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Hello, I'm Maggie Murray of OSV News, and this is your OSV Newscast for Thursday, August 20th, 2026. Let's catch you up on the Catholic News of the Day. Here we go. Ahead of next month's World Day of Prayer for Creation, Pope Leo XIV is offering a challenging diagnosis of the world's twin crises, war and environmental destruction. In his message marking the September 1st observance, the Pope said both are not merely political failures, but symptoms of a deeper moral crisis in the human heart. He warned that armed conflict and ecological degradation feed a vicious cycle, destroying ecosystems, poisoning natural resources, and destabilizing communities for generations. Drawing on the prophet Isaiah's call to beat swords into plowshares, Poplio urged nations and individuals alike to turn away from violence and the pursuit of domination. Lasting peace, he stressed, requires genuine inner spiritual renewal and a redirection of resources once devoted to destruction, toward feeding the hungry, caring for the poor, and protecting God's creation. The prayer day opens the ecumenical season of creation, which concludes October 4th, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. For the second time this month, Arizona's Supreme Court has issued a unanimous ruling with potential implications for the Catholic Church's confessional seal. In Rodriguez Ramirez v. Arizona, decided August 12th, the court ruled that a defendant's admission of wrongdoing to a fellow pastor could be admitted into court because it didn't meet the legal definition of religious confession. While the case doesn't involve Catholic clergy, canon law expert Monsignor John Paul Kimes of the University of Notre Dame Law School said the precedent matters. He explained that while the sacramental seal of confession remains absolutely inviable, conversations that occur outside the confessional, such as spiritual direction, may not receive the same protection. Monsignor Kimes was emphatic about one point regardless of the ruling's reach. The seal doesn't belong to the penitent. It doesn't belong to the priest, it belongs to the sacrament, so no one can waive the sacramental seal. Eighty Catholic clergy from the Archdiocese of Bogota set out this week on a five-day mission to bring what they called spiritual first aid to Colombian communities devastated by the 7.4 magnitude earthquake that rocked the country earlier this month. Led by Cardinal Luis Jose Rueda Aparicio and his auxiliary bishops, the team of priests and deacons departed by bus Tuesday, divided into six groups to visit the hardest-hit cities, including Cali, Pereira, and Buenaventura, offering prayer, pastoral support, and the sacrament of reconciliation. The August 10th quake, centered in the department of Choco, was Colombia's strongest in a decade, leaving at least 319 people dead, nearly 4,500 injured, 260 still missing, and more than 30,000 homes destroyed. Cardinal Rueda described the mission as the first of several planned outreach efforts, praying, May the Lord rebuild us all from the heart, and may the Virgin Mary accompany us with her motherly love to guide the path of hope after the earthquake. In an interview with OSV News last week, Archbishop Visvaldas Kobolkas, papal nuncio to Ukraine, said plainly, I still believe that prayer is our number one weapon. We need to have our heart in our prayer. While Russian aggression cannot destroy Ukraine's spiritual life directly, the Archbishop warned it could provoke something more dangerous within disbelief, lost hope, or anger toward God and one another. That inner surrender, he said, would be even more dramatic and tragic than the war itself, representing genuine spiritual defeat. Archbishop Kobolkus urged the faithful to hold on to hope found not in worldly circumstances, but in Jesus, not this life, while still using whatever small talents and possibilities they have to build peace. He pointed to the gospel's multiplication of loaves and fishes as a model. Offer what little you have and trust Christ to multiply the effort. Thousands gathered along the Louisiana Bayou last weekend for one of the most distinctive Catholic traditions in the country, a Eucharistic procession that travels not on foot but by boat. The Fete du de Tech, organized by Father Michael Champagne and the community of Jesus Crucified in the Diocese of Lafayette, took place Saturday along the Bayou Tech, coinciding with both the Solemnity of the Assumption and National Acadian Day. This year's 40-mile procession by water and land retraced the paths used by exiled French-Canadian Catholics who settled in Louisiana in the 1760s, carrying the Eucharist exposed in a monstrance alongside statues of Our Lady of the Assumption and Saint Joseph with the child Jesus. Despite sweltering heat, the faithful sang hymns and joined in Eucharistic adoration along the water's edge. It brings people together from different walks of life, said Father Abelardo Gabriel of Notre Dame du Perpetual Secur in celebration of victory and in gratitude to Jesus and our Blessed Mother. The next procession, in December 2027, will travel an unprecedented eight days from St. Louis to New Orleans. And that's your OSV Newscast for today. I'm Maggie Murray of OSV News. Check out the show notes for direct links to the stories in this episode. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast, follow us on social media, and bookmark osvnews.com. Thanks so much for listening and God bless. 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