Europe

As St. John Henry Newman is proclaimed a doctor of the Church on Nov. 1, staff and students at his old university will be counting on a boost of confidence for Oxford’s once-excluded Catholics.

The world is thirsting for peace and for an end to abuses of power and indifference to the rule of law, Pope Leo XIV said at an international gathering for peace.

The northwestern French city of Nantes waited for this moment for five long years and on Sept. 27, reopened its cathedral after the 2020 arson attack. The church celebrated with local and state officials present, and topped its reopening with ballet dancers flying on the cathedral's square.

Over a century in the making, the Tower of Jesus Christ, designed by famed Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí, will soon crown the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, making it the tallest Catholic church in the world.

Several Russian drones entered Polish airspace in the morning hours of Sept. 10, and were shot down by Polish military, with debris falling in eastern and central Poland.

Pope Leo XIV expressed condolences to victims and their families after the derailment of Lisbon's historic funicular streetcar Elevador da Glória, which caused the death of over a dozen people.

Leaders of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church have condemned the assassination of a Ukrainian politician who was instrumental to that nation's post-Soviet independence, as authorities investigate the killer's ties to Russian intelligence.

An English archbishop has called on Catholics to write to members of the House of Lords to urge them to oppose an assisted suicide bill which could trigger the closure of church-run hospices and care homes.

Ukrainian religious leaders have rejected demands for Russia's Orthodox Church and language to be guaranteed official status in their country, although a Catholic bishop also warned against a threatened crackdown on Orthodox communities.

The Spanish bishops' conference was criticized by the head of Spain's far-right VOX party after the Church expressed religious concerns following a local council's measure that would effectively ban Muslims from holding religious events in certain areas.