Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a direct appeal July 15 to the Texas Supreme Court seeking to revive his effort to shut down Annunciation House in El Paso, Texas, a Catholic nonprofit serving migrants, after a state judge earlier the same month dismissed his lawsuit.

A judge ruled July 12 that the Washington state attorney general does not have legal authority to enforce a subpoena for clergy abuse records against the Archdiocese of Seattle, specifically noting that the religious exemption in the state Charitable Trust Act stands.

As an anticipated 50,000 Catholics descend upon Indianapolis July 17-21 for the 10th National Eucharistic Congress, among them will be a multitude of permanent deacons — men whom Pope Francis has called “the guardians of service.”

Deacon John “Skip” Manley, one of the longest-serving deacons in the Archdiocese of Baltimore with 48 years at one parish, St. John the Evangelist in Frederick, died July 12 at age 84.

Vatican rulings on allegedly supernatural phenomena, such as Marian apparitions, will continue to be released publicly, but official validation of an event’s supernatural status — as has happened at Lourdes, Fatima and Guadalupe — would be “exceptional,” the Vatican’s doctrine chief said.