Trump admin ramps up emergency response to Venezuelan earthquakes; Supreme Court hands Trump two immigration wins; Jesuit Refugee Services slam SCOTUS immigration decisions as ‘confounding and potentially lethal for millions’; Obama-appointed judge blocks Trump’s EO aiming to tighten rules for mail-in voting ahead of midterms; AOC’s options grow after socialist wins in New York; More than 30 Christians killed as Nigerian Church marks first anniversary of Yelwata Massacre; Bp. Barron calls out ‘dangerous’ changes made at Pontifical Academy for Life under Msgr. Paglia; National Eucharistic Pilgrimage reaches Maine before turning toward Philadelphia; Catholics celebrate 20th-century Spanish saint who said, ‘Abandonment to the will of God is the secret of happiness on earth’; and more —
Trump Admin. Ramps up Emergency Response to Venezuelan Earthquakes
The U.S. State Department detailed the Trump administration’s swift deployment of life-saving resources to help Venezuela following the two deadly earthquakes that struck the South American nation this week.
Venezuela was hit by a magnitude 7.2 some 100 miles west from the capital city of Caracas on Wednesday evening — followed by an even stronger, 7.5 earthquake mere seconds later. At press time, Venezuela authorities have risen the death toll to 235, with over 4,300 reported injured. Widespread destruction and numerous buildings and other infrastructure completely collapsed. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), however, warned that there is a high probability that the death toll could end up in the thousands or above.
President Donald Trump, in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, announced that the United States was ready to help Venezuela. The State Department is the lead agency for the U.S. government response and activated a robust coordination with the Department of War’s logistics. The department emphasized that the immediate life-saving intervention in the first hours are critical.
Read more at Breitbart; read details of US assisstance to Venezualans at US Department of State
Miami Journalist: Outdated infrastructure exacerbating destruction of earthquake, pray for Venezuelans
Watch @iamGermania; see more @Reuters
Earthquakes cause serious damage to Venezuelan seminary, churches
Violent earthquakes struck Venezuela on June 24, causing extensive loss of human life and damage to Catholic institutions.
The U.S. Geological Survey stated that there was a 95% probability that deaths exceeded 1,000, a 68% probability that deaths exceeded 10,000, and a 24% probability that deaths exceeded 100,000.
“I have just returned from a tour of several parishes,” Archbishop Raúl Biord Castillo, S.D.B., of Caracas, the nation’s capital, told Aid to the Church in Need. “Many of them have serious structural damage,” including the cathedral and a dozen other churches.
“We are without electricity and we have all been affected,” said Bishop Pablo Modesto González Pérez, S.D.B., of La Guaira. “In the seminary, many walls collapsed.”
“Thank God there have been no serious problems with the priests, although several churches have suffered significant damage,” he added.
Read more at Catholic Culture
Venezuela: ACN calls for prayers, sends support after devastating earthquakes
The international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) is calling for prayers for the people of Venezuela, after two strong earthquakes on Wednesday caused fatalities, injuries, and serious material damage, and left thousands of people afraid to return to their homes.
ACN is sending emergency and long-term aid to the Church in Venezuela, which it has long considered a priority country.
Shortly after 6 P.M. on June 24, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck. Just 39 seconds later, a second quake hit, with magnitude 7.5. Among the many buildings that were destroyed or seriously damaged were numerous churches, parish houses, and Church institutions.
At the same time, many Church institutions have opened their doors to welcome families who cannot return to their homes.
Read more at Aid to the Church in Need
Great American State Fair ‘ridin’ high in the saddle’
Watch @Freedom250; watch also @dcexaminer; see official website for Great American State Fair
See the Secret Museum under the Lincoln Memorial
Watch @Interior
Supreme Court hands Trump administration 2 immigration wins
The Supreme Court on June 25 handed the Trump administration two major immigration victories, clearing the way for officials to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for nationals of Haiti and Syria and upholding the government’s authority to turn back some asylum seekers before they physically reach U.S. soil.
In a 6-3 decision, the justices sided with the administration in its bid to terminate TPS for more than 350,000 Haitians and about 6,100 Syrians, ruling that federal courts generally lack authority to review the challenged termination decisions.
Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the conservative majority, said the TPS statute’s bar on judicial review “is clear, and its meaning is very broad.” The court also found that the challengers’ claims were unlikely to succeed. …
In a separate 6-3 ruling, the court said the government may turn back asylum seekers who remain on the Mexican side of a port of entry and have not yet entered the U.S. but attempt to request protection from U.S. officers. The decision provides the Trump administration with legal support to revive a border policy rescinded by the Biden administration.
The policy, known as “metering,” allows border officials to limit how many migrants are processed at ports of entry by directing some asylum seekers to wait in Mexico before they physically enter the U.S. The practice began in 2016 under the Obama administration in response to overcrowding at ports of entry, expanded under the first Trump administration, and was rescinded in 2021 under the Biden administration, as Zeale News previously reported.
Read more at Zeal News; see also at Just the News
More on the SCOTUS ruling ending TPS of Haitians
Watch @EricLDaugh
Ohio Bishops support TPS of Haitian immigrants, Jesuit Refugee Service weighs in
See @EricRSammons; read ‘JRS/USA Statement on Supreme Court Decisions Affecting Asylum and Temporary Protected Status’ at Jesuit Refugee Service
Obama-appointed judge blocks President Trump’s executive order aiming to tighten rules for mail-in voting
See @BillMelugin; see also @DailyCaller
NYC Socialist ‘Leader’ Is Billionaire CCP Propagandist’s Niece
As socialist candidates surge in New York and New York City, it’s worth noting that one leader of New York City’s Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) chapter is the niece of Neville Roy Singham — a propagandist for the Chinese Communist Party and ardent supporter of Maoism and socialism.
The NYC-DSA made headlines this week after candidates it endorsed won their congressional primaries. Winners included Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier, who are both DSA members, as well as Brad Lander (who was backed by Zohran Mamdani and Bernie Sanders, though he failed to receive a formal DSA endorsement).
The socialist candidates have not been shy about expressing their radicalism. Avila Chevalier said she wipes her hands on the American flag when she doesn’t have a napkin. She was part of a group while in college that sought the “total collapse of …[the] American empire itself” and said it was necessary to “undermine and eradicate America as we know it.” Valdez has called for abolishing ICE, giving amnesty to illegal aliens, and using government funds to subsidize “trans” procedures.
Another DSA-backed candidate, Aber Kawas, also won her primary for New York State Senate. In a 2017 video she said the 9/11 attacks were the result of America’s alleged capitalist, racist, white supremacist, and Islamophobic society.
Notably, Alicia Singham Goodwin, a leader of the NYC-DSA chapter who is also heavily involved with Mayor Zohran Mamdani, is the niece of a communist multimillionaire who funds Chinese propaganda.
Read more at The Federalist
AOC 2028 to represent Dems in 2028?
See @dcexaminer
Nigeria: More Than 30 Christians Killed as Church Marks First Anniversary of the Yelwata Massacre
Nigerian Christians continue to be killed and abducted in large numbers. The latest attacks came as the church commemorated the first anniversary of the Yelwata massacre, in which Fulani militants killed more than 250 people during a three-hour assault in Benue State. Photo courtesy of Paul, a local journalist.
At midnight on June 21, Kawell Village, a Christian farming community in the Mushere District of Bokkos Local Government Area, roughly 90 minutes from the Plateau State capital of Jos, came under attack. The assault lasted three hours, killing 22 people, including the village reverend and a government community healthcare worker who was killed while on duty at the clinic. A Nigerian Army formation stationed less than one kilometer away failed to respond to distress calls. Soldiers arrived two to three hours after the attackers had already left.
Yafubu Samuel Domshak, 41, youth leader of Kawell Village, had just returned from a surveillance patrol when the attack began. He heard a gunshot, woke his wife, alerted neighbors, and began making calls to confirm what was happening. Word soon came back that attackers had entered the village and were killing people.
The assault was methodical. Gunmen entered homes one by one, moving quietly between houses. At one point, they shone a torch at a house. The residents, thinking it was a Christian security patrol, flashed a light back. “Immediately they replied the light, the next thing they heard was gunshot,” Domshak said, “and that was how they killed about five people in that very house.”
The attackers then moved to the Primary Health Care clinic, where a woman had been brought in for labor. They killed the clinic attendant, the Okada motorcycle driver who had transported her, and her father-in-law, mother-in-law, and husband. The woman escaped. The village reverend was shot and killed at the church. The confirmed death toll stands at 22. One survivor, a boy who was shot, was taken to Bokkos and was responding to treatment.
Read more at the Gateway Pundit
UN envoy says Nigeria is suffering because of radical Islam, political corruption
Nazila Ghanea reports that religious freedom is being systematically suffocated in the African nation by terrorists and political leaders who are playing religion for “power, politics and wealth.”
Yaoundé: The UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Nazila Ghanea, has offered a sobering assessment of freedom of religion in Nigeria, saying that the fundamental human right to freedom of religion or belief is being systematically suffocated by the weaponization of religion.
“This official country visit focused on exploring how freedom of thought, conscience and religion (freedom of religion or belief) interacts with human rights realities on the ground throughout this vast land,” Ghanea said in her preliminary observation.
She said during meetings with various stakeholders, including federal and state authorities in Abuja, Plateau, and Kano, discussions regarding freedom of religion or belief were immediately and overwhelmingly overshadowed by acute concerns regarding widespread violence.
Nigeria has been scarred by widespread violence for decades, with terrorist organizations such as the violent Islamist militant group Boko Haram, which seeks to create a caliphate across the Sahel. Figures from the Catholic-inspired NGO, International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law, suggest that there could be as many as 22 such terrorist organizations in Nigeria.
According to the UN Rapporteur, rural communities in certain regions are enduring a devastating cycle of mass violence, killings, and arson, overwhelmingly committed with absolute impunity. Driven from their homes by these attacks, survivors are frequently forced into displacement camps where they are stripped of their livelihoods and agricultural futures.
Read more at Catholic World Report
Archbishop Paglia’s ‘Paradigm Shift’ in Moral Theology Comes Into Focus – Commentary
The former head of the John Paul II Institute says his reforms were meant to rethink natural law and replace ‘armchair theology’ with one rooted in ‘history and people’s lives.’
Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia — the former head of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Rome, as well as the former head of the Pontifical Academy for Life — recently granted an interview in which he openly admitted that one of his goals was to change the Catholic Church’s moral theology.
Archbishop Paglia said that he wanted to move away from “armchair theology” grounded in natural law theory and toward a new paradigm that focuses on the lived experiences of real people in their concrete circumstances.
His comment about “armchair theology” was a criticism of moral theology that he thought had become too academic and detached from the real world of real people. It was directed primarily at the former theologians of the John Paul II Institute, whom he dismissed without proper academic due process after taking charge, replacing them with theologians who would ground their approach in the social sciences as much as in theology.
Read more at the National Catholic Register; interview at Settimana News (translation available); see more @cworldreport
Bishop Barron criticizes Archbishop Paglia’s ‘Paradigm Shift’ at Pontifical Academy for Life
Read @BishopBarron
Cardinal Gerhard Müller opposes German bishops push for lay homilies
Read @PerMariam
NATIONAL EUCHARISTIC PILGRIMAGE REACHES MAINE BEFORE TURNING TOWARD PHILADELPHIA
Catholics of all ages walked through downtown Manchester, New Hampshire, June 21, following the Eucharist in a monstrance sheltered by an embroidered baldichino raised on four poles.
Accompanied by guitar, they softly sang along in praise: “My beloved is the most beautiful, Among thousands and thousands, Yeshua,” repeating the Hebrew name for Jesus.
The Eucharistic procession, which crossed the Merrimack River between Ste. Marie Parish and St. Joseph Cathedral, was around the 30th on the 2026 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage’s itinerary since its caravan of nine young-adult “perpetual pilgrims” began this year’s six-week route May 24 in St. Augustine, Florida.
In the weeks since, the pilgrims have traveled along the East Coast through Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.
Read more at Our Sunday Visitor
National Eucharistic Pilgrimage invites nation to remember deepest foundations
See @NCRegister
Today is the Feast Day of St. Josemaria Escriva
See @EOB174
St. Josemaria Escriva on the nature of ‘Christian optimism’
See @EOB174
