The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate announced that Pope Leo has appointed Msgr. Mario León Dorado, O.M.I,, the prefect of Western Sahara since 2013, as apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Rabat, Morocco.

The announcement comes amid an investigation into allegations that Cardinal Cristóbal López Romero, S.D.B., of Rabat molested at least five women.

Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller, M.Sp.S., of San Antonio issued a pastoral letter, “We Will Come to You: United in Solidarity with Our Brothers and Sisters in Migration.”

“I prayed over this letter for a long time before writing it to you,” Archbishop García-Siller began. “What follows is at times deeply personal: it arises from my own encounters with God in the lives of migrants, from years of walking alongside those who have endured migration’s trials and from my own family history and migration story.”

“As a reflection on the prevailing climate of immigration enforcement, it is offered in love, grounded not in ideology but in walking with you: listening to your pastors, sitting in silence with families who no longer feel safe to leave their homes, and accompanying our sisters and brothers who have migrated, missionaries of hope among us,” he continued. “You are the heart of this letter. The Church will not be silent.”

The letter concluded with a call for five “urgent reforms”: “protect sensitive locations,” “keep families together,” “restore asylum and due process,” “end mass detention and mass deportation,” and “build just pathways to citizenship.”

The Canadian Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches of Christ of the USA organized a two-week training course, “Where now for visible justice?”, which began on August 3.

“Whether discussing climate, race, politics, economics, or solidarity with indigenous communities, the question of justice—and the church’s role in embodying it—will intersect with all theological and ecumenical reflections,” according to the organizers of the course, which is taking place in Detroit and Toronto.

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops is among the members of the Canadian Council of Churches; the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is not a member of the National Council of Churches.

A 40-year-old man with a prior felony conviction faces up to 15 years in prison after he was charged in connection with the firing of shots at a parish in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of New Mexico announced on August 3:

On May 4, 2026, Las Cruces Police Department officers responded to a reported shooting at St. Genevieve’s Catholic Church ... Officers found five bullet holes in the church’s front glass entrance and recovered five .380 caliber shell casings. Surveillance footage showed a black sedan arriving at the church, after which a man exited the driver’s side and fired multiple rounds at the entrance before leaving the scene.

The State of New York temporarily agreed not to enforce its assisted-suicide mandates against the Catholic plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the state’s Medical Aid in Dying Act.

“This agreement is an important first step towards protecting religious freedom,” said Bishop John Barres of Rockville Centre. “New York cannot force the Church to answer suffering with suicide or abandon the sick and dying when they need care most.”

“Until our legal fight is resolved, this temporary agreement keeps our ministries free to serve every patient according to the Gospel,” Bishop Barres added. “We continue to proclaim that every human life is sacred and worthy of love until its natural end.”

The Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, Missionary Sisters of St. Benedict, and Little Sisters of the Poor joined in the lawsuit, as did the Catholic Health System of Long Island.

Chinese government officials successfully pressured the US-China Catholic Association to disinvite its scheduled conference keynote speaker, according to Bitter Winter, an online magazine of religious liberty and human rights.

Bitter Winter reported that the disinvited keynote speaker was Fenggang Yang, the founding Director of the Center on Religion and the Global East at Purdue University.

The US-China Catholic Association, according to its website, was “founded in 1989 by concerned U.S. bishops, Maryknoll, the Jesuits, and representatives of other religious orders in order to promote mutual support and fraternal ties between the Church in China and the U.S. Church.”

A triduum began on August 2 at the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major, in preparation for the liturgical memorial of the anniversary of its dedication on August 5.

On the feast day, Cardinal Rolandas Makrickas, the basilica’s archpriest since July 2025, will celebrate a solemn pontifical Mass, with a reenactment of the miracle of the snow.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Secretary of State of His Holiness, traveled to Guatemala on August 1 to mark 90 years of diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the Central American nation.

Cardinal Parolin met with the nation’s president and vice president and celebrated Mass at the cathedral of Guatemala City.

Guatemala, a nation of 18.5 million (map), is 97% Christian (65% Catholic).

The local organizing committee of the 2027 World Youth Day released the event’s official theme song: “Confidite, Ego Vici Mundum” (Take Courage, I Have Overcome the World, John 16:13).

The theme song was released on August 3, a year to the day before the event is scheduled to begin in Seoul, South Korea.

A priest was brutally murdered in Ajaokuta, in Nigeria’s Kogi State.

The body of Father Samuel Opeyemi Oyetoro was found by the side of a road with “severe machete cuts to the head,” a police spokesman said.