verification, and financial oversight to help ensure assistance reaches the people it is intended to serve."

"We continually assess security conditions, adjust operations as needed, and work closely with local partners to help ensure assistance reaches the people it is intended to serve," he said.

Maura O'Brien, a former USAID official who led its Sudan and South Sudan office and serves as coordinator for the Michael B. Kim Institute for Ethical Inquiry and Leadership at Haverford College, said CRS has been a trusted partner but USAID's absence will be felt.

"Not having any U.S. presence in the field makes any assistance more vulnerable to fraud, waste, and abuse — especially in a conflict environment. Oversight and coordination are essential to effectively delivering desperately needed relief to communities in East Africa," O'Brien said.

USDA did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

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Almost nine years after the earthquakes that shook central and southwestern Mexico in September 2017, St. John of God Church and Holy True Cross Church, both located in Mexico City, have reopened their doors for worship.

On July 8, a Mass was celebrated at Holy Cross Church, marking the community's return to their church and concluding a lengthy restoration process.

The earthquakes of Sept. 7 and 19, 2017, resulted in 468 deaths and caused damage to thousands of buildings.

In Mexico City alone, around 160 Catholic churches suffered structural damage of varying severity such as these two churches located just a short distance apart.

5 centuries of history

Holy True Cross Church is considered one of the oldest churches in the country.

According to tradition, the explorer and conquistador Hernán Cortés ordered the construction of a small chapel to commemorate the landing of the Spanish expedition at the port of what is now known as the state of Veracruz. Over time, that chapel gave rise to the parish as it is known today.

The church also houses important works of sacred art, such as the Christ of the Seven Veils, which is said to have been a gift from Pope Paul III to King Carlos V of Spain. Additionally, a relic of the true cross is preserved there, considered by Christian tradition to be a fragment of the cross on which Jesus Christ died.

In an interview with ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News, Father Juan Carlos Guerrero Ugalde, the pastor of Holy True Cross and St. John of God, stated that restoring the churches was a priority of "not only ecclesiastical but also civic interest."

"This church [Holy True Cross] was the third parish established in the city and, therefore, holds a tradition of faith dating back to the 16th century," he explained.

9 years to return

Guerrero described the restoration process as "meticulous and slow" due to the complexity of the damage.

Among other measures, the bell towers, which were at risk of collapse, were reinforced, cracks were repaired, the hydraulic piles supporting both structures were serviced, the roofs were waterproofed, and work was carried out to correct the effects of the ground settling.

The work was overseen by the National Institute of Anthropology and History, as both buildings are part of the nation's historical heritage.

In Mexico, religious buildings constructed prior to the 1992 constitutional reforms are state property, although they remain places of worship and are used by religious associations.

The restoration of the Holy True Cross church faced an additional challenge: a fire in August 2020 caused by individuals living on the street. Reports indicate that a campfire spiraled out of control, damaging the choir loft, the dome, and sacred art.

Today, those walking through the historic central part of Mexico City can once again enter the church. Marcela Eduardo, who works in the area and took a moment of free time to stop in and pray, did just that.

"It brought me great joy to see it open and to see that repairs are underway," she noted in an interview with ACI Prensa. She said that when she saw the parish church open, her first thought was to go in to see Christ and "greet him, make the sign of the cross, and ask him for something: that he give me more energy."

Much more than a church

These churches are surrounded by some of Mexico's most important cultural landmarks, such as the Franz Mayer Museum, the Palace of Fine Arts, and the Alameda Central, a large city park.

Although Holy True Cross and St. John of God churches might go unnoticed by some tourists amid so many other buildings, Guerrero noted that their value has been "significant for both the faith and the city."

He explained that, following the 1985 earthquake, the area welcomed numerous families from various places, necessitating the construction of a new community identity. Pastoral work at the time "consisted of gradually integrating the way of life of longtime residents and that of those who were newly arriving."

Over the years, he added, violence, drug trafficking, and social breakdown affected life in the neighborhood, making the Church's presence even more necessary.

For Betsabé Jara, who visited the church after touring the Franz Mayer Museum, the reopening represents an opportunity to regain a place for encountering God.

"It brings peace of mind that the church is open, that one can enter and pray. Especially for people who couldn't go elsewhere because there wasn't a church nearby," she said in an interview with ACI Prensa.

Building the community

The priest noted that reactivating community life will be the next challenge. He explained that a "call has already gone out to neighborhood residents to come for formation as pastoral workers."

He also noted that they aim to develop social programs such as job training for individuals who did not complete their formal education as well as cultural initiatives in collaboration with nearby museums.

"We want the spaces we have in both churches to be truly utilized and filled with formation programs," Guerrero said.

As the community gradually restores life to these churches, Masses are currently held regularly on Sundays, whereas weekday Masses take place only upon the request of the faithful.

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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Catholic members of France's National Assembly who vote for the country's euthanasia and assisted-suicide bill will no longer be able to receive holy Communion, Bishop Marc Aillet of Bayonne, Lescar, and Oloron in southern France has warned ahead of the bill's decisive final vote on July 15.

"A Catholic engaged in public life cannot ignore" the Church's constant teaching against euthanasia, Aillet told France Catholique in a July 7 interview. He highlighted that the Christian faith engages a person's whole existence and that every lawmaker must examine in conscience whether the acts they take align with the faith they profess.

A public vote for a law gravely contrary to the Church's moral teaching, he said, creates "a real problem of ecclesial coherence," and Catholic lawmakers who support the bill need to weigh the consequences of that choice. If they are aware of the inconsistency, he said, "they will no longer be able to receive Communion," adding that the Church has the authority to remind them of this, just as some bishops have already done in the United States.

Aillet said he wanted to invite lawmakers to a sincere examination of conscience and raised the question of whether society has the right to make the deliberate ending of a human life its answer to suffering.

The National Assembly, the lower house of the French Parliament, is scheduled to hold the decisive vote on the bill Wednesday, July 15. Barring a last-minute reversal, the measure is expected to pass by a wide margin, as it has in each of its three previous readings in the lower chamber, most recently by 295 votes to 232 on June 30.

The bill has been rejected three times by the Senate, most recently on July 7 by a narrow vote of 169 to 164, with 11 abstentions.

Under Article 45 of the French Constitution, the government can give the Assembly the final word once the two chambers remain deadlocked after repeated readings, and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu is expected to invoke that procedure Wednesday.

The bill, titled a "right to aid in dying," legalizes both euthanasia, administered by a doctor or nurse, and assisted suicide, in which the patient self-administers a lethal substance. Access is restricted to adults who are stable residents of France, suffer from a serious and incurable condition in an advanced or terminal phase, experience suffering that cannot be relieved by treatment, and remain able to express their will freely and with full understanding throughout the process.

Aillet also grounded his warning in the Vatican's 2020 letter Samaritanus Bonus, which he said had reaffirmed that euthanasia is intrinsically evil regardless of circumstance. He distinguished true compassion from what St. John Paul II called a "false mercy," arguing that a genuinely fraternal society answers suffering with palliative care and accompaniment rather than the elimination of the person who suffers.

The bishop also called for a fully guaranteed conscience clause for health workers and defended the right of Catholic-run care institutions to refuse to participate, warning that without it, some might be forced to close or relocate abroad.

The French bishops' conference has opposed the bill since its earliest stages, issuing formal statements opposing the bill after the Assembly's first vote in May 2025, again after the second reading in February, and a third time on Ascension Day in May, when it warned of "moral imprudence" and "democratic disrespect" given the absence of political and social consensus.

On the eve of the June 30 vote, the Church released a video appeal to lawmakers, with Archbishop Vincent Jordy of Tours saying the testimony of caregivers, jurists, and associations involved in end-of-life care had been "painfully ignored" during the debates.

The Christian social network Hozana has separately called on believers to join a prayer chain addressed to French lawmakers ahead of Wednesday's vote, an appeal that has drawn more than 58,000 participants.

The bill's critics are not confined to religious circles. The Société française d'accompagnement et de soins palliatifs and other caregiver federations have opposed the text, arguing that palliative care should be made a real, accessible alternative before any shift toward assisted death and that the bill's clinical framework and oversight remain unclear.

Asked about the pending visit of Pope Leo XIV to France, whose chosen motto for the trip is "So that the world may have life," Aillet said he hoped the pope would reaffirm the inalienable dignity of every human life regardless of how the vote turns out.

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David Willey, a BBC correspondent whose career in Rome spanned more than 50 years and five papacies, died July 11 in Italy at the age of 93.

From being a student taking in the pomp of Pope Pius XII carried in a ceremonial throne to traveling the world with St. John Paul II to writing about the changes brought by Pope Francis, Willey saw "a complete revolution so that people saw the pope much more as a personality rather than in a hierarchical sense," the journalist told EWTN News at his home in February.

Catholic background

David Douglas Willey was born in High Wycombe, in the county of Buckinghamshire, northwest of London, in December 1932. He grew up Catholic in nearby Marlow.

Willey's first experience of Rome was a visit as a student, when he witnessed Pope Pius XII being carried through crowds in a gestatorial chair. "For me, the Vatican, St. Peter's in Rome, was a spectacle, it was almost operatic," he noted.

After studying law and modern languages at Cambridge, he moved to Rome as a trainee for Reuters.

He then left for stints in Algeria as a freelancer and subsequently East Africa as a correspondent for BBC. He also reported from Asia, including Saigon and Beijing, and then spent some time in London as the BBC's assistant diplomatic correspondent.

He returned to Italy as BBC's Rome correspondent in 1972 — and he never left.

"I never imagined I would be covering the Vatican [as a] correspondent when I was an altar boy at St. Peter's Church in Marlow," he said.

Willey explained that he no longer practiced the Catholic faith of his childhood but that he had "the greatest respect for the Catholic religion."

His reporting on the Vatican was through this lens. "I always treated reporting for the Vatican as a secular matter rather than a religious one," he said, adding that he still found "inspiration and pleasure in covering Vatican affairs" because he thought the pope and the Church had an important message in a world "torn by war and discord."

Lengthy Rome career

During his more than five decades covering Rome and the Vatican, Willey witnessed dramatic technological changes both to journalism and to the Vatican's own operations and communication.

Two episodes from his early days in Rome illustrate this, including a call to the Vatican switchboard asking to be connected to a cardinal.

He was immediately put through to Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, who would later become the pope's No. 2 as the Vatican secretary of state.

"An important cardinal in the Vatican because he dealt with what was called the Ostpolitik, the Vatican's policy towards Eastern Europe, communist Eastern Europe, during the years of the Cold War," Willey said, noting that he asked to speak and the cardinal invited him that very afternoon to his "palatial" apartment for what would become a three-and-a-half-hour conversation.

Willey recalled how, while a Reuters apprentice in the 1950s, international news agencies would pay a Vatican official for information. Once, on Easter Sunday, he was sent to wait at a bar close to the Vatican to pick up a text of the pope's "urbi et orbi" blessing.

"That was how the system worked. The changes wrought by Vatican II were extraordinary in the sense that a whole department was set up in the Vatican dealing with relations with the media," he noted.

During the pontificate of St. John Paul II, Willey joined the Polish pope on at least 40 of his international trips, nearly half of the jet-setting pope's total apostolic journeys.

"We went all over the world," Willey noted. "It added to my knowledge of the world immeasurably, but it also enabled me to see the Catholic Church as an international, worldwide body of believers, which you don't always understand when you live here in Europe or in Rome in particular."

Veering from the prevailing idea that the faithful should come to see the pope in Rome, John Paul II went out "to meet his flock in person. And he did this with great panache," the British journalist said.

"And by allowing journalists like me to join him on the papal plane; one day, for example, I found him sitting next to me at breakfast on the plane," Willey recalled. "He used to get bored during his very long journeys across the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans and he mingled with the journalists and sat down and actually talked to them."

"I remember talking to him once about the usefulness of the United Nations, for example. He had some quite interesting things to say."

Willey said he also had a memorable encounter with another living saint — Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

One day he rang up the Sisters of Charity in Rome to ask if he could interview Mother Teresa and was told they could arrange a meeting at the airport, in between her landing in Rome from India and before she would immediately depart again for Canada.

"We sat down together, and she was, I must say, great fun," Willey recalled. "We had a very lively conversation in which she confided all sorts of little secrets to me, such as I said, 'What do you do when you normally arrive in a new country?' 'Oh,' she said, 'I go to the local phone box and call up the head of state and ask him to send a car to meet me. I ring up the pope and he sends me a car.'"

"She was this combination of extreme saintliness and piety — and of course her work among the poor in India was completely a subject of which she was prepared to talk endlessly — but what I found was her sense of fun and her sense that the world was completely open to her," the journalist said.

In 2003, Willey was appointed an officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to broadcast journalism.

He wrote several books, including "God's Politician," a 1992 biography of John Paul II's global impact. He also wrote about the start of Pope Francis' pontificate in "The Promise of Francis: The Man, the Pope, and the Challenge of Change" in 2015.

Willey continued to be active into his 90s — including writing a final reflection on the Vatican following Pope Francis' death in April 2025. Willey spent his final years in the quiet lakeside town of Trevignano Romano, about 30 miles north of Rome. He died on July 11 from heart failure, the BBC reported.

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The Vatican this week is hosting over 200 top academics, innovators, and Nobel laureates for a global summit on AI security risks, inspired by Pope Leo XIV's encyclical Magnifica Humanitas.

The event, the Global Nobel Laureates Assembly on Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear War, is taking place July 14–16 at Borgo Laudato Si', part of the Pontifical Gardens at Castel Gandolfo, where the pope is staying until July 27.

The summit is inspired by the pontiff's recent encyclical on AI, "dedicated to the protection of the human person in the age of artificial intelligence," according to a July 6 press release.

The event also includes discussions on nuclear disarmament and AI governance, and will culminate in the drafting of a declaration for "an unarmed and disarming peace in the age of artificial intelligence, nuclear and autonomous weapons, new digital protocols, and emerging models of digital development" at the Palazzo Senatorio, Rome's city hall.

Some of the world's leading universities, including Catholic universities such as the University of Notre Dame and The Catholic University of America, have also sponsored the three-day gathering.

AI governance and the threat of nuclear war

In his recent encyclical and several public addresses, Pope Leo XIV has warned about the threats posed by nuclear weapons and the misuse of artificial intelligence.

Alessio Pecorario, an organizer of the summit and founder of the Domus Communis Foundation, described the event as a response to the pope's call for disarmament.

"Disarmament in the Church's social doctrine is not only the disarmament of weapons, obviously, but also the disarmament of spirits; it is the disarmament of the economy," Pecorario told EWTN News.

The conference "is about the governance of artificial intelligence," he said. "This governance should be understood not as bureaucracy but as a collective of business, religious, and academic leaders, to help ensure that human beings remain in positive control of the challenges of our time."

Javier Romero, Vatican correspondent for "EWTN Noticias," contributed to this story.

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Christians in Pakistan have welcomed the conviction of a Muslim man for his role in the 2023 anti-Christian riots in Jaranwala, Punjab, calling it a rare instance of accountability in cases of mob violence against religious minorities.

An anti-terrorism court in Faisalabad on July 13 sentenced Irfan Yousaf, a crane driver, to 10 years in prison for attacking the town's Christian neighborhood after allegations of Quran desecration. He was among thousands of Muslims accused of participating in the riots that left 26 churches and more than 80 Christian homes vandalized.

News of the verdict was greeted with applause during a July 13 consultation jointly organized by the National Council of Churches in Pakistan (NCCP), the country's main ecumenical body representing Protestant churches, and the nongovernmental Implementation Minority Rights Forum (IMRF).

Samuel Pyara, chairman of IMRF, who has filed petitions in the Supreme Court and regularly meets federal officials to press for speedy trials and compensation for victims, said the conviction was secured through digital forensic evidence.

"It followed forensic analysis of a video recorded by Wahida Mukhtar, a local Christian woman, showing Yousaf demolishing a church and an adjacent house with a crane. Government-certified experts authenticated the footage and testified before the court," Pyara, the lead petitioner in the Supreme Court's "suo motu" proceedings, told EWTN News.

Pyara said Christian witnesses faced sustained intimidation during the trial.

"One complainant, a brick kiln worker, was suddenly pressured by his employer to repay outstanding loans. A farmer's ready-to-harvest radish crop was poisoned. Others were denied agricultural land by Muslim landlords, young Christians lost their jobs, and an internet cable provider saw his business collapse," he said.

Participants at the consultation also gave a standing ovation to Mukhtar, 30, whose cellphone footage became crucial evidence.

Mukhtar said she fractured a bone in her left foot after being struck by a brick thrown by a rioter while filming the attacks with her family. The following month, her contract as an assistant subdistrict sports officer was not renewed, and she was forced to sell the equipment from her gym after Muslim members stopped using the facility.

"Christian witnesses who identified members of the mob, helped secure their arrests, and testified in court were pressured to sign compromise agreements. Fear could not deter us. This conviction is the result of our sacrifice," she said.

A church official, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the verdict as deeply symbolic.

"The crane was the election symbol of the now-banned Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan TLP, whose supporters were widely accused of leading the violence. Convicting the crane driver carries symbolic significance for many Christians," he said.

TLP, a hard-line Islamist party, has built much of its support around defending Pakistan's blasphemy laws and organizing mass protests over alleged blasphemy.

Human rights groups and Christian leaders have repeatedly accused the party's supporters of fueling hostility toward religious minorities through inflammatory rhetoric, although the party has denied involvement in acts of mob violence.

Despite welcoming the conviction, Christian leaders said it should not obscure the broader failure to secure justice.

In a July 14 statement, the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) said that, since 2009, those accused of carrying out major mob attacks on Christians and Christian settlements have ultimately been acquitted.

The statement was issued jointly by Bishop Samson Shukardin of Hyderabad, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Pakistan and NCJP chairman; NCJP National Director Father Bernard Emmanuel; and NCJP Executive Director Naeem Yousaf Gill.

Sharon Shamir, a Lahore-based human rights advocate, cautioned against viewing the conviction as full justice.

"Calling this 'justice served' is premature. One conviction in a tragedy as massive as Jaranwala barely scratches the surface," she said.

"Dozens of lives were shattered, homes and churches were destroyed, and an entire community was traumatized. Where are the rest of the perpetrators? Who is being held accountable for the systemic failures that allowed such violence to unfold? Selective accountability risks turning justice into symbolism rather than substance."

She added that justice "is not a headline or a moment but a process. Until that process is complete, calling it 'served' is misleading."

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Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Falih al Zaidi has called on Iraqi Christians living abroad to return to their homeland.

During a meeting with Chaldean Patriarch Paul III Nona, the prime minister said the return of Christians who were forced to leave Iraq has become a national priority for his government.

He said the government is ready to provide the support needed to encourage Christian families to return, including making them eligible for the country's 1 million residential land plot initiative.

Al Zaidi said Iraq's strength lies in its ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity and in the unity of its people. He described Christians as "an active and essential component of Iraqi society and a key partner in building the state and shaping Iraq's history and future."

An invitation to invest

The prime minister also encouraged Iraqi Christian business leaders and investors living abroad to return and take part in rebuilding the country by investing in the opportunities available across several sectors, particularly healthcare and education.

He said the government remains committed to strengthening stability and providing the support needed to help their projects succeed, contribute to economic development, and create new jobs.

Nona expressed appreciation for the prime minister's initiatives and his commitment to supporting Iraq's Christian community.

He said the government's position sends an important message encouraging Iraqi Christians in the diaspora to return home, strengthens their confidence in the country's future, and supports the willingness of Christian business leaders and investors to contribute to Iraq's reconstruction and development.

The Church's response

Commenting on the initiative, Syriac Orthodox Archbishop Nicodemus Matti Sharaf of the Archdiocese of Mosul, Kirkuk, and Kurdistan welcomed the prime minister's call for Christians to return.

He described it as "an official recognition of the Christian community's rightful place in the land of its fathers and ancestors."

At the same time, he stressed that addressing the reasons Christians left Iraq in the first place is even more important. Without doing so, he said, the invitation is unlikely to achieve its intended results.

Speaking to an Arabic television channel, Sharaf pointed to several challenges that have contributed to Christian emigration and continue to discourage many from returning.

Among them, he said, are ongoing marginalization and the lack of genuine political representation, noting that Christians still do not have a dedicated electoral register that would allow them to elect their own representatives to Parliament.

He also cited widespread corruption, inadequate infrastructure, limited access to quality healthcare and education, and a shortage of employment opportunities.

These conditions, he said, force many Iraqi Christians abroad to compare what they have found overseas with what remains unavailable at home.

Sharaf expressed hope that the government's campaign against corruption would continue with genuine determination and produce tangible results that restore citizens' confidence.

He described Iraq as "a country floating on a lake of corruption," adding that this alone is "enough to drive any citizen, Christian or otherwise, to leave."

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

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