Outreach, an organization founded by Father James Martin, S.J., announced a $250 LGBTQ Catholic history pilgrimage, to take place in New York City.

“New York is an historic site for LGBTQ Catholics and LGBTQ people in general, and so we’re happy to have our second pilgrimage—following in the footsteps of our pilgrimage to Rome last year—where we will be able to share the historic and spiritual riches of the place Outreach calls home,” said Father Martin, who will lead the pilgrimage.

Police in Bosnia and Herzegovina detained a Polish suspect following vandalism at the Marian pilgrimage site of Medjugorje.

A vandal, or vandals, defaced a statute of the Blessed Virgin Mary and set fire to an outdoor altar there.

In 2024, Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith granted cautious approval to Medjugorje devotions in its Note About the Spiritual Experience Connected with Medjugorje.

L’Osservatore Romano devoted the most prominent article in its July 29 edition to the heat waves and wildfires that Europe has experienced this summer.

In “Benvenuti nell’era del fuoco” (Welcome to the age of fire), staff journalist Valerio Palombaro wrote that “alarm is growing regarding the prospect of a near future in which this becomes the ‘new normal’ driven by climate change.”

“The emergency in Europe highlights chronic global difficulties that are also attributable to climate change,” Palombaro added. “This environmental crisis, driven by human activity, calls on governments across Europe and the world to take action and change course.”

The bishops of Massachusetts issued a statement on state legislation that would remove legal limits on abortions between the 24th week of pregnancy and the moment of birth.

“As Catholic bishops we have a moral responsibility to present and uphold Catholic teaching and the sacred God-given dignity of every human life from conception to the natural death,” the bishops said in their July 29 statement. “The proposed elimination of any legal restraint on late-term abortion is, in our judgement, a radical measure which is gravely immoral.”

The legislation, which passed the state house in a 119-33 vote, is now being considered by the senate.

Pope Leo XIV appointed Bishop Gerard Nash of Ferns, Ireland, as the bishop of Ossory, and in doing so united the two dioceses in persona episcopi (in the person of the bishop).

Four pairs out of Ireland’s 26 dioceses are now united in persona episcopi. According to the online Annuario Pontificio, the Diocese of Ferns. founded c. 500, has 111,079 Catholics and 49 parishes. The Diocese of Ossory, founded in 549, has 82,101 Catholics and 42 parishes.

In a pastoral letter on the death penalty in Florida, the state’s bishops said that they wished to “remind Catholics of the teaching of our Church against the use of the death penalty in situations—like our own—where bloodless means are sufficient to punish offenders and protect public safety.”

“We do work with determination for its abolition, and we urge all Catholics, and our fellow citizens of good will, to end the practice of capital punishment in our state,” the bishops wrote in their July 27 letter.

They concluded by “imploring God that the ethic of human dignity will infuse every element of society with respect for persons—from the most innocent unborn child to convicted felons—through people of faith transformed by the Gospel message of Christ’s love and life.”

The Supreme Court of Pakistan overturned the death sentences of three men convicted of lynching a Christian couple in 2014.

After Shama and Shahzad Masih were accused of desecrating a Qur’an, members of an angry mob threw them alive into a kiln. In overturning the convictions on July 9, the Court cited inconsistent witness testimony.

The chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace expressed “continued solidarity and fraternal unity” with the Church in South Sudan.

“Be assured of our steadfast prayers for the South Sudanese people at this time of severe economic hardship, deadly violence, environmental and food insecurity, and contestation surrounding the country’s Transitional Constitution framework,” Bishop A. Elias Zaidan, the Maronite bishop of Los Angeles, wrote in a July 28 letter to Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala of Tombura-Yambio, president of the Integral Human Development Commission Sudan and South Sudan Catholic Bishops’ Conference.

“We mourn with the South Sudanese people, afflicted by violence between local communities, as well as conflict between the South Sudan People’s Defense Forces and opposition groups,” Bishop Zaidan added. “We implore God, as ever, to bring justice, healing, and lasting peace to your land!”

An archaeological team led by Professor Mustafa Sahin of Bursa Uludağ University in Turkey may have found the church in which the First Council of Nicaea was held in 325.

“The finds were identified by the excavation team as belonging to the Church of Saint Neophytos, an earlier structure that stood before the larger basilica now visible at the site,” Türkiye Today reported. The archaeologists believe that an earthquake destroyed the original church in 368, leading to the construction of the subsequent Basilica of Saint Neophytos.

Talitha Kum, an international network of consecrated religious against human trafficking, released its 2025 annual report.

“Today, Talitha Kum is a global network of 68 national networks present in 113 countries, strengthening both our local presence and our collective global response,” said Sister Abby Avelino, M.M., the network’s international coordinator. “In 2025, Talitha Kum reached more than 1.2 million people through prevention, protection, survivor accompaniment, advocacy, formation, and capacity-building initiatives.”