Political leaders have a responsibility to create the conditions necessary for artificial intelligence to be at the service of humanity and to help mitigate its risks, Pope Francis told world leaders.
“We cannot allow a tool as powerful and indispensable as artificial intelligence to reinforce such a (technocratic) paradigm, but rather, we must make artificial intelligence a bulwark” against the threat, he said in his address June 14 at the Group of Seven summit being held in southern Italy.
“This is precisely where political action is urgently needed,” he said.
Many people believe politics is “a distasteful word, often due to the mistakes, corruption and inefficiency of some politicians — not all of them, some. There are also attempts to discredit politics, to replace it with economics or to twist it to one ideology or another,” he said.
But the world cannot function without healthy politics, the pope said, and effective progress toward “universal fraternity and social peace” requires a sound political life.
The pope addressed leaders at the G7’s special “outreach” session dedicated to artificial intelligence. In addition to the G7 members — the United States, Japan, Canada, Germany, France, Italy and Great Britain — the forum included specially invited heads of state, including the leaders of Argentina, India and Brazil.
The G7 summit was being held in Borgo Egnazia in Puglia June 13-15 to discuss a series of global issues, such as migration, climate change and development in Africa, and the situation in the Middle East and Ukraine. The pope was scheduled to meet privately with 10 heads of state and global leaders in bilateral meetings before and after his talk, including U.S. President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Because of time limits set for speakers during the outreach session, the pope read only a portion of his five-page speech, although the full text was made part of the official record. The Vatican provided a copy of the full text.
In his speech, the pope called artificial intelligence “an exciting and fearsome tool.” It could be used to expand access to knowledge to everyone, to advance scientific research rapidly and to give “demanding and arduous work to machines.”
“Yet at the same time, it could bring with it a greater injustice between advanced and developing nations or between dominant and oppressed social classes, raising the dangerous possibility that a ‘throwaway culture’ be preferred to a ‘culture of encounter,’” he said.
Like every tool and technology, he said, “the benefits or harm it will bring will depend on its use.”
While he called for the global community to find shared principles for a more ethical use of AI, Pope Francis also called for an outright ban of certain applications.
For example, he repeated his insistence that so-called “lethal autonomous weapons” be banned, saying “no machine should ever choose to take the life of a human being.”
Decision-making “must always be left to the human person,” he said. Human dignity itself depends on there being proper human control over the choices made by artificial intelligence programs.
Humanity would be condemned to a future without hope “if we took away people’s ability to make decisions about themselves and their lives, by dooming them to depend on the choices of machines,” he said. In his text, he specifically criticized judges using AI with prisoner’s personal data, such as their ethnicity, background, education, psychological assessments and credit rating, to determine whether the prisoner is likely to re-offend upon release and therefore require home-confinement.
The pope also cautioned, students especially, against “generative artificial intelligence,” which are “magnificent tools” and easily make available online “applications for composing a text or producing an image on any theme or subject.”
However, he said, these tools are not “generative,” in that they do not develop new analyses or concepts; they are merely “reinforcing” as they can only repeat what they find, giving it “an appealing form” and “without checking whether it contains errors or preconceptions.”
Generative AI “not only runs the risk of legitimizing fake news and strengthening a dominant culture’s advantage, but, in short, it also undermines the educational process itself,” his text said.
“It is precisely the ethos concerning the understanding of the value and dignity of the human person that is most at risk in the implementation and development of these systems,” he told the leaders. “Indeed, we must remember that no innovation is neutral.”
Technology impacts social relations in some way and represents some kind of “arrangement of power, thus enabling certain people to perform specific actions while preventing others from performing different ones,” he said. “In a more or less explicit way, this constitutive power dimension of technology always includes the worldview of those who invented and developed it.”
In order for artificial intelligence programs to be tools that build up the good and create a better tomorrow, he said, “they must always be aimed at the good of every human being,” and they must have an ethical inspiration, underlining his support of the “Rome Call for AI Ethics” launched in 2020.
It is up to everyone to “make good use” of artificial intelligence, he said, “but the onus is on politics to create the conditions for such good use to be possible and fruitful.”
A woman who paints icons for the famous Optina Pustyn Monastery in the Kaluga Province of Russia was wounded in a shooting near the monastery yesterday.
The iconographer and two friends were returning home from the Ascension services at the monastery when an armed man came out of the woods and opened fire at them, Optina abbot His Grace Bishop Joseph of Mozhaisk explained to RIA-Novosti.
It is believed the man wanted to steal the women’s car. The iconographer was lightly wounded and treated on the spot. The man disappeared back into the woods after the shooting, but was later detained by law enforcement.
A video appeared in a number of Telegram channels showing a man firing a machine gun and shouting threats. He forced two women to get out of the car, one of whom began making the Sign of the Cross. The third woman, filming from the car, entreated the attacker to stop in the name of Christ.
“Their faith and calmness are admirable. Three weak women defended themselves only with the sign of the cross and invoking the name of God. Remaining calm and possessing inner spiritual strength, they forced the attacker to retreat,” said Bp. Joseph
St. Methodius I of Constantinople was born in Syracuse at the end of the eighth century. He came to Constantinople to obtain a place at court, but was persuaded to join a monastery instead. He opposed the government during the Iconoclast persecution and served as a liaison between the pope and the emperor of Constantinople.
The emperor Michael refused to stop his persecution, and punished Methodius by forcing him to spend seven years in a disused tomb on the island of Antigoni.
Methodius was set free from his prison in 828, when Michael stopped his persecution and proclaimed general amnesty, but his son led an even greater persecution, which Methodius stood against, and suffered greatly.
In the last five years of his life, Methodius served as the Patriarch of Constantinople. He died in 846, on June 14, in Constantinople.
Methodius is said to have written many works, although only a few sermons and letters are still in existence.
A Christian must have zeal. Or, enthusiastic drive, enthusiasm. But, of course, we can’t always remain in this state of mind. What should we do? Where are we to get it? I’ve got an answer: at Cross processions. There you meet what is real. All the phony glitz will disappear once you arrive at the first rest stop of the procession, or when you get tired, become hungry, or it’s blistering hot, or on the contrary, it’s freezing or it rains, when your shoes cause you pain, and so on.
My very first procession, the one I went on with my five-year-old daughter, was a hundred kilometers long. Not to say it was way too much, for city folks it was quite a lot. We walked in the heat, slept on the floor of village churches or in tents and ate whatever the locals had to offer us. And I tell you what I have noticed at the time. When we arrived at villages that never had a church built there, the procession participants were offered nothing but overgrown cucumbers. This offering was according to the Russian proverb, “Take, for God’s sake, what I don’t need anyway.” But villages with churches offered us lavish feasts. People prepared for us hot and cold soups and various salads, meat patties and eggs, homemade bread, half-sour pickles, kvass, you name it! Those villagers were friendly, smiling, made quick friends with the walkers in the procession, and they asked us to mention them in our prayers. As for the inhabitants of villages without a church, they were unfriendly and even standoffish. I have made such observations over several years, so this is not some made-up thing; it’s a fact.
What, in my opinion, is the best part of walking in the procession for me? It’s our common processional Prayer is the Meeting of Two MysteriesToday we’re going to talk about a deep existential question that is of vital importance and has many dimensions in our lives.
“>prayer. We form two choirs, men’s and women’s, and take turns praying and singing. Actually, prayer is the major spiritual feat of the procession. There is neither iconostasis, nor candles, nor oil lamps and the familiar surroundings—there is nothing but prayer. And so, the people are focused on praying. Everyone loves to pray while walking. The favorite ones are the Jesus Prayer and, “Rejoice, O Virgin, Mother of God.”
Prayer is the main feat for those who walk in the procession. There is no iconostasis, candles, or familiar surroundings—nothing but prayer
We walk most frequently to Diveyevo, the Hidden Capital of Holy RussiaDiveyevo, the fourth and final portion of the Mother of God, revealed to me if only a small part of its mystical secret in the measure that I was ready to accept.
“>Diveyevo. We walk for almost a week to be on August 1 the commemoration day St. Seraphim of Sarov“>St. Seraphim of Sarov, at the holy relics of in the monastery he founded.
Summer is the major season for Cross processions. And so, the streams of faithful gradually pour to the gathering point. Everyone comes here! Doctors, programmers, economists, bank employees. We always have a lot of young people and children. There are large families, too. It’s funny to watch them. Sometimes you can see three children in the same stroller. There are families with seven children, sometimes even more than that. The youngest pilgrims are not even a month old, and the oldest participants are aged eighty. Everyone is walking to glorify God and His Most Pure Mother.
The tradition of walking in a procession is preserved because it stirs interest in people. And above everything else, they are interested in its spiritual benefits.
Prayer continues throughout the procession. Even when we stop to rest for a short while and have refreshments, we do it with prayer. Because we stop for rest at spiritually significant locations, like a memorial cross, for example. We stop and have a prayer service or a panikhida. Where there were once churches and chapels, the priests hold a prayer service. We do morning and evening prayers, and serve liturgies daily. Everyone reads the morning prayer rule on their own, whereas the evening rule is our common prayer. It is easier to pray in the midst of a large group of people.
Young men and women get acquainted during Cross processions and later start families. We have many such couples. Later on, we see them coming back with their children. First with one child, and then another. And later, there are already three. The happiest ones in the procession are the children. Freedom, summer, forest, lunches and dinners outside, swimming in rivers and lakes—along with sunbathing, running and praying, of course! You can’t do without it. My daughter grew up in Cross processions. You can distinguish such children from others—they are able-bodied, hardy, and well tanned. Nowadays, my daughter works as a coach. She works with children, and she thanks me for this school of life known as Cross procession.
People feel the boost they have received here for the whole year. Every procession has its core team—these people are always waking in the front row. It is a Cross procession brotherhood, so to speak.
Most people come to the procession because of problems—it could be an illness, grief from losing a loved one, a wrecked personal life, failures in career, or being besieged by passions. So, Cross procession isn’t always about love, joy, kindness and mutual support. Conflicts, misunderstandings and even serious clashes do happen there. I once had all my cash stolen, and it was a sizeable amount. I felt hurt and bitter. But people remain people everywhere. Cross procession is not some magic wand, like, one touch and a person gets transformed. It is more like work that continues for many years.
I have a special bag for Cross processions. It has things that I wear only while there. Those things have to meet particular requirements: Clothing should be exclusively made from natural fabrics and the shoes from natural leather, purchased preferably at specialized sports goods stores. The same requirements go for my backpack. When I return from the procession, I wash and clean everything, tie things in a knot—and store it deep inside my closet until the next procession.
A week before the procession, you feel a lot of excitement, as if something is about to interfere with your plan, or something is about to happen. I know some people who sacrificed a seaside vacation or skipped a trip abroad more than once for the sake of being a part of this prayerful procession.
A lot of miracles happen before the Cross procession participants’ very eyes. Ruins are restored to become beautiful churches, childless couples become parents to many children, terminally sick live long in gratitude to God, the wrongfully convicted become acquitted, the lonely find love and a lifetime partner.
There are people of different intellectual, cultural, and spiritual level—but all of them find their place here. The introverted open up, the chatty become calm and more composed, while the rowdy become peacemakers.
I think I will express a common opinion if I say that the motto of all our Cross processions is the words by the Holy Apostle Paul: Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing, In every thing give thanks (1 Thess. 5:16–18).
In the cryptic message of the prophet Ezekiel, long centuries before the Lord’s coming, God gave his people reason to hope. Ezekiel glimpsed a day when the Lord God would place a tree on a mountain in Israel, a tree that would “put forth branches and bear fruit.”
Who could have predicted that the tree would be a cross on the hill of Calvary, and that the fruit would be salvation? Ezekiel foresees salvation coming to “birds of every kind” — thus, not just to the people of Israel, but also to the Gentiles, who will “take wing” through their new life in Christ.
God indeed will “lift high the lowly tree,” as he solemnly promises. Such salvation surpasses humanity’s most ambitious dreams. And so we express our gratitude in the Psalm: “Lord, it is good to give thanks to you.”
It is indeed good, and better still to give thanks with praise. The psalmist speaks of those who are just upon the earth, but looks to God as the source and measure of justice, of righteousness. Like Ezekiel, he evokes the image of a flourishing tree to describe the lives of the just.
The image, again, suggests the cross as the measure of righteousness. The cross is a sign of contradiction to those who would rather “flourish” in worldly terms.
As St. Paul emphasizes to the Corinthians, we need courage. Our faith makes us strong, and it is proved in our deeds. He reminds us that we will be judged by the ways our faith manifests itself in works: “so that each may receive recompense, according to what he did in the body, whether good or evil.”
God himself will empower the works he expects from us, though we freely choose to correspond to his grace. In the prophetic oracles, he scattered the seed that sprang up and became the mustard tree, large enough to accommodate all the birds of the sky, just as Ezekiel had seen.
He gave this doctrine to his disciples in terms they were able to understand, and he provided a full explanation. In the sacraments he provides still more: the grace of faith and the courage we need to live in the world as children of God.
I have been writing on suicide for nearly 40 years. I do so because suicide is generally misunderstood, badly misunderstood. Moreover, perhaps more than any other form of death, suicide leaves those who are left behind with a heavy burden of sadness, hurt, and guilt.
Four things need always to be said upfront about suicide:
First, suicide is a disease, perhaps the most misunderstood of all diseases. In most cases, the death is not freely chosen. When people die from heart attacks, strokes, cancer, AIDS, or accidents, they die against their will. The same is true for suicide, except that in the case of suicide, the breakdown is emotional rather than physical — an emotional stroke, an emotional cancer, a breakdown of the emotional immune system, an emotional fatality.
And this is not an analogy. Suicide is a disease. Most people who die by suicide die against their will. They only want to end a pain which can no longer be endured, akin to someone jumping to his death out of a burning building because his clothes are on fire.
Second, we should not worry unduly about the eternal salvation of a suicide victim, believing (as we used to) that suicide is the ultimate act of despair and something God will not forgive. God is infinitely understanding, loving, and gentle. We need not worry about the fate of anyone, no matter the cause of death, who exits in this world broken, oversensitive, gentle, overwrought, and emotionally crushed. God has a special love for the broken and the crushed.
However, knowing all of this doesn’t necessarily take away our pain (and anger) at losing someone to suicide because faith and understanding aren’t always meant to take away our pain but rather to give us hope, vision, and support as we walk within our pain.
Third, we should not torture ourselves with guilt and second-guessing when we lose a loved one to suicide. “Where did I let this person down? If only I had been there. What if?” It is natural to be haunted by the thought, “If only I’d been there at the right time.”
Rarely would this have made a difference. Indeed, most of the time, we weren’t there for the exact reason that the person who fell victim to this disease did not want us to be there. He or she picked the moment, the spot, and the means so that we wouldn’t be there. Suicide is a disease that seems to pick its victim precisely in such a way so as to exclude others and their attentiveness. This is not an excuse for insensitivity, but a healthy check against false guilt and painful second-guessing.
We’re human beings, not God. People die of illness and accidents all the time and sometimes all the love and attentiveness in the world cannot prevent a loved one from dying. As a mother who lost a child to suicide writes: “The will to save a life does not constitute the power to prevent a death.”
And so, we must forgive ourselves for our human inadequacy vis-à-vis having lived with someone in suicidal depression. But that is not easy, as this man who lost his wife to suicide attests: “My wife had been unhappy and depressed for so long that I pray that she is now finally at peace. At least once a week for the past four or five years, she would remark that she wanted to die. … It’s been hard for me to disentangle the role I played in her unhappiness. … At a minimum, I will take to my grave the realization that I could have done more to keep her afloat. Over the past several years, instead of giving a pep talk to try to encourage her to see things in a more positive light, my default option had become avoidance and withdrawal. I had assumed that trying to dispel the fog of her depression only tended to make matters worse, at least for me, since I would often become the easier target for her anger/unhappiness.”
That is a common guilt feeling shared by many who have lost someone to suicide, particularly a spouse. What needs to be understood is that the depressed person’s anger is most often focused precisely on someone whom they trust and are very close to because that is the only safe place where they can unload their anger (without the other reciprocating). Consequently, the person who is the target of that anger will often escape by avoidance and withdrawal — with the resulting guilt feelings afterward.
Fourth, when we lose loved ones to suicide, one of our tasks is to work at redeeming their memory by putting their lives back into a perspective so that the manner of their death doesn’t forever taint their memory. Don’t take down their photographs, don’t speak in hushed tones about their life and death, don’t put a permanent asterisk beside their names. Their lives are not to be judged through the unfortunate prism of their deaths. Redeem their memory.
After President Joe Biden’s new directive on asylum claims on the border with Mexico made it even more difficult for refugees to get into the United States, the Mexican Church said such issues “shouldn’t be guided by the pressures of electoral times and politics.”
In a declaration released on Jun. 10 by the Bishops’ Conference’s Human Mobility Pastoral, Bishop J. Guadalupe Torres Campos of Ciudad Juarez said “every country has a right to manage its borders, but that shouldn’t be an excuse to restrict the people’s right to ask for asylum and international protection.”
“The new migratory policies of the United States’ government announced last week leave under the discretionary power of migratory agents of that country the access of a person to manifest her or his wish to request asylum, something that allows – without formalities, nor a due process or a thorough analysis of each person’s particular situation – arbitrary deportations without any guarantee for asylum claiming,” the letter read.
The document emphasizes that Mexico keeps receiving deportees from the United States, which leaves them in a vulnerable situation, given that there are no conditions to ensure the respect to their human rights.
“The border of Mexico with the United States keeps being a place of pain, suffering, and danger for migrant people and for those who need international protection,” Torres says.
The “management of the borders must ensure the ordained, safe, and regular migration,” the declaration read.
The letter concludes by asking the Mexican and the U.S. governments to prioritize the human rights of migrants and refugees, respecting “the principle of no devolution of persons requesting asylum, family unity, and their dignity.”
Biden’s directive has been in place since Jun. 5 and has effectively interrupted asylum processing. The new policy determines that no asylum requests will be analyzed when encounters with migrants in ports of entry reach 2,500 per day. That number has been much higher than that lately, reaching 4,000 per day, according to an Associated Press story.
“That situation is not new. But things have been worse since the new directive was announced,” Karen Pérez, national director of the Jesuit Refugee Service in Mexico, told Crux.
Pérez explained that rumors disseminated among immigrants made them believe that it would be easy to get into the United States with Biden. When they arrive in Juarez, however, they understand that those rumors are far from the truth.
“Since the beginning of 2024, we have been noticing that asylum seekers are facing more and more difficulty to enter the U.S., with a policy of deportations and detentions,” she said.
Some people have been almost automatically deported, and many of them don’t understand what’s happening, due to the linguistic barrier and the accelerated process they face.
“They come back to Juarez thinking that their case is under review, when in fact they had been just expelled,” Pérez said.
Without funds to wait in Mexico for a new chance to present their case and a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian structure in Juarez and other points on the border, many people decide to get into the U.S. informally.
“Those people are then exposed to the violence of the criminal organizations. Many of them are extorted or killed,” she added.
The mafia-like groups that promise to take the immigrants through the border have been expanding their operations with that new situation, and their presence has been noticed in the south of Mexico, Pérez said.
According to Father Alberto Gómez Sánchez, who directs a migrants’ house in the southern state of Chiapas, changes like that have historically failed to prevent immigrants and refugees from traveling to the border and getting into the United States.
“When a door is closed, they find a new way. They’ve done all they could to get into the U.S. and there’s no way back. Not even President Donald Trump managed to discourage the immigrants with all his atrocious measures, like putting children in cages,” Gómez Sánchez told Crux.
But such measures make them more vulnerable, he said. In Chiapas, immigrants have been caught in the middle of a territorial dispute between two drug cartels, and violence has been widespread.
Gómez Sánchez thinks that the new directive is part of a strategy to make Biden look stronger in the battle against illegal immigration, given that Trump and his supporters accuse him of failing to limit the entrance of Latin Americans though the southern border.
“But the fact is that it’s impossible to shut the border down. There’s a giant flux of products between the two countries. Trump exploits that theme to gain support among people who don’t want to be bothered by immigrants. It’s all about racism,” he said.
Karen Pérez said she doesn’t hope for any real change in the way Mexico has been dealing with immigrants and refugees in the administration of recently-elected President Claudia Sheinbaum.
“The previous administration cut all communications with civil society about that. We think the new president will follow the same path,” she said, adding that a “humanitarian crisis has become a matter of public security, and the ‘solution’ has been militarization.”
The poor bear the image of Jesus, and Christians must offer them support and expressions of Christian charity, Pope Francis said.
“We are called in every circumstance to be friends of the poor, following in the footsteps of Jesus who always began by showing solidarity when dealing with the least among us,” the pope wrote in his message for the Nov. 19 celebration of the World Day of the Poor.
“The poor still have much to teach us, because in a culture that has placed wealth at the forefront and often sacrifices the dignity of people on the altar of material goods, they swim against the tide, highlighting that what is essential for life is something else entirely,” he wrote.
The papal message was published June 13, the feast of St. Anthony of Padua, patron of the poor.
The theme for the 2024 celebration, “The prayer of the poor rises up to God,” is taken from the Book of Sirach; it is an appropriate reflection for a year dedicated to prayer in preparation for the Holy Year 2025, he wrote.
“We need to make the prayer of the poor our own and pray together with them,” the pope wrote. “This is a challenge we must embrace and a pastoral activity that needs to be nurtured.”
The World Day of the Poor is an important pastoral opportunity, he wrote, and it “challenges every believer to listen to the prayer of the poor, becoming aware of their presence and needs.”
“It is an opportune occasion to implement initiatives that concretely help the poor and to recognize and support the many volunteers who dedicate themselves passionately to those most in need,” he wrote.
Prayer and authentic charity go hand in hand, Pope Francis said.
“If prayer does not translate into concrete action, it is in vain” and if faith is not accompanied by works, it is dead, he wrote. “However, charity without prayer risks becoming philanthropy that soon exhausts itself.”
Pope Francis noted that St. Teresa of Kolkata often said that “it was from prayer that she drew the strength and faith for her mission of service to the least among us.”
God is “an attentive and caring father” who takes care of those who are most in need, he wrote. “No one is excluded from his heart, for in his eyes, we are all poor and needy.”
However, people often live as if they were “the masters of life or as if we had to conquer it!” the pope wrote. “Happiness cannot be acquired by trampling on the rights and dignity of others.”
“The violence caused by wars clearly shows the arrogance of those who consider themselves to be powerful before men and women, but they are poor in the eyes of God. How many more people are impoverished by misguided policies involving weapons! How many innocent victims! Yet we cannot turn our backs to this reality,” he wrote.
“As we journey toward the Holy Year, I urge everyone to become pilgrims of hope, setting tangible goals for a better future,” the pope wrote.
“Let us not forget to keep ‘the little details of love’: stopping, drawing near, giving a little attention, a smile, a caress, a word of comfort,” which all require “a daily commitment and are often hidden and silent, but strengthened by prayer.”
Pope Francis encouraged all those who are experiencing some form of poverty to not lose hope and to trust in the Lord. “God is attentive to each of you and is close to you.”
“God’s silence does not mean he is inattentive to our sufferings; rather, it contains a word that must be received with trust, surrendering ourselves to him and to his will,” he wrote.
The first section of the Dicastery for Evangelization, the Vatican organizer of the world day, said in a communique that in the week leading up to the celebration Nov. 19, all parish and diocesan communities are called to establish concrete pastoral initiatives that address the needs of the poor in their neighborhoods.
Christians are also invited to pay deeper “spiritual attention to the poor who need God and need someone who is a concrete sign” of God who always listens and is near, the dicastery said.
The Supreme Court June 13 unanimously dismissed a challenge to mifepristone, a pill commonly used for abortion, finding that the challengers lacked standing to bring the case.
In a unanimous opinion written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the court found in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine that the “plaintiffs lack Article III standing to challenge FDA’s actions regarding the regulation of mifepristone.”
“Plaintiffs are pro-life, oppose elective abortion, and have sincere legal, moral, ideological, and policy objections to mifepristone being prescribed and used by others,” Kavanaugh wrote. “Because plaintiffs do not prescribe or use mifepristone, plaintiffs are unregulated parties who seek to challenge FDA’s regulation of others.”
“Plaintiffs advance several complicated causation theories to connect FDA’s actions to the plaintiffs’ alleged injuries in fact. None of these theories suffices to establish Article III standing,” he added.
The ruling was not unexpected, as during March oral arguments in the case, justices from across the court’s ideological spectrum appeared skeptical that the coalition of pro-life doctors challenging the reduced regulations had legal standing to bring the lawsuit, with the question of standing becoming more of a focus than whether the FDA acted lawfully.
A coalition of pro-life opponents of mifepristone, which is the first of two drugs used in a medication or chemical abortion, filed suit over loosened restrictions on the drug by the Food and Drug Administration, which included making it available by mail, arguing the government violated its own safety standards in doing so.
The FDA argued the drug poses statistically little risk to the mother in the early weeks of pregnancy.
In a statement, President Joe Biden said, “Today’s decision does not change the fact that the fight for reproductive freedom continues. It does not change the fact that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago, and women lost a fundamental freedom. It does not change the fact that the right for a woman to get the treatment she needs is imperiled if not impossible in many states.”
“It does mean that mifepristone, or medication abortion, remains available and approved. Women can continue to access this medication — approved by the FDA as safe and effective more than 20 years ago,” he said.
Erin Hawley, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom and vice president of the ADF Center for Life and Regulatory Practice, who had argued on behalf of the pro-life organizations before the court, told reporters on a press call June 13 that the ruling was a “based on a legal technicality,” and “ADF and our clients will continue to advocate for women’s health and seek to restore common sense safeguards for abortion drugs.”
Hawley indicated that other challenges to the FDA’s approval of the drug will continue, in cases from Idaho, Kansas and Missouri.
“The court did find that our clients don’t have standing, but we are very hopeful,” added Hawley, who also is the wife of Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo. “The Supreme Court again did not address the merits. And we are very hopeful that the federal courts will have the chance to hold the FDA accountable for its unlawful actions in removing these long-standing safeguards for women.”
Dr. Ingrid Skop, a board-certified OB-GYN who has practiced in Texas and is a senior fellow and director of medical affairs at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, said in a statement, “It is deeply disappointing that the FDA was not held accountable today for its reckless decisions.”
“As a practicing OB-GYN with over 30 years’ experience, I have seen firsthand that mail-order abortion drugs harm my patients, both mothers and their unborn children,” she said. “Abortion advocates and corporate media ignore their stories as they shamelessly promote mail-order distribution of dangerous drugs without a single in-person doctor visit. As a tragic result, I expect to see more women need blood transfusions, emergency surgery and other drastic measures and our emergency medical systems overwhelmed. This is not health care, it’s abandonment and the pro-life community will never stop advocating for patients.”
Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director of Women’s March, said in a statement, “We are deeply relieved that the Supreme Court recognized the unfounded legal challenge to the Food and Drug Administration’s power to authorize mifepristone, and preserved access to the safe and effective abortion medication nationwide.”
First approved by the FDA in 2000, mifepristone blocks the hormone progesterone, which maintains proper conditions in the uterus during pregnancy. The drug is paired with misoprostol (initially created to treat gastric ulcers) as part of a chemical regimen for early abortion. Regulations on the drug were eased in 2016 and 2021, allowing it to be administered a few weeks later in pregnancy and for its distribution by mail.
The same pill combination also is sometimes prescribed to women who experience early pregnancy miscarriage in order to expel any fetal remains and residual pregnancy tissue from the womb. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists updated its protocols to recommend a combination of mifepristone and misoprostol as more effective than misoprostol alone for early miscarriage care based on research published since 2018.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that more than half of the abortions performed in the U.S. are chemical or medical, rather than surgical. The ruling maintains the current availability of the drug.
The case was the first major case involving abortion on its docket since the high court overturned its previous abortion precedent in 2022.
Along the eastern wall of ancient Jerusalem stretches a mountain ridge called the Mount of Olives.
It was first mentioned 1100 years before the Birth of Christ in the Bible, in the Second Book of Kings, which describes the expulsion of King David from Jerusalem and his withdrawal to the Mount of Olives for prayer.
About 2000 years ago, many events described in the Bible took place at this site. At the foot of the mountain is the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus gathered his disciples. And at its top is the place from where Christ ascended to Heaven; and as predicted, He must return here.
A large plot of land next to the Chapel of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives was obtained by the Russian Orthodox Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem in the person of its head, Archimandrite Antonin (Kapustin; 1817–1894), in the second half of the nineteenth century.
The Chapel of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives
This allowed the construction of a church in honor of the Ascension of the Lord, a 210-foot bell-tower, and hostels for pilgrims who flocked to the Holy Land from all over the Russian Empire.
The Russian Church of the Ascension’s magnificent bell-tower, the so-called “Russian Candle”, dominates all the environs of Jerusalem. From its upper tier you can see the Dead Sea and Transjordan, and with the help of binoculars on a clear day—even the blue of the Mediterranean Sea. The powerful ringing of its bells resounds throughout the Mount of Olives and Jerusalem.
In 1906, a monastic community for nuns, initially consisting of fifteen sisters, was founded at the Church of the Ascension of the Lord. By the end of 1907 the number of sisters had increased to 100. This is how the Russian Ascension Convent on the Mount of Olives came into being.
We have talked with Novice Nun Manetha (Sizintseva).
—Sister Manetha, you struggle at the Russian Convent of the Ascension of the Lord on the Mount of Olives. Please tell us about this amazing place.
—The Mount of Olives is one of the holiest places on earth, including in the Holy Land. This is where the Ascension of the LordAscension of the Lord
“>Ascension of the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, took place. A lot of events of the Old Testament, but mostly of the New Testament, are connected with the Mount of Olives. Here the Lord prayed and predicted the last days of Jerusalem. He descended from this mountain when entering Jerusalem. At the foot of the Mount of Olives He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane before His Passion. Here He often met with His disciples. The Gospel says that when the Lord came to Jerusalem, He would spend days teaching in the Temple and spend nights on the Mount of Olives in prayer. Here, according to tradition, the prayer “Our Father” was given to mankind (of course, not on the territory of our convent, but elsewhere on the Mount of Olives). And most importantly, it was from here that the Savior’s Ascension to Heaven took place. This is one of the main pilgrimage destinations of pilgrims coming to the Holy Land.
The site of Christ’s Ascension to Heaven
They make their pilgrimage tour and conclude it at the site of Christ’s Ascension to Heaven. After His resurrection, the Lord appeared on the Mount of Olives several times, and His last appearance was when He ascended to Heaven.
We have a rock in our convent, which, according to tradition, was taken from the very site of the Ascension of the Savior. It is located a little further from our convent. It has belonged to Muslims for several centuries. Since Muslims venerate Jesus Christ as a prophet, they refuse to give Christians the ownership of this place.
—When choosing the site of the convent, was there an intention to purchase land as close as possible to the site of the Lord’s Ascension?
—The fact is that it was not originally a convent. In 1865, Russian Church begins studying issue of canonizing former head of Ecclesiastical Mission in JerusalemLast month, the Ecclesiastical Mission celebrated the church’s 150th anniversary.
“>Archimandrite Antonin (Kapustin) became the head of the Russian Orthodox Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem. Having extensive experience in pastoring Russian pilgrims in Athens, at the embassy church, and then in Istanbul, he became the head of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission here in Jerusalem and set about purchasing plots on the Mount of Olives. It was very difficult for Russian pilgrims in those days. About 10,000 pilgrims from the Russian Empire traveled to pray in Jerusalem during the year. Their journey would be very complicated. The task of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission was to help them in the Holy Land with infrastructure, accommodation, food, etc. At the same time, Father Antonin wanted churches to appear where people could pray in their native language and where services would be celebrated in Church Slavonic.
Novice Nun Manetha (Sizintseva)
When he began to obtain plots on the Mount of Olives, the first thing Father Antonin did was to excavate and clear this place. Then ancient slabs of the Byzantine era, dated around 614 A.D., were found. There had been Greek Orthodox churches here, destroyed during the invasion of the Holy Land by the Sassanian King Khosroe. These slabs prompted Father Antonin to build an Orthodox church here again. Initially, he had wanted to build a hospice for pilgrims here on the Mount of Olives, as this was one of the goals of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission. But when the slabs of the ancient church were discovered, Father Antonin said that an Orthodox church should appear on this site again.
And the construction of an Orthodox church commenced. The columns of an ancient Byzantine-era church and some slabs with incomprehensible marks, as if stains of blood, were discovered.
Father Antonin wrote in his diary that these seemed to be stains of blood of the martyrs killed during the invasion by King Khosroe in 614 A.D. During the construction of the church these slabs were returned to the very spots where they had been discovered. These slabs are located asymmetrically. They lie in the sites where they were found.
But it took a very long time to build the church. Initially, there were no plans to found a convent—there was only a plan to build a church. In the 1870s, Father Antonin bought this land on the Mount of Olives, on which the Russian Ascension Convent is now located, and in 1873 the foundation stone of the church was laid. And it was only in 1886, almost fifteen years later, that the Patriarch of Jerusalem consecrated this church.
Our church was built with funds donated by pilgrims from all over the Russian Empire, both rich and poor. Therefore, it was built slowly, and the construction of the church took almost fifteen years. There were also problems with the local population.
—What kind of problems?
—The environment was not Orthodox, but Muslim. They put various obstacles in our way. They weren’t interested in having an Orthodox Christian church here.
The church was built of white stone. This is Jerusalem’s stone, limestone. The whole of Jerusalem was built of it—Jerusalem is white. Father Antonin decided to build a church of this stone. A little later, in 1884, the bell-tower, the so-called “Candle of the Mount of Olives”, was built. It was consecrated simultaneously with the church. This bell-tower stands on the highest point of the Mount of Olives. Since the Mount of Olives is part of Jerusalem, it is actually the highest point of Jerusalem.
Jerusalem
—What are the current tasks of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission?
—The same tasks remain—to support Orthodoxy in the Holy Land, to help both Greeks and Russians. They used to help with education also—schools were built. Initially, the Palestine Committee was set up, which later transformed into the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society. It was headed by Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, the husband of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna the New Martyr. The purpose of this society was to support Orthodoxy and the entire Russian population, all Orthodox pilgrims coming to pray at Holy sites. Over 100 schools were established where the Russian language was taught. Many Arabs spoke Russian at that time. For example, Yakub Halebi, a famous dragoman and translator of Father Antonin’s works, spoke Russian perfectly. Since he was a subject of the Turkish Empire, and the Holy Land was then under the Turks, he had the right to obtain plots in the Holy Land. Foreigners had no right to obtain plots of land, according to the law. Being a faithful member of the Orthodox Church, Yakub Halebi obtained plots in his own name and then bequeathed them to Fr. Antonin and the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission as donations. Thus, under Father Antonin at least thirteen plots were obtained, which we now have in the Holy Land. These are the Gorny Convent, the The Mount of Olives ConventThe Mount of Olives is one of the holiest places on the earth. It is first mentioned in the Bible over a thousand years before the birth of Christ, in the Second Book of Kings, where one finds described the expulsion of King David from Jerusalem and his withdrawal to the Mount of Olives for prayer (II Kings 15:23, 30-32). It was here also that the Prophet Ezekiel beheld a vision of the cherubim and the glory of the Lord (Ezek. 11:22-23).
“>Mount of Olives Convent, Hebron, the Oak of Mamre, sites in Jericho, and many others.
The Ascension Convent on the Mount of Olives
—When was a convent formed here?
—In 1906, after Archimandrite Antonin’s death, a community for nuns was founded on the Mount of Olives. The first abbess was Nun Evpraxia (Milovidova), who came from the Moscow St. Alexis Convent where she had been a novice. She knew Fr. Antonin. She became the abbess of the convent when Fr. Parthenius was abbot. In 1906, the first year of her abbacy, there were only fifteen sisters. These were the women who helped organize the entire church life. Since at first it was just a church, services were celebrated only on Sundays and Thursdays. But they arranged everything there: They donated, organized a choir and helped. The first community of fifteen nuns was formed from them.
Within a year, the number of nuns had exceeded 100. We are indebted to Mother Evpraxia for the fact that in 1914, when she died due to heart failure, over 100 sisters remained at the convent. Abbess Elizabeth was appointed the next mother-superior. The community was given the status of a convent. Now we have a smaller community.
Mother Evpraxia—How many sisters do you have now?
—About forty.
—From which countries?
—From different countries. We have sisters from Russia, Ukraine, America, France, Germany, and Romania. We have many sisters from Romania. One sister is from Estonia. There are also sisters from Palestine—they are Arab. But this is separate story; when I came to the convent there were seventeen Arab sisters, but there are fewer than ten of them now.
—What language do you communicate in?
—In Russian.
—How can women enter your convent?
—It is as in all monasteries. There is the same mechanism here: the fulfillment of the will of God. If it is God’s will for this, a woman comes, turns to the abbess, and the abbess blesses her to labor and live here for a while. If there is God’s will, the woman in question is ready for the monastic feat, then she remains and struggles here.
—Is the monastic life a real feat?
—Indeed, the St. Seraphim on Monastic Life“One distinguishing characteristic of the superior should be his love for his inferiors: for the true pastor, according to the words of St John Climacus, is shown by his love for his flock. For it is out of love that the Chief Shepherd was crucified on the cross.”
“>monastic life is a feat, because it is a supernatural life. There is a natural life, marriage. There is also an unnatural one—various sins that are against human nature. And there is a supernatural one, which is considered to be angelic. When you imitate the angelic life, it is monasticism.
—You live in the Middle East. What are the specifics of performing obedience in the Holy Land?
—The specifics are that the most important shrines are located here. These are the Church of the Holy Sepulcher—the site of the Savior’s Resurrection; Golgotha—the place of His suffering; we are on the Mount of Olives—this is the site of His Ascension; the Garden of Gethsemane where He sweated blood before the Passion. It all leaves an inner imprint on people. And when someone comes here, he feels these events deeply and comes into contact with them. The memory of this place is continuously present here, and it is marked by the light of the Resurrection of Christ.
The event of the Resurrection of Christ at the Holy Sepulcher is always present here. This leaves a strong spiritual impression on your soul. On the one hand, it helps you. On the other hand, there is a great responsibility in being near such holy places.
—When pilgrims arrive here they experience strong, uplifting emotions, but what does it feel like to live next to these holy places all the time?
—It depends on the person’s spiritual life. Emotions come and go, but we must work on our spiritual life. The Lord gives great grace to those who come to the Holy Land. It’s true. Some people live by this grace for a year or several years. It depends on how much you are able to accept and contain this grace in yourself. But it still leaves an imprint on your heart.
You can be in Russia or abroad (for example, in Germany). If you have visited the Holy Land, it is in your heart, you keep it and continue to live according to the Gospel. You open the Gospel, read it, and find yourself back in the Holy Land. The Holy Land is called the Living Gospel. There is the “Holy Land syndrome”: if you have come here at least once, then you long to be here all the time. You feel such inner support and grace from the Holy Land that you continuously want to be nourished by it.
—What other specifics do you have?
—The climate is very hot. Gorny Convent and the Mount of Olives Convent are both on a mountain. Temperatures change here. It can be very cold in winter. You don’t feel it much, but the cold coming from the rocks chills you to the bone. Many people have problems with their joints, with high blood pressure and other issues. Jerusalem is endless mountains. You need to walk a lot and have healthy legs here, because joints can wear out very quickly when walking.
—Do you manage to get to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on the major feasts, for example, on Pascha?
—We are blessed to go there, but getting there depends on God’s will. They don’t give us invitation cards, but we manage to get there.
—In your view, is the descent of the Holy Fire a special service?
—Of course, it’s special. I must say that if you don’t get to it or you have a lot of obediences and have no chance to go there, you still feel the grace that is poured down there at this moment. Our convent always waits for the Holy Fire to be brought here and greets it with singing in the church. The head of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission, Fr. Roman,1 and other clergy meet the Holy Fire.
—Do you have any particularly venerated icons at the church?
—We have two particularly venerated icons at the church. The first is the Mother of God “Quick to Hear”. The icon was brought here shortly before the Russian Revolution. This is an image of the Chernigov Icon of the Mother of God. In 1914, Russia entered the war with Germany and Turkey. Since the Holy Land was under Turkish rule, the Turks decided to deploy their army here. They knew that it was a Russian convent and demanded that the sisters leave it. It was the only case in the convent’s history when the sisters were forced to leave it for nineteen days. They closed the church.
Then the Patriarch of Jerusalem intervened to have the sisters returned here, because since the time of Caliph Omar, the Greek Patriarchate of Jerusalem has had a charter that they have the right to all holy Orthodox places. We are in the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and the Patriarch interceded for the sisters. The sisters returned, but they were not allowed to open the church at that time. The “Quick to Hear” Icon was transferred to the refectory church. It was not particularly venerated at that time; it had just been donated and the sisters prayed in front of it. When the First World War ended, and the British came, protected the sisters and opened this church, the “Quick to Hear” Icon was solemnly returned to the large church.
Then a miracle occurred—the icon renewed itself and became very bright. The Mother of God answered the prayers of the sisters. Everything returned to normal—daily services were resumed and monastic life fully revived. Since then, this icon has been venerated as wonderworking. And so it is. The “Quick to Hear” Icon answers all prayers! We have even had pilgrims who made prayer petitions a year ago and said that the Mother of God had helped them—their prayers had been fulfilled. Even I testify from my own experience and from that of other people that, indeed, the Mother of God hears and fulfills our prayer petitions.
The second icon of the Mother of God is “The Seeker of the Lost”. It happened in 1911. At that time pilgrims did not have such opportunities as they do now. They traveled by steamers through Istanbul or Odessa to Haifa or Jaffa. In that case, as a steamer with pilgrims was sailing from Odessa to Jaffa a storm broke out. Some monk handed out “The Seeker of the Lost” small icons and called on everyone to pray—and all the people survived.
In memory of their escape from the storm they vowed that they would order a large “Seeker of the Lost” Icon, and subsequently donated it to our convent. There is a version that one of those pilgrims even remained at our convent, but I cannot confirm this. People pray in front of this icon when there are very difficult life circumstances.
—You are in the Holy Land. You’ve probably witnessed some miracles of God.
—For me, the greatest miracle is when someone’s life changes after visiting the Holy Land and when he begins to realize that he is a member of the Orthodox Church of Christ. If he didn’t often go to church before, or if he gets baptized here, starts going to church, takes Communion here, and his life changes, for me this is the greatest miracle.
But miracles do occur. It is always so. They occur in all Holy sites. It’s just a matter of whether you are able to see a miracle and bear the miracle that you have seen. After all, it is a responsibility. The Lord says, “I gave you so much, I showed you so much, and how did you respond to it?”
—Do you have a favorite quote from the Holy Fathers?
—My favorite thing is the two commandments: Love God and love your neighbor. For me these two commandments contain all the quotes from the Holy Fathers.
Prayer is the Meeting of Two MysteriesToday we’re going to talk about a deep existential question that is of vital importance and has many dimensions in our lives.
Diveyevo, the Hidden Capital of Holy RussiaDiveyevo, the fourth and final portion of the Mother of God, revealed to me if only a small part of its mystical secret in the measure that I was ready to accept.
St. Seraphim of Sarov“>St. Seraphim of Sarov, at the holy relics of in the monastery he founded. 
Ascension of the LordAscension of the Lord
Russian Church begins studying issue of canonizing former head of Ecclesiastical Mission in JerusalemLast month, the Ecclesiastical Mission celebrated the church’s 150th anniversary.
The Mount of Olives ConventThe Mount of Olives is one of the holiest places on the earth. It is first mentioned in the Bible over a thousand years before the birth of Christ, in the Second Book of Kings, where one finds described the expulsion of King David from Jerusalem and his withdrawal to the Mount of Olives for prayer (II Kings 15:23, 30-32). It was here also that the Prophet Ezekiel beheld a vision of the cherubim and the glory of the Lord (Ezek. 11:22-23). 
St. Seraphim on Monastic Life“One distinguishing characteristic of the superior should be his love for his inferiors: for the true pastor, according to the words of St John Climacus, is shown by his love for his flock. For it is out of love that the Chief Shepherd was crucified on the cross.” 