The Vatican will hold a press conference to announce the updated church doctrines on “supernatural phenomena” on Friday. A notice about the press conference has been posted on the website of Holy See Press Office, which led several outlets to incorrectly report that the announcement is about “aliens”. Rather, the church officials will “present the new provisions of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith for discerning between apparitions and other supernatural phenomena”, according to the notice.

An “apparition” refers to an instance where a divine entity, such as a saint, the Virgin Mary or Christ himself, appears before a person on Earth.

The press conference will be held by Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, Monsignor Armando Matteo and Sister Daniela Del Gaudio.

The announcement will be live-streamed on the YouTube channel of the Vatican.

A report published in Fox News last week, Fernandez had said that the dicastery is “in the process of finalising a new text with clear guidelines and norms for the discernment of apparitions and other phenomena”.

As per established practice, apparitions are documented and scrutinised by the diocesan bishop’s office and then forwarded to Rome for further investigation.

The announcement is gaining traction because the one like this has not been held since February 1978.

Fox News said the most well-documented apparition in the modern day is the Miracle of Fatima in 1917. After an alleged series of appearances by the Virgin Mary to several peasant children that promised a public miracle, tens of thousands of people in Fatima, Portugal, claimed to witness the sun move erratically across the sky and produce radiant colors for several minutes.

The Pope formally recognised the “supernatural” event in 1930 and formally approved it a decade later.

A teacher from the United States has been arrested for sexually abusing a teenager she met at an Arkansas church, as per a report in the New York Post. Twenty-six-year-old Reagan Gray was arrested earlier this month after it became apparent that she had been abusing the 15-year-old since 2020 while volunteering at the Little Rock Immanuel Baptist Church.

According to court documents, the boy’s parents reported the woman to a senior pastor at the church after finding several text messages on their son’s phone at the time. She “bombarded” the teen with nude photos, according to the investigation.

While receiving counselling, the woman, who worked as a teacher at Little Rock Christian Academy, was suspended from her volunteer role for telling church officials that the relationship was not “physical.” Later, in February this year, it emerged that the 26-year-old had been texting the 15-year-old on Snapchat.

According to court records, the teenager told the federal officials that Gray had given him oral sex but that they avoided intercourse so he could “stay pure.” Gray’s car or house was the scene of the alleged abuse, which the victim claimed happened about a dozen times.

A church leader told the Federal Bureau of Investigation that Gray had confessed during a counselling session in 2023 that “the relationship was sexual.” Amid the handling of the charges, the church leader resigned earlier this month.

Amid the probe, Gray, who is still employed at Sylvan Hills Middle School, was put on administrative leave in February. Following the issuance of an arrest warrant, she was charged with sexual assault. Later, she was released on a $20,000 bail