Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Secretary of State of His Holiness, sent a telegram in the Holy Father’s name to the archbishop of Ende, on the Indonesian island of Flores, following a severe earthquake there.

Pope Leo offered “spiritual solidarity and closeness to those suffering the continuing effects of this disaster,” encouragement to authorities offering humanitarian assistance, and prayers for emergency personnel, before commending the dead to God’s mercy.

The number of adult baptisms in Germany rose to 2,650 in 2025, up 28% from the previous year.

The total number of baptisms, however, decreased from 116,274 in 2024 to 109,002 in 2025. 307,117 Catholics formally left the Church in Germany in 2025.

The nation of 84.0 million is 59% Christian (31% Catholic) and 8% Muslim.

Ukraine’s national news agency reported that a Russian missile strike damaged the Cathedral of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Kharkiv.

“Shrapnel damaged the church’s windows, as well as the surrounding area and premises,” the Ukrainian Greek Catholic cathedral stated in a social media post.

An estimated 160,000 faithful took part in the triennial pilgrimage congress at the Marian shrine of La Vang in central Vietnam.

“On the pilgrimage to La Vang, we do not carry bulky luggage, yet the spiritual baggage we bear is immense which comprises the joys and sorrows of life,” Archbishop Joseph Nguyễn Năng of Hồ Chí Minh City (Saigon) said on August 13, the first day of the three-day pilgrimage. “We come to Our Lady so that she may lead us to Jesus.”

The Archdiocese of San Antonio announced the excommunication and laicization of Father John Mary Foster, a priest ordained in 1987 and incardinated into the archdiocese in 2009.

Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller, M.Sp.S., announced on August 14 that Foster was found guilty of the canonical crime of schism (Canon 751), which entails automatic excommunication (Canon 1364). Archbishop García-Siller wrote:

Mr. Foster has chosen to reject the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church by his words and actions. He has publicly referred to Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV as “usurpers”. ln publishing messages allegedly received from God, Jesus, and the Blessed Mother by a member of the Mission of Divine Mercy, for which John Mary Foster serves as the de facto leader, he has repeatedly and consistently claimed that Pope Leo XIV “is also a usurper and not a true pope“.

Despite being offered countless opportunities to repent and to cease his schismatic actions and teachings, Mr. Foster has chosen the path of disobedience. I have prohibited him from publicly celebrating Mass, yet he continues to do so. When he does, he intentionally omits the name of Pope Leo XIV, as he did with Pope Francis, from the Eucharistic Prayer. In doing so, he publicly manifests his separation with the Church and the successor of Saint Peter.

In an open letter to Pope Leo, a Dutch bishop argued that synodality has produced little fruit.

In an August 13 blog post, Auxiliary Bishop Robertus Mutsaertsof of ’s-Hertogenbosch said that “ultimately, the Catholic Church has no need for a permanent synod about itself. It needs saints.”

The 68-year-old prelate added:

The Church of the Martyrs did not change the Roman world by organizing listening meetings on the question of how Romans could experience the Christian community more inclusively. She proclaimed Christ.

Peter proclaimed Christ. Paul proclaimed Christ. Francis proclaimed Christ. Dominic proclaimed Christ. Francis Xavier proclaimed Christ. John Mary Vianney proclaimed Christ. Mother Teresa proclaimed Christ. John Paul II proclaimed Christ.

They undoubtedly listened to people. But listening was never the endpoint. The endpoint was conversion to Christ.

The bishops of Zambia decried the suspension of vote counting following the August 13 general election.

“While we acknowledge that the Commission has since indicated that counting has resumed under heightened security, the very fact that such a suspension was made a day after Zambians went to the polls is a matter that should trouble every citizen of goodwill,” the bishops said in an August 16 statement. “Every day of unexplained delay erodes public confidence and gives room to those who would seek to manipulate or discredit the outcome.”

The prelates concluded:

We remind all, the Electoral Commission, security agencies, political parties and citizens alike, that the will of the Zambian people, freely expressed at the ballot box, must be respected and protected. Zambia’s peace has been hard-won and long treasured; it must not be sacrificed on the altar of political ambition, on any side.

May God bless Zambia and grant her a just, transparent and peaceful conclusion to this electoral process, through the intercession of the Archangels, Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, Patron Saints of our Country.

Located in southern Africa, the nation of 21.4 million (map) is 87% Christian (44% Catholic), 10% ethnic religionist, and 2% Baháʼí.

The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church paid tribute to Ukrainian nationalist leader Yevhen Konovalets (1891-1938), who was assassinated in the Netherlands by a Soviet agent.

Konovalets “was someone who never lost hope, even when historical circumstances—particularly in the 1920s and 1930s—seemed to have put an end to the Ukrainians’ struggle for an independent, free, and united Ukrainian state,” Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk preached yesterday at the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in Kyiv, upon the repatriation of Konovalets’s remains to Ukraine.

“And today, as we pray for his eternal rest, asking the Lord God for forgiveness of his sins and transgressions and for God’s boundless mercy, we are called, together with you, to once again heed the voice of history as a teacher of life,” he added.

Bishop Krzysztof Wętkowski of Włocławek, Poland, blessed Europe’s tallest statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary on August 15 in Konotopie, a small rural village.

“Our Lady of Mercy is meant to remind us of God,” Bishop Wętkowski said at the blessing of the statue, which is over 180 feet tall. “In this image, Mary welcomes us all, bending toward us and opening her arms, inviting us to raise our eyes upward, toward God and toward heaven.”

The world’s tallest Marian statue is Mother of All Asia – Tower of Peace in Batangas City, Philippines; that statue is 322 feet tall.

A severe earthquake struck north-central Flores on August 15. A 2024 article in L’Osservatore Romano described the Indonesian island as the “promised land for vocations.”

Twenty-seven seminarians of the Society of the Divine Word made their perpetual vows outdoors after their seminary chapel was damaged in the earthquake.