October 26, 2023

A daily news briefing from Catholic News Agency, powered by artificial intelligence. Ask your smart speaker to play “Catholic News,” or listen every morning wherever you get podcasts. www.catholicnewsagency.com - Pope Francis reaffirmed the impossibility of women becoming priests, or even modern Church deacons, in an interview for a book released Tuesday in Italy. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/255804/pope-francis-on-women-deacons-holy-orders-is-reserved-for-men The Synod on Synodality has addressed the members of the Catholic Church in a letter published during the final days of the October gathering in Rome, inviting them to take an active role in “the discernment and decision-making” of the Church. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/255806/synod-on-synodality-addresses-the-church-in-letter-to-the-people-of-god Father Marko Rupnik, the former Jesuit priest and mosaic artist accused of serious abuses against women, has been accepted for priestly ministry in a diocese in Slovenia. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/255805/rupnik-accepted-for-priestly-ministry-in-diocese-in-slovenia Pope Francis on Wednesday appointed Father Richard Laurenson as the new bishop of the Diocese of Hamilton in northern New Zealand. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/255813/pope-francis-appoints-long-standing-parish-priest-as-new-zealand-bishop Today the Church honors Saint Evaristus, the son of a Greek Jew originally from Bethlehem, who was the sixth Pope of the Catholic Church. He is traditionally considered a martyr, but there is no documentation of the event. He is buried in the Vatican, near Saint Peter. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint/st-evaristus-pope-33 The Church also celebrates Blessed Damian of Fulcheri. Born the son of a wealthy Italian family, Damian was kidnapped as an infant by a man who suffered from a mental illness. His parents prayed fervently to the Virgin Mary for help, and searchers were led to the unharmed boy by a miraculous light. Damian later became a Dominican