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President Joe Biden and his wife Jill will meet with Pope Francis on October 29th at the Vatican. The White House confirmed the visit today. This will be Biden’s first meeting with the pope during his presidency. Biden previously met with Pope Francis in 2016, as vice president. He also spoke on the phone with Pope Francis last year, when the pope congratulated him on his election as president.
The Supreme Court heard arguments this week about whether or not to reinstate a federal death sentence for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Tsarnaev was sentenced to death in 2015, but a three-judge panel of the First Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the sentence in 2020. The panel unanimously found that he had not received a fair trial.
A prominent Anglican bishop has entered into full communion with the Catholic Church. The Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali was once considered a potential future Archbishop of Canterbury. He reportedly could be ordained as a Catholic priest as early as the end of the month, within the ordinariate. Benedict XVI created the ordinariate in 2011 for former Anglicans wishing to preserve elements of their patrimony.
Three seminarians abducted from their seminary in central Nigeria this week have been released. Bandits abducted the seminarians Monday evening, and injured six other seminarians. Kidnappings of Christians in Nigeria have become more common in recent years.
Today, the Church remembers Pope Callistus I. Not much is certain about Pope Callistus’ life. He was martyred in 222 by an anti-Christian mob.