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• Nobel laureates, Catholic prelates adopt Rome Declaration, warn against AI in nuclear weapons (Vatican News)
  At the conclusion of a three-day conference, most of which was held at Castel Gandolfo, some 200 Nobel laureates, AI experts, former heads of state, and Catholic prelates adopted the Rome Declaration for an Unarmed and Disarming Peace in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, Nuclear and Autonomous Weapons, New Digital Protocols, and Emerging Models of Digital Development (full text).

  The Rome Declaration warned that “AI built into nuclear systems leaves little time for, or even replaces, human judgement in a crisis” and called for “disarming the next arms race.”

  “The Declaration presented today reminds us with great clarity that no machine, no algorithm, and no autonomous system can be placed at the center of decisions upon which the survival of humanity depends,” said Cardinal Baldassare Reina, vicar general of His Holiness for the Diocese of Rome and archpriest of the Lateran Basilica.

  The Global Nobel Laureates Assembly on Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear War, with the assistance of Domus Communis Foundation and a dozen other institutions, organized the gathering. The president of the Domus Communis (Common Home) Foundation is Cardinal Silvano Tomasi, C.S., a retired Vatican diplomat.

• French bishops lament legalization of euthanasia, assisted suicide (Église catholique en France)
  The president and two vice presidents of the French bishops’ conference lamented the legalization of euthanasia in France.

  The National Assembly (the French Parliament’s lower house) voted three times in favor of the legislation, and the Senate voted three times against it. The French Constitution grants the government the authority to allow the National Assembly to make the final decision on legislation in case of a stalemate; after Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu invoked the Constitution, the National Assembly passed the bill for a fourth and final time in a 291-241 vote on July 15.

  “This July 15, 2026, marks a serious break in the history of our country,” said the bishops. “By choosing to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide, the deputies have enshrined in French law the possibility of causing death.”

  They added:

  The Catholics of France will continue, with many other men and women of good will, believers or not, to serve life.
  
  They will do it animated by the firm hope that the Gospel gives them, without a spirit of resignation or confrontation, convinced that the greatness of a society never lies in the fact of giving death to the most fragile, or allowing them to do so, but on the contrary of accompanying them, through real fraternity, to the end. For Christ, in whom they believe, came that the world might have life.

• Hindu mob vandalizes Catholic school in India's Madhya Pradesh (UCANews)
  A Hindu mob attacked a Catholic school in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh (map) after a former employee claimed he was fired for refusing to convert to Christianity.

  “They broke many glass windowpanes, but timely police intervention helped stop further damage,” said Father Thankachan Jose, a priest of the Diocese of Jabalpur, following the attack on St. Aloysius Senior Secondary School on the city’s outskirts.