An Ecumenical Ministry in the Parish of St Patrick's Catholic Church In San Diego USA

Established in 1921 & Served by Augustinians

米国サンディエゴの聖パトリックカトリック教会教区におけるエキュメニカル宣教

1921年創立、アウグスティノ会が運営

Jesus was political and so are we ~ how christians vote matters

Our Mission: to see the baptized who live in SoNoGo worship in SoNoGo

Tuesday, October 13, 2026

Voter empowerment is an extension of my pastoral platform

By Patrick B. Reyes

Being a good ancestor means living a life that leaves a better world with less suffering and harm, an educator says in a new book.

By April Yamasaki

Reading together as a congregation helps us remember what we believe, a pastor writes.

Q&A with Earle J. Fisher

Souls to the Polls efforts by Black churches have gotten attention, but the work has always been more than that, says a pastor, educator and activist.

Photos by Carol Guzy

Award-winning photographer Carol Guzy has spent months in Ohio documenting the toll that policy changes and deportation have taken on Haitian immigrants and the communities that they are a part of. 

By Audrey Warren and Kenneth H. Carter Jr.

These mainline anchor institutions have been somewhat insulated from financial stress, but that is changing fast. Historic downtown churches need to think differently about stewardship in a new age, write a bishop and pastor.

By Courtney Thomas

After the murder of Botham Jean, Dallas ministers created an organization that brings Black and white congregations together to build relationships and work for justice.

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Catholics on Hasan firing squad must ask to be excused

Pope Leo enters Gemelli Hospital today for lung surgery

Pope Leo XIV is to be admitted to Rome’s Gemelli Hospital late this morning, Rome time, for surgery to remove a small, localized lung nodule. A Prefecture of the Papal Household notice says all his audiences are canceled through Tuesday, Oct. 20, and press office director Matteo Bruni said the nodule was found in routine checks and the stay should last about a week. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who spoke with Leo Monday afternoon, said, “We were all struck by his serenity”; Cardinal Isao Kikuchi, who met him Monday, told La Repubblica that Leo chose prompt treatment so as not to cancel planned trips abroad. Cardinal Baldassare Reina will lead a Rosary for the pope at 6 p.m. Rome time (noon ET) in the hospital’s St. John Paul II Chapel, broadcast by Vatican Media, and in Washington, Cardinal Robert McElroy has asked every priest of the archdiocese to say a Mass for his recovery. Vatican News says he will be operated on today; Tuesday’s Holy See bulletin carried no medical update; as of 6:35 a.m. ET no time for the operation had been announced. — Vatican News · Holy See Press Office (Papal Household notice) · National Catholic Reporter (Justin McLellan) · America (Gerard O’Connell) · Crux (Nicole Winfield / AP) · Also: What to know (RNS, Claire Giangravè) · Rosary and prayers (Vatican News) · A lung specialist explains the surgery (NCR, Camillo Barone) · Parolin (Vatican News) · Kikuchi (DOMRADIO.DE [DE])

Leo hands Amoris closing Mass to Tagle, asks to see final report first

Leo hands Wednesday’s Amoris Laetitia closing Mass to Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle and asks that the meeting’s final report wait until he can respond. Cardinals Kevin Farrell and Mario Grech said the synthesis report will not be published as planned; Leo will review it, the group reports, and the interventions once he has recovered, and Fr. Giacomo Costa said the pope wants to offer his own reflections. The Mass will include prayers for his health, and participants sent Leo a message promising prayers for a speedy recovery. Monday’s sessions on families’ fragilities took up divorced and remarried Catholics, among other issues, and Cardinal Joseph Tobin, attending as Leo’s personal invitee, said the Church has moved since Amoris “in some places; in others, not so much.” In a new video, Where Peter Is writer Pedro Gabriel, author of The Orthodoxy of Amoris Laetitia, examines what Leo has actually said about the exhortation and its eighth chapter, and what the meeting suggests about its future. — America (Colleen Dulle) · Vatican News · Monday’s briefing (Vatican News) · Participants’ message (Vatican News [IT]) · Video: “Leo XIV and Amoris Laetitia: What’s Really Happening?” (Pedro Gabriel; Oct. 12)

Military archbishop: Catholics on Hasan firing squad must ask to be excused

The U.S. military archbishop says Catholics assigned to Nidal Hasan’s firing squad must ask to be excused. “As I would in the case of a procured abortion, I oblige any Catholics assigned to the firing squad to request to be excused from this action contrary to the teaching of the Church,” Archbishop Timothy Broglio said Monday. Broglio, who preached at the funeral of the only civilian killed in the 2009 Fort Hood attack, joined the Texas bishops’ statement and asked whether broadcasting “the execution of a man in a wheel chair to the whole world” serves any purpose. Cardinal Blase Cupich called the planned broadcast “nothing short of performative barbarism.” Cardinal Parolin said Friday that a Holy See statement on the livestream plan would follow; as of 6:35 a.m. ET Tuesday, none had been released. — Archdiocese for the Military Services · Crux (AP) · Archdiocese of Chicago (Cupich) · Also: Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops · National Catholic Reporter (Jack Jenkins, RNS)

Pope and Holy See

  • The day before entering the hospital, Leo urged Rome’s Circolo San Pietro to let charity be “the source of your prayer, the soul of your action.” Receiving the association, founded in 1869 to serve Rome’s poor through soup kitchens, night shelters, and housing for families, Leo said its motto of prayer, action, and sacrifice comes together in charity, quoted St. Augustine on true sacrifice, and thanked members for their Peter’s Pence offering. — Vatican News · Full text (Holy See Press Office)
  • [ES] Leo opens a Guadalupan jubilee year, urging Mexico’s Catholics to intensify their evangelizing mission. In a message signed by Cardinal Parolin and read Monday at Mass in Mexico City marking 50 years since the consecration of the new Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Leo asked that the Word of God, the sacraments, prayer, and fraternal charity reach everyone, especially those most in need. The jubilee, with a plenary indulgence for pilgrims, runs through Oct. 12, 2027; the Mass also included prayers for the pope’s health. — Vatican News · Vatican News ([IT])
  • Cardinal Michael Czerny is the first recipient of the Pope Leo XIV Sustainability Medal. Before his hospitalization, Leo was set to present the new biennial award, created by his alma mater, Villanova University, today at Borgo Laudato Si’ in Castel Gandolfo. NCR’s Brian Roewe uses the occasion to look at the environmental record Leo brought to the papacy and the emphases he has added since. — National Catholic Reporter (Brian Roewe)
  • Archbishop Paul Gallagher: displaced children must be welcomed, not merely assisted. Celebrating Mass in Geneva for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, the Holy See’s foreign minister said the response to displaced children must recognize their dignity and give them a real sense of belonging. — Vatican News
  • [IT] Leo names bishops in Brazil and Guatemala. Bishop Francisco Cota de Oliveira moves from Sete Lagoas to Itabira-Fabriciano, Brazil, and Bishop Miguel Ángel Martínez Méndez, apostolic vicar of Izabal, becomes coadjutor bishop of Huehuetenango, Guatemala. — Holy See Press Office

United States

  • [DE] Is the U.S. Church splitting along political lines? Where Peter Is editor Mike Lewis tells DOMRADIO.DE the picture is overstated. Arne Conrad tests a Washington Post claim that bishops are moving left under Leo while the pews and young priests move right. Lewis says the bishops’ advocacy for migrants long predates Leo, who has helped them speak with more unity, though most have not moved left; that Catholic voters largely mirror the country; and that younger priests’ conservatism is mostly a generational shift. He sees political conflict, not a formal schism. — DOMRADIO.DE (Arne Conrad; Oct. 5)
  • An Iowa bishop intervenes to try to stop an Ivory Coast woman’s deportation. Bishop Dennis Walsh of Davenport wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin calling the planned deportation of Fatou Traore, 43, to Sierra Leone a “grave violation of her human dignity.” Walsh said it is the only time he has stepped into an individual case. — National Catholic Reporter (Fiona André, RNS)
  • St. Joseph sisters back the St. Louis Archdiocese’s lawsuit over sacraments for ICE detainees. The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, St. Louis Province, are standing with the archdiocese, Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski, and a pastor who visits the Ste. Genevieve County Detention Center in their Oct. 5 suit seeking access to the sacraments for detained Catholics. — Global Sisters Report

Around the World

  • In El Salvador, sisters and laywomen are putting synodality into practice themselves. Through “New Women and Synodality” gatherings organized by the country’s conference of religious, women study biblical women and share their hopes for leadership in the Church. Asked whether the synod has helped the Salvadoran Church walk together with women, Sr. Ivania Blandón Montenegro said, “No, but it’s never too late to start.” — Global Sisters Report (Rhina Guidos)
  • After Panama’s 7.7-magnitude earthquake, the bishops ask parishes to become “true homes with open doors.” At least 13 churches were damaged, and the colonial-era Church of San Atanasio in La Villa de Los Santos, a national heritage site since 1938, collapsed. Officials reported no deaths. — Vatican News · Crux (AP)

Liturgy and Church Life

  • Gareth Thomas Weaver: Forty-nine pilgrims, nine of them donkeys, on the Camino Primitivo. In part two of his Where Peter Is series, Weaver walks with an Andalusian donkey caravan to Santiago de Compostela, finds himself among Chaucer’s Canterbury pilgrims, and reflects with T.S. Eliot on a Catholic journey made in community. — Where Peter Is (Gareth Thomas Weaver; Oct. 12) · Part one
  • A new documentary on St. Peter’s tomb features Pope Leo and Chris Pratt. Pétros ení, directed by Paula Ortiz and written by Andrea Tornielli for the 400th anniversary of St. Peter’s Basilica’s consecration, previews Oct. 16 at the Rome Film Festival. — Vatican News

Commentary

  • Opinion: Karen Swallow Prior on why Christianity teaches us not to turn executions into entertainment. Drawing on England’s “Bloody Code,” Wilberforce’s reforms, and Augustine’s account of the gladiator games, she argues that public executions degrade the citizens who watch and that a return to them would mark “a retreat from the rule of law toward the tyranny of spectacle.” — Religion News Service (Karen Swallow Prior)
  • [FR] Opinion: Ten years after Amoris Laetitia, “fragility is not the exception; it is the rule of every family.” Francesco Pesce argues that the Church has moved from speaking of regular and irregular situations to recognizing that every family lives with fragility, a shift built on listening and conscience that Leo’s anniversary message makes explicit. — La Croix (Francesco Pesce)
  • [IT] Opinion: Leo XIV’s illness and our sense of being lost. Riccardo Cristiano reflects on why news of the pope’s surgery unsettled so many, at a moment when Leo has come to seem like an anchor amid the storms of the times. — SettimanaNews (Riccardo Cristiano)

Also today

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Archbishop Hicks recounts pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela

Doctors comment on the pontiff’s news about his upcoming lung surgery.
A survey of nearly 2,000 Australian Catholics found many still pray and value their faith, while priorities, faith crises, and problems with clergy keep them from Mass.
Prayers for the pope’s health have been pouring in from all over the world.
Pope Leo XIV will have surgery at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital early this week to remove a small lung nodule found at a very early stage. Follow updates and reactions here.
In his pilgrim’s Mass homily, Hicks recalled that “Our Lady of the Pillar wants only one thing from us. She wants us to know her Son and to find salvation through, in, and with her Son Jesus Christ.”
“Lead Kindly Light: The Story of St. John Henry Newman” has premiered in Rome.
She said that she was “approximately 20, 30 minutes away from being aborted” when her mother changed her mind.
The platform and name are new, but the mission is the same: report the truth and bring the faith to the Spanish-speaking world.
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What does it mean to follow Jesus in a divided America?

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Pope Leo XIV to undergo lung surgery this week

Christian nationalism in Britain driven by people who seldom go to church, says report
The Guardian: Research challenges the notion that the growing visibility of crosses and other symbols reflects a revival of Christianity

 

Lower East Side parishioners mourn loss of ‘spiritual home’*
The New York Times: As the temporary closure of Most Holy Redeemer Church stretches on, congregants fear it will suffer the same fate as other shuttered houses of worship.

 

As Ken Paxton attacks James Talarico on faith, his church remains a mystery
The Houston Chronicle: Faith is more central to this year’s Senate race than perhaps any in recent memory. Paxton’s Democratic opponent, James Talarico, is a seminarian who openly talks about his Christian beliefs.

 

Pope Leo XIV to undergo lung surgery this week
NPR: The nodule was found at a “very early stage” with doctors recommending surgery.

 

Joe Rogan hosted a Mormon who debunks biblical literalism. Here’s how it went.*
The Washington Post: Church experts say Dan McClellan, a scholar known for examining misinformation about the Bible, is the first practicing member of the Church of Latter-day Saints to go on Rogan’s massive platform.

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Monday, October 12, 2026

Pope Leo reminds us that the death penalty is inadmissible

Leo to undergo surgery early this week to remove a lung nodule

Leo to undergo surgery early this week to remove a lung nodule. Pope Leo XIV, who announced at Sunday’s Angelus that a small, early-stage nodule had been found in his lung, is expected to have it removed at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital in “the first days of this week,” press office director Matteo Bruni said, with about a week of recovery. Monday’s Holy See Press Office bulletin listed regular morning audiences and carried no medical update or surgery date. The Vatican has not announced changes to the Amoris closing Mass (Oct. 14) or Leo’s November trip to South America. In a YouTube short, Pedro Gabriel, a Where Peter Is writer and an oncologist, explains what a lung nodule is, what can reasonably be concluded from the announcement, and what should not be assumed without more medical information. — Vatican News · Holy See Press Office [IT] · Also: Prayers (Devin Watkins) · Crux analysis (Charles Collins) · Video: “Leo XIV Has a Lung Nodule. What Does That Mean?” (Pedro Gabriel; Oct. 11)

Pope Leo reminds us that the death penalty is inadmissible as the U.S. plans to livestream an execution

Pope Leo reminds us that the death penalty is inadmissible as the U.S. plans to livestream an execution. On Saturday, the World Day Against the Death Penalty, Pope Leo XIV posted on X: “The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person. The common good can be safeguarded and the requirements of justice can be met without recourse to capital punishment: effective systems of detention have been developed that protect citizens while at the same time do not completely deprive those who are guilty of the possibility of redemption. #NoDeathPenalty” The post came a day after the Pentagon said it would livestream the Dec. 3 firing-squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan — what would be the first U.S. public execution since the 1930s — and after a botched execution in Tennessee. Cardinal Parolin said Friday that a Holy See statement on the plan would follow; as of Monday morning it had not been released. — @Pontifex (Oct. 10) · Vatican News · Also: Where Peter Is (The Magisterium of Pope Leo; Oct. 11) · Crux (John Hanna, Deepa Bharath, Sarah Rankin / AP)

Paul Chu and V.J. Tarantino on the banality and barbarism of a livestreamed execution

Paul Chu and V.J. Tarantino on the banality and barbarism of a livestreamed execution. In a co-written Where Peter Is essay, Chu and Tarantino argue that capital punishment presented as a cold, contractual equation — Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry calls it “a contract between the victims’ families and the state” — echoes Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil by depersonalizing everyone involved, and they cite research and victims’ relatives who found that executions bring little closure. They see something darker in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s plan to livestream Nidal Hasan’s execution at Fort Hood, on a Thursday at 1 p.m. to mirror the 2009 attack: a spectacle of vengeance that invites Americans into complicity with state violence and, presented as Christianity, risks driving people away from the faith. — Where Peter Is (Paul Chu and V.J. Tarantino; Oct. 10)

Rodrigo Guerra on Oct. 12: rediscovering America without erasing its wounds

Rodrigo Guerra on Oct. 12: rediscovering America without erasing its wounds. In a Columbus Day column now translated by Where Peter Is, Rodrigo Guerra López, secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, asks whether America was discovered, concealed, or invented. He acknowledges that the conquest brought violence, dispossession, and grave injustice to Indigenous peoples, and cites the Vatican’s 2023 repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery. He also points to fruitful encounters, mestizaje, and defenders of Indigenous peoples, and argues that authentic reconciliation requires truth, memory, and reparation. — Where Peter Is (Rodrigo Guerra; Oct. 12) · Original Spanish: El Heraldo de México · Background: 2023 Vatican statement on the Doctrine of Discovery

Leo thanks Cardinal Re as he steps down as dean of the College of Cardinals

[IT] Leo thanks Cardinal Re as he steps down as dean of the College of Cardinals. In a letter dated Oct. 11 and released Monday, Leo thanked Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, now dean emeritus, for more than six years as dean, calling his service “an edifying witness of love for the Church and the Pope.” Leo recalled Re’s Curia career under St. John Paul II — assessor, secretary of the Congregation for Bishops, substitute of the Secretariat of State, and then prefect for bishops — and his presiding role at Pope Francis’s funeral. The letter follows the election of Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle as dean last week. — Holy See Press Office (full text, Italian; our translation)

Chicago dedicates the first U.S. archdiocesan suicide memorial

Chicago dedicates the first U.S. archdiocesan suicide memorial. The Archdiocese of Chicago’s “At Peace” memorial at Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Hillside, Ill., honors lives lost to suicide and their families and is dedicated to Fr. Charles Rubey, who founded Catholic Charities’ LOSS program in 1979. Rubey recalls priests once telling grieving relatives their loved ones were in hell; the memorial, he says, marks “a complete turnaround.” — National Catholic Reporter (AP) · America

El Salvador’s bishops ask Leo to declare St. Óscar Romero a Doctor of the Church

[ES] El Salvador’s bishops ask Leo to declare St. Óscar Romero a Doctor of the Church. During their September ad limina visit, the Salvadoran bishops also invited the pope to pray at Romero’s tomb. Archbishop José Luis Escobar Alas said Leo received both requests with “a very positive and welcoming attitude” but noted that they need consultation and discernment; the bishops gave him a first-class relic, and Escobar said Leo already carries a holy card and third-class relic of Romero for daily prayer. — Religión Digital (Oct. 6)

Pope and Holy See

  • [IT] Amoris Laetitia meeting: briefing today on families in difficulty. After a free Sunday, sessions resume Monday on accompanying families in difficulty (Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David; Prof. Julie Hanlon Rubio). The 1:30 p.m. Rome briefing (7:30 a.m. ET, streamed on Vatican News’s YouTube channel) features Fr. Giacomo Costa, SJ, Cardinal Gérald Lacroix, Bishop Josef Nuzík, Sr. Ester Lucas José Maria, Prof. Claudia Leal Luna, and families from Gabon and Lebanon; the meeting runs through Oct. 14. — Holy See Press Office · Earlier: America on migration in the first days
  • [IT] Monday’s audiences include Archbishop Broglio and Caritas Internationalis. Leo received Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services; Cardinal Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi, SVD, president of Caritas Internationalis, with Secretary General Alistair Dutton; Bishop Carlos Enrique Herrera Gutiérrez, OFM, president of Nicaragua’s bishops’ conference; Archbishop Jorge Eduardo Lozano of San Juan de Cuyo, Argentina; nuncios Martin Krebs (Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Monaco) and Michael Crotty (Nigeria); and members of the Circolo San Pietro. — Holy See Press Office
  • [IT] Houston pastor named Maronite bishop for Mexico; new archbishop in Santo Domingo. Leo named Fr. Milad Yaghi, ML, founding pastor of Our Lady of the Cedars Parish in Houston since 1991 and private secretary to the Maronite bishop of Los Angeles since 2013, as bishop of the Maronite Eparchy of Our Lady of the Martyrs of Lebanon in Mexico. In the Dominican Republic, he accepted the resignation of Archbishop Francisco Ozoria Acosta of Santo Domingo; Coadjutor Archbishop Carlos Tomás Morel Diplán succeeds him and also becomes the country’s military ordinary. — Holy See Press Office
  • Bishops from violence-stricken countries stress mental health ministry. Speaking at a Rome gathering tied to Leo’s October prayer intention, bishops from conflict zones said listening and accompaniment are essential pastoral work where trauma is widespread. — Vatican News

United States

  • Analysis: How Pope Leo uses being an American to his advantage. In a new biography, American Pope, NPR’s Daniel Burke and Scott Detrow trace Robert Prevost from Chicago’s South Side through Peru to the papacy; speaking to NCR, they say the first American pope has turned conventional wisdom on its head — including by invoking “fake news” when weighing AI risks. — National Catholic Reporter

Indigenous Peoples’ Day

  • Holy See at the UN: Indigenous rights are “a matter of justice and of the common good.” Archbishop Christophe El Kassis, the Holy See’s permanent observer, told the General Assembly’s Third Committee that Indigenous peoples “form an indispensable part of the human family,” marked the 20th anniversary of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and called for “recognition of past wounds, commitment to reconciliation.” — Vatican News (Oct. 8)
  • Philippine bishops: the energy transition must not trample Indigenous lands. For Indigenous Peoples Sunday (Oct. 11), the bishops’ Indigenous Peoples commission warned that demand for critical minerals “must not become another justification for displacement” and called for genuine free, prior, and informed consent. — LiCAS.news (Oct. 12)

Liturgy and Church Life

  • Today: Our Lady of Aparecida, patroness of Brazil. Vatican News’s saints calendar for Oct. 12 leads with the feast of Our Lady of Aparecida; the page also lists St. Edistus and St. Seraphin of Montegranaro. — Vatican News
  • Msgr. Arthur Holquin: concomitance is a floor, not a ceiling, on the chalice. Part II of his Eucharist essays weighs new Orange and Fort Worth norms that withhold the Precious Blood at ordinary Sunday Masses, arguing from Thomas and the GIRM that Communion under both kinds is the fuller sign and that poor catechesis is not cured by a poorer sign. — Liturgy and Truth (Msgr. Arthur Holquin; Oct. 11)

Video and Podcasts

  • Paul Fahey (WPI co-founder): Tony Annett on socialism and Catholic social thought. New Catholic Third Space conversation (episode 49). — Catholic Third Space (Paul Fahey; Oct. 12)

Commentary

  • Opinion: Sam Sawyer, S.J., on livestreaming an execution and the American conscience. America’s editor argues Hegseth’s plan treats the condemned as a vehicle for displaying state violence and invites viewers to answer “Don’t care” when asked to see him as a person. — America (Sam Sawyer, S.J.)
  • Opinion: “Pete Hegseth would like you to watch a public execution.” An NCR guest essay condemns the livestream plan as spectacle. — National Catholic Reporter

Also today

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