British counterterrorism police took control of the investigation into the murder of Ann Widdecombe, an English pro-life Catholic politician who was killed last week.

Neil Farage, head of the Reform UK party, paid tribute to Widdecombe as “without doubt, the best-known and most outstanding female politician in Britain since Margaret Thatcher.”

The retired bishop of Karaganda, Kazakhstan, defended the Society of Saint Pius X and offered strong criticism of the Vatican.

Archbishop Jan Paweł Lenga, M.I.C., said that “it was worth seeing the consecration of the bishops of the Society of St Pius X: what peace, what joy, what prayerful atmosphere, what solemnity! Nothing like that can be seen in the post-conciliar Church anymore.”

“The See of Peter has been occupied by people who have nothing to do with Christ,” Archbishop Lenga continued. “Prevost’s approval of the excommunication is proof that he no longer represents the Church that follows Jesus and leads people to salvation.”

AdVaticanum reported that the Diocese of Włocławek, Poland, had earlier imposed restrictions on Archbishop Lenga “after a series of public interventions directed against Pope Francis. The disciplinary measures prohibited him from preaching at Mass and speaking to the media, although Archbishop Lenga immediately rejected the sanctions.”

Citing canon 1734 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, the Society of Saint Pius X announced it filed a preliminary recourse against the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s July 2 decree declaring that six SSPX bishops had incurred automatic excommunication.

The Society stated that its request, submitted to the same dicastery, “constitutes the mandatory preliminary step before the possible introduction of a hierarchical recourse” and “has the effect of suspending the execution of the decree.”

Catholic and Orthodox prelates, including the secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Orthodox co-chairman of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, are taking part in the 30th Oriental Lumen Conference in Washington.

“After three decades of Orientale Lumen conferences, ecumenical dialogue between Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Catholic, and Roman Catholic Christians has reached a critical stage,” according to the Orientale Lumen Foundation. “The central ecclesiological question today is no longer whether consensus is possible, but how this convergence is to be received and embodied in the life of the Church of Jesus Christ.”

Gunmen on motorcycles killed two Catholic young adults in Mastung, Pakistan, on July 8.

Islamic State – Khorasan Province claimed responsibility for the murders.

Crocetti Editore, a publisher in Milan, released La Lingua Primitiva, an Italian translation of two Portuguese books of poetry by Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education.

According to the publisher, the prelate “reconstructs in a non-narrative form, not confessionally autobiographical but imaginatively lyrical, some moments of his African childhood, with the discovery of a land full of death but larger than life; a gallery of familiar figures of moving intensity; epiphanies associated with bewildered and disorienting contexts, in which everyday life is broken by an unexpected visitation that transfigures the known into the unknown, knowledge into enigma.”

“The power of this poetry lies also in its ability to bind the concrete to the intangible, uniting the visible and the invisible, gesture and thought, voice and feeling, the human and the divine,” according to the Vatican newspaper’s favorable review of the book, published in its July 12 edition.

A 54-year-old Nigerian priest who ministered in the Archdiocese of Boston for the last five years killed himself as his religious-worker visa was set to expire and his superior directed him to return to his home Diocese of Abakaliki.

“We are still in shock and trauma processing the sudden death of our beloved priest,” Father Benjamin Madu, said Bishop Ernest Obodo, apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Abakaliki.

The vicar general of the Archdiocese of Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, said that 25 churches there were damaged in the recent earthquakes.

Father Neptalí Balza said at the majority of these churches, Masses are now being held outdoors.

The bishop of Bayonne, France, said in an interview that lawmakers who vote in favor of euthanasia “will no longer be able to receive Communion.”

Bishop Aillet said:

The Catholic parliamentarians who voted for this bill must weigh the consequences. If they are aware of this inconsistency, they will no longer be able to receive Communion. The Church is justified in reminding them of this, as some bishops have done in the United States.

I would like to invite them to a sincere examination of conscience. Do we have the right to make the voluntary suppression of a human life a response to suffering?

The prelate also decried the trampling of conscience rights of health care workers who would be compelled to participate in euthanasia if the practice is legalized.

A Le Figaro investigation found that a prestigious French military secondary school refused to consider pupils from independent Catholic schools despite their reputation for academic excellence.

The students whose applications were not considered all attended traditionalist Catholic schools, either affiliated with the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest or with the Society of Saint Pius X.