In Case You Missed It – Thursday, June 5, 2025

Pope phones Putin, Trump issues travel ban, Defending the Big Beautiful Bill, Countering cohabitation, Mount Sinai monastery imperiled, and more ...

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Breaking: Pope Leo XIV Has Phone Call With Russian President Vladimir Putin

Pope Leo XIV spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call Wednesday afternoon.

"The Pope made an appeal for Russia to take a gesture that would favor peace, emphasizing the importance of dialogue to create positive contacts between the parties and seek solutions to the conflict,” Holy See Press Office Director Matteo Bruni said in a statement.

Read more at the National Catholic Register

Trump Talks with Putin: ‘Not a Conversation That Will Lead to Immediate Peace’

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin via phone call in a conversation that was “good” but will not “lead to immediate peace,” as Putin insists he will respond to Ukraine’s recent attack. Trump took to Truth Social midday to share that he spoke with Putin for about an hour and fifteen minutes.

“We discussed the attack on Russia’s docked airplanes, by Ukraine, and also various other attacks that have been taking place by both sides. It was a good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate Peace,” Trump said.

Read more at Breitbart

Trump announces travel ban from 12 countries

Today [June 4, 2025], President Donald J. Trump signed a Proclamation to protect the nation from foreign terrorist and other national security and public safety threats from entry into the United States.

The Proclamation fully restricts and limits the entry of nationals from 12 countries found to be deficient with regards to screening and vetting and determined to pose a very high risk to the United States: Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.

Read more at WhiteHouse.gov

Trump announces more U.S.-China trade talks after 90-minute call with Xi

President Donald Trump said Thursday that trade officials from the U.S. and China will be meeting soon at a to-be-determined location.

Trump announced the upcoming talks after concluding a lengthy phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The “very good” call between the two leaders lasted approximately 90 minutes and focused “almost entirely” on trade, Trump said on Truth Social.

Read more at cnbc.com 

President Trump Welcomes Germany’s New Leader Friedrich Merz to Oval Office

Merz arrives at White House for high-stakes Oval Office talk with President Donald Trump in the same format as recent clashes with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa.

The discussion between Trump and Merz before the cameras of the press has started friendly, with Merz in particular making a point of thanking President Trump for the use of Blair House, the President’s official guest house in Washington D.C.

Read/watch more at Breitbart

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz presents the president with the framed birth certificate of President Trump's grandfather, Frederick, born in 1869

Watch @Rapid Response 47 on X

In Defense Of The Big Beautiful Bill

Let's be honest, Elon Musk has been made a fool of by the GOP.

After assembling the DOGE team and spending months finding egregious levels of waste, fraud and abuse within the US government - i.e. what Trump supporters voted for - House and Senate Republicans gave Musk a little pat on the head, then proceeded to roll out President Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' - that codified exactly zero of DOGE's findings, raises the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, and relies on ambitious economic projections to achieve what the White House insists is $1.4 trillion in savings ...

Needless to say, Musk is livid. [But] here's why Musk shouldn't be livid about the BBB, why he (and you) should support it, and some speculation about why he's acting this way. ...

Read more at zerohedge 

BREAKING: Biden Judge Blocks Trump From Deporting Family of Egyptian Terrorist Charged with Fire-Bombing Jews in Colorado

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked President Trump from deporting the family of the Egyptian terrorist who firebombed Jews in Boulder, Colorado. 

US District Judge Gordon Gallagher, a Biden appointee, temporarily blocked the deportation of Mohamed Sabry Soliman’s wife and five children.

Read more at the Gateway Pundit

Supreme Court rules in favor of Wisconsin Catholic agency over religious exemption

The U.S. Supreme Court on June 5 unanimously ruled in favor of the Catholic Charities Bureau of the Diocese of Superior, Wisconsin, which had asked the high court to overturn a decision by the Wisconsin Supreme Court the agency argued discounted its religious identity.

The group previously appealed a ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme Court that Catholic Charities is not exempt from paying into the state’s unemployment insurance system because its operations aren’t primarily religious under the definition in the statute requiring certain employers to do so. 

Read more at Our Sunday Visitor 

FBI asks Americans to report medical facilities that transition gender-confused kids

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is asking Americans to report anything they know about medical professionals who continue to perform life-altering gender “transition” procedures on confused children.

Within days of returning to office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring that the federal government “will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support” the medical “transitioning” of gender-confused minors, “and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit” the practice.

Read more at Lifesite

Ex-WH press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claims she’s no longer a Democrat while hyping memoir of ‘broken’ Biden admin

Joe Biden’s longtime White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, announced Wednesday she has left the Democratic Party and is writing a tell-all book about the “broken” administration she served.

Jean-Pierre, 50, worked as Biden’s top spokeswoman for two years and eight months and stunned fellow White House alums by announcing her book “Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines,” due out on Oct. 21.

Read more at the New York Post

Bidenworld goes scorched earth on Karine Jean-Pierre

Former Biden press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced Tuesday that she's written a book about a "broken" Biden White House ... 

[Yet] many of her former colleagues think Jean-Pierre — the face of the White House for more than two years — was part of the problem …

One former White House official who worked closely with Jean-Pierre told Axios that she "was one of the most ineffectual and unprepared people I've ever worked with. ... She had meltdowns after any interview that asked about a topic not sent over by producers."

Another former White House official ... told Axios: "The amount of time that was spent coddling [Jean-Pierre] and appeasing her was astronomical compared to our attention on actual matters of substance."

Read more at Axios

Counter cohabitation by faithful witness to marriage, Pope urges Catholics

Cohabiting couples can be enlightened to the truth and beauty of Christian marriage by Catholics who bear witness to the sacrament in their own lives, Pope Leo XIV has said.

In an address to the seminar organized by the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, the American Pontiff said that many young people were “longing for authentic relationships and guides in life” and that the soaring numbers “who choose cohabitation instead of Christian marriage in reality need someone to show them in a concrete and clear way”.

He said the most effective witness Catholic couples could offer to cohabitees was “the example of their lives”. 

Read more at the Catholic Herald

Future of Mount Sinai monastery cast into doubt by Egyptian court

A recent decision by an Egyptian court regarding ownership rights for the famous Greek Orthodox monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai has generated controversy and as much confusion around one of Christendom’s most iconic religious communities.

The 1,600-year-old monastery – the world’s oldest continuously-inhabited Christian monastery – is said to house the burning bush from the Old Testament when Moses received his first instruction from God to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.

Following a May 28 decision by an Egyptian court, which reportedly denied ownership rights to the fabled “God-trodden” Greek Orthodox monastery – granting only “usage rights over its properties and surrounding lands” – the monks of the historic Saint Catherine’s Monastery have closed its gates to all visitors in protest of the court ruling ...

Read more at the Catholic Herald

Pope Leo’s aim for basilica at Eucharistic miracle site in Peru impeded by legal dispute

As bishop of Chiclayo in Peru, Pope Leo XIV sought to build a basilica at the site of a Eucharistic miracle, currently a chapel. However, that goal has been impeded by a dispute over who owns the land and marred by the fact that non-Catholic liturgies have been held there.

The Peruvian government recently declared the site to be “of national Interest,” introducing another factor into the matter.

Read more at the Catholic News Agency

Pope considers declaring eight new saints

Although Pope Francis already set Aug. 3 as the date to declare the sainthood of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, Pope Leo XIV will hold a meeting with cardinals to approve his canonization and that of seven other people. The meeting, known as an “ordinary public consistory,” is scheduled for June 13, the Vatican announced.

Cardinals living in or visiting Rome are invited to participate in the consistory, which typically is a prayer service that includes the reading of a brief biography of the sainthood candidate ...

Read more at Our Sunday Visitor

Over 3000 Cameroonians trapped in Nigeria after being trafficked

Amid the escalating violence in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions, a less visible but devastating crisis is taking hold: Human trafficking.

The ongoing conflict, primarily concentrated in the North West and South West regions – often referred to collectively as the Anglophone regions – has created a climate of fear, displacement, and desperation, which traffickers are exploiting. 

Read more at Crux

Trump Gives Hope to Somaliland, Conservative Cause in Africa

Recognition of Somaliland as an independent nation by the U.S. government is likely on the horizon, claims the republic’s president. ...

The Republic of Somaliland declared its independence from Somalia in 1991 at the outbreak of Somalia’s disintegration. Somaliland comprises the sector of coastal Northern Somali territory formerly under British rule. With a population of 6 million, it has managed to avoid over 30 years of chaos.

This stability has not come at the cost of political freedom; Somaliland has been recognized as one of Africa’s few functioning democracies. 

Read more at The American Spectator

Gov Katie Hobbs vetoes bill to prevent CCP from buying up Arizona land

Arizona's Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs refused to back a bill to prevent the Chinese communist government from buying and owning land in her state. The bill, which would have banned the CCP from having a substantial interest of 30% or more in Arizona land, was GOP-backed.

Democrats initially said the bill could lead to discrimination in property sales. But by May, an amendment to the bill narrowed the ban to just the CCP as opposed to all businesses from countries "designated as enemies of the United States by the director of national intelligence," said the Arizona Mirror.

Read more at the Post Millennial

Santa Ono rejected for University of Florida presidency amid conservative backlash

Longtime academic Santa Ono was rejected Tuesday for the University of Florida presidency by the state university system board amid sharp criticism from political conservatives about his past support for diversity, equity and inclusion programs and other initiatives they view as unacceptable liberal ideology.

The Florida Board of Governors, which oversees the state’s universities, voted 10-6 against Ono, who was most recently president of the University of Michigan. ...

Read more at AP News

GOP Resolution Declares June ‘Family Month’ Instead Of ‘Pride Month

Republican Illinois Congresswoman Mary Miller will introduce a resolution on Tuesday declaring June as “Family Month,” a bid to reclaim the first month of summer from LGBTQ ideology, The Daily Wire can first report.

The resolution is supported by a number of parental rights advocacy groups, including Moms for America, the American Family Project, the Family Research Council, the Eagle Forum, and others.

Read more at The Daily Wire 

Apple TV+ show depicts Eucharistic desecration in church scene

A recent episode of the Apple TV+ show “Your Friends & Neighbors” has sparked outrage among Catholics for its shocking depiction of Eucharistic desecration.

In season one, episode six, two characters unlawfully enter a church, remove Eucharistic Hosts from the tabernacle, and treat them as snack food — with jam as a dip.

The setting, unmistakably styled as a Catholic sanctuary, offers no plot-driven justification for this depiction. Instead, the scene leans into irreverence, going so far as to include a smirking reference to the consecrated host as “the Body of Christ.” 

Read more at CatholicVote

Fr. V reminds us that June is Sacred Heart of Jesus month

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus originated from Christ Himself, as His heart was pierced during the crucifixion. The Preface for the Mass of the Sacred Heart proclaims, “He poured out blood and water from His pierced side, the wellspring of the Church’s Sacraments” ...

[L]ater saints such as St. Lutgarde, St. Matilda, and St. Gertrude each contributed to furthering the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. However, it was St. Margaret Mary Alacoque who is principally responsible for spreading our modern-day devotion. Over a period of 18 months, from 1673 to 1675, Our Lord appeared to her …

Read more at Father V on X

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Editor-in-Chief, Souls and Liberty