Day: March 12, 2026

US Maronite bishops mourn priest killed in Israeli strike on Lebanon village #Catholic –

(OSV News) — Two Maronite bishops in the U.S. are calling for prayer, dialogue and solidarity after a Maronite priest was killed in Lebanon amid the U.S.-Israel war on Iran.

Father Pierre al-Rahi succumbed to injuries sustained March 9 when an Israeli artillery tank fired on a house in the southern Lebanon village of Qlayaa.

Lebanon and several other Middle East nations have come under attack since U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran, launched Feb. 28 and met with counterattacks by that nation, have plunged the region — as well as global relations and markets — into uncertainty.

Father al-Rahi, also known by his French name Pierre el-Raï, had along with other priests refused Israeli orders to evacuate the Maronite village, located a few miles from the border with Israel and home to some 8,000.

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When the strike took place, Father al-Rahi “didn’t wait” but “went to jump in right away” after hearing “one of the homes in his town was bombarded,” Bishop A. Elias Zaidan, who heads the St. Louis-based Maronite Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles, told OSV News.

But, said Bishop Zaidan, the priest was injured in a second strike that took place “right away” after the first, and then “died in the hospital.”

In a message shared with OSV News, Maronite Bishop Gregory J. Mansour of the Eparchy of St. Maron of Brooklyn, New York, reflected on Father al-Rahi’s death by quoting John 15:13: “No greater love has any man than to give his life for his friends.”

“May God’s good servant, Father Pierre Al Rahi, rest in peace,” said Bishop Mansour. “May his patriarch, bishop, brother priests, parishioners and family be consoled by the Holy Spirit.”

Bishop Zaidan called the priest’s death a “sad story and unfortunate situation.”

With roots in Syria and Lebanon, the global Maronite Catholic Church — one of the 23 Eastern Catholic Churches that, along with the Roman Catholic Church, comprise the universal Catholic Church — mourns to see Lebanon ravaged again by war, said Bishop Zaidan.

“It’s definitely a sadness and a sorrow, because Lebanon is a spiritual home for Maronites, like the Vatican is for all Catholics,” he said. “And we feel that attachment.”

Yet in the midst of death, the hope of new life through Christ is present, said Bishop Zaidan.

“The blood of martyrs helps to build the Church in that way, and gives us the determination to keep going despite everything, and to witness to the love of Christ in that perspective,” he said.

Bishop Zaidan offered a message for the faithful following the priest’s death.

“I would say, as Pope Leo XIV has, enough violence; let’s dialogue, let’s talk,” he said.

In addition, “keep praying and praying and praying,” Bishop Zaidan urged.

And, he said, “stand in solidarity” with those suffering in the war by thinking about and reflecting on what they are experiencing.

“I think we go a long way from that perspective, because ‘whatever you have done to the least of my brothers and sisters, you’ve done it to me,’” said Bishop Zaidan, quoting Matthew 25:40. “This gesture of support that says, ‘We’re praying for you, we’re thinking about you, we’re feeling for you’ — I think this beautiful support can help our brothers and sisters.”

Gina Christian is a multimedia reporter for OSV News. Follow her on X @GinaJesseReina.

– (OSV News) — Two Maronite bishops in the U.S. are calling for prayer, dialogue and solidarity after a Maronite priest was killed in Lebanon amid the U.S.-Israel war on Iran. Father Pierre al-Rahi succumbed to injuries sustained March 9 when an Israeli artillery tank fired on a house in the southern Lebanon village of Qlayaa. Lebanon and several other Middle East nations have come under attack since U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran, launched Feb. 28 and met with counterattacks by that nation, have plunged the region — as well as global relations and markets — into uncertainty. Father al-Rahi, also known

US peacebuilding a ‘strategic and moral imperative,’ advocates say at Notre Dame event #Catholic –

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — With American peacebuilding at a “crossroads,” amid global conflict and changes in U.S. foreign policy, a Notre Dame conference March 10 in the nation’s capital examined how to meet new challenges facing international conflict resolution and fostering peace.

The conference, titled “American Peacebuilding at a Crossroads: Lessons, Risks and the Road Ahead,” and hosted by University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs and its Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, in partnership with the Alliance for Peacebuilding, came as the U.S. engaged in new military actions in Iran.

The evening before the conference, in remarks at the House GOP policy retreat, President Donald Trump was unclear about how long the combat operations against Iran in concert with Israel that killed Iran’s longtime supreme leader, 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would last.

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“We could call it a tremendous success right now, as we leave here, I could call it, or we could go further, and we’re going to go further,” Trump said.

In remarks at the conference, retired Adm. Gary Roughead, former U.S. Navy chief of naval operations, referenced that conflict, among others, telling the audience, “I could use my time offering thoughts on the wars in Ukraine and the Gulf, which are indeed the future of warfare.”

“But,” the former admiral continued, “we have to be more strategic and forward looking. For the past few years, we’ve known that we were at a geopolitical and security inflection point.”

“I’ve spent my career in uniform, and believe deeply in maintaining a strong defense and deterrence, but I’ve also unclenched the hard fist of military power and extended that hand to relieve suffering and disasters and to help weave the fabric of peace,” Roughead said. “That is not weakness or woke. It conveys the moral strength of a nation. Both hard and soft power, and the uses of that power, demand intention, investment, and collaboration among institutions committed to preventing conflict.”

Roughead, who commanded fleets in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans during his time in active service, argued that the U.S. “faces a strategic and moral imperative to invest deliberately in peacebuilding.”

He further argued that peacebuilding is “essential, not peripheral to national security.”

“To meet this moment, American peacebuilding must evolve, building broader coalitions, forging new partnerships and preparing a new generation of leaders and peacebuilders to collaboratively, comfortably and confidently operate across military and civilian domains, employing public and private initiatives,” he said.

In a panel discussion, former Ambassador Mark Green, who was also previously administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, and is a former Republican member of Congress from Wisconsin, and former Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., also a former U.S. special envoy to the Great Lakes Region of Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo, urged participants to find a bipartisan path forward.

“We have to recognize that there is no monopoly on wisdom,” Green said, citing cooperation by the late Sen. John McCain, a Republican, and late Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a Democrat.

“They disagreed on damn near everything, but it’s the way they disagreed,” he said.

Feingold urged ways to emphasize the “congressional role in warmaking,” over “unilateral military intervention.”

“It’s up to Congress to assert the authority, and it’s up to the people of the states to demand that they do that,” he said. “They’re not going to do it on their own.”

Green concurred.

“Whether it be the Millennium Challenge Corporation, President (Barack) Obama’s Feed the Future or President (George W.) Bush’s PEPFAR AIDS initiative, they’ve lasted and been successful because Congress took it upon themselves to seriously debate and discuss and hone and sharpen and authorize those important tools,” he said. “And that seems gone.”

Liz Hume, executive director of the Alliance for Peacebuilding, said in remarks at the conference that the challenges facing their cause also presented opportunity.

“As terrible as this has been,” Hume said in reference to cuts to international development programs, “we have to see that there’s an opportunity to rebuild it in a way that we’re centering and prioritizing conflict prevention in our policies, laws and strategies.”

Kate Scanlon is a national reporter for OSV News covering Washington. Follow her on X @kgscanlon.

– WASHINGTON (OSV News) — With American peacebuilding at a “crossroads,” amid global conflict and changes in U.S. foreign policy, a Notre Dame conference March 10 in the nation’s capital examined how to meet new challenges facing international conflict resolution and fostering peace. The conference, titled “American Peacebuilding at a Crossroads: Lessons, Risks and the Road Ahead,” and hosted by University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs and its Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, in partnership with the Alliance for Peacebuilding, came as the U.S. engaged in new military actions in Iran. The evening before the conference, in

Church’s unity comes from faith in Christ and from love, pope says #Catholic –

VATICAN CITY (CNS) –The Catholic Church is made up of diverse people who are united by their faith in Christ and are called to welcome all of humanity, Pope Leo XIV said during his weekly general audience.

“Its unifying principle is not a language, a culture, an ethnicity, but faith in Christ,” he said in St. Peter’s Square March 11.

Continuing his series of reflections on the Second Vatican Council, the pope focused on the Dogmatic Constitution “Lumen Gentium,” which describes the Church as the “People of God.”

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The Church is the assembly of “all those who in faith look upon Jesus,” he said, united not by nationality or culture but by their shared faith in Christ.

Pope Leo said this understanding is rooted in the Bible, pointing to God’s covenant with Abraham and the people of Israel, which prepared the way for the new covenant established through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

The pope said love is the law that governs relationships within the Church, as believers receive and experience it through Jesus. Through Christ, believers from every nation are united in faith, he said. The Church is the people of God who “draw their existence from the body of Christ and who are themselves the body of Christ.”

Rather than turning inward, the pope said, the Church must remain open to everyone.

“Unified in Christ, Lord and Savior of every man and woman, the Church can never turn inwards on herself, but is open to everyone and is for everyone,” he said.

In a world marked by conflict and division, Pope Leo added, the diversity of the Church is a sign of hope.

“It is a great sign of hope — especially in our times, marked by so many conflicts and wars — to know that the Church is a people in which women and men of different nationalities, languages and cultures live together in faith,” he said.

Before greeting Italian-speakers, the pope said he was close to the Lebanese people “in this moment of grave trial,” following the death of Father Pierre El-Rahi. The Maronite priest was killed in an Israeli bombing of southern Lebanon March 9. The pope said his funeral was to be held March 11 in Al-Qlayaa, a Christian village.

“In Arabic, ‘El Raii’ means shepherd. Father Pierre was a true shepherd who always remained close to his people with the love and sacrifice of Jesus, the Good Shepherd,” he said in Italian. “As soon as he heard that some parishioners had been wounded in a bombing, without hesitation, he ran to help them.”

Before the audience, Pope Leo met privately with Cardinal Dominique J. Mathieu, Archbishop of Tehran and Isfahan, Iran. The Belgian cardinal, who is a member of the Franciscans, arrived in Rome March 8 after being evacuated along with every member of the Italian Embassy, where he is based.

During the general audience, Pope Leo asked for prayers of peace in Iran and throughout the Middle East, above all for the many civilian victims and innocent children.

“May our prayer be a comfort to those who suffer and a seed of hope for the future,” he said.

– VATICAN CITY (CNS) –The Catholic Church is made up of diverse people who are united by their faith in Christ and are called to welcome all of humanity, Pope Leo XIV said during his weekly general audience. “Its unifying principle is not a language, a culture, an ethnicity, but faith in Christ,” he said in St. Peter’s Square March 11. Continuing his series of reflections on the Second Vatican Council, the pope focused on the Dogmatic Constitution “Lumen Gentium,” which describes the Church as the “People of God.” Click here to subscribe to our weekly newsletter. The Church is the

Joyful moment as Bishop baptizes infant in Pompton Plains #Catholic –

Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney on March 8 visited Our Lady of Good Counsel (OLGC) Parish in Pompton Plains, N.J., to celebrate a Spanish Mass. He also performed a baptism of an infant, Sara Restrepo Gonzalez.

Father Darwin Lastra, OLGC pastor, and Father Yohan A. Serrano, spiritual director of the Hermandad Emmaus and Sussex County Hispanic community chaplain who lives at the parish, concelebrated the Mass with Bishop Sweeney.

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– Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney on March 8 visited Our Lady of Good Counsel (OLGC) Parish in Pompton Plains, N.J., to celebrate a Spanish Mass. He also performed a baptism of an infant, Sara Restrepo Gonzalez. Father Darwin Lastra, OLGC pastor, and Father Yohan A. Serrano, spiritual director of the Hermandad Emmaus and Sussex County Hispanic community chaplain who lives at the parish, concelebrated the Mass with Bishop Sweeney. Click here to subscribe to our weekly newsletter. BEACON PHOTOS | JOE GIGLI