French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to the Servant of God Jacques Hamel (1930-2016).

“Ten years ago today, he was cowardly murdered by two Islamist terrorists—targeted because he embodied the rejection of hatred, as well as fraternity and hope,” President Macron said on July 26. “His memory places a duty upon us. It compels us to tirelessly defend the freedom of conscience that the Republic guarantees and protects.”

“In the face of Islamist terrorism, France remains united,” the president added. “True to its foundational values. Resolute not to yield anything to those who seek to divide us.”

The nation’s bishops also commemorated the tenth anniversary of the priest’s slaying.

At the conclusion of the plenary assembly of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences—the twelfth such gathering since 1970—representatives of the continent’s bishops pledged to witness to the Gospel by building bridges.

“A broad consensus emerged that, now more than ever, the Church in Asia is called to be a bridge and a bridge-builder through ongoing synodal conversion, embracing the rich diversity of our cultures and peoples,” the bishops said in their final statement, issued on July 26 in Jakarta, Indonesia.

The bishops added:

The challenges we face—polarization, the collapse of global institutions, culture of power, rapid technological change, migration, ecological degradation, shrinking democratic spaces, and widening social and economic inequalities—are not viewed merely as obstacles to overcome. Rather, they are recognized as opportunities for renewed missionary witness, inviting the Church to embody the Gospel more authentically through education, interreligious dialogue, hospitality, care for our common home, and a deeper commitment to human dignity and solidarity.

L’Osservatore Romano devoted four articles in its July 27 edition to Christopher Nolan’s film The Odyssey.

The articles included one written by the newspaper’s director, Andrea Monda; another by Gaetano Vallini, the paper’s second-ranking staff member; a third by Italian journalist Sergio Valzania; and a fourth by Vatican News journalist Amedeo Lomonaco, who compiled references by the last four popes to Homer’s epic.

Bishop Andrew Cozzens of Crookston, Minnesota, announced that Sunday Mass will no longer be celebrated in seven of the diocese’s 65 parishes.

Citing declining population, Bishop Cozzens said that “some of these small parishes have no young people in religious formation, or at least very few. Some have trouble finding volunteers and rely on only a few dedicated people to keep the parish going. We also continue to experience a shortage of priests.”

According to The Official Catholic Directory (2025 edition), the Diocese of Crookston has only 21 diocesan priests who are active in the diocese. An additional four religious-order priests minister there.

Cardinal Roberto Repole of Turin, Italy, strongly condemned a massive attack by several hundred protestors on a construction site in the Susa Valley. The attack left 120 police injured.

The assailants, dressed in black, were protesting against the Turin–Lyon high-speed railway.

“The acts of guerrilla violence that devastated the construction site in Chiomonte yesterday and injured dozens of police officers deserve no attempt at understanding; they are pure terrorist violence that I wish to condemn firmly as a Christian and as a citizen,” Cardinal Repole said in a statement issued on July 26. “Violence is incompatible with the Gospel and with democracy; it must be isolated and punished.”

“Dissent regarding public works is always legitimate, and many honest residents of the Susa Valley feel they must express it to protect the environment, but this has nothing to do with hatred, bullying, or the complete disregard for the rules of democracy, especially when carried out by assault groups that live elsewhere, even coming from abroad, and have no connection whatsoever to the Valley,” the prelate added.

Reflecting on the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, a Vatican official called on the faithful to “take responsibility for addressing loneliness, the real poverty of old age.”

“The certainty of not being forgotten by God must become the daily experience of not being forgotten by one’s parish and one’s family,” said Vittorio Scelzo, head of the pastoral care of the elderly at the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life.

The elderly should not be seen merely as “recipients of charitable services, but as active subjects of pastoral life,” Scelzo added. “They make up a significant portion of the People of God, and it is essential that they receive the pastoral attention they deserve.”

In a wide-ranging interview, Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (2012-17), criticized the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) and German dissenters from Catholic teaching.

Referring to the SSPX, Cardinal Müller said:

This group is saying: “We are the best Catholics and therefore we have the right to defend ourselves against the Pope.” This is the deepest destruction of the principle of catholicity. Luther also said: “I am Catholic and the last interpretation of the Gospel belongs to me, not to the Pope.” That’s the typical Protestant attitude.

“In Germany we have the Central Committee of German Catholics, which is a group of ideologues—not all, surely, but certainly the leaders,” the prelate added. “They want to have another Church according to their ideas coming out of woke ideology and feminism.”

Father Gabriel Romanelli, I.V.E., the pastor of Gaza’s sole Catholic parish, said that Pope Leo sent the parish a brief message on July 26.

The Pontiff, Father Romanelli recounted, said he was “thinking of, and praying for, those who are suffering. And, specifically to us priests and all religious, he entrusted this exhortation: ‘Thank you for standing by their side. May God help and strengthen you. Blessings, a fraternal embrace.’”

Myanmar’s military regime bombed the village in which Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, S.D.B., of Yangon was born.

“The attack is part of a broader pattern of military aerial bombardment across Sagaing Region, one of the areas hit hardest by junta airstrikes since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup,” reported Mizzima News Media, founded by Myanmar pro-democracy activists. “Local sources said no fighting had taken place in Monhla in the recent period before the attack.”

Archbishop Heiner Koch of Berlin, Germany, condemned the Berlin Pride attack, perpetrated on July 25 by an Islamist terrorist.

“How terrible [it is] to brutally destroy such a happy and moving celebration,” said Archbishop Koch. “Hatred must not win.”