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President Joe Biden’s attendance at early morning Mass with Pope Francis was nixed from an early plan for the first meeting of both leaders. A reliable Vatican source told CNA the Vatican nixed the Mass from a meeting proposal, after considering the impact that Biden receiving Holy Communion from the pope would have on the discussions US bishops will have at their Spring Meeting this week. Bishops will vote on creating a committee that would draft a document about Eucharistic coherence.
First Nation leaders are encouraging Canadian Catholics to skip Mass, in response to historic abuses at Catholic-run schools for Indigenous children. The remains of 215 Indigenous children were recently discovered in unmarked graves, at the site of a former Catholic-run boarding school in British Columbia. Since the discovery, there have been demands for Pope Francis to issue a formal apology. Cardinal Thomas Collins of Toronto said that a formal papal apology would require a papal trip to Canada, involving significant logistical difficulties.
A record number of abortions took place in England and Wales in 2020, according to new statistics. The figures, released June 10, showed that there were 210,860 abortions last year. That’s the highest number since the Abortion Act 1967 was introduced. A pro-life group said that the figure marked “a devastating surge” in abortions, after the government allowed women in England to complete medical abortions at home, in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Archdiocese of Paris launched a multimillion-dollar appeal Monday to restore the interior of Notre-Dame Cathedral, following the devastating fire in 2019. The archbishop of Paris hopes to reopen the cathedral in 2024.
Today, the Church celebrates the feast of Saint Germaine Cousin. Germaine was a simple, pious girl, who lived in France in the late 1500s. She was born with a deformed right arm. She died at the age of 22. She was incorrupt.