“I never had any hesitation at all about whether being a Jewish president would work—quite the opposite,” Greg Weiner said in an interview. “The divide in society between people who do and don’t treat religion seriously is much wider than between particular religions.”

Nico Spuntoni asked Cardinal Robert Sarah, “Your Eminence, do you believe there is an aversion to Latin and Gregorian chant in certain parts of the Church?” Cardinal Sarah replied:

It strikes me as an aversion confined to a few self-referential cultural circles—more a matter of psychology than of substance—and I think it’s simply a generational issue: once the ’68 generation has passed, these baseless, one-sided positions, which diminish the very cultural stature of Latin Catholicism, will pass with it.

Cardinal Sarah also called for the repeal of Pope Francis’s restrictions on the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass.

“Access to ritual forms recognized and in use for centuries can never be artificially restricted by decree,” he said. “If a rite ceased to serve the faith, it would die out on its own; but if it preserves and nurtures the faith, may we never limit it—because in doing so we would be restricting the preservation and spread of the faith itself.”

“The old Latin Mass is like a zombie,” said Father Thomas Reese, S.J., in an op-ed published by Religion News Service. “We thought it was dead, but it keeps coming back.”

Anthony Clark, PhD, professor of Chinese History at Whitworth University, wrote:

During an animated and candid discussion with a Chinese bishop who is unaffiliated with the Patriotic Association (anonymous to protect his well-being), our chat began with the “terrible things happening to Catholics in China, especially in Fujian.” After the 2018 Sino-Vatican agreement was codified between the Holy See and China’s government, Fujian experienced what the bishop has defined as “a state of emergency.”

The faithful of the underground community have grown continually fearful that, as government influence over the bishops increases, “the integrity of the Catholic faith will suffer.” To “assure the survival of China’s Church,” new bishops have been “secretly consecrated.” The number is unknown, but he suggested that “at least ten new bishops” were ordained for the underground community there. This proliferation of surreptitious consecrations, the bishop informed me, represents only Fujian province; he did not discuss other areas of China.

The Church today commemorates the memorial of St. Augustine (354-430), whose rule was adopted by Order of Saint Augustine, to which Pope Leo XIV belongs.

“Religious liberty is ‘Our First, Most Cherished Liberty,’ and people of faith should be able to attend religious services without fear of intimidation or harassment,” Archbishop Alexander Sample of Portland, Oregon, wrote on August 26. “The Right to Worship Act will establish a zone of protection around houses of worship during religious services to prevent deliberate disruption of scheduled services.”

The four members of Congress who introduced the legislation are Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC), Rep. Thomas Suozzi (D-NY), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI).

“The meeting took place in a cordial and affable atmosphere and provided an opportunity to discuss various aspects of the life of the Church in Argentina, as well as to converse about preparations for the Holy Father’s visit to the country,” the bishops’ conference said in a statement.

“During the audience, the Pope expressed his enthusiasm for the trip and demonstrated that he was well-informed about the various options currently under consideration for its organization,” the statement continued. “In this context, particular emphasis was placed on the desire for the visit to have an eminently pastoral character and to have an impact that extends beyond the days of the trip itself, bearing fruit for the life of the Church and also for Argentine society.”

The Pontiff is scheduled to visit Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru in November; visits to Buenos Aires, Córdoba, and Luján are planned in Argentina.

“We expressed to the Holy Father our communion with the Church in all the dioceses of Portugal, our desire to stand with him and accompany him, and we also renewed the invitation we had previously extended to him to visit Portugal when it is opportune, as soon as possible,” said Bishop Virgilio do Nascimento Antunes of Coimbra, the president of the episcopal conference. “It was a very friendly, very fraternal, very brotherly dialogue.”

“We fear, without guaranteeing adequate flexibility, that the Agency’s newly proposed sponsor requirements for proof of identity and proof of income could exclude otherwise eligible parents and relatives from sponsoring children, creating excessive barriers to reunification and unnecessarily prolonging children’s stays in government custody,” William J. Quinn wrote in an August 21 letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Quinn added:

Under federal law, prospective sponsors may be noncitizens, including those without lawful immigration status—and this is as it should be, since “unaccompanied alien children,” by definition, are themselves noncitizens who lack lawful immigration status.

Nevertheless, one’s immigration status can limit access to certain forms of identification, including many of the forms of identification enumerated in the proposed changes ... For instance, a driver’s license is one of the most common forms of identification, but only select states allow persons without lawful status to be issued licenses.

Pope Leo XIV said today that “there is no better defense against drugs than a good family.”