'Why is there a difference between Tuam and Bessborough?'

For Michael McKeirnan and Angela Collins, who both live in Washington State, the news Cork City Council has granted planning permission for 140 apartments to be built on the grounds of Bessborough mother and baby home might come from far away, but it’s a story that strikes close to the bone.

Michael, known as Mike, lives in the town of Walla Walla, while his sister Angela lives in Seattle. 

Both were born in Bessborough mother and baby home and adopted to the same Irish-American family in the early 1960s.

For Mike, who visited the Bessborough grounds on a recent trip to Ireland, his main fear about the decision is the council’s planning conditions will turn out to have “no teeth". 

Conditions placed by Cork City Council on the permission granted to Estuary View Enterprises specify the developers must employ a forensic archaeologist at excavations on the site, and cease works and notify gardaí if any human remains are found.

Mike says he believes that before any development takes place, an independent third party should conduct a forensic analysis of the site, like that under way at Tuam in Co Galway, and the holy order should foot the bill.

“Why is there a difference between Tuam and Bessborough, when there could be more remains in Bessborough than there are in Tuam?” he says.

There needs to be a third party doing the excavation at Bessborough. Someone needs to oversee it. I don’t think the council should say, ‘Here’s your permit, go, and tell us if you find something.’ 

“There needs to be respect. The site needs to be dug up, and it’s the nuns’ responsibility. They should pay for it.” 

The State’s Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes uncovered death records for 923 babies born in Bessborough in the 76 years in which the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary ran the home, but burial places for only 64 of the children have been confirmed.

Backed by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, campaigners believe the Bessborough site contains the unmarked graves of infants. 

They have called for a full excavation of the site akin to the one under way in the former St Mary’s Mother and Baby home in Tuam.

Burial records for 796 babies and toddlers were uncovered for Tuam mother and baby home by historian Catherine Corless in 2014. 

A State-backed team of forensic experts working at the site have discovered the remains of 69 children so far, with their work set to continue until 2027. 

The Bon Secours Sisters, who ran the Tuam home from 1925 until 1961, have contributed €2.5m to the cost of the forensic work.

Both Mike and his sister Angela feel strongly that if Bessborough does become apartments, there still needs to be a publicly accessible memorial so survivors like themselves, and families left without the closure of knowing where dead infants were buried, can still visit.

“I don’t have a problem with apartments being there, but it needs to be fully investigated first,” Mike says. “And there needs to be a graveyard and chapel, to tie back to what that ground was, and what it represents for people.” 

The missing year 

Like so many people born into Bessborough, Mike is still seeking answers. But he’s not seeking his birth parents: He’s seeking the mysterious strangers who cared for him in his first year of life.

He was born in Bessborough on January 7, 1959, and was flown to New York on St Patrick’s Day 1960, to be adopted by an Irish family in Washington State.

He had always presumed he remained in the mother and baby home up until his departure for the US.

But when he went looking for his records in 2024, he discovered a year of his life was unaccounted for.

He had applied for the mother and baby home redress scheme, but was rejected because a note on his file revealed he had been discharged from Bessborough at one month old. 

The terms of the redress scheme have come under fire from some survivors for excluding any children who spent less than six months in a mother and baby home.

“Records show I was discharged from Bessborough by the reverend mother on February 8, 1959, at 31 days old, to St Joseph’s Industrial School, Ballinasloe, escorted by a sister from Bessborough,” he says.

“This is the point at which I disappear for a year. I go off-radar.” 

Who took care of him and where he was for the next year of his life is a mystery he is keen to solve. 

He has no memories of that missing year, but says photos show a healthy, well-cared-for baby.

“Did someone hold me and cuddle me, and help me grow up to be the person I am today?” he says. 

They definitely fed me well. I don’t think I would have looked like that if I had stayed in Bessborough.

"So I have to give some gratitude to someone who took care of me for a year, and the time between one month and one year is not an easy time to take care of a human being.” 

Mike believes there may be someone in the West of Ireland who still holds the key that can help him unlock his past.

No records

St Joseph’s in Ballinasloe was a reformatory school for girls run by the Sisters of Mercy. It also cared for boys under the age of seven. 

But there were no records from St Joseph’s in the file Mike received from the State. He believes he may have been brought there to be collected by foster carers somewhere in the Galway area.

“Someone would know something,” he says. “Someone might remember a lady down the road who used to take in a lot of foster children, or maybe it might be someone whose parents fostered children.”

 A tantalising clue was uncovered by Mike when he approached the Sisters of Mercy directly for information.

Although he had been told all his information was with the State, a representative of the Sisters of Mercy, Ballinasloe, sent him a postcard that shows him as a baby alongside other baby boys, with a note on the back that read: "If anyone contacts you about adoption, contact Sr Sarto, Sacred Heart Convent, Cork." 

He says: “It was like a postcard, which makes me think I was already tagged to be taken to the States for a family."

Smoke and mirrors 

For Mike, the process of trying to discover what happened to him has been a frustrating one, and he says he has not been helped by the State or the holy orders.

“It’s smoke and mirrors with the nuns,” he says. “One of them told me on the phone one day, 'Oh we have impeccable records.' And I said, 'Then where was I for a year?' And everything went silent. So it was impeccable, but secretive.” 

There was no stigma or secrecy about being adopted for Mike, Angela, and their other sibling while growing up.

Their adoptive mother, Kathleen Esther Murray, was originally from Nash’s Boreen in Cork City.

She had been sent to live with a childless aunt in Walla Walla, Washington State, and she met and married Joseph McKeirnan, born to Irish parents in nearby Pomeroy.

“She knew about babies being adopted from Bessborough, and so she went back to get us.” 

Mrs McKeirnan died in 2003 and her husband Joseph died in 2013. While they left records on their children’s adoptions, these files don’t fill in the gaps. 

Mike’s file contained a letter from Bessborough and a photograph taken when he was about 10 months old, a period during which his whereabouts remain unknown.

For now, Mike is left only with questions. Who took care of him after he was moved to Galway? Were they paid?

Did Mike’s parents make contributions to his upkeep before he was sent to the US?

“I wish I could go through my dad’s cheque book and see what he sent them,” Mike says. 

“I’m sure there was money back and forth. Once I was tagged for adoption, did my parents pay the bill or send a couple of hundred dollars a month for upkeep, to take care of the kid until they could pick him up? 

I think there’s a good possibility the nuns might do that — select babies and then have the future adoptive parents pay for their care.

“The sisters need to come clean. I am pushing at the nuns: 'You tell me where I was for a year, if you kept such impeccable records. What the heck happened?' A whole year — where was I?” 

Angela’s story 

Mike’s sister Angela Collins visited Bessborough with her husband and daughter when she holidayed in Ireland in 2024.

“I wasn’t planning on it, and then I thought, what the heck, we’re in Cork,” she says. 

“Being there, it just felt so surreal, that my early childhood was there.

“It’s like it happened to someone else; like I’m more of an observer.” 

Angela was born in Bessborough on February 9, 1960. She was kept in the home for 18 months before being sent to the US for adoption in August 1961: A younger sister for Mike and their eldest sibling.

She knows her birth mother was in Bessborough all the time she was there, and in fact didn’t leave until September 1961, after Angela was taken to the US. But like her brother, Angela grew up knowing she was adopted and had no desire to contact her birth parents.

Over the years, as she’s watched a series of revelations about mother and baby homes make news headlines, she has come to regard herself as “one of the lucky ones".

“It didn’t surprise me that there had been that number of deaths at Bessborough down through the years, and there probably are a lot of remains there,” she says.

'I felt experimented on'

Angela made a shocking discovery when she received records from the State in 2024, having successfully applied for the redress scheme.

She had been one of the infants used in GlaxoSmithKline’s vaccine trials at Bessborough.

There was a handful, including myself, that after the second round of injections experienced a lot of nausea and vomiting, and I was one of those infants.

“It was disturbing to learn that. I felt like I was experimented on.” 

Growing up, Angela says Bessborough and the nuns occupied a benign space in the origin story she and her siblings were told about their adoptions. 

“I remember seeing pictures of us at Bessborough when we were little, and it looked like a really warm environment,” she says. 

“Then you read that it wasn’t. But people have had different experiences.

“It must have been very tough for the birth mothers. But I feel that the stories that emerge are only the worst of the worst. Success stories, or nice stories like my siblings and I are not out there.” 

Adopting their own families 

A postscript to Mike and Angela’s story is that both of them have become adoptive parents themselves.

Mike has been married to his wife Lisa for 41 years and they have adopted seven children, all from China, and now ranging in age from 22 to 31.

Angela moved to Seattle in the 1980s, married, and now has two adopted children, aged 23 and 28.

For Angela, ensuring there are no secrets is key to helping adopted children grow up feeling secure and at ease with their origins. Bessborough’s veil of shame and secrecy doesn’t need to be passed on.

“The experiences of different people can be so different, but I think a person can have a really healthy outlook about adoption,” she says.

“My parents had a really good approach. I never remember not knowing; it was very natural. It was never an issue, with extended family either. 

"My husband and I tried to mirror that with our kids. 

“Our kids know they can get any information they want, but neither of them have chosen to do that yet. They might change over time. But if they need to go looking, they can.”

Brendan Hoban: Fuel protests were nightmare vision of future

We’re living in a time of great global uncertainty. 

We’ve witnessed it in the horrors from Gaza, Ukraine and Lebanon being relayed on our television screens. 

We’ve witnessed the devastation of property, homes, jobs and in the horrors of death, especially the sufferings of innocent children.    

These sights speak of a world where might seems to be right, where money is what ultimately matters and where power is exercised often without the guidance of a moral compass. 

Pope Leo called it out recently when he said, “The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants, yet it is being held together by a multitude of supportive brothers and sisters.”

The truth be told some of our brothers and sisters are paying more than others. Here in Ireland, so far we’ve escaped the worst of it. 

Most of us live in reasonable comfort in one of the richest countries in the world where holidays are often taken for granted, where cars are available to most families, where economic circumstances provide a level of comfort and well-being that our grandparents, even our parents, could scarcely have dreamt of.

We’ve got used to it. We take it for granted. Indeed we now feel entitled to a reasonable standard of living – whoever pays for it – and when it’s in danger of being threatened or taken away we feel aggrieved, as do those who aired their grievances recently in what will forever be described as the ‘Great Blockade of 2026’.

Maybe it’s time to have a closer look at ‘the Blockade of 2026’, its truths, half-truths and convenient embellishments. First, the right to protest was well and truly established. That’s fine. 

It’s an important right that needs to be unambiguously cherished. But as an exercise in democracy, it fell well short of the ideal. While it established one democratic right, it did so at the expense of diminishing, even at times extinguishing, the democratic rights of others.

The blockade, effectively, took over the country, facilitated by a government asleep at the wheel. 

It shouldn’t have. 

It brought the country to a standstill and claimed the right to an authority way beyond any constitutional remit. Protest is a right but it’s not an absolute right. And how protest is executed matters.

The protestors were from many different organisations and interest groups – farmers and hauliers struggling with sudden soaring prices, individuals and families dealing with a cost of living crisis, some with legitimate and reasonable grievances and others with overtly political aims and ambitions, including anti-migrant activists and others talking up ‘revolution’, and others again encouraging mock confrontation between urban and rural Ireland.

And then, of course, there were the politicians with their eyes firmly set on votes in the next election, cheer-leading the blockaders at every available opportunity though reluctant to point out the crucial imperative of not undermining those in authority in the state.

Old warhorses like Bertie Ahern and  Seán Ó Feargaíl, looking for attention; young thrusting TDs taking the opportunity to make their mark; others like the Healy-Reas panicking that in holding on to power such as it is they might lose more in the long run; Mary Lou reduced to explaining to the Dáil how brave she was though her courage didn’t extend to pointing out the primary authority of the office she is so intent on occupying; and finally those with the reins of power (Micheál Martin and Simon Harris) who take to the higher moral ground by holding up to the light the mix of a motley crowd of genuine citizens, migrant conspirators, and not least the owners of classic John Deere or New Holland tractors who insist, regardless of the inconvenience to others, on parking them wherever they would most inconvenience the travelling public going about their business.

So it didn’t really seem to matter if as a result of the blockade medical appointments were missed or treatments for cancer victims had to be postponed or if people didn’t get to work or home helps couldn’t get to the vulnerable elderly whose essential needs they usually attended. The great and the small necessities of people’s lives were casually brushed aside by the leaders of the blockade.

As an indicative comment of one of the main spokesmen of the blockade, the indelicate Christopher Duffy, whose reaction to a worry about the environmental activist, Greta Thursburg, was once framed: ‘I couldn’t care less if she got raped or beaten and I make no apology for saying that’, is indicative of a quality of leadership that doesn’t warrant even being placed in charge of a henhouse. It sets in due perspective the sad plea of genuine supporters of the blockade who argued in good faith that the protesters were all ‘good people’.

While I have no doubt but that there were many genuine and upright people who were honest participants in the Blockade of 2026, the jury isn’t still out debating the characters of the main players. I suspect that like many other more public participants, leaders of the blockade were sought out not on the basis of character reference but in the lower reaches of toxic social media.

Is it not permissible to ask this obvious question: under what legal or other rubric did the self-appointed leaders of the blockade claim the authority to subject, for example, the rights of the elderly, the fragile and the vulnerable to such dismissive, offensive, unthinking disregard? Or who or what gave them permission to attack or abuse the Garda Siochána?

In a classic column in the Irish Times, the incomparable Fintan O’Toole, as he does so often with such verve and authority, cut to the chase: ‘We’ve been here before through the long history of militant Irish republicanism with attacks on the legitimacy of democracy itself. It posits the existence of a superior group that is purer and more authentic than the rest of the citizenry and that therefore has the right to enforce its will. 

As Geoghegan (one of the leaders of the blockade) crowed in The Irish Times, ‘It’s in our hands, we call the shots. Whatever we decide to do is what everyone one else will do’.

What O’Toole described succinctly as a future for Ireland with ‘big wheels being driven over democratic norms’ is the stuff of nightmares.

Bishop urges Catholic faithful to ‘stand with’ young people

The Australian Bishops have expressed solidarity with young people challenged by new technologies in the job market and finding secure work.

In a statement for the Feast of St Joseph the Worker, the Bishops’ Commission for Social Justice, Mission and Service made a plea for “intergenerational solidarity” with young jobseekers and called on the faithful to “stand with young people, not apart from them”.

Chair of the Commission, Bishop Tim Harris, noted that youth unemployment remains significantly higher than the national average in Australia.

“We are living through a period of rapid transformation. Artificial intelligence and new technologies are reshaping industries and redefining the nature of work. Many young people are entering jobs that are casual or short-term, digitally managed, and uncertain in their long-term prospects,” he warned.

Referring to Pope Leo XIV’s comments on the challenges of the technological age, especially the rise of artificial intelligence, he said that while these developments offer new opportunities, they also raise important questions about the future of work and the place of the human person within it.

“We are reminded that the economy must serve the person, not the person the economy.”

“Many young people experience underemployment – wanting more hours or more secure work than they are able to find,” Bishop Harris highlighted. Youth unemployment, he stressed, remains significantly higher than the national average, at around 10.4 percent.

Recent data from the Australian Youth Barometer has shown that 85 per cent of young people in Australia experienced financial insecurity in the past year; around two-thirds are underemployed; and nearly half have experienced unemployment within a year.

For many young people in Australia today, work does not yet provide stability or a clear pathway forward.

Unemployment, the Bishop stressed, “shapes how young people see themselves and their future. It influences decisions about study, housing, relationships and family life. It can bring anxiety and uncertainty at a time when hope should be growing.”

“Work is more than a means of earning a living. It is fundamental to human dignity and participation in society. Work is part of God’s plan for human flourishing.”

On the Feast of St Joseph the Worker, he appealed to the faithful to pray for young people seeking work, for those experiencing insecurity or uncertainty, and for those who feel excluded or discouraged.

St Joseph, he said, “stands before us as a model of faithful work”.

The Bishop of Townsville in Queensland told the faithful that young people today need mentors in families, workplaces, parishes, and communities – people who will walk alongside them, offering encouragement and direction.

“This is a call to intergenerational solidarity: to stand with young people, not apart from them.

He also referred to research from the Scanlon Foundation Research Institute which has shown that young people experiencing financial hardship often report lower levels of belonging and social connection.

“When work is insecure or unavailable, the consequences are profound: a weakened sense of belonging, increased stress and mental health challenges, and a diminished sense of hope. These are not only economic concerns — they are human and spiritual concerns. As a Church, we are called to recognise and respond to them,” he said.

Work, Bishop Harris said, is more than a means of earning a living. It is fundamental to human dignity and participation in society.

“Young people bring energy, creativity, and a deep desire to contribute. They are not only the future – they are already shaping the present.”

But the challenges facing young people today require a shared response.

“Employers,” he said are called to provide “fair wages, secure conditions, and meaningful opportunities. Governments are called to ensure policies that protect workers and promote participation.

“Communities and parishes are called to accompany young people with care and encouragement. Families are called to nurture hope, resilience, and purpose. Together, we can build a society where work truly reflects the dignity of every person.”

Bishop Harris also suggested that as the world of work changes, “so too must our understanding of what is needed to flourish within it. Skills are important, but they are not enough. Young people also need formation in values – integrity, responsibility, compassion, and a commitment to the common good.

“While innovation can bring many benefits, it must not come at the expense of dignity. We must ask: does this work provide stability? Does it respect the person? Does it allow young people to build a future? Secure and meaningful work is essential. Without it, individuals struggle to flourish and to participate fully in society.”

In this changing work environment, Bishop Harris said it was vital that society recognise and promote diverse pathways into work.

Apprenticeships, trades, and technical vocations are “essential” to our society and deserve greater recognition and support.

“St Joseph himself was a tradesman. His work was not secondary, it was central to his vocation and his service to God. We must encourage young people to pursue pathways that reflect their gifts and aspirations, and ensure these pathways are accessible, supported, and respected,” he said.

Backlash continues against LMFM decision to axe live radio Mass broadcasts

The weekly live Sunday morning Mass has been axed on LMFM radio and the move has caused outrage among local listeners.

Politicians in Louth and Meath have been inundated with complaints and now a petition is gathering momentum online calling for the religious segment to be restored.

Many elderly people in the north east who couldn’t go to church because of illness or mobility tuned in to listen to the Mass.

The programme was broadcast on a weekly basis from different churches around the locality.

Senator Alison Comyn, a former broadcaster herself, publicly criticised the decision and has called for the Mass to be restored.

She was informed by Eamonn Doyle, the Content Controller on LMFM, that the final Mass on LMFM was broadcast in April last.

In an email to her, he said the main reason for the change is the decline in traditional local radio broadcasts driven by the widespread availability of live and recorded Mass services online via church webcams, which allow people to watch and listen at any time and not just at a fixed Sunday hour.

The station was also given permission to make the move by Coimisiún na Meán, the media regulator.

He also stated that the decision was flagged in advance the previous Sunday and also on the Late Lunch Show by Gerry Kelly.

The station has also confirmed that the their daily Death Notices service will continue.

But Senator Comyn said she has been inundated with calls from listeners about the Mass being ditched.

She said: “I am hugely disappointed at this decision and it is a devastating loss for many across the north east who relied on it as a weekly lifeline.

“It fails to recognise the reality facing many elderly, vulnerable and housebound people across Louth and Meath and the wider area.

“For so many people, Sunday Morning Mass on LMFM at 9am was not simply another radio programme. It was part of their weekly routine, part of their connection to their faith and their community, and in many cases, a genuine lifeline.

“I spoke directly with Station Controller Eamonn Doyle about the decision last week and while I appreciate the changing nature of broadcasting, I also conveyed the strength of feeling that exists among listeners.

“I have received a flood of calls from deeply upset listeners since this announcement was made. There is also now a sizeable petition circulating in Drogheda calling on LMFM management to reconsider the move.”

Another local councillor, Anne Marie Ford of Fine Gael, was also bombarded with complaints by listeners and is publicly supporting the demand to restore the Mass.

She stated: “Not only do our listeners in Louth and Meath enjoy the Mass on the radio but I know for a fact that people tune in from other counties as far as Laois to listen to LMFM. There must be choice for all.”

There was a strong reaction on local social media against the axing of the Mass.

Darragh Jamie McGann wrote on Facebook: “Many people seem to forget that for many older people radio has been a lifeline, especially those housebound or living alone. Hearing local news, death notices and Sunday morning Mass has always been so important.”

Áine Brennan said: “The older population all look forward to Mass on Sunday morning on the radio. People in nursing homes and hospitals. I myself would listen to it on a Sunday morning. I hope management reconsiders this and keeps Mass on radio. It would be a terrible disservice to local older people in the north east if it is taken off the air.”

Mary Wallace Gannon added: “Hopefully LMFM will reconsider this. I know so many people who love hearing Mass on their local radio every Sunday. Please don’t let this happen. It’s really important, especially for people confined to home, hospitals or nursing homes.”

LMFM is owned by the Onic Network, which is a radio subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News UK and Ireland Ltd.

Pope Leo XIV complains of attacks on journalists in conflicts

Pope Leo XIV spoke out in favour of protecting journalists at the noon prayer in St. Peter's Square. In his words after the Regina Caeli, he recalled the International Day of Press Freedom, which is celebrated by UNESCO on Sunday. 

"Unfortunately, this right is often violated, sometimes quite openly, sometimes in a hidden way. We commemorate the numerous journalists and reporters who have been victims of war and violence," the pope said.

Since the beginning of his term of office, Pope Leo XIV has repeatedly warned against enabling free reporting and respecting the freedom of the press. At his first official audience ever, he stressed the Church's solidarity with journalists detained "because they seek and report the truth" last May and called for their release. 

He paid tribute to the courage of those who reported on war and defended the right to information using their lives. "Only informed people can make free decisions," emphasized the first American in the papal office.

Missio: Not only to understand freedom of the press secular

On the same occasion, the relief agency missio Aachen has highlighted the fate of Christian media professionals. "Christian journalists and media are under pressure in many countries when they report on the faith, situation of religious minorities or violations of religious freedom and other human rights," the missio statement said. "Freedom of the press and religious freedom are inseparable. Where people cannot freely live their faith and talk about it, it is also about freedom of the press bad," emphasizes Father Dirk Bingener, President of missio Aachen. "Christian journalists today pay a heavy price for their work in many countries."

According to missio, the restrictions on Christian journalists range from censorship and intimidation to social violence to detention, occupational bans and the closure of church media. 

In particular, the relief agency highlighted the situation of Catholic bloggers in Vietnam, bans on Christian media in Nicaragua, reprisals for Pakistani journalists reporting on religious minorities or blasphemy processes and threats to Christian journalists by Hindu nationalists in India. 

"Those who silence Christian media and journalists and restrict freedom of the press for religious reasons do not only meet a certain religious community. He ultimately attacks the entire society," Bingener continued. Freedom of the press should not be understood alone secularly. It also applies to church and religious voices.

On Saturday, the Society of Catholic Publicists (GKP) pointed out the situation in Germany. 

"Whoever attacks journalists, whether physically or through smear campaigns, attacks our entire democratic society," said Joachim Frank, chairman of the GKP. 

He also describes as disturbing an increasing state surveillance as well as restrictions on freedom of information laws.

Mullally avoids clarifying whether she discussed women's priesthood with Leo XIV: "I am not a politician"

The Primate of the Anglican Communion, Sarah Mullally, avoided clarifying whether female priesthood was addressed in her recent meeting with Pope Leo XIV, one of the most evident doctrinal differences between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church.

Asked directly in a subsequent interview covered by APT, Mullally responded in general terms, without confirming whether the topic was addressed. 

“Above all, I am a spiritual leader,” she stated, emphasizing that her mission is to offer hope and, on occasions, to speak out against situations she considers unjust, although she insisted that she does not act as a political figure. “What I hope is to offer hope to those in difficulty and, on occasions, to speak when there is injustice, but to do so in a clearly pastoral and spiritually grounded manner,” she added.

A language of unity without content

Mullally insisted on presenting the meeting as a “significant” moment within the path of dialogue between both Churches, focused on prayer and the search for unity. 

However, she offered no details on specific doctrinal issues or on the points of divergence that continue to separate both confessions.

This absence is not minor. The issue of the priesthood—and in particular the ordination of women—is not a secondary aspect of the dialogue, but one of its doctrinal cores.

Gestures that generate the opposite impression

Despite this, Mullally’s visit to the Vatican was marked by gestures of closeness: she was received with honors, participated in a moment of prayer with the Pope, and had a meeting described as “very warm”.

However, in the face of specific questions, her responses remained in the same evasive register. She avoided pronouncing on female priesthood, eluded positioning herself on political issues, and limited herself to highlighting secondary aspects of the meeting, such as the gifts delivered—a book by Newman, a Peruvian icon, and a jar of honey—or the invitation to the Pope to visit the United Kingdom.

The risk of a unity without clarity

Pope Leo XIV himself warned that it would be “a scandal” to stop working for unity among Christians, recalling the path traveled in ecumenical dialogue since the 20th century. 

The Pontiff pointed out that, along with the advances achieved, “new problems” have appeared that complicate the path toward full communion between both confessions. 

However, he also gave no further details on the matter.

The tradition of the Church adds an inseparable requirement: unity can only be sustained on truth.

When responses like public interventions avoid specifying the content of the dialogue, the result is an imprecise message. 

Unity is presented as a goal, but without clarity on the points that make it possible or impossible.

In that context, the combination of visible gestures, absence of doctrinal detail, and responses that are not very concrete and evasive from both sides not only does not dispel the differences, but accentuates the confusion. 

And that confusion—by diluting issues defined by the Church—ends up generating a more problematic effect than the very divisions it seeks to overcome.

Pope to the President of the European Council: "Peace in the Middle East requires real commitment"

Pope Leo XIV has brought to the table the delicate situation of Christians in the Middle East during a telephone conversation held last Wednesday, April 29, with the President of the European Council, António Costa, in a context marked by the growing instability in the region and the real risk to Christian communities.

According to Vatican News, the Pontiff centered the dialogue on two particularly sensitive points: the West Bank, in the State of Palestine, and the situation of Christians in southern Lebanon, one of the areas where the Christian presence is increasingly threatened by geopolitical tension.

Lebanon, a focus of concern for the Holy See

During the conversation, Leo XIV emphasized the situation of Christians in southern Lebanon, where communities live under constant pressure amid unending conflicts.

The reference is not minor. Lebanon has historically been one of the few countries in the region with a significant Christian presence, today weakened by political instability, economic crisis, and growing insecurity. 

The Holy See closely follows this reality, aware that the disappearance of these communities would represent an irreparable blow to the religious balance in the Middle East.

The West Bank, another open front

The situation in the West Bank also formed a central part of the exchange between the Pope and the European leader. 

It is one of the most sensitive territories in the conflict in the Holy Land, where tensions directly affect coexistence between communities and the stability of the region.

The fact that the Pope has brought this issue to the conversation with the European Union underscores the international dimension of the problem and the need for a response that does not limit itself to formal declarations.

Africa, key in the Pontiff’s message

In addition to the Middle East, Leo XIV shared with António Costa some reflections on his recent apostolic trip to Africa, carried out between April 13 and 23.

The Pope highlighted the importance of interreligious dialogue, the promotion of peace, and support for the most vulnerable communities, insisting on the need not to abandon the peoples who suffer the consequences of violence, poverty, and social tensions.

Argüello accepts dividing the Valley of the Fallen with an “independent entrance”

The president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, Luis Argüello, addressed this Sunday, May 3, in an extensive interview in ABC the upcoming visit of Pope Leo XIV to Spain, but it is in his responses about the Valley of the Fallen where the most relevant—and most problematic—elements of his approach are concentrated.

A de facto conditioned negotiation

Although Argüello denies that the Government has imposed explicit conditions, he does acknowledge sustained indirect pressure: “No, I have to be honest and say that this issue has never been put forward as a condition. But it is evident that, for some and others, the context of the Pope’s visit is present.” 

Even more so, he admits that the Executive has repeatedly taken these matters to Rome: “They have wanted to involve the Holy See, to force what they could tell us.”

This acknowledgment confirms that the issue of the Valley is not being resolved in a strictly national framework, but in a scenario in which the Holy See has been used as an indirect interlocutor to influence the position of the Spanish bishops.

The Valley: ambiguous formulations and implicit concessions

The core of the episcopal position is summarized in a phrase that Argüello himself presents as a common criterion: “We want the abbey to continue, for the basilica to remain a basilica, and for there to be independent access to that of the new building that is to be constructed.”

The statement, however, raises more questions than it resolves. Independent access to what? To a different space within the same complex? To a separate route for non-liturgical uses? The issue is not minor, because it de facto introduces the possibility of segmenting the precinct.

Argüello himself acknowledges that the current project does not even meet that minimum: “The current winning project respects the first two points and not the independent access.” 

That is, the only element that would mark a clear boundary between uses—if that was the intention—is not even guaranteed in the ongoing proposal.

In this context, the insistence that “the basilica remain a basilica” remains a more declarative than operational formulation. The architecture of the Valley is not modular or easily divisible. 

Introducing differentiated accesses implies accepting a functional duality that, in practice, can lead to a division of the space or a reinterpretation of the whole as a mixed place: partially liturgical, partially musealized or resignified.

Argüello also admits pressure from other actors: “There are other people […] who want no trace of Christian presence to remain, while others pretend that nothing should be touched.” 

The episcopal response is an intermediate path that seeks to preserve some elements—the cross, the monastic community—but that, at the same time, seems to assume the framework of intervention proposed by the Government.

Reconciliation as argument and limit

The archbishop appeals to the symbolic dimension of the Valley: “The sign of the cross and the sign of a monastic community […] is a sign that today remains fully valid.” And he adds that an eventual agreement could be “the occasion for a reconciling encounter.”

However, he introduces a significant statement: “In the Spain called of the Transition, this effort of reconciliation […] had been largely achieved.” The nuance is clear: that previous consensus is taken as eroded, and the current negotiation does not necessarily restore it, but may be contributing to redefining it in other terms.

Other fronts: political pressure and public discourse

On the political level, Argüello denounces a double standard regarding the Church’s intervention: “When we talk about certain matters they tell us we must be silent and when we talk about others they put a megaphone to us.” Even so, he delimits the role of the bishops to general principles, avoiding entering into concrete decisions, a line that in practice is difficult to sustain on issues like immigration or historical memory.

On this last point, also linked to the Pope’s visit to the Canary Islands, he insists on the need for broad agreements: “An issue that no state can solve in isolation.” 

But he acknowledges the existing political tensions, including direct accusations against the Church for its social action.

Overall, the interview leaves a precise conclusion: in the case of the Valley of the Fallen, the Episcopal Conference does not pose a frontal opposition, but a negotiation that accepts substantial elements of the governmental approach. 

The problem is that the key terms—like that “independent access”—are not clearly defined and may imply, in practice, a profound transformation of the original meaning of the whole without it being openly explained.

Legion of Christ celebrated sixteen ordinations at St. Paul's Outside the Walls

The Church has counted since this Saturday with 16 new Legionaries of Christ priests, ordained in the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, in Rome, in a ceremony marked by a strong presence of vocations from Latin America.

The ordination, celebrated on May 2 and presided over by Monsignor Juan Vicente Córdoba, Bishop of Fontibón (Bogotá), brought together candidates from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Panama, and Venezuela, reflecting the growing weight of Latin America in the generational renewal of the congregation.

The Eucharistic celebration began at 10 a.m. and gathered numerous faithful, including family members and members of Regnum Christi, who accompanied the ordinands after more than a decade of priestly formation.

In his homily, the bishop recalled the teaching of the Second Vatican Council on the priestly ministry, emphasizing that the life of the presbyter must be structured around the Eucharist and pastoral service. 

He insisted on the need for the priest to embody the model of the Good Shepherd, with constant dedication to the faithful and special attention to the most needy.

Likewise, he entrusted the ministry of the new priests to the Virgin Mary, under the invocation of Our Lady of Guadalupe, emphasizing her role in evangelizing life, especially in the Latin American context.

The Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ, of pontifical right and founded in 1941, currently has around 1,500 members, including about 1,000 priests and several hundred seminarians in various stages of formation. 

In recent years, a significant part of its vocations comes from Latin American countries, where the institution maintains a broad presence through educational centers, seminaries, and apostolates linked to Regnum Christi.

These ordinations once again place on the table a fundamental issue that the congregation itself has had to address in recent decades: the distinction between the ecclesial charism and the figure of its founder. 

 The continuity of vocations, especially in Latin America, seems to indicate that, beyond the grave shadows that marked its origin, the Legion has managed to preserve a spiritual and apostolic core that is not exhausted in the personality of its initiator. 

At a time when the Church demands greater transparency and institutional purification, the true challenge is not only to grow in number, but to consolidate a credible priesthood, detached from any form of personalism and centered on fidelity to Christ and the ecclesial mission.

Twelve new deacons ordained in the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter

The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter has had twelve new deacons since this Saturday, ordained in the abbey basilica of Ottobeuren, in Bavaria.

The ceremony took place on May 2, 2026, coinciding with the feast of Our Lady, patroness of Bavaria. The one in charge of conferring the orders was Monsignor Wolfgang Haas, emeritus Archbishop of Vaduz, whom the Wigratzbad seminary refers to as “our faithful friend”.

The ordination was celebrated in the imposing Baroque setting of the abbey basilica of Ottobeuren, one of the great historical temples of southern Germany. 

According to the International Seminary of Saint Peter in Wigratzbad itself, the new deacons had been definitively incorporated into the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter the day before, in the presence of the FSSP’s vicar general, Father Hubert Bizard.

Among the new deacons, three of Spanish origin and one Mexican stand out, which points to an incipient Hispanic presence within the Fraternity. This data acquires special relevance in a context in which the FSSP still maintains a limited implantation in Spain, although not a few observers consider that it could consolidate as a more visible reality in the coming years if the vocational trend is maintained.

These twelve new deacons are added to the eight seminarians from the Denton seminary, in the United States, who were ordained last March 27 in the Fraternity’s parish in Omaha.

With these ordinations, the FSSP strengthens the new generation of clerics trained in its seminaries in Europe and the United States, in continuity with its apostolate in service of the traditional liturgy and priestly formation.

The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter currently maintains a consolidated presence in more than 150 dioceses around the world and continues to show notable vocational stability. 

According to the most recent data published by the institution itself, it has around 580 members, among whom there are about 380 priests, about thirty deacons, and more than 160 seminarians in formation, distributed mainly between its seminaries in Wigratzbad and Denton.

Saint Januarius doesn't fail: the blood of Naples' patron saint liquefies on the eve of the Pope's visit

Cardinal Battaglia announced on Saturday, May 2, at 17:03, from the atrium of the Duomo of Naples, the liquefaction of the blood of the city’s patron saint. 

It is the fourth consecutive prodigy since the last «failure» recorded in December 2024.

The «May miracle» is renewed in Naples

The blood of San Gennaro liquefied again this Saturday in Naples, on the first of the three annual dates when tradition expects the prodigy. 

The announcement was made by Cardinal Domenico Battaglia, Archbishop of Naples, at 17:03 from the atrium of the cathedral, waving the white handkerchief that, by secular custom, communicates to the faithful that the relic has become liquid. 

A long applause from the thousands of Neapolitans gathered in the square welcomed the news, before the start of the procession to the Basilica of Santa Chiara, where the solemn mass was celebrated.

The mayor of Naples and president of the Deputation of the Treasury of San Gennaro, Gaetano Manfredi, described the moment as «a miracle of faith and a great miracle of our city’s identity», and alluded to the upcoming visit of the Pope to Naples, scheduled for the coming days, as the «seal» of the «pact of faith» between the city and its patron.

Four consecutive liquefactions since the failure of December 2024

The May prodigy is part of a favorable streak that has reassured Neapolitans after the last episode of the opposite sign. 

The blood did not liquefy on December 16, 2024, a date traditionally more prone to «failures» and which popular devotion interprets as a bad omen. 

Since then, however, the three liquefactions of 2025 occurred normally:

• May 3, 2025: liquefaction at 18:09, in the Basilica of Santa Chiara. The ceremony was presided over by Auxiliary Bishop Francesco Beneduce, in the absence of Cardinal Battaglia, who was in Rome for the preparations of the Conclave.

• September 19, 2025: liquefaction at 10:08 in the Duomo, on the liturgical feast day of the saint, with the presence of Cardinal Battaglia, Mayor Manfredi, and the president of the Campania Region, Vincenzo De Luca.

• December 16, 2025: liquefaction at 9:13 (with the blood already semi-liquefied when the ampoule was extracted, and complete at 10:05). On that occasion, the prelate abbot of the Treasury Chapel, Mons. Vincenzo De Gregorio, took the opportunity to call for rigor in the face of folkloric readings of the prodigy: «The risk that Naples is reduced to pizza, mandolin, and San Gennaro is always great; let us set aside all fetishism».

The prodigy and its interpretation by the Church

The blood of San Gennaro—Bishop of Benevento beheaded in Pozzuoli during the persecution of Diocletian around the year 305—is preserved in two ampoules kept in the Treasury Chapel of the Duomo of Naples. 

Three times a year (the Saturday before the first Sunday of May, in memory of the translation of the relics; September 19, feast of the martyrdom; and December 16, anniversary of the 1631 Vesuvius eruption) the substance, usually dark and solid, liquefies publicly, according to a rite first documented in 1389 in the Chronicon Siculum.

The Catholic Church has never officially qualified the phenomenon as a miracle in the strict sense, but as a prodigy, avoiding closing the question to a single interpretation. 

The most widespread scientific hypotheses point to thixotropy—the property by which certain gels pass from a solid to a liquid state when agitated—although no direct analysis of the contents of the ampoules has ever been authorized by the Neapolitan Curia.

Popular devotion continues to read the liquefaction as a sign of protection and the lack of liquefaction as a bad omen. 

Among the years remembered for «failed miracles» are 1939 and 1940 (eve and beginning of World War II), 1973 (cholera epidemic), 1980 (Irpinia earthquake), and December 2020 (COVID-19 pandemic). 

The last episode in the series was added in December 2024.

Upcoming occasions

After the prodigy of May 2, Neapolitans now await the two remaining dates on the calendar: September 19, the liturgical feast day of the saint, and December 16, the date of the so-called «lay miracle» that recalls the intercession attributed to San Gennaro in the face of the 1631 Vesuvius eruption.

Enough excuses: the hierarchy continues to ignore the prevalence of sexual abusers in the clergy

Too many times, when the issue of sexual abuses reaches the public space, the institutional response from the Catholic Church hierarchy has relied on a rhetoric of dilution: “this happens everywhere,” “most abuses occur in the family setting,” “they are isolated cases.” 

The first two statements are true in absolute terms. 

And yet, read with honesty, they do not absolve the Church in the slightest.

A few days ago, the Bishop of San Sebastián, Fernando Prado Ayuso, publicly stated about the abuses: “Forgiveness is not enough, but we must tell the truth, most sexual abuses against minors occur in the family setting.” 

The phrase is formally true. 

But it is also, in the context in which it is pronounced, exactly the problem. And it is for two reasons: for what it says and for what it omits.

What the Figures Say

The October 2023 report from the Defensor del Pueblo, the work of the law firm Cremades & Calvo Sotelo commissioned by the Conferencia Episcopal Española, and the major independent reports from France (Sauvé commission), Germany (MHG study), Australia (Royal Commission), and the United States (John Jay Report) all converge on a narrow and revealing statistical range. 

Between 3% and 7% of Catholic clerics from the period investigated in each country appear flagged by complaints of sexual abuse against minors. That is: around one in every twenty-five priests, in the most conservative scenario. One in every fifteen, in the most severe.

Criminological studies on the prevalence of child sexual abusers in the general adult male population, on the other hand, place the figure below 0.5%. The comparison, made with methodological prudence, yields an uncomfortable but clear result: the probability that an adult male has committed abuses against minors is between five and ten times higher if that male is a priest. It is not a sensational headline; it is the sober reading of reports that the Church itself, in other countries, has had to accept.

Saying that “most abuses occur in the family” is mathematically correct: in a Spain with nineteen million households compared to nearly fifteen thousand active diocesan priests, the absolute numbers admit no comparison. 

Obviously. 

But that comparison is not the relevant one. The pertinent question is not how many victims each setting produces in gross terms, but what density of abusers exists within each group. And in that question—the only honest one—the ecclesiastical institution comes off very badly.

That this phrase, moreover, is uttered by the bishop of a diocese where just a few weeks ago a priest was arrested for possession of child pornography, is more than an unfortunate coincidence. 

It is choosing the pulpit of aggregated statistics over that of institutional self-examination. 

And while that happens in the north, in the Archdiocese of Valencia an influencer priest, a habitual dispenser of moral lessons on social media, turns out to have stored photographs of nude minors on his hard drive and the Guardia Civil discovered downloads of aberrant titles. 

He was not convicted due to lack of explicit sexual content in the seized material, but what did the Church do? 

It did not open any process, first placed the priest in charge of a group of children in the collegiate church of Gandía, only in the face of the scandal moved him to a hospital where he had contact with sick minors and—when Infovaticana published everything—they have opted not to take measures and for the priest to continue on social media generating a community with tens of thousands of people in which he explicitly identifies as a priest. This is the level.

Legitimate Objections, and Why They Are Not Enough

It is true that the clergy has been subjected to unprecedented retrospective scrutiny. Independent commissions, diocesan archives opened, public appeals to victims for decades: no other professional group has gone through anything like it in countries like Spain (in other parts of the world, no). 

It is reasonable to suppose that if teachers, sports coaches, leisure monitors, or yes, parents and relatives were investigated with the same thoroughness, the rates detected in those areas would also rise. This is true. 

But it is not a defense: it is, if anything, a call to investigate those other areas as well. Not to stop investigating the ecclesiastical one.

It is also true that the clergy is not sociologically comparable to the “general male population.” It is an exclusively male group, in habitual professional contact with minors, in a position of moral authority and with facilitated access to trusted environments. 

The fairest comparison would be with other adult males in equivalent positions of authority and contact with minors. The few studies that exist in that direction narrow the difference somewhat, but do not eliminate it: the ecclesiastical rate remains far above.

And even accepting all methodological cautions, one fact remains that no statistic can gloss over: the institutional response. 

What distinguishes the ecclesiastical case from other areas is not only the prevalence, but the documented existence, in archives around the world, of systematic patterns of cover-up, transfer of alleged abusers between dioceses, pressure on victims, and obstruction of civil justice. 

That is the specific fracture. 

And that fracture is not closed with contextual figures.

The Silence of Our Own

There is also, moreover, a truth that Catholics must face head-on. We tend to protect ourselves. 

When a scandal arrives, we process it in terms of external attack: the press exaggerates, the enemies of the Church take advantage, the context is omitted, the figures are decontextualized. 

And in that defensive reflex—human, understandable, historically rooted in a real memory of hostility toward the faith—we are allowing something to rot inside the house without wanting to look at it. 

We confuse loyalty with cover-up, prudence with omertà, charity with silence. We say it in so many words: there is a Catholic silence that has become complicit through inertia.

It is not new. Any institution under external pressure tends to close ranks; ecclesiastical ones, by their communal nature and supernatural dimension, do so with greater force. 

But that defensive logic, which may have made sense in other times and against other adversaries, today is exactly what prevents the Church from doing the only thing that can save it: look inward. 

Analyze what is happening in seminary formation, in selection criteria, in supervision mechanisms, in the culture of power and obedience that surrounds the ministry. Ask, without alibis, why the data are what they are. 

Not to hand anyone over to the mob, but because without that honest examination the wound remains open and the pus keeps coming out, week after week.

The faithful who remain silent so as not to give ammunition to the enemy should ask ourselves if, by remaining silent, we are not making it easier for the true enemy, who is inside and is called abuse, cover-up, clerical vanity, and institutional fear of scandal. 

Faith is not defended by protecting our own when our own commit crimes. It is defended by demanding from our own house the highest standard, not the most indulgent.

The Questions That Cannot Be Asked (and That Must Be Asked)

There is an examination that the Spanish Church has spent decades unwilling to undertake out loud, and that must be put on the table even if it discomforts. 

What kind of Church are we projecting, and what kind of candidate does that model attract? 

A soft, infantilized, sentimentalized liturgy, alien to classical solemnity and exigency; soft catechesis; preaching fearful of any uncomfortable truth; a parish environment whose stable congregation is, mostly, elderly ladies: that Church, what vocations does it generate? 

What profiles does it repel and which does it attract? 

The question is not rhetorical or nostalgic: it is strictly sociological.

There is, moreover, an issue that political correctness prevents from being formulated in almost any forum but that any serious observer of contemporary clergy knows: the prevalence of homosexuality in the current Catholic clergy is, according to various sociological studies and according to statements from high-ranking officials of the Church itself—including the 2005 document from the Congregation for Catholic Education on the admission of candidates to the priesthood—notably higher than its prevalence in the general population. 

This is a documented fact, not an insinuation. 

Refusing even to analyze the issue, out of fear of being labeled, is exactly the attitude that has allowed for decades not to look at what needed to be looked at. The question about what real sexual and affective culture exists today in seminaries, presbyteries, and ecclesiastical residences, what informal networks operate in them, what real criteria—not those on paper—govern the selection of candidates, is a question that deserves an answer. 

And it deserves it from within the house, before someone else answers it from outside.

The Myth of the Administrative Solution

It is also worth saying something that in these years has been obscured by the noise. Neither the Defensor del Pueblo report, nor the Cremades & Calvo Sotelo report, nor the successive episcopal protocols, nor the diocesan prevention commissions are going to resolve this.

They are useful as a thermometer, as an exercise in partial transparency, as a necessary public gesture. But, in essence, they are political fire. And political fire does not put out structural fires.

Sexual abuse against minors is a crime. And, as such, it only has two real channels of response: the State’s penal code and the Church’s canon law. 

The first works, with its delays, within the standards of the rule of law. 

The second, it must be said with the frankness that the moment demands, does not work. 

Canonical processes in matters of delicta graviora are a mess: slow, opaque, ultimately dependent on the will of the ordinary, with eternal deadlines, unequal criteria between dicasteries and dioceses, and a procedural culture anchored in premodern logics. 

The 2021 reform of Book VI of the Code of Canon Law was a step, but insufficient. 

As long as the canonical response remains what it is, every commission, every external audit, and every reparation plan will arrive behind the problem. 

And the faithful will continue to learn about the cases, time and again, through newspaper headlines and not through statements from the corresponding diocese.

“Magnifica humanitas”: Leo XIV prepares his first social encyclical for May

Pope Leo XIV is expected to sign his first encyclical on May 15, a social document that, according to Vatican sources cited by the German agency KNA, will address some of the main contemporary challenges, including artificial intelligence, peace, and the crisis of international law.

The text, which is circulating under the provisional title Magnifica humanitas, will mark a decisive step in shaping the magisterium of the new Pontiff, expanding a doctrinal work on artificial intelligence that has been underway since the beginning of the year.

From Artificial Intelligence to a Broad-Reaching Social Encyclical

At the beginning of February, various reports pointed to the Vatican preparing a high-level document specifically focused on artificial intelligence, with an ethical and anthropological approach. 

Leo XIV himself had warned about the risks of uncontrolled technology, insisting on the need to preserve human dignity in the face of possible drifts that blur the boundary between the human and the artificial.

The future encyclical will not be limited to the technological issue, but will place it within a global reflection on the great challenges of the 21st century, in line with the tradition of the Church’s social doctrine.

A Gesture with Strong Historical Weight

The choice of May 15 for signing the document is not casual. In the Vatican, it is interpreted as a direct reference to Rerum novarum, the encyclical of Leo XIII published on that same day in 1891, which marked the beginning of the modern social doctrine of the Church.

Since then, other milestones of social magisterium have reinforced that tradition: Quadragesimo anno (1931), which developed the principle of subsidiarity; Mater et magistra (1961), focused on the social question in the industrial world; and Centesimus annus (1991), where St. John Paul II offered a decisive assessment of the role of the market economy after the fall of communism.

New Challenges for a New Stage

In this context, Leo XIV’s encyclical is shaping up as an update to that tradition in the face of a global scenario marked by profound transformations. 

Artificial intelligence appears as one of the main axes, but linked to broader issues such as international stability, the weakening of global legal frameworks, and the risks of dehumanization in contemporary societies.

The approach that had already been outlined in recent doctrinal documents—where it is emphasized that technology must serve the person and not replace them—now points to acquiring magisterial rank, offering clearer criteria for the Church’s pastoral and social action.

A Text Destined to Mark the Pontificate

For the moment, there is no official confirmation on the definitive content, but if these elements are confirmed, the Pope would not only be addressing technological challenges, but placing them within a broader vision of the moral and social order, with an eye on the tensions specific to the 21st century.

Less than 2%: the dramatic decline of Christians in the Holy Land

The Christian presence in the Holy Land has fallen to critical levels and could disappear if the current trend is not reversed. 

This was warned by Benedictine abbot Nikodemus Schnabel in a meeting with representatives of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), where he denounced that Christians now represent less than 2% of the population and continue to abandon the region due to war, the economic crisis, and lack of future.

“The place where the central events of our faith were born runs the risk of losing its native Christians,” warned the abbot, who described a situation marked by constant exodus and the growing invisibility of these communities.

Exodus, Precariousness, and Loss of Future

The main factor pushing Christians to leave is economic. As Schnabel explained, nearly 60% of Arab Christians depend on tourism, a sector that has not recovered since 2019 after the pandemic and subsequent conflicts. Without stable income, many families choose to emigrate.

“People leave because they see no future,” he stated, pointing to the lack of housing and employment as the two major obstacles to the permanence of Christian communities.

A Nearly Invisible Minority

Although Jerusalem retains a notable ecclesial diversity—with 13 Churches between Catholic and other historic confessions—this richness hides a much more fragile reality: a very reduced community.

The abbot emphasized the paradox that the Holy Land has fewer Christians than some of the most secularized regions of Europe. “Dreaming of reaching 5% or 6% would already be a lot,” he acknowledged.

The Risk of a “Holy Land Without Christians”

Schnabel warned of an increasingly plausible scenario: the permanence of holy places without living communities to sustain them. “The shrines, monks, and priests could remain, but without families or ordinary Christian life,” he noted.

This process would turn the Holy Land into a kind of symbolic or tourist space, disconnected from lived faith.

Three Groups, the Same Fragility

The abbot identified three major realities within the local Church.

On one hand, Palestinian Christians who speak Arabic, historically rooted in the region, but today affected by political restrictions, insecurity, and, in places like Gaza, a situation he described as “double pressure”: external conflict and internal control by Hamas.

In second place, a small community of Hebrew-speaking Catholics, growing, integrated into Israeli society.

Finally, the largest group: migrant workers and asylum seekers, who exceed 100,000 faithful and sustain much of the ecclesial life.

Denunciation of Conditions Close to “Modern Slavery”

The abbot denounced that many of these migrants live in undignified conditions: passports withheld, labor restrictions, family separation, and legal vulnerability. In some cases, he said, the system even penalizes motherhood.

“For the system, the most ‘criminal’ act can be saying yes to life,” he pointed out, alluding to women who refuse to abort and end up in irregular situations.

Between War and Fidelity to the Gospel

In the midst of the conflict, Schnabel defended the Church’s position: “We are neither pro-Israel nor pro-Palestine, but pro-humanity” and also recalled the testimony of migrant caregivers who died after refusing to abandon elderly people in their care during the attacks of October 7, 2023, highlighting their fidelity as an example of Christian life.

The abbot also denounced attacks against Christians by Jewish extremist groups, including harassment, vandalism, and profanations, and stated that these episodes can no longer be considered isolated. At the same time, he indicated that there are also Jewish sectors that defend Christian communities and denounce these abuses.

Schnabel concluded that, without concrete measures, the disappearance of Christians in the Holy Land will be inevitable. “There is no Annunciation without Nazareth, no Christmas without Bethlehem, no Easter without Jerusalem,” he affirmed, warning that without living communities the holy places run the risk of being reduced to spaces without Christian life.