Pope expresses shame over Church’s abuse (Vatican News) At Wednesday’s General Audience, Pope Francis prays for victims of clerical sexual abuse in France, expressing his sadness and grief at the trauma they have experienced. “This is a moment of shame,” the pope said at the weekly General Audience, commenting on a damning new report detailing hundreds of thousands of cases of clerical abuse in France since the 1950s. The report, released by the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE) on Tuesday, also addressed negligence, silence, and deficiencies, and even cover-up by Church leaders in dealing with abuses…

Brooklyn’s Msgr. John Powis dies at 87 (The New York Times) Msgr. John Powis, whose kinetic street ministry and civic leadership helped revive some of Brooklyn’s most troubled neighborhoods, died on Sept. 29 at a nursing home in Manhattan. He was 87. The cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease, his sister Katherine Powis said. He belonged to a generation of clerics committed to social justice — a cohort profoundly affected by the liberalization of church policies and practices approved by the Second Vatican Council, which was convened by Pope John XXIII in 1959, the same year that Father Powis was ordained…

New Title IX rule for abortion funding labeled “offensive” (CNS) The Biden administration’s decision to allow Title X family planning funds go to health facilities that perform and promote abortion “is offensive to tens of millions of Americans,” said the president of National Right to Life. “The vast majority of Americans believe that using taxpayer funds to pay for abortion is wrong,” Carol Tobias said in a statement. Her comments came in a statement released late Oct. 4 in response to the Biden administration’s announcement that it had officially reversed the Trump-era “Protect Life Rule” enforcing Title X’s ban on taxpayer funds from being used to promote or provide elective abortions…

Mass celebrated for the first time in Squamish language (The B.C. Catholic) It was a Mass that will make the history books, said Deacon Rennie Nahanee.  Mass was celebrated in the Squamish language for the first time at St. Paul’s Indian Catholic Church in North Vancouver Sept. 26, just days before Canada’s first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. “I see this as reconciliation between the Church and our native people,” Deacon Nahanee, a member of the Squamish First Nation, told The B.C. Catholic. “I believe this will build our language up…”

Bishops to continue discussion about Eucharist at fall assembly (CNS) When the U.S. bishops meet this fall for their annual assembly, they will revisit the discussion they began in mid-June about the Eucharist and will be presented with a drafted document on the “meaning of the Eucharist in the life of the church.” But in the time since their virtual spring assembly, the topic of the Eucharist, and particularly the debate it raised about denying Communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion, has prompted ongoing discussion…