The News You May Have Missed: June 2025

A Catholic Coup

A study found that among British members of Gen Z, Catholics now outnumber Anglicans two to one — as Catholicism is rising in the United Kingdom while Anglicanism is declining (Catholic News Agency, April 8). The report from the Bible Society found that Christianity in general is growing in the United Kingdom after decades of decline, driven by young adults — young men in particular. “Over the space of only six years, there has been a significant growth in the numbers of people going to church; Christians are practicing their religion more intentionally; more young people are finding faith; more people are reading the Bible,” the report reads. The youngest group studied is the second most likely to attend church, with 16 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds saying they are monthly churchgoers, compared to 19 percent of those over 65. Additionally, 21 percent of men in the younger group attend church monthly, higher than their female peers at 12 percent. Among those 18- to-24-year-olds, only 20 percent identify as Anglican, down from 30 percent in 2018, compared to 41 percent identifying as Catholic.

A Sign from Heaven

A record-breaking 17,800 Frenchmen were baptized into the Catholic Church during this year’s Easter Vigil, according to an annual survey by the French bishops’ conference (OSV News, April 11). Adult baptisms have skyrocketed, increasing 45 percent compared to 2024 — the highest figures since the creation of the survey in 2002. It’s not a passing trend, but a real “dynamic,” said Archbishop Olivier de Germay of Lyon, and a “sign from Heaven.” Over the past decade, the number of adults baptized at Easter has risen from 3,900 in 2015 to nearly 10,400. “Requests are pouring in,” said Cécile Eon, a national delegate for the adult catechumenate. Eighteen- to 25-year-olds now represent 42 percent of catechumens and have surpassed the 26- to 40-year-olds. “In 80 percent of cases, they come from broken families, with parents who had abandoned the faith,” said Hubert Boüan, who is responsible for catechumens at the Cathedral of St. Louis in Versailles. “But many mention their grandmother and say they remember her going to Mass.”

Not What You Were Hoping For

An Indiana Catholic church caused a worldwide sensation when its parishioners reported that a Communion host apparently bled. The discovery was made at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in Morris, but a study requested by the Archdiocese of Indianapolis found that the red marks were not blood, and hence no miracle had taken place; rather, the discoloration was caused by bacteria commonly found on human hands (Daily Mail, March 27). “Throughout the history of the Catholic Church, there have been well-documented miracles and apparitions, and each has been thoroughly and carefully reviewed,” the archdiocese said. Though eucharistic miracles are few and far between, there have been several recently in which a consecrated host did appear to bleed. In 2013 a host that fell to the floor during a Christmas Mass in Legnica, Poland, was put in water to dissolve and turned into type AB blood. A similar instance occurred in 2008 in Sokolka, Poland, when a priest placed a host in a container of water after accidentally dropping it. A week later, a nun observed a red stain, and two separate medical schools found cardiac tissue on the host.

Trad Terrorist?

The accused killer of a Kansas Catholic priest shot the clergyman “intentionally” and with “premeditation,” a prosecutor said. Gary Hermesch was taken into custody at the Nemaha County Jail and charged with the first-degree murder of Fr. Arul Carasala, who was shot at SS Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Seneca. The priest later died from his injuries. Hermesch had written letters to the local newspaper, saying in one instance, “Maybe if we just follow Donald Trump’s example we’ll ‘make the Church great again,’” and in another that the faith is “not being taught.” In other letters he reportedly referenced a “fake Catholic Church” and spoke negatively of Vatican II. Fr. Carasala had served in the archdiocese for more than 20 years. Archbishop Joseph Naumann described him as “a devoted and zealous pastor” whose “love for Christ and his Church was evident in how he ministered to his people.” Hermesch is being held on a $1 million bond (Catholic News Agency, April 8).

Barely Illegal

An Australian woman who worked as a marketing executive at a Christian charity was arrested for producing and disseminating child sex-abuse material (Independent, March 25). Lauren Tesolin-Mastrosa, under the pen name Tori Woods, wrote Daddy’s Little Toy, an erotic novel about how the friend of the father of a “barely legal” 18-year-old woman had desired her since she was three years old. Tesolin-Mastrosa, 33, said there had been a “big misunderstanding,” and the book “is definitely not promoting or inciting anything ever to do with [child sexual abuse] or paedophilia.” She stressed that though the book is fictional, she understood why some parts were being “frowned upon.” Tesolin-Mastrosa has since taken down her social media accounts, and the book has been withdrawn from online listings at Amazon and GoodReads. “I have cut ties with Tori Woods, effective immediately,” said the cover designer, Georgia Stove, who has received death threats. Tesolin-Mastrosa was also suspended from her position as a marketing executive at BaptistCare, a charitable arm of the Baptist Church in Australia.

Off the Fence

A woman fencer has stepped away from the sport after she was placed on a 12-month probation for refusing to compete against a transgender athlete (New York Post, April 16). Stephanie Turner, 31, was disqualified from USA Fencing’s Cherry Blossom Open in Maryland when she took a knee rather than fence Redmond Sullivan, 20, a biological male. The drama that followed, which made national headlines, “has disrupted my training, it has disrupted my interactions when I go out in public, and it will certainly disrupt my competition because I won’t be competing in the United States anytime soon,” said Turner, who has been fencing for over a decade. USA Fencing slapped her with a year-long probation — which does not bar her from competing — but Turner said she’ll be “taking a break from fencing for a while in the U.S. circuit” anyway. During her time away from the piste, she’ll join the movement to ban male athletes from women’s sports. USA Fencing adopted its trans-inclusion policy in 2023.

Run, Robot, Run

Over 20 humanoid robots joined thousands of human runners in a 13-mile race in Beijing, China (Sky News, April 19). The robots, as short as 3 feet, 9 inches, and as tall as 5 feet, 9 inches, had to be able to walk or run; wheels were not allowed. The winning robot, Tiangong Ultra, crossed the finish line in two hours, 40 minutes, while the men’s winner had a time of one hour, two minutes. “I don’t want to boast, but I think no other robotics firms in the West have matched Tiangong’s sporting achievements,” boasted Tang Jian, chief technology officer of the Beijing Innovation Centre of Human Robotics, which created the robot. As for the other robots, one fell at the starting line and lay on the ground for a few minutes before getting up and joining the race, while another crashed into a railing. The robots were accompanied by human trainers, with some physically supporting the machines during the race. Several of the robots wore running shoes, one donned boxing gloves, and another wore a red headband saying “Bound to Win” in Chinese.

Poo Problem

NASA is offering $3 million for any potentially workable proposal to solve an unusual problem: recycling feces and other human waste in space (United Press International, April 9). The space agency’s LunaRecycle Challenge calls on members of the public to devise a technological means of recycling astronauts’ feces, urine, and vomit. There are currently 96 bags of human waste on the moon that were left by astronauts from the Apollo missions, and the aim of the LunaRecycle Challenge is to prevent adding more to the waste pile. The chosen technology will be put to use on future space missions, including hypothetical long-term outposts on the moon. “NASA is committed to sustainable space exploration. As we prepare for future human space missions, there will be a need to consider how various waste streams, including solid waste, can be minimized — as well as how waste can be stored, processed, and recycled in a space environment so that little or no waste will need to be returned to earth,” the agency explained. The team that comes out on top of the competition will win $3 million.

Long-Lost Ancestors

The Sahara Desert is one of Earth’s most arid and desolate places, but roughly 14,500 to 5,000 years ago, it was a lush green savannah, rich in bodies of water and teeming with life — and, according to DNA obtained from the remains of two individuals who lived there about 7,000 years ago, home to a mysterious lineage of people isolated from the outside world (Reuters, April 4). Researchers analyzed the first genomes from two females buried at a rock shelter in what is now Libya who were naturally mummified, representing the oldest-known mummified human remains. The pair were part of a distinct and previously unidentified human lineage. “Intriguingly, the Takarkori people show no significant genetic influence from sub-Saharan populations to the south or Near Eastern and prehistoric European groups to the north. This suggests they remained genetically isolated despite practicing animal husbandry — a cultural innovation that originated outside Africa,” said Johannes Krause of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. They remained secluded throughout most of their existence before the Sahara became uninhabitable around 3000 B.C.

Tiny Contraband

Two Belgian teenagers were charged with wildlife piracy in Nairobi after they were found with thousands of ants in what Kenyan authorities say is part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser known yet ecologically critical species (New York Post, April 16). In a separate case, a Kenyan and a Vietnamese man were also charged with illegal trafficking in the same courtroom. The Kenya Wildlife Service said the four men were prepared to traffic the ants, including Messor cephalotes, a large, red-colored harvester ant native to East Africa, to markets in Europe and Asia. The Belgians, both 19, were arrested in Kenya’s Nakuru County, home to various national parks, after 5,000 ants were found in a guesthouse where they were staying, packed in 2,244 test tubes filled with cotton wool to enable them to survive for months. The other two men were found with 400 ants in their Nairobi apartments. Kenyan authorities valued the ants at $7,700. Philip Muruthi, vice president for conservation at the African Wildlife Foundation, said ants play a critical role in the local environment, and pirates risk exporting diseases to the agriculture of destination countries.

Off-Pitch

A Bulgarian soccer team apologized after it held a minute’s silence to mourn a former player — who the club mistakenly believed had died (CNN, March 19). Before Arda Kardzhali’s game against Levski Sofia, players from both teams lined up to honor Petko Ganchev, but before the game had finished, Arda issued a “huge apology” to Ganchev, saying it had “received wrong information about his death” and wished him “many more years of good health.” Ganchev learned of his former team’s error while driving home from work. “My phone started ringing a lot,” he said. “I park in front of our house. I enter the yard and my wife welcomes me in tears. She says: ‘Petko, Petko, on the television they announced that you had passed!’” To be “buried alive is very stressful,” Ganchev said. “Truthfully, the situation was not pleasant, but at the end of the day, we have to be positive…. When I heard the horrible news, I poured myself a small brandy,” he said with a smile.

Crossed Up

Several crosswalk buttons in three California cities were hacked to play hoax audio clips of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk (United Press International, April 15). Instead of the usual pedestrian alerts, crosswalk buttons in Redwood City, Menlo Park, and Palo Alto — in Silicon Valley — played clips of voices impersonating the tech billionaires. “Hi, this is Mark Zuckerberg, but real ones call me the Zuck,” one recording said. “You know, it’s normal to feel uncomfortable or even violated as we forcefully insert AI into every facet of your conscious experience. And I just want to assure you, you don’t need to worry, because there’s absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. Anyway, see ya.” Another recording claiming to be Musk offered free Cybertrucks in exchange for friendship. “You don’t know the level of depravity I would stoop to just for a crumb of approval,” the recording states. “I mean, let’s be real, it’s not like I had any moral convictions to begin with.” Investigators are working to determine how the audio system was hacked and who was behind the prank.

Jackhammer Beak

Cars in a Massachusetts town came under siege by a pileated woodpecker that damaged the mirrors and windows of over 25 vehicles (United Press International, April 25). Rockport resident Janelle Favaloro managed to photograph the culprit in the act when it landed on the windshield wipers of her RV and stared at its reflection. It cracked Mike Foster’s passenger-side window while he was sitting in his pickup truck. “I was like, ‘Oh, I’m in trouble,’” he said. “It was staring me right in the eyes for a solid 30 seconds.” Some residents took to protecting their mirrors with plastic wrap or sweaters while their vehicles were not in use. Matthew Fuxjager, director of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology graduate program at Brown University, chalked up the woodpecker’s behavior to the mating season, when males are known to become fiercely territorial. “They’re a ferocious bird, and they’re really strong,” he said. Their beaks are “the biomechanical equivalent of a hammer.” The bird, looking in the cars’ reflective surfaces, saw himself as a competitor.

Love of Neighbor, Love of Books

Residents of the small town of Chelsea, Michigan, formed a human chain to help a local bookshop move 9,100 books — one by one — to a new storefront about a block away (Associated Press, April 15). The “book brigade” of 300 people stood in two lines along a downtown sidewalk and passed each title from the former location of Serendipity Books to the correct shelves in the new building — down the block and around the corner on Main Street. “It was a practical way to move the books, but it also was a way for everybody to have a part,” said store owner Michelle Tuplin. “As people passed the books along, they said ‘I have not read this’ and ‘that’s a good one.’” Momentum had been building since Tuplin announced the move. “It became so buzzy in town. So many people wanted to help,” she said. The endeavor took just under two hours — faster than hiring a moving company to box and unbox thousands of titles. The brigade even put the books on the shelves in alphabetical order.

The Good Missus

Analysis of a 17th-century letter fragment may shed new light on William Shakespeare’s marriage — suggesting it was less fractious than previously thought (Sky News, April 23). It has long been assumed that the Bard was unhappily married to Anne Hathaway and left her in Stratford-upon-Avon while he spent time in London. But the letter, addressed to “good Mrs Shakespeare,” appears to show them living together in London at some point between 1600 and 1610. The letter was discovered in 1978, but until now “no one could identify the names or places involved or see any reason to think that the Mr. Shakespeare in the letter was necessarily William rather than anyone else of the same name in the general period,” said Matthew Steggle of the University of Bristol. The letter claims Mr. Shakespeare is withholding money from an orphan boy, and its writer asks Mrs. Shakespeare for the funds, but she stands by her husband. Prof. Steggle says it shows her “involved with her husband’s money affairs and social networks. So, it’s a game-changer.” And, if the reply on the back is from Anne Hathaway, then it’s her first known writing.

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