Catholic Nutshell News: Tuesday 8/19/25
Topics include: Soldiers in Sudan disrupt pastoral visit; Deportation hoped for Jimmy Lai; Gaza parish not told to evacuate; & UK young adults’ belief is growing
“I’ll pray for thee from my pistachio tree”
Today's sources are the National Catholic Register, CNA, The CatholicVote, CRUX, The Pillar, OSV, Big Pulpit, and MOM. (Catholic Nutshell is a subscription service for faithful, hopeful, & curious Catholics willing to exercise the Catholic News Muscle)
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ACI Africa
Soldiers in South Sudanese Catholic diocese disrupt pastoral visit
By Agenzia Fides reporter, August 18, 2021
According to Sudans Post, the August 16 “heavy fighting” between SPLM-IO forces and those of SSPDF in Yei River County resulted in the death of “at least 17 soldiers”. Bishop Alex Lodiong Sakor Eyobo recounts the immediate effects of the clash and decries renewed violence in South Sudan’s Central Equatoria State, saying armed confrontations only deepen the suffering of civilians, including women and children. “We were there in the church, and all of a sudden we saw people running, of course for safety, and out of panic, to the church, and others went deep into the bushes,” Bishop Lodiong says in his audio recording. He recalls the impact on families, saying there were testimonies of “children of five years or less entering into those bushes in order to hide. Imagine that.”
Related: ‘Stop sending Colombian mercenaries to fight in Sudan’, Agenzia Fides, By Agenzia Fides reporter, August 12, 2021
The Pillar
Supporters hope for deportation as trial of Jimmy Lai nears end
By The Pillar, August 18, 2025
A Hong Kong court heard final arguments Monday in the trial against the jailed Catholic publisher Jimmy Lai, with prosecutors saying Lai’s international connections proved his “unwavering intent” to bring international sanctions against China and Hong Kong. Lai, who has been in prison since 2020, is accused of colluding with foreign powers and publishing seditious materials under Beijing’s controversial National Security Law, imposed in Hong Kong in 2020. If convicted, Lai faces life in prison. However, the publisher’s former senior executive and close friend told The Pillar that a conviction seems inevitable, and those close to Lai hope it could clear the way for his eventual release from prison and deportation. Lai founded Apple Daily in 1995, a news publication which became particularly critical of Hong Kong’s government in the wake of a controversial 2019 bill to extradite locals to the mainland for trial in political cases.
Vatican News Service
Correction: Gaza parish area NOT under evacuation order
By Vatican News, August 19, 2025
“There has been NO order of evacuation in this area of our neighborhood. Our area is in the Old City of Gaza, within the larger neighborhood of Zeytoun.” Fr. Gabriel Romanelli, IVE, parish priest of the Holy Family Parish in Gaza, made that declaration to Vatican Media on Tuesday, August 19. Reports a day earlier said the parish was ordered to evacuate. “The area is dangerous. Bombings can be heard night and day. Some far away, others closer. At times, even shrapnel arrives,” said Fr. Romanelli. “Unfortunately, the war continues. And, with the war, every day more dead, wounded, and destruction are added... and the needs of every kind for the entire civilian population of Gaza grow,” he continued. “We are well, thanks be to God,” concluded Fr. Romanelli. “We continue to pray for peace.” Several hundred people have taken refuge at the only Catholic Church in Gaza since the outbreak of the war on October 7, 2023.
CatholicVote
Polls suggest UK young adults’ belief in a higher power is growing
By Hannah Hiester, August 18, 2025
UK young adults’ belief in the existence of a higher power has more than doubled in four years, correlating with an uptick in church attendance, according to a YouGov biannual tracker. The tracker found that 37% of adults aged 18-24 said in August 2025 that they believe there is a God or that “there are Gods.” In August 2021, only 16% in the same age group said the same thing. Young adults are also the most likely age group to believe in a god. GB News noted that church attendance has increased in the UK between 2018 and 2024, as per the most recent YouGov data on attendance. According to GB News, monthly church attendance saw 56% growth in that period, going from 8% of UK adults in 2018 to 12% in 2024.
National Catholic Register
Another little life saved by a ‘Baby Box,’ This time in Missouri
By Jonah McKeown, August 18, 2025
On a recent sweltering Sunday afternoon in suburban Mehlville, Missouri, a group of firefighters was jolted into action by an alarm. Rushing to the metal box built into the station’s wall, the firefighters looked inside ... and found a tiny baby girl. Within minutes, the men had the newborn in their arms. The child’s mother was nowhere to be seen. The newborn baby girl recovered safely from the baby box at a fire station in suburban St. Louis earlier this month, marking the second instance of a child being surrendered and rescued there since that box was installed in 2023. Resembling a wall-mounted safe on the outside of a building, a baby box allows a mother to anonymously and permanently surrender her newborn by placing the baby into a bassinet in the climate-controlled box and shutting the door. This locks the door from the outside and activates a silent alarm that alerts first responders.
Catholic News Agency
Patriarch of Jerusalem: Satan wants to rule where Jesus lived
By Eduardo Berdejo, August 18, 2025
The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, recalled in his homily the importance of the Holy Land for Christians and for humanity, as the region where Mary said yes to God’s will and where Christ was born. It is also the place where the Lord defeated sin with his resurrection. Christians should be aware that “the power of evil will continue to be present in the life of the world and in our own lives,” he said, but this does not mean resignation, since the solemnity of the Assumption “also tells us that there is someone before whom evil is powerless.” He added, “Evil will continue to express itself, but we will be the place, the presence that the dragon cannot overcome: a seed of life.”
CRUX
Gaza destruction: ‘There must be a better way’
By Charles Collins, August 18, 2025
He said Israel’s attacks in Gaza are “disproportionate violence” and noted an Irish bishops’ statement described as “unconscionable… and immoral for world leaders to stand by inactively.” “The ongoing suffering of hostages held by Hamas and the cruel withholding of their remains from their families is also acknowledged and unequivocally condemned. In the face of such darkness, this call to prayer is a call to hope,” the archbishop said. His remarks were similar to those made by Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster in England earlier this month. “I weep for the people of Gaza as they face not just a continuation of their immense suffering but an escalation in their hardship and desperation,” he said on Aug. 9. “There must be a better way, one that does not heap yet further suffering and misery on so many people who are not combatants but defenseless in face of the perpetrators of violence in their midst.”
Our Sunday Visitor
Colorado teen died saving others — is he a future saint?
By Simone Orendain, August 15, 2025
The bishop of Colorado Springs, Colorado, James R. Golka, announced in late July his office would “study and discern” the “massive undertaking” of determining whether to open a sainthood cause for a teenager who was killed after he tackled the shooter during a school shooting incident six years ago in suburban Denver. Eighteen-year-old Kendrick Castillo was the only student who died in the STEM School Highlands Ranch shooting on May 7, 2019, that left eight students injured. Because of his actions, no other students lost their lives in the shooting, according to local officials. Two students, 16-year-old Alec McKinney and 18-year-old Devon Erickson, were convicted on dozens of charges for carrying out the shooting and sentenced to life imprisonment. Months after Kendrick’s death, the Knights of Columbus conferred honorary membership on him and gave his parents a Caritas Medal, their second-highest honor.
From Pulpit & Agency to Wit for 8/19/25
BIG PULPIT
Tito Edwards Catholic blogger site: August 19, 2025
The Big Pulpit website is an intelligent news aggregator offering quality insight & analysis on the Catholic Church worldwide. Here are Chief Editor Tito Edward’s top recommendations for today.
A Major Announcement from Life Site News CEO John-Henry Westen – Sign of the Cross Media
Pope Leo XIV’s 20th Sunday In Time Mass & Clear & Coherent Homily. . . – Fr. Allan J. McDonald
Coming Out In The Vatican: A Homosexual Theocracy – Beth Callaway at Fortis Esperitas
Vatican Backs Bishop Expelling TLM Community from New Zealand – Sign of the Cross Media
Catholic News Agency
CNA’s top headlines — August 19, 2025
The Catholic News Agency provides reliable, free, and up-to-the-minute news affecting the Universal Church, emphasizing the words of the Holy Father and the happenings of the Holy See to anyone with internet access.
Report: Taliban law erases religious freedom, targets women and religious minorities - Aug 18, 2025 - By Madalaine Elhabbal - The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has released a report examining the decline in religious liberty in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
Detroit ICE meets with Catholic aid group, Democrat lawmaker to discuss deportations - Aug 18, 2025 - By Tyler Arnold - Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Detroit Field Office met with a Catholic migrant group and a Democratic lawmaker to discuss concerns.
Catholic influencer admits to inappropriately messaging several women - Aug 18, 2025 - By Francesca Pollio Fenton - One month after facing several allegations, Catholic influencer Alex Jurado, in a video message shared to his YouTube channel, admitted to inappropriately messaging women.
Wit from the Archives
Flannery O’Connor shared her faith through fiction
By Russell Shaw / Catholic Review, February 2, 2024
Flannery O’Connor was not an evangelist. She was an artist, one of the most gifted American fiction writers of the 20th century. But a profoundly Catholic theological vision informs her art, giving her stories resonance and depth that sound deep — and sometimes deeply disturbing — spiritual chords. Explaining why she often wrote about grotesque characters in bizarre situations, O’Connor remarked that in an age of disbelief like this one, “You have to make your vision apparent by shock — to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures.” Another time she said, “All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it.” Then, with her characteristic mixture of ruefulness and realism, she added, “But most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless, brutal, etc.” Today, 60 years after her death, that sort of reaction to O’Connor’s fiction realizes that these are richly imagined analogies of faith flung in the face of skeptical secularism by a master storyteller.
Nutshell reflections for 8/19/25:
USCCB Daily Reflection AUDIO - August 19, 2025
Tuesday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time
Our Sunday Visitor
More children, not fewer, is the answer
By Phil Lawler, August 13, 2025
Significantly, in the world today, the lowest fertility rates are found, generally speaking, in the most affluent countries. In other words, the societies that enjoy the greatest benefits from our global economic system are the ones that seem most intent on societal suicide. With the single exception of Israel, every wealthy country is now below the replacement level—in most cases, by a substantial margin. Something different is happening in our society. Notice how the dangers of the birth dearth are expressed first in terms of how it will harm us, the older people. In the past, adults thought of themselves as links in a chain that stretched backward and forward across countless generations. No one dares to suggest that we, as a community, do not care about our children. We dote on our children. We want what is best for them. But we don’t want any more children. And paradoxically, that may be what would be best for them, and for us.
Imaginative Conservative
Light pollution may well be the anitchrist
By Columba Silva, August 17, 2025
If the claims of Christianity and the other monotheistic religions are true, why would God have created a vast universe in which humanity—so central to God’s plan in these religions—is such an insignificant part? Living in a pre-industrial age, the Psalmist saw the Milky Way every clear night. He was confronted with his insignificance compared to the immensity of the universe — the “Dark Sky Mindset.” Without recognising that there are things outside one’s self and one’s immediate surroundings, it is impossible to engage with the transcendent. Without appreciating that the universe is not simply one’s creation, a “thing” comprehended by one’s immediate, mundane experience, it is impossible to start asking: What vastly incomprehensible intelligence made this, and why? The light pollution created by modern industrialized cities fundamentally arrests this process. 80% of the world’s population lives under light-polluted skies.
Catholic Mom
St. Hildegard’s Garden: For healing body and soul
By Neena Gaynor, August 19, 2025
In the forward to St. Hildegard’s Garden: Recipes and Remedies for Healing Body and Soul by Paul Ferris, it’s noted how C.S. Lewis once pointed out that modern life is full of what he called “chronological snobbery.” In a nutshell, he was commenting on that habit we have of assuming today’s ideas are automatically better, and anything from the past must be outdated or wrong just because it’s old. The assumption goes: newer is truer, fresher is finer, and anything antique is quaint at best, dangerous at worst. Something has shifted since Lewis coined the phrase in 1955. Saint Hildegard may have something to do with it. St. Hildegard’s Garden is rich with information and inspiration: beautiful botanical illustrations with accompanying history, uses, and warnings, as well as remedies and delicious recipes. It’s more than a nod to the past; it’s a slowed gaze over a garden and gratitude for the gift of God’s creation.
Catholic Stand
Humanae Vitae: The foretelling of infidelity
By Rev. Kenneth M. Dos Santos MIC, August 19, 2025
Pope St. Paul VI’s encyclical, Humanae Vitae, foresaw a correlation between the use of artificial birth control and an increase in marital infidelity. From the beginning, the encyclical asserts, married persons are the free and responsible collaborators of God the Creator, and that the transmitting of human life is a most serious duty. Here one can see, the Sacrament of Marriage, as well as the conjugal act, has been ordained by God, through which husband and wife are united in chaste intimacy (unitive), while remaining committed and open to the transmission of life (procreative). It becomes clear that any means undertaken that is contrary to the unitive or procreative aspects of the conjugal act — that which intentionally inhibits or prevents it from accomplishing its proper end — is an offense against the law of God and nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin
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