SW News: The Catholic Bishops of the US voted unanimously to advance the cause of the beatification and canonization of five French missionary priests who are known as Shreveport Martyrs. The five priests died while ministering to the sick in Shreveport, Louisiana, amid the 1873 yellow fever epidemic.

Meanwhile, the Vatican's Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, which oversees the steps and process for canonization, granted that the five causes be considered as one cause. The five priests, Jean Pierre, Isidore Quémerais, Jean Marie Biler, Louis Gergaud, and François LeVézouët, traveled to Louisiana, which was then a newly erected diocese in the 1930s. When yellow fever caught the community, the priests cared for the locals and assisted the bedsides of the sick. Despite dire conditions, they served the sick and succumbed to the fever.

Archbishop Jerome Listecki of Milwaukee, chairman of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Canonical Affairs and Church Governance, and Bishop Francis Malone of Shreveport facilitated the discussion by the bishops during their spring Plenary meeting. The bishops expressed their support for advancing the cause of beatification and canonization at the diocesan level through a voice vote on June 15.

Bishop Malone also requested to open the diocesan phase of investigation into the lives of the five priests. Meanwhile, during the plenary meeting, the episcopate also voted to amend directives for Catholic healthcare institutions in providing chemical or surgical procedures for people who wish to alter their bodies to imitate the opposite sex physically.