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Pope Francis will visit the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan in July. The Vatican announced on Thursday that the pope will spend July 2-5 in the Congolese cities of Kinshasa and Goma, and July 5-7 in the South Sudanese capital Juba. Pope Francis will become the first pope to visit South Sudan, which declared independence in 2011, and is about 37% Catholic. The Democratic Republic of the Congo has around 90 million people, roughly half of whom are Catholic.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/250555/pope-francis-to-visit-democratic-republic-of-congo-and-south-sudan-in-july
The president of Poland’s Catholic bishops’ conference has urged the head of the Russian Orthodox Church to ask President Vladimir Putin to stop the war in Ukraine. In a strongly worded letter dated March 2, Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki told Patriarch Kirill of Moscow that Putin could “stop the suffering of thousands of people with one word.” Patriarch Kirill, who is believed to be close to Putin, has led the Russian Orthodox Church since 2009.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/250554/polish-catholic-archbishop-to-russian-orthodox-leader-please-ask-putin-to-stop-ukraine-war
A suspected cyberattack knocked out an online rosary for peace in Ukraine, being prayed by San Francisco archbishop Salvatore Cordileone. A suspiciously large surge of requests to access the event temporarily knocked the archdiocese's website offline, consistent with a method of cyber attacking called Distributed Denial of Service. Cordileone’s rosary for peace followed the lead of Pope Francis who called for prayer and fasting for peace in Ukraine on Ash Wednesday.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/250553/cyberattack-archbishop-cordileones-rosary-for-ukraine
Today, the Church celebrates the feast of Saint Katharine Drexel, a Philadelphia heiress who abandoned her family’s fortune to found an order of sisters dedicated to serving the impoverished African American and Native American populations of the United States.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint/st-katharine-drexel-166