Bishop Francisco Javier Acero with the mothers of the disappeared and priests. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Bishop Acero
Puebla, Mexico, May 23, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).
Amid a wave of violence that has shaken Mexico, including the murder this week of two high-ranking officials in the capital, the Catholic Church is redoubling its efforts to restore peace.
Through the National Dialogue for Peace and more than 300 initiatives across the country, bishops, priests, and laypeople are working to train mediators, provide mental health care, and support victims, taking risks and embracing hope, even though, as Church leaders themselves warn, “you can’t dialogue with organized crime.”
The bishops of Mexico, along with various organizations, launched the National Peace Dialogue initiative following the 2022 murders of Jesuit priests Javier Campos and Joaquín Mora. While various initiatives promoted by the Catholic Church already existed in the country, this proposal sought to strengthen all those efforts.
According to the National Peace Dialogue website, over a year and a half, input was gathered in a series of forums from thousands of people and institutions across the country. From this process, the National Peace Agenda was developed, which resulted in concrete commitments. Currently, the organization is working to implement action steps at the local, state, and national levels “to project a viable and shared future.”
Catholic Church peace efforts
At a press conference in Mexico City, Father Jorge Atilano González, SJ, executive director of the National Dialogue for Peace, told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, that about 300 initiatives are being carried out to reduce violence in the country.
He said, for example, that in the Sierra Tarahumara, in the north of the country, “the issue of mental health among Indigenous youth and families is being addressed.”
In Oaxaca, he continued, “work is being done to train conflict mediators”; while in Monterrey, Nuevo León, work is being done on “evaluating the mental health situation among high school students, to develop proposals on how to address this situation,” among other initiatives.
“Here in Mexico City, we are in conversations with the mayor’s offices to promote processes that include rebuilding the social fabric, addressing addictions, and reintegrating people released from prison. These are examples of what the Church is doing,” the Jesuit priest said.
All the proposals can be found on the National Dialogue for Peace website, which details that these 300 actions are divided into 14 local and seven national initiatives across the country.
During the conference, Atilano emphasized that, despite the danger this represents for members of the Catholic Church who are implementing these projects, “we take the risk of being close to the communities, of accompanying them, and of working to build community and family, so that we have the foundations that will allow us to restore peace to the country.”
‘You can’t dialogue with organized crime’
At the same conference, Auxiliary Bishop Francisco Javier Acero of the Archdiocese of Mexico City made an urgent call to all of society to “work with community, closeness, listening, and concrete actions from the heart of the Gospel” to promote peace.
This exhortation comes in the context that from January through March alone, at least 1,321 “crimes of extreme violence that can be classified as atrocities” were committed in the country, according to the study titled “Gallery of Horror: Atrocities and High-Impact Events Reported in the Media,” conducted by the organization Common Cause.
Faced with this reality, Acero urged parishes and communities to “create spaces for encounter, listening, training in nonviolence, support for victims, and prevention programs.”
Asked whether bishops or priests in Mexico City are seeking to meet with organized crime groups as a way to reduce crime rates, Acero stated that “you can’t dialogue with organized crime. When there’s blood involved, there will be no dialogue.”
However, he clarified: “We mediate. To stop them from killing, I, and the bishops, will get down on our knees. But from here we tell them: ‘Enough is enough. Stop killing, leave the people in peace.’”
“We will mediate for the people of God, but we’re not going to give in at gunpoint. We want echoes of peace and love, not the sound of gunfire,” the prelate added.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
“I have never seen anything like this,” said Jerikah McCloud, 23, who looks out the destroyed second floor of her family home in the Academy neighborhood of St. Louis on Saturday, May 17, 2025, after the National Weather Service confirmed a tornado struck the city the day before. / Credit: Laurie Skrivan/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP
St. Louis, Mo., May 23, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).
The people of northern St. Louis continue to pick up the pieces — assisted by Catholic Charities — after a massive tornado hit the city last week, with a full recovery likely taking multiple years.
The mile-wide EF-3 tornado tore through the northern part of St. Louis on May 16, causing over $1.6 billion in damage and leaving at least five people dead, including a woman who was killed when the steeple of a Christian church collapsed on her. Much of the destruction affected some of the poorest parts of the city.
Father Scott Scheiderer, who pastors a group of parishes located in one of St. Louis’ hardest-hit areas — “right near ground zero” — said many of the residents there are impoverished and lack insurance, making ongoing assistance critical.
“I started driving through these neighborhoods, and my goodness; the devastation. I mean, words cannot describe. It is just horrific,” Scheiderer told CNA.
“We [at the parish] took on some damage … But I mean, this is total devastation. Words cannot describe some of these neighborhoods. I mean, they’re just totally gone … People have lost their houses. I talked with them. They have no way to rebuild.”
“The call to help, to be the love of Christ in this time, is just so great right now. So we’re just trying to respond as best we can,” he continued.
A crushed car in north St. Louis following the May 16, 2025, tornado. Credit: Photo courtesy of Father Scott Scheiderer
The Archdiocese of St. Louis will hold a special collection at Masses May 24-25 or May 31-June 1 to benefit those most affected by the storm, with the funds going to Catholic Charities, the St. Louis Review reported. The St. Augustine Wellston Center, a Catholic food bank, is also taking material and financial donations.
The twister damaged at least 5,000 structures, and Mayor Cara Spencer said Thursday that FEMA operatives have been on the ground in St. Louis doing assessments. The tornado outbreak on May 16 also spawned tornadoes in Kentucky, Illinois, and Indiana killing at least 28 people total and injuring dozens.
Among the confirmed dead in St. Louis after the storm is Patricia Penelton, a longtime volunteer at St. Louis’ Centennial Christian Church who was reportedly at the church bagging lunches to distribute after the storm. She was killed when the bell tower and roof of the 121-year-old church collapsed in the tornado.
Part of Centennial Christian Church in St. Louis collapsed on Friday, May 16, 2025, when severe storms, including a tornado, swept through the city. Credit: AP Photo/Michael Phillis
None of the Catholic church buildings in the area suffered catastrophic damage. St. Peter Claver Parish, which has a predominantly African American congregation, lost the roof from its school gym, but crews were able to fix it quickly. Numerous large trees were downed all along the tornado’s path, including all around St. Matthew the Apostle, which is part of the St. Peter Claver Parish grouping.
Father Scott Jones, episcopal vicar for the archdiocese’ northern vicariate, told CNA that by far the greatest need in the area right now is “immediate assistance to those without homes who are living in cars, makeshift shelters, and other locations. Many areas are still without power.”
The area where the devastation was greatest is North City, which was already economically disadvantaged, Jones told CNA in written comments. Despite the widespread devastation there, “there is a strong commitment to working together with other denominations and agencies in getting assistance to those with the greatest need,” Jones said.
“Having served there in the past, I can attest that the faith of the people is very strong. I’ve been in contact with the pastors and parishioners and they are holding up well,” he said.
“People are volunteering in droves, which is heartening. The greatest need right now is money, however … People are stepping up and hopefully will continue to do so once the initial reporting concludes. We are also reallocating archdiocesan resources. For example, my vicariate received a $50,000 grant for formation and my staff and I reworked our budget to donate half to Catholic Charities.”
Jones said they will gladly accept sanitizing supplies, food, and water for the many volunteers who are pitching in to clean up debris, clear blocked streets, and assist residents in securing their homes — along with all the prayer they can get.
Jared Bryson, president and CEO of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of St. Louis (CCSTL), told CNA in an interview that the people of north St. Louis he has met with are already referring to the tornado as a “Katrina-level” event, harkening back to the disastrous 2005 hurricane that crippled New Orleans for years.
He said CCSTL’s director of disaster services has been working with emergency managers, the other voluntary organizations that are part of disaster services and recovery, and other nonprofits at an emergency incident command center.
CCSTL is currently accepting donations to help more than 1,500 individuals and families who have reached out through the Catholic Charities website seeking support. Bryson reiterated that many of the people who lost homes in the tornado have no insurance and little money to rebuild.
Numerous neighbors have stepped up to help in the wake of the storm, but going forward some of the biggest needs “are really financial,” and if aid is not carefully organized and coordinated, “it really causes more problems than it helps,” Bryson continued.
Highlighting the long-term nature of the recovery effort, Bryson noted that CCSTL only just wrapped up its efforts helping community members recover from a local flooding event that occurred two years ago. Recovery from this tornado will likely take even longer.
“We’re the organization that works in the communities to get resources until we can actually get other resources around. Sometimes we’re waiting for the FEMA declaration to help with some of that process. But we still need community resources to really build back the lives of these folks,” he said, with those resources including mental health counseling, given the trauma many people experienced.
He told the story of one woman he encountered after the storm who had lived in her historic, red-brick North City home for almost 80 years and had no insurance despite owning the house outright. Her house, sadly, is “just gone,” Bryson said.
“After we get past this initial shock and awe moment, people will lose interest in this story,” he said, noting that especially during the ongoing Jubilee Year of Hope, Catholics should continue to point to their ultimate hope in Jesus to help restore the spirit of a community affected by such profound material loss.
“This is a multiyear recovery, [and] we are there not only in the incidents when it happens, we are there several years later when we’re still trying to recover the community … You’re not going to rebuild neighborhoods and houses overnight.”
‘The boldness to step forward’
Scheiderer was able to celebrate weekend Masses in the church last weekend at St. Matthew the Apostle — part of the St. Peter Claver Parish grouping he pastors — despite the electricity still being out. He said about 10-20 people still showed up.
“It was a very beautiful Mass … thinking back to Jesus’ words, ‘I’ve earnestly desired to celebrate this’... there was such an earnest desire in my heart to celebrate the Mass because in doing that, I want to make him present,” Scheiderer said.
“Once we’ve received that saving sacrifice and it’s filled us, now we need to go out and be the love of Christ for others.”
The ripped-off roof of the school gym at St. Peter Claver Parish in St. Louis. Credit: Photo courtesy of Father Scott Scheiderer
While many of the parish’s members live outside the parish boundaries, those who have lost homes have few prospects without sustained help, Scheiderer said. He said they are planning to set up a restricted fund for community relief efforts that people of goodwill will be able to donate to by mailing a check to the parish.
In the meantime, the church is accepting supplies like nonperishable food, water, clothing of all sorts especially socks and underwear, as well as basic personal hygiene items, household items like toilet paper, paper towels, and cleaning supplies.
“We’re going to have little stations here where people can come and get the necessary items they need. So we’re just trying to do everything we can to help, because it’s bad,” Scheiderer said.
Scheiderer asked for prayers for his parish community and the whole of St. Louis; his parish community has started praying a rosary before every Mass.
“We’re praying for all those who have tragically died and all their loved ones mourning their loss. We’re praying for all those who have been injured or hurt in any way. We’re praying for all those who have lost property, personal belongings, especially those of our parish. We’re praying for all those who have just been so generous in responding; first responders, medical professionals, service workers, city officials, state officials, all those who are just working around the clock. We’re really pouring out for them,” the priest said.
“Then just a prayer for us, as a parish family, that we can really listen attentively to the Holy Spirit and how he’s calling us to help in this time, and that we have the courage and the boldness to step forward and follow God’s will wherever he’s leading us.”
Peru’s Minister of Foreign Trade and Tourism Desilú León explains the route for “Paths of Pope Leo XIV,” which will cover four regions in the country: Lambayeque, Piura, La Libertad, and Callao, key locations in the pastoral life of Pope Leo XIV. / Credit: Courtesy of Ministry of Trade and Tourism of Peru
Lima Newsroom, May 23, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).
The president of Peru, Dina Boluarte, and the minister of foreign trade and tourism, Desilú León, have officially launched a new tourism route in the country.
The route, known as “Paths of Pope Leo XIV,” seeks to highlight the places where the Holy Father — formerly known as Bishop Robert Prevost — exercised his fruitful pastoral ministry in the Andean nation.
The route covers four of the country’s regions: Lambayeque, Piura, La Libertad, and Callao, key locations in the ministry of the man who is now Pope Leo XIV, the first Peruvian citizen to become pope.
“The Paths of Pope Leo XIV route will not only include Lambayeque — which we have established as the first destination, since the current pope was bishop of the Diocese of Chiclayo — but also the other places in Peru where he served,” the minister explained.
León added that on May 16 the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism established a technical committee to coordinate with mayors and regional authorities the necessary short-, medium-, and long-term actions.
“We need to work together here,” she stated, noting that the goal is to offer visitors not only a cultural experience but also a religious one.
The destinations that will be part of the route include:
In Chiclayo: St. Mary’s Cathedral; the Shrine of Our Lady of Peace; St. Peter of Monsefú Parish, where the image of Jesus of Nazareth Captive is venerated; St. Mary Magdalene Parish in Eten City, which houses the image of the Divine Child of the Miracle; and the Cross of Motupe
In Piura: the Diocese of Chulucanas and the Augustinian Seminary
In La Libertad: the Augustinian Convent of St. Thomas of Villanova and Our Lady of Monserrat Parish
In Callao: the diocese where then-Bishop Prevost gave his blessing before being called to the Vatican
The minister said that in addition to churches and religious sites, the route will include other cultural attractions such as museums, beaches, and nature reserves.
At the end of the presentation, a brief promotional video was shown summarizing the importance of the route and the spiritual legacy of Leo XIV in Peru.
“The route of Pope Leo XIV preserves the memory and the path of the Holy Father: towns, churches, and the faithful touched by his affection, his kindness, and his blessing,” the Spanish-language video explains.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis, who took his name from the patron saint of ecology -- St. Francis of Assisi -- died the day before Earth Day and about five weeks before the 10th anniversary of his landmark encyclical on care for creation.
Integral ecology recognizes the interconnectedness and interdependence between human beings and the earth, he said, and how the values, mindsets and actions of people affect all human endeavors and the planet.
Pope Francis insisted social, economic, political and environmental issues are not separate problems, but are the many dimensions of one overarching crisis. The flora and fauna, the heavens and seas and all human beings are not objects to be used and controlled, but are wondrous reflections of the divine; they are God's creations and are gifts to be protected, loved and shared.
This is the cover of the English edition of Pope Francis' encyclical on the environment, "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home." (CNS photo/courtesy U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops)
It was the first papal encyclical on the environment; however, it came out of a long theological tradition that sees the natural world as a form of divine revelation that "must also lead us to rediscover our fraternity with the earth, to which we have been linked since creation," as St. John Paul II said.
Pope Francis "built on 'integral human development' from Benedict XVI and 'human ecology' from John Paul II," Celia Deane-Drummond, director of the Laudato Si' Research Institute at Campion Hall at England's Oxford University, told Catholic News Service in late April.
So while his 2015 document "wasn't dropping out of the sky," she said, there was a notable "change of tone and a change of emphasis and a much greater stress on dialogue with people from other traditions and openness to the world."
Laudato Si' also showed "a pastoral heart" with a clear awareness of the suffering of people and the world "that we need to incorporate in how we live and act as Christians," Deane-Drummond said.
Pope Francis, with his long experience in the global South, also brought a unique perspective that propelled him to embrace the topic of environmentalism, which had been "marginalized as a fringe concern of the left," and to link it with social justice, Erin Lothes, a theologian and climate educator, told Catholic News Service in late April.
"His own conversion to ecology, I believe, is born out of the soil of Latin America and him being a pope for the poor," who saw the impact ecological crises had on the people there, said Lothes, who is a visiting scholar at the Center for Earth Ethics in New York and an "ecclesial affiliate" at the Laudato Si' Research Institute.
Many of the main themes of his pontificate, including the need to address the looming ecological crisis can be found in the 2007 Aparecida document then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Buenos Aires helped draft with bishops from Latin America in Aparecida, Brazil -- the home of the Amazon and the "lungs" of the Earth.
A young indigenous woman with her face painted with traditional markings, wears a headdress made of leaves and feathers during Pope Francis’ visit to the School and Queen of Paradise Hall in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, Sept. 8, 2024. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)
"We can see the seeds of Laudato Si' in Aparecida," Lothes said, including the need for an "alternate development model, a new ethic based on justice and solidarity and attention to the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor. I think that was very influential and that led him to focus" on the issue in a major papal document.
At the same time, she said, "the global world was seeing more ecological crises," and many in civil society were pushing for action, especially at international conferences sponsored by the United Nations, showing "there was that readiness for these seeds of his teaching to take root."
With Laudato Si', Deane-Drummond said, Pope Francis "appealed to the world in a way that was incredibly ambitious," and, consequently, the encyclical had an "astonishing" influence on the world of science.
Deane-Drummond first worked as a scientist and then as a theologian, and she has been connecting ecology and theology since the late 1980s. She said she knew scientists and others who had never read an encyclical before, "but they read Laudato Si'." An article about Laudato Si' in one biological journal garnered "more hits that year than any other article."
"I've really never seen anything quite like it," she said. "Suddenly he's blown open Catholic social teaching to the globe and in a remarkable kind of way that's completely fearless."
Also, "it wasn't a passive recipient document," Deane-Drummond said, since it fostered networking and action on multiple levels.
The encyclical even influenced the U.N. Climate Change Conference that was held several months later, and the resulting Paris Agreement "may not have happened if he hadn't released it then," she said.
Flags can be see inside the dome during COP28, the U.N. Climate Change Conference, at Expo City Dubai Nov. 30, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (CNS photo/courtesy of UN Climate Change COP28, Christophe Viseux)
Eight years later, on St. Francis of Assisi's feast day, Pope Francis released a follow-up document, "Laudate Deum" ("Praise God"), ahead of the U.N. Climate Change Conference in the United Arab Emirates. The exhortation presented an even stronger critique of global inaction and indifference to climate change.
Deane-Drummond said it wasn't because Laudato Si' was not enough or had gaps to fill. Laudate Deum was "much more blunt in terms of telling people what they need to do and also pointing the finger, really, at Catholics and others who still denied climate change."
"It was as if the message of Laudato Si' hadn't been absorbed sufficiently and it was another cry of anguish," as well as "saying what needed to happen in Dubai … in a way that wasn't quite as clear in Laudato Si'," she said.
Both Deane-Drummond and Lothes believe the message and appeals of Laudato Si' are here to stay and did not die with Pope Francis' death April 21.
"I think it's a little bit like Vatican II," Deane-Drummond said. Even if some people in the church have tried to push back against Vatican II, the council made changes "that are irreversible."
"It's similar with Laudato Si'. Those changes have come in; they're part of Catholic social thought," she said.
Lothes said, "I think it's absolutely embedded in the global church" so that "this mission will go forward and flourish," especially with so many initiatives and institutions supporting it.
"And in those places where that conversion is still ongoing," she said, "I believe that the people of God know that we are facing an ecological crisis and are looking for that guidance, and they sense the dissonance when we are not bringing it into our liturgical life, our catechetical life, our ethical life."
The dome of St. Peter's Basilica can be seen in the background of this photograph taken in the Vatican Gardens Oct. 5, 2023. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)
In his two weeks as pope, Pope Leo XIV repeatedly has mentioned the same themes of climate change, exploitation of the poor and of Earth's resources, and the importance of protecting the planet.
Lothes said the only thing missing in Laudato Si' and Laudate Deum is "a clear guide" for how everyone can concretely live out their message.
Pope Francis "invited us, in a very beautiful and spiritual way to ecological conversion, to proclaim and live the Gospel of creation," and to respond immediately "via governmental action, via policy responses, via our civic and consumer life to the scale of the crisis because our responses have not been adequate."
"What's needed now for the person in the pews is a clear expression of what each of us absolutely needs to do: A sort of 'Ten Commandments' for care of creation," she said.
"We have the intellectual message, we have the spiritual message," Lothes said. "Now we need to break it down for the life of the church and I think that's what the next wave of magisterial teaching can really offer to allow this seed and the beautiful tree of Laudato Si' to just reforest throughout the world."
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WASHINGTON – “With hearts burdened by sorrow and a renewed commitment to solidarity, we express profound grief and outrage at the shooting that occurred outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington,” said Bishop Joseph C. Bambera and Archbishop Borys Gudziak.
Bishop Bambera, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, and Archbishop Gudziak, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development offered their prayers in response to the May 21 shooting.
“We stand in prayerful mourning with our Jewish brothers and sisters and denounce this act of violence and antisemitic hatred in the strongest possible terms. As Catholics, we are called not only to reject such hatred, but to actively foster mutual understanding, respect, and solidarity with the Jewish people. With urgency and clarity, we renew the commitment made through the Second Vatican Council’s declaration Nostra Aetate to affirm our common patrimony with the Jews and stand against any and all forms of antisemitism.
“The suffering generated by this senseless and violent action against the Jewish community wounds us all and compels us toward renewed vigilance and action. In this moment, we also acknowledge the grave responsibility we all share in the language we use, especially when speaking about the conflict in the Holy Land. Complex political realities can never justify rhetoric that demonizes a people, faith, or community. Harsh or dehumanizing language, even when unintended, can sow seeds of suspicion and fear, which too easily bear the fruit of violence. In our public discourse, as in our prayers, we must choose the path of truth spoken in love (Ephesians 4:15), never allowing geopolitical tensions to justify antisemitism or any form of hatred.
“To our Jewish neighbors, partners and friends: We walk with you. We grieve with you. We stand with you. May the God of justice and peace comfort the wounded, strengthen the fearful, and bring healing to all affected by this violence. Let us together be instruments of peace, as we heed the words of the prophet Micah: ‘Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.’”
The Apostles and presbyters, in agreement with the whole Church,
decided to choose representatives
and to send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas.
The ones chosen were Judas, who was called Barsabbas,
and Silas, leaders among the brothers.
This is the letter delivered by them:
"The Apostles and the presbyters, your brothers,
to the brothers in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia
of Gentile origin: greetings.
Since we have heard that some of our number
who went out without any mandate from us
have upset you with their teachings
and disturbed your peace of mind,
we have with one accord decided to choose representatives
and to send them to you along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul,
who have dedicated their lives to the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So we are sending Judas and Silas
who will also convey this same message by word of mouth:
'It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us
not to place on you any burden beyond these necessities,
namely, to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols,
from blood, from meats of strangled animals,
and from unlawful marriage.
If you keep free of these,
you will be doing what is right. Farewell.'"
And so they were sent on their journey.
Upon their arrival in Antioch
they called the assembly together and delivered the letter.
When the people read it, they were delighted with the exhortation.
R. (10a) I will give you thanks among the peoples, O Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
My heart is steadfast, O God; my heart is steadfast;
I will sing and chant praise.
Awake, O my soul; awake, lyre and harp!
I will wake the dawn.
R. I will give you thanks among the peoples, O Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
I will give thanks to you among the peoples, O LORD,
I will chant your praise among the nations.
For your mercy towers to the heavens,
and your faithfulness to the skies.
Be exalted above the heavens, O God;
above all the earth be your glory!
R. I will give you thanks among the peoples, O Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Jesus said to his disciples:
"This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one's life for one's friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
I no longer call you slaves,
because a slave does not know what his master is doing.
I have called you friends,
because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.
It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you
and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain,
so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.
This I command you: love one another."
Five years ago, Rod Dreher released his book Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents, which has re-entered the conservative social commentary sphere with a documentary of the same name, released this past April.
And in no small way either—US Vice President JD Vance gave the opening speech at the screening, addressing issues of free speech and democracy in the EU.
Freedom of speech has been of great concern for many conservatives in recent years and for good reason. Live Not by Lies is grounded on the painful experiences of Christian survivors of totalitarian regimes in the 20th century and highlights tenets of “soft totalitarianism” Dreher argues have now permeated the West.
According to Dreher, every one of these survivors believes that America is heading toward a similar totalitarian state.
In the West today, it’s evident that censorship has infiltrated government, private institutions, corporations, academia, and media. Dreher points out how expressing conservative beliefs can result in losing your job, being expelled from university, being “cancelled,” or, in some cases, even being arrested.
To combat this, Dreher advocates for Christians to form small groups and tight-knit communities, just as they did under communism in Eastern Europe. Through these communities, we can preserve our values by holding onto tradition and collective memory—and we can hold onto hope.
He writes: “We have to tell our stories—in literature, film, theatre, and other media – but we must also manifest cultural memory in communal deeds—in mourning and in celebrating, in solemn remembrance of festal joy.”
“Less academically, we can celebrate festivals, make pilgrimages, observe holy-day practices, pray litanies, perform concerts, hold dances, learn and teach traditional cooking —any kind of collective deed that connects the community with its shared sacred are secular history in a loving way is an act of resistance to an ethos that says the past doesn’t matter”
Dreher’s dual emphasis on intellectual engagement and tangible participation in traditional, community-centred activities is an ideal all Christians should embrace. We are far better equipped to stare persecution in the face when our values are cultivated over time through practice and education.
This cultivation also sharpens our ability to discern when those values are under attack. By fostering cultural memory, upholding strong family units, remaining steadfast in our faith, and nurturing communities rooted in shared convictions, we can learn not only to endure hardship, but to suffer well, says Dreher.
But in his own book he seems unable to follow some of his own advice on pushing back against the tyranny of anti-Christian diktats.
“They [anti-communist Christians in the Eastern Bloc] had every right to be permanently angry over what had been done to them, to their families, their churches and their countries. If they were, it didn’t show,” he writes.
“This is the core what religion brings to anti-totalitarian resistance: a reason to die—which is to say, a reason to live with whatever suffering regime throws at you, and not only to live, but to thrive.”
This is inspiring, but Dreher himself is clearly stewing in anger. The first half of the book dives into a highly detailed—and often emotional—critique of the West. At times, it comes across like a Facebook rant from a disillusioned Boomer.
That said, Dreher has been in the social commentary space for a long time, and his pessimism is both understandable and, for many, relatable.
It’s also important to remember that the book was published in 2020, arguably the peak ‘”woke” era i.e. Black Lives Matter, Covid etc. Perhaps his talking points would have had a stronger resonance when the text was first published. However, in 2025 this line of social commentary is repetitive and dated, and I think many Christians are fatigued with these lamentations.
Late last year, when Donald Trump was re-elected, there was a collective sigh of relief among conservatives, not just in America but also more broadly in the Western world.
Phrases like “the tides are turning” and “things are looking up” were common. However, in recent months, we’ve seen significant infighting among conservatives, especially among social and political commentators. Now that they are no longer unified in opposition to a common enemy, internal clashes are becoming more intense, and frequent.
Live Not by Lives presents some beautiful and heroic real-life experiences and aspirations. But for all the things Dreher gets right, the course of his own (publicly self-examined) life demonstrates the complexity of living out one’s ideals, and that shades of grey are inevitable and call for delicate navigation.
For example, while Dreher emphasises the importance of family and unity in his book, I think it is worth noting that he has recently gone through a divorce. He emphasises the value of community—yet he has chosen self-exile in Hungary.
He underscores the need to maintain hope and be a physical manifestation of that hope and yet his book is so deeply steeped in a despair that I would find it hard to recommend it anyone not already very familiar with conservative discourse, and emotionally resilient enough to handle its tone.
Dreher may well agree it is one thing to sit back and offer up social critique, it is another to live out the virtues we hold so dear.
A photo of Pope Leo XIV taken on the night of his election is seen next to a fake quotation attributed to him that began making the rounds on social media May 14, 2025. (CNS photo/Facebook)
All the speeches and messages Pope Leo XIV has given since becoming pope 8 May are available on the Vatican website, which should be checked before sharing supposed quotes and videos, Vatican News said.
The Vatican News site published the warning in several languages 21 May after a 36-minute “deep fake”—AI-generated—video was posted on YouTube.
The post, which used manipulated video of Pope Leo and an AI-generated voice with an accent that is not Pope Leo’s, praises Ibrahim Traoré, the military ruler of Burkina Faso.
Vatican News said the post was “produced using footage from Pope Leo XIV’s audience with journalists on Monday, 12 May. A ‘morphing’ technique was used—that is, transforming the image so that the movement of the lips matches the AI-generated words.”
The video is only the latest example of social media fakes attributed to the new pope.
A popular meme circulating on Facebook, Instagram and other social media features a photo of Pope Leo from 8 May and the fake quote: “You cannot follow both Christ and the cruelty of kings. A leader who mocks the weak, exalts himself, and preys on the innocent is not sent by God. He is sent to test you. And many are failing.”
Pope Leo XIV, formerly Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, speaks as he celebrates his inauguration Mass at the Vatican May 18, 2025. He is the first American pope in history. (OSV News photo/Claudia Greco, Reuters)
According to snopes.com, the fact-checking website, the earliest posting of the supposed quote was 14 May, but there is no evidence anywhere that the pope said it.
The Vatican website—www.vatican.va—offers papal texts, including the texts of video messages, in multiple languages, often including Italian, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Polish, Arabic, Chinese and Latin.
Members of the group Misaskim clean blood off the ground May 22, 2025, where two Israeli Embassy staff were shot dead near the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington late May 21. (OSV News photo/Evelyn Hockstein, Reuters)
Catholic bishops are calling for prayer after two Israeli Embassy staff members were slain late 21 May outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington.
Sarah Lynn Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky were leaving an event at the museum when they were shot at close range.
Washington Cardinal Robert W McElroy decried the killing as “an act of antisemitic hatred and murder.” He said the Catholic community of Washington and the state of Maryland “stands in prayer, shock and solidarity” with the slain victims and their families, and with the people of Israel and the entire Jewish community.
“That these heinous killings took place against the backdrop of the Capital Jewish Museum, which is both a sign of the rich blessings that the Jewish community has continually provided to our nation and a call to unity in our society, is a further assault upon our social fabric and the love that is the plan and gift of the God who is Father of us all,” Cardinal McElroy said in a 22 May statement. “Let us profoundly deepen our prayers and our commitment to root out hate in our midst whenever and wherever it surfaces.”
Across the Potomac river from the nation’s capital, Bishop Michael F Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, also called on Catholics to pray.
“May we unite in prayer for the souls of two Israeli embassy staff members who were fatally shot last night in Washington, DC,” he said in an early 22 May post on X. “Please God, grant strength to their families and all who loved them.”
Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim who were shot and killed as they left an event at the Capital Jewish Museum May 21, pose for a picture at an unknown location, in this handout image released by Embassy of Israel to the US on May 22, 2025. (OSV News photo/Embassy of Israel to the USA via X/Handout via Reuters)
The young couple were set to become engaged in Jerusalem next week, with Lischinsky purchasing the ring only days ago, according to Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the US.
Suspect Elias Rodriguez, a 31-year-old Chicago resident, was filmed chanting, “Free, free Palestine,” following the attack. He was detained when he entered the museum immediately after the shooting, with event patrons initially unaware of his actions.
“With great sadness and horror, we have learned of the killing in cold blood of two members of the Jewish community, Yaron and Sarah,” in Washington, New York Cardinal Timothy M Dolan said in a mid-morning post on X 22 May. “We commend them to the mercy of God, and we join with their families, friends, and the wider Jewish community who mourn their senseless and tragic loss. May their memory be a blessing.”
Israeli officials confirmed that Lischinsky, an Israeli citizen who also reportedly held a German passport, was a research assistant for the embassy. Milgrim, a US citizen, organised visits and missions to Israel.
According to sources interviewed by BBC News, Lischinsky was a devout Christian.
The attack has been widely condemned as an act of antisemitism.
“While we wait for the conclusion of the police investigation—and urge all our friends and allies to do the same—it strongly appears that this was an attack motivated by hate against the Jewish people and the Jewish state,” said Ted Deutch, CEO of the American Jewish Committee, in a 22 May statement.
A member of the group Misaskim clean blood off the ground May 22, 2025, where two Israeli Embassy staff were shot dead near the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington late May 21. (OSV News photo/Evelyn Hockstein, Reuters)
He added, “This senseless hate and violence must stop.”
AJC board member Jojo Kalin told BBC News she had organized the event at the museum— which was a cocktail hour for Jewish professionals—to focus on building a coalition to help Gazans.
The gathering’s “bridge building” had been scarred by “such hatred,” she said, but stressed she refused to “lose my humanity over this or be deterred.”
“As has been so evident in these last months and years,” Cardinal Dolan said in his X post, “antisemitism is still pervasive in our country and our world, and the Catholic community in New York today renews our resolve to (work) to eradicate this evil. We stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters in this moment of pain, praying that all may live in the peace and security that God surely intends for us.”
In his post, Bishop Burbidge quoted Pope Leo XIV, saying, “Peace begins with each one of us, in the way we look at others, listen to others and speak about others.”
The bishop said, “May the spirit peace be renewed today, and may the God who loves us restore peace to the Holy Land and our nation.”
State of Origin iPhone Wallpaper. Photo: Flickr.com.
There’s something special about State of Origin that goes beyond the spectacle. It’s not just the pace, the passion, or the brutal hits—it’s the heart.
Watching two teams tear into each other for the full 80 minutes, you can’t help but admire the total buy-in.
Players don’t hold back. They don’t pace themselves. They play like it means everything— because to them, it does.
The Origin jersey isn’t just a uniform; it’s a symbol of loyalty, identity, and sacrifice. Wearing it means carrying the hopes of an entire state. You’re expected to give everything —and then some.
And yet, as I sat choosing my own Origin team for this series—picking the guys I thought would pour their heart out for the jersey—something struck me: if players are willing to push their bodies to the limit and sacrifice comfort, pride, and even health for a mere trophy, how much more should we be willing to do for something eternal?
In his letter to the Corinthians, St Paul uses the image of an athlete to describe the Christian life: “Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one” (1 Corinthians 9:25).
2021 State of Origin Game 1 Queensland Country Bank Stadium National Anthem. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
In other words, if we can admire the discipline and commitment of athletes on the field, we should be even more inspired to run the race of faith with that same kind of fire.
Origin players don’t show up unprepared. They train relentlessly, study game plans, and surrender to the wisdom of the coach. That kind of humility and obedience is necessary for success.
And as Christians, we’re not just called to sit in the stands—we’re called onto the field.
We’re called to live our faith actively, not passively. To prepare our hearts through prayer, Scripture, and the sacraments. To obey the voice of our coach—even when it’s hard.
It’s easy to wear a jersey. It’s much harder to play like you deserve it.
The same goes for our faith.
Being baptised, wearing a crucifix, or calling ourselves Catholic means little if we’re not willing to live it with authenticity and conviction.
It’s not about perfection—it is about effort. About showing up. About giving God more than just our leftovers.
The saints weren’t spectators. They were players.
Queensland Country Bank Stadium for State of Origin Game 1 2021 in Townsville. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
They got knocked down. They suffered. They endured seasons of failure and silence. But they didn’t give up, because they knew who they were playing for—and why it mattered.
State of Origin will always have a place in our culture. It stirs something deep within us: the desire to belong, to fight for something bigger, to leave it all on the field.
But at the end of the day, no matter how big the game or how fierce the rivalry, it all fades. The real prize is still ahead. And unlike a jersey, it doesn’t wear out.
So this Origin season, let’s enjoy the footy. But let’s also ask ourselves: what kind of game are we playing with our faith? Are we just spectators…or are we all in?
Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, incenses the reliquary containing the relics of St. Maria Antonia de Paz Figueroa, known as Mama Antula, during the Mass for her canonization in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican Feb. 11, 2024. She is the first female saint from Argentina. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)
Pope Leo XIV has advanced the sainthood causes of two missionaries whose murders in the Amazon jungle in Ecuador led to the protection of remote Indigenous peoples from encroaching extractive industries.
Among a series of decrees published by the Vatican 22 May, Pope Leo recognised the sacrifice of Spanish Bishop Alejandro Labaka Ugarte of the Apostolic Vicariate of Aguarico, Ecuador, and Colombian Sister Inés Arango Velásquez, a member of the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family, as an “offering of life,” a category distinct from martyrdom that Pope Francis established in 2017.
The category and its requirements for sainthood are explained in the apostolic letter, Maiorem hac Dilectionem, which established a category of heroically offering one’s life out of loving service to others. The recognition brings the two missionaries closer to beatification, pending verification of a miracle attributed to each one’s intercession.
Bishop Labaka was born in a remote village in Spain 19 April, 1920, and joined the Capuchins in 1937 after he was conscripted to fight the Spanish Civil War. He was ordained in 1945 at the age of 25.
He possessed a strong missionary spirit and went to China with three other companions in 1947. However, the communist regime expelled all religious orders, including the Capuchins, in 1953.
Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, speaks during a news conference to discuss an upcoming conference on sainthood causes, at the Vatican Sept. 19, 2022. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
He then went to Ecuador where he ministered for 33 years, particularly to Indigenous peoples in the Amazon forest.
After he was named prefect of Aguarico in 1965, he was invited to participate in the final session of the Second Vatican Council where he was particularly moved by its decree, “Ad gentes,” which emphasised the church’s missionary activity and the expression of the “seeds of the Word,” referring to the truth of the Gospel and grace being present throughout human cultures.
He resigned as prefect in 1970 in order to dedicate himself completely to working with Indigenous communities, particularly the Huaorani, “to discover with them the seeds of the Word, hidden in their culture and in their life; and by which God has shown his infinite love to the Huaorani people, giving them a chance of salvation in Christ,” he wrote in his diary.
He still maintained close ties to remote communities even after St John Paul II named him to be the first bishop of the apostolic vicariate of Aguarico in 1984. He found himself increasingly trying to be a mediator between the government and petroleum companies, and the Indigenous peoples living where vast oil reserves were being discovered, in an effort to prevent violence and protect their rights, lives and cultures.
Oil workers sometimes faced violent attacks as they encroached on remote territories inhabited by the Tagaeri in 1987, which in turn provoked armed attacks by mercenaries protecting the interests of the oil companies.
Pope Leo XIV waves to the crowd as he rides in the popemobile up to the stage in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican for his first weekly general audience May 21, 2025. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)
Fearing the Tagaeri were going to be exterminated, Bishop Labaka and Sister Arango took an oil-company-owned helicopter and dropped down by rope to try to see if the people could relocate and avoid being slaughtered. They knew the risk, but felt “if we don’t go there, they (mercenaries) will kill them,” the bishop had said.
The next day, workers found their two bodies pierced by spears and arrows. After their deaths 21 July, the government ordered all extractive activity to stop in areas inhabited by the Huaorani and Tagaeri peoples.
Eventually, the government defined and established a protected “Tagaeri Taromenane Intangible Zone” in 1999 to protect remote communities from extractive activities.
Sister Arango was born 6 April, 1937, in Medellín, Colombia, and spent 20 years teaching before she became a missionary and joined the Capuchin mission in Aguarico in 1977. She worked in a hospital and evangelized different Indigenous communities under the guidance of then-Father Lubaka. She was assigned to share the Gospel with the Huaorani people in 1987.
During Pope Leo’s meeting 22 May with Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, the pope also signed a decree advancing the sainthood causes of Bishop Matthew Makil, the first native apostolic vicar of Kottayam of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church in India. Born March 27, 1851, he promoted the catechism, education in Catholic schools and the establishment of religious congregations and pious associations. He died 26 January, 1914.
Relics of Jesus Christ, left, the Virgin Mary, Padre Pio, St. John Paul II and St. Frances Xavier Cabrini are among the nearly 200 sacred artifacts seen on display during a sacred relics exhibit at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Oratory in Montclair, N.J., Feb. 24, 2024. The oratory will host an exhibit of over 500 sacred relics April 5, 2025. (OSV News photo/Sean Quinn, courtesy Archdiocese of Newark)
One of my friends was criticising me and the church for the importance we give to relics. He says they are just parts of dead people or of things they used. How can I answer him?
When we speak of relics we are referring to a piece of the body of a holy person or of some object used by that person, such as clothing.
The veneration of relics has a long history. Already in the Old Testament, the bones of a dead person were seen to be life-giving. The Second Book of Kings describes how when a man was being buried, he was cast into the grave of the prophet Elisha, “and as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood on his feet” (2 Kings 13:21). The prophet Elisha himself, when he needed to cross a river, struck the water with the garment of his master Elijah and the waters parted before him (cf. 2 Kings 2:14).
In Jesus’ time, we recall how a woman who had suffered from a haemorrhage for 12 years, said to herself: “If I only touch his [Jesus’] garment, I shall be made well”, as in fact happened (Mt 20:20-21).
The people in New Testament times had so much confidence in the healing power of the apostles too that “God did extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from his body to the sick, and diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them” (Acts 19:11-12).
A reliquary containing what tradition holds is Jesus’ crown of thorns is displayed during a ceremony at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris March 21, 2014. The crown, the most precious of the relics in Notre Dame’s treasury, was saved from the flames of the April 15, 2019, fire. (OSV News photo/Philippe Wojazer, Reuters)
This belief in the value of relics led the early Christians to build churches over the graves of the apostles and martyrs. This was a break from the traditions of the Jews, who regarded human bodies as unclean. Among these churches in Rome are the Basilicas of St Peter and of St Paul Outside the Walls, plus numerous other churches dedicated to popes and martyrs.
Principal among the others is the Basilica of St Lawrence Outside the Walls. Others include the churches of St Clement, who was the fourth Pope, St Praxedes and St Pancras. We should remember too that there are altars over the tombs of martyrs in the Roman catacombs.
So widespread was the custom of honouring the tombs of martyrs and saints in this way that the emperor Julian the Apostate (361-363), who rejected Christianity, detested Christians for their cult of relics. He told them: “You have filled the whole world with tombs and sepulchres.”
In these churches, altars were built directly over the remains of the apostles and martyrs. This led over time to the custom, and later the requirement, of placing relics of saints in a sealed cavity in the altar, or in an altar stone, of all churches. This custom lives out what is recorded in the book of Revelation: “I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne” (Rev 6:9).
Thousands of Maronite Catholics shut down the streets of the Sydney suburb of Punchbowl 8 May, 2024, to welcome relics of Lebanon’s most well-known saint to their new permanent home in Australia. Queues of faithful braced the rain along the avenue where St Charbel’s Church and Monastery stands, spilling over onto neighbouring streets as more than 70 white-clad pallbearers carried a 242-pound replica of St Charbel’s tomb atop a bed of 2,500 roses. Photo: Giovanni Portelli.
The most important relics are, of course, those associated with Jesus himself. In Jerusalem, the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre has an altar in a small chapel built directly over the tomb where Jesus’ body was laid and where it rose from the dead. Also, the true Cross on which Christ died was found nearby by St Helena, the mother of the emperor Constantine, around the year 326 in Jerusalem.
She took a large part of the cross to Constantinople and another to Rome, where it is still on display in the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, near the Lateran Basilica. Also on display there are a nail thought to be used in the crucifixion and part of the title of execution, written in Hebrew, Latin and Greek, as described in the Gospel (cf. Jn 19:20). Many other small pieces of the Cross are distributed throughout the world, where they are kept with great reverence.
It should be remembered that the veneration of relics, like that of images of the saints and especially of Mary, is not the worship of these persons, but rather simply their veneration. We venerate our loved ones when we visit their graves in the cemetery, and we honour them by having photographs of them in our homes. All the more should we honour the saints and martyrs by venerating their relics.
Catholic Relief Services distributes food for school children at one of the schools in the Department of Totonicapán, Guatemala, with the help of parent volunteers. / Credit: Catholic Relief Services
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 22, 2025 / 18:13 pm (CNA).
As part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to reshape American foreign aid, his administration is ending federal funds for nearly a dozen projects operated by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) to provide free school meals to children internationally.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) ended funding for 11 of the 13 projects CRS operates through the McGovern-Dole Food for Education Program, which was created with bipartisan support in the early 2000s. The funds support international school feeding and maternal and child nutrition projects with American agriculture commodities, according to the USDA.
According to CRS, the termination of these funds will affect more than 780,000 school-aged children in 11 countries. The funding will end this July.
“This decision isn’t just a policy shift — it’s a life-altering blow to hundreds of thousands of children who rely on these meals to stay healthy, stay in school, and stay hopeful about their future,” CRS President and CEO Sean Callahan said in a statement.
CRS contends that, in some impoverished countries, this program provides children with their only reliable meal daily. In a news release, CRS also maintained that the programs strengthen local communities and that terminating these contracts will threaten food security and economic stability in the affected nations.
“Ending a program that provides a child’s only meal is deeply troubling and goes against our values as a nation and as people of faith,” Callahan said. “We have a moral responsibility to ensure vulnerable children have access to the nourishment they need to learn, grow, and build a better future.”
A spokesperson for the USDA confirmed the termination of these funds and told CNA the decision was part of an effort to ensure the programs “align with the president’s agenda to make America safer, stronger, and more prosperous.”
“We look forward to ensuring USDA foreign aid is spent implementing existing projects as well as any new projects that continue to put American agriculture at the forefront and align with the president’s agenda,” the spokesperson said.
According to the spokesperson, the USDA ended 17 McGovern-Dole program agreements in total, 11 of which were operated by CRS. The USDA continues to fund 30 projects through that program, two of which CRS operates. The remaining programs serve 22 countries.
Additionally, the spokesperson said the USDA ended funding for 27 Food for Progress program agreements that were also “not in alignment with the foreign assistance objectives of the Trump administration.” The other 14 Food for Progress agreements, which serve 17 countries, will still be funded.
“It is important to note that all U.S. agricultural producers have received payment for commodities for which invoices have been received,” the spokesperson said. “Those projects which were terminated received a 30-day notification. During this time partners are required to deliver any commodity to its final destination, in accordance with the agreement, to ensure no product goes to waste.”
Callahan, alternatively, said the success of its programs is “undeniable,” adding that he has seen firsthand “the remarkable contributions of the community and local government” in one of the countries, Honduras.
“I spoke with young children who endure nearly two-hour walks to school each day — driven by the hope of receiving both a meal and an education,” he said. “It is un-American to stand by and not provide assistance while hunger robs children of their chance to learn and thrive.”
Callahan requested that the administration “reconsider its decision and restore funding for these life-affirming programs,” saying a reversal would “ensure children continue to have access to daily meals in school and invest in their future, their health, and their ability to break the cycle of poverty.”
Five Dock’s Domremy College is celebrating one of its brightest talents this year: 16‑year‑old Year 11 student and table tennis star, Chloe Cheng. Photo: Sydney Catholic Schools.
By Declan Donohue
Five Dock’s Domremy College is celebrating one of its brightest talents this year: 16‑year‑old Year 11 student and table tennis star, Chloe Cheng.
Ranked an impressive eighth in New South Wales’ Open Women’s division, Cheng’s rapid ascent in the sport is remarkable for someone her age.
In May, she clinched the title at the Sydney Catholic Schools (SCS) Conference 2 Table Tennis Championship, earning her spot in the Sydney-wide SCS Table Tennis Championship Finals this June at the Sydney Olympic Park, Sports Halls.
Her success at the school level dovetails with her national breakthrough: in 2025, Cheng secured selection in Table Tennis Australia’s Under‑19 Women’s team for both the ITTF Oceania Senior Championships and the ITTF Oceania Junior Championships in Christchurch, New Zealand, later this year.
“Watching my brother practice first sparked my interest,” Cheng explains of her introduction to table tennis.
“I found the speed and strategy fascinating.” Encouraged by her brother’s coach, who first noticed her natural talent, she began to train seriously at age 13.
Cheng’s résumé already boasts significant highlights: competing in the 2024 Australian Olympic qualifiers at Ballarat, reaching the mixed‑doubles semifinals at the 2023 World Table Tennis Youth Contender in Darwin, and earning second place in the 2023 Oceania Championship, which qualified her for the World Youth Championship.
Yet the journey has not been without challenges. “My toughest battle has been with anxiety and pressure,” Cheng admits.
After a slump in form, she took a week off to recharge—a decision that revitalised her passion. “A week without training felt like the maximum I could handle. I returned refreshed and improved little by little.”
Her typical training regimen is rigorous: Monday to Friday, 6 pm–9 pm; Saturday sessions of three-plus hours; and occasional rest on Sundays.
Balancing this with schoolwork often requires late‑night study sessions in the library and diligent catch‑up during travel, thanks to the support of Domremy College’s teachers and principal.
“My family has been my rock,” Cheng says. “They never pressure me, my motivation comes from within.”
She credits her coaches for refining her technique and her school for accommodating her academic needs when she’s overseas.
Looking ahead, Cheng aims to finish top two in next year’s Under‑19 Oceania Championship to secure another World Youth Championship berth.
“My dream is to make the 2028 Olympics,” she declares. “It will be a hard journey, but I believe in hard work and passion.”
Her advice to young athletes? “Start now and believe in yourself. It’s never too late. Enjoy the process and stay committed—your dreams are worth the effort.”
Participants at a May 22, 2025, afternoon vigil to honor the two lives lost in an attack outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., the night before hold signs reading “Christians and Jews united against hate.” / Credit: Tessa Gervasini/CNA
Washington D.C., May 22, 2025 / 17:43 pm (CNA).
On Wednesday evening, May 21, two Israeli embassy staff members were shot and killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C.
“This senseless act of violence is a sobering reminder of the deadly consequences of antisemitism,” Students Supporting Israel (SSI) a student organization at The Catholic University of America (CUA) said in a press release.
The two embassy staffers killed were identified as Yaron Lischinsky, an Israeli citizen, and Sarah Milgrim, an American. The young couple was about to be engaged, Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., said at a press conference. He added Lischinsky planned to propose next week in Jerusalem.
Police authorities in the nation’s capital reported that the suspect, Elias Rodriguez, admitted to the killings and yelled “Free, free Palestine” while in police custody.
“Antisemitism in the U.S. is at an all-time high, with Washington, D.C., now shaken by this act of hate,” SSI said, adding that the organization "continues to advocate for greater awareness, stronger protections, and unambiguous condemnation of antisemitic violence in all forms.”
“We stand in unwavering solidarity with the Jewish community; on our campus, in our city, and around the world.”
Philos Catholic, an arm of the Philos Project that fosters Catholic-Jewish relations, noted that the couple “was attending an event for young diplomats that focused on providing humanitarian aid to those in need and building bridges across national and religious lines” just prior to the attack.
“They were living out the core commands of the Bible: to do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” Philos Catholic said in a statement shared with CNA. “They modeled the heart of diplomats from Israel — the nation that gave the world the Bible, the book that teaches us how God expects us to live and act toward one another.”
A candle, flowers, and notes left at the site of the attack. Credit: Tessa Gervasini/CNA
On Thursday, Philos Catholic organized a vigil to honor the two lives lost. Christians and Jews gathered outside the museum where the attack took place to offer flowers and notes. The museum is across the street from Holy Rosary Catholic Church in the city’s northwest quadrant. Several held signs that said: “Christians and Jews united against hate.”
In a statement, the archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Robert McElroy, said: “The Catholic community of Washington and Maryland stands in prayer, shock, and solidarity with the families of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, with the people of Israel, and with the entire Jewish community, which has been attacked in this act of antisemitic hatred and murder.”
“Let us profoundly deepen our prayers and our commitment to root out hate in our midst whenever and wherever it surfaces,” McElroy added.
In tandem with McElroy, New York archbishop Cardinal Timothy Dolan declared: “We stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters in this moment of pain, praying that all may live in the peace and security that God surely intends for us.”
“May their memory be a blessing. As has been so evident in these last months and years, antisemitism is still pervasive in our country and our world, and the Catholic community in New York today renews our resolve to working to eradicate this evil,” Dolan concluded.
The budget reconciliation bill that passed in the U.S. House of Representatives this week included groundbreaking school choice legislation that would provide $5 billion in K–12 scholarships each year through 2029.
If passed, the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) establishes a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit for individuals who donate to scholarship-granting organizations (SGOs). These organizations would in turn grant scholarships to students for educational expenses, including private school tuition.
While the ECCA could be game-changing for Catholic and other private schools across the country, the reconciliation bill must first pass in the U.S. Senate before the president can sign it into law. The bill passed narrowly in the House by only one vote.
Students, including home-schoolers, can use the educational scholarships established in the ECCA to cover a variety of expenses beyond tuition including books and tutoring as well as educational therapies for students with disabilities. If passed the act would go into effect after Dec. 31.
Many Catholic students already benefit from state school choice programs, with 31% of Catholic schools participating, according to the latest data from the National Catholic Educational Association.
The U.S. bishops, who endorsed the act earlier this year, praised the inclusion of the ECCA in the budget bill but also noted some “important changes that need to be made” in parts of the House bill.
In a statement, the bishops called for the “removal of poison pill language that would debilitate Catholic school participation.”
In school choice, “poison pill” language is wording designed to prevent religious schools from participating in school choice programs. But poison pills can also include a broad variety of restrictions that have the unintended effect of limiting the number of private and religious schools that can participate. These restrictions often include acceptance or hiring requirements that go beyond federal and state laws that private schools already follow.
For instance, this act requires that private schools provide accommodations to students with special education needs — a requirement that some say can be limiting for private schools that do not have the resources.
While the U.S. bishops have in the past highlighted the importance of “making Catholic education inclusive,” they noted in their statement that this requirement would “debilitate the ability for Catholic schools to participate.”
The bishops noted that private schools “generally do not receive IDEA [Individuals with Disabilities Education Act] funding, so they would have to pay these significant costs out of pocket.”
Calling it an “unfunded mandate,” the bishops urged the Senate to remove this language.
They also urged the Senate to “restore the $10 billion credit cap with both individual and corporate givers included,” both terms that had been included in the ECCA when it was originally proposed.
In spite of the bill’s shortcomings, advocates still see it as a big moment for school choice.
Norton Rainey, head of the SGO group ACE Scholarships, praised the bill as a “new milestone” after “decades of advocacy.”
“School choice has never seen such momentum at the federal level,” Rainey said in a statement shared with CNA in which he praised the ECCA for providing an alternative to the “one-size-fits-all education system.”
“ECCA has the power to lift children out of poverty, strengthen families, and rebuild communities,” Rainey said. “When you change education, you change everything.”
State capitol in Dover, Delaware. / Credit: Jon Bilous/Shutterstock
CNA Staff, May 22, 2025 / 16:43 pm (CNA).
Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer this week signed a bill legalizing physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill adults with a prognosis of six months or less to live.
The law, which goes into effect Jan. 1, 2026, allows patients to self-administer lethal medication, making Delaware the 11th state to legalize euthanasia. California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, along with the District of Columbia, also permit the practice.
Meyer said on Tuesday the law is “about compassion, dignity, and respect. It gives people facing unimaginable suffering the ability to choose peace and comfort, surrounded by those they love. After years of debate, I am proud to sign H.B. 140 into law.”
The bill, first introduced in 2015, passed narrowly after a decade-long push by euthanasia advocates, clearing the House (21-16) and Senate (11-8, with two absences) on April 17. Eleven Senate Democrats supported the bill, while a bipartisan group that included three Democrats joined by five Republicans opposed. No Republicans voted in favor of the bill.
Last year, outgoing Democratic Gov. John Carney vetoed the bill when it came before his desk, saying that “although I understand not everyone shares my views, I am fundamentally and morally opposed to state law enabling someone, even under tragic and painful circumstances, to take their own life.”
He went on to cite the official position of the American Medical Association, which says physician-assisted suicide is “fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks. Euthanasia could readily be extended to incompetent patients and other vulnerable populations.”
Wilmington Bishop William Koenig has been urging Delaware residents to oppose the measure, saying in April that “there is a great distinction between, on the one hand, death that comes naturally and, on the other hand, performing actions to bring on death.”
Last year, Koenig, along with Baltimore Archbishop William Lori and Washington, D.C., archbishop Cardinal Wilton Gregory, released a pastoral letter about euthanasia, “A Better Way Forward,” in which they wrote: “The central tenet guiding our opposition to this deadly proposal is that all human life is created in the image and likeness of God and therefore sacred.”
The bishops continued: “We urge all people of goodwill to demand that our lawmakers reject suicide as an end-of-life option and to choose the better, safer path that involves radical solidarity with those facing the end of their earthly journey.”
“Let us choose the path that models true compassion and dignity to those facing end-of-life decisions and protects the most vulnerable from the deadly proposition of physician-assisted suicide,” the letter concluded.
In a message to the International Interfaith Symposium on Palliative Care last year, Pope Francis called euthanasia “a failure of love” and said: “Yet ‘compassion,’ a word that means ‘suffering with,’ does not involve the intentional ending of a life but rather the willingness to share the burdens of those facing the end stages of our earthly pilgrimage.”
Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, said in a statement this week: “End-of-life discussions should focus on palliative care, hospice, and support options. Assisted suicide shifts the focus from life-affirming care to premature death and erodes the public trust in health care and medical doctors.”
The National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) has emphasized that “dying patients who request euthanasia should receive loving care, psychological and spiritual support, and appropriate remedies for pain … to live with dignity until the time of natural death.”
The NCBC goes on: “Catholic health care institutions may never condone or participate in euthanasia or assisted suicide in any way,” defining euthanasia as “an act or omission that of itself or by intention causes death to alleviate suffering.”
The Delaware Catholic Advocacy Network, which delivered over 11,000 postcards to legislators, warned of the law’s risks to the elderly, mentally ill, and disabled. Despite the new law, the network is urging Catholics to pray for those who are suffering and to continue to engage their legislators.
Tony McFall wears his father’s cowboy hat while looking over the debris of the house of his father and step-mother, who lost their lives during the tornado in the neighborhood of Sunshine Hills on May 17, 2025, in London, Kentucky. A tornado struck communities in Somerset and London, Kentucky, leaving over 10 dead and more injured. / Credit: Michael Swensen/Getty Images
CNA Staff, May 22, 2025 / 16:13 pm (CNA).
Local Catholic Charities organizations are rallying to support communities devastated by the more than 70 tornadoes that tore through the central United States last Friday and Saturday.
A series of large tornadoes wreaked havoc throughout Missouri, Kentucky, Illinois, and Indiana killing at least 28 people, injuring dozens, and causing billions of dollars in damage. The tornadoes reported across the Midwest caused damage to thousands of homes.
Most of the deaths happened in Kentucky during what the National Weather Service called the deadliest tornado in eastern Kentucky’s history.
Good neighbors in Kentucky
At least 19 people died in southeastern Kentucky, within the bounds of the Diocese of Lexington. The tornado pathway was 55.6 miles long, beginning in Russell County, crossing through Pulaski County, and ending in Laurel County, with the majority of fatalities in Laurel County. The storm wiped out large residential areas on the south side of London and later damaged the local airport.
The tornado was ranked at the second-highest rating on the Enhanced Fujita scale (EF-4) with wind speeds of up to 170 miles per hour.
Catholic Charities Diocese of Lexington is providing assistance in affected areas while looking ahead to support locals in long-term recovery from the disaster.
Executive director Shelli Gregory spoke with CNA from Somerset, one of the hardest-hit cities in the area in addition to London.
Gregory brought a mobile response center to St. Mildred’s Parish in Somerset, where she and other volunteers are handing out bedding, toiletries, and emergency food boxes as well as information on where other various supplies and food can be found.
“We called our parishes in the affected areas on Saturday — day after the storm — and asked them what they were hearing that people needed,” Gregory said.
In some areas, days of power outage means people are short on food. In other areas, homes have been leveled.
“Then there’s homes that are completely gone. I mean, just like, where are they? There’s nothing there but a concrete slab,” Gregory said.
But amid the disaster, people are banding together. Some families are housing others whose houses were destroyed in the storm. One woman is helping get storage units for people whose stuff “is being stolen from the rubble.”
“What you’re seeing a lot here is everybody is very concerned about their neighbors, not nearly as much concerned about themselves,” Gregory said.
Rebuilding a small Kansas town
In northwest Kansas, an EF-2 tornado tore through the town of Grinnell in Gove County on Sunday night, destroying more than a dozen homes in the town of 260 people.
The tornado was destructive, but no deaths were reported. One of the two tornado sirens malfunctioned, according to the Gove County sheriff, so law enforcement drove through the streets warning people on a loudspeaker.
A tornado also hit about 200 miles southeast of Grinnell in western Reno County in Plevna, a city of 85 people. The tornado caused “extensive damage” to the town, but no deaths or injuries were reported.
Catholic Charities of Northern Kansas is providing emergency relief and long-term recovery support to families in Grinnell and affected neighboring areas, according to the executive director, Megan Robl.
“The road ahead is long, but we are committed to walking alongside this community for as long as we are needed — offering help, hope, and healing every step of the way,” Robl said in a statement.
With the help of a $25,000 grant from Catholic Charities USA, the organization hopes to help Grinnell rebuild.
“We are incredibly grateful to Catholic Charities USA for this generous $25,000 grant, which will go directly toward helping the Grinnell community recover and rebuild,” Robl said.
“We’re also deeply thankful for the prayers and support of so many across the Salina Diocese,” Robl added.
A ‘war zone’ in St. Louis
Missouri was also hit particularly hard by the storm, as seven people died, five of them in St. Louis. A mile-wide tornado tore through the northern part of St. Louis on Friday, causing more than $1.6 billion in damage in what Mayor Cara Spencer called “one of the worst storms” in the city’s history.
Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of St. Louis is responding to an “overwhelming surge” of requests for aid in Missouri, where the most devastating tornado in decades in the city caused severe damage.
“It looks like a war zone,” said Jared Bryson, president and CEO of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, describing the scene in North City, St. Louis.
Bryson was speaking from his office, about two blocks from the “disaster zone” where an EF-3 tornado had ripped through, damaging or destroying an estimated 5,000 buildings.
“It came through so quick,” Bryson told “EWTN News Nightly” Capitol Hill Correspondent Erik Rosales. “People went from a house to nothing in a matter of minutes.”
Bryson said Catholic Charities is involved in helping city emergency managers “coordinate the efforts on the ground” and is also “part of the long-term recovery of the community.”
“[When] everybody’s attention turns to something else, we are still here as Catholic Charities for the next several years, till the community returns back,” Bryson said.
The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Andrea Izzotti/Shutterstock
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 22, 2025 / 15:43 pm (CNA).
Leaders of several Catholic health care systems in the United States are expressing strong opposition to Medicaid reforms included in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” budget reconciliation measure passed on Thursday morning.
The legislation, which now heads to the Senate, would add Medicaid work requirements for most adults without disabilities or young dependents under the age of 65 starting on Dec. 31, 2026.
If it is adopted, those adults would need to work, volunteer, or attend school at least 80 hours every month, which is 20 hours per week, to qualify for the federal benefit. Current law has no work requirements.
Other changes include more frequent checks on a person’s Medicaid eligibility and reducing federal funds for states that offer Medicaid benefits for immigrants in the country illegally.
The proposals would also prevent states from increasing taxes to cover their share of Medicaid spending and end federal incentives for states with expanded Medicaid.
If the changes are enacted, the federal government could save tens of billions of dollars annually. The proposals could also push millions of people off Medicaid, which reduces the total amount of Medicaid reimbursement dollars received by hospitals.
Catholic health leaders unite against Medicaid changes
The Catholic Health Association (CHA), along with leaders of the health care systems Ascension, Providence, Trinity Health, and SSM Health, have all publicly come out against the proposed Medicaid reforms.
Sister Mary Haddad, the president of CHA, said in a statement that the bill “would harm critical health and social safety-net programs that millions of Americans rely on to live with health, dignity, and security.”
“[CHA] strongly opposes provisions like mandatory Medicaid work reporting requirements, restrictions on state tax authority, and changes to state-directed payment policies — all of which would lead to coverage losses for more than 10 million people who depend on Medicaid for essential care,” she said.
“These harmful proposals threaten the health and stability of the very communities we are called to serve.”
A spokesperson for Providence said in a statement to CNA that Medicaid “is a lifeline for millions of people across the country, including children, seniors, veterans, people with disabilities and pregnant patients.”
“The steep cuts proposed in this bill are deeply concerning and would have a far-reaching and devastating impact on health care if passed,” the spokesperson added.
“Providence continues to advocate for the preservation of Medicaid and urges lawmakers to recognize the integral role Medicaid plays in maintaining the health of our communities.”
Several Catholic health leaders joined a virtual media briefing on Tuesday to voice concerns about the legislation ahead of the House vote.
Eduardo Conrado, the president of Ascension, said during the briefing that about one-third of the funding for Catholic hospitals like Ascension, Providence, and Trinity Health comes from Medicaid and that nearly 9 in 10 of their patients either have Medicaid coverage or are “uninsured or underinsured.”
“For them and for many others, access to health care depends on decisions being made right now in Washington,” he said. The cuts “will harm real people, they will reduce access to care, especially for those already facing barriers in many states.”
Mike Slubowski, the president of Trinity Health, said it’s not possible to cut Medicaid “without hurting people and weakening our communities.”
“We’ve seen it firsthand,” he said. “When people lose coverage, they skip checkups, they stop taking medications and eventually show up in the ER sicker and in need of more costly care that could have been prevented.”
“That’s not just bad for health,” Slubowski said. “It strains hospitals, overcrowds our emergency rooms, drives up costs for everyone, insured or not. Medicaid cuts don’t just impact those who rely on it. The ripple effect — it will impact everyone.”
Republican leaders defend legislation
Thursday’s budget legislation was partisan, receiving support from most House Republicans and no support from House Democrats. A small number of Republicans opposed the bill or declined to vote on it, mostly based on concerns that it would increase the national deficit and the debt.
Ultimately, it passed the House 215-214 after last-minute lobbying from President Donald Trump himself and a few cost-cutting changes to garner support from members of the House Freedom Caucus.
The legislation includes an extension of the tax cuts from Trump’s first term and additional tax cuts, along with increased funding to enhance border enforcement and the military.
House Speaker Mike Johnson issued a statement that called the bill “nation-shaping legislation that reduces spending, permanently lowers taxes for families and job creators, secures the border, unleashes American energy dominance, restores peace through strength, and makes government work more efficiently and effectively for all Americans.”
“House Democrats voted against all of it — which clearly proves they want tax hikes on their constituents, open borders, and Medicaid for illegal immigrants,” Johnson said.
Kentucky Rep. Brett Guthrie, the chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, accused Democratic opponents of the bill of trying to “fearmonger and score political points.”
“This bill refocuses Medicaid on mothers, children, people with disabilities, and the elderly — not illegal immigrants and capable adults who choose not to work,” he said last week.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote: “It’s time for our friends in the United States Senate to get to work and send this bill to my desk AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!” He added: “There is no time to waste.”
The legislation needs a simple majority in the Senate, which currently has a 53-47 Republican majority. At least one Republican, Sen. Rand Paul, has said he will not support the bill due to the deficit increase.
Senate lawmakers could also make changes to the bill and send it back to the House.
Pope Leo XIV addresses members of the Pontifical Missions Societies on May 22, 2025, at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, May 22, 2025 / 14:48 pm (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV delivered an address to the Pontifical Mission Societies on Thursday thanking its members for living the Church’s call to evangelize to all nations with a spirit of communion and universality in union with the pope.
Approximately 120 national directors connected to the Vatican’s four missionary bodies — the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, the Society of the Holy Childhood, the Society of St. Peter the Apostle, and the Missionary Union — and 20 members of the Dicastery for Evangelization met with the Holy Father on the first day of their general assembly taking place in Rome from May 22–28.
Pope Leo XIV addresses members of the Pontifical Missions Societies on May 22, 2025, at the Vatican. Credit: Vatican Media
“As societies committed to sharing in the missionary mandate of the pope and the college of bishops, you are called to cultivate and further promote within your members the vision of the Church as the communion of believers, enlivened by the Holy Spirit, who enables us to enter into the perfect communion and harmony of the blessed Trinity,” the pontiff said to those present at the morning meeting.
“This dimension of our Christian life and mission is close to my heart and is reflected in the words of St. Augustine that I chose for my episcopal service and now for my papal ministry: ‘In Illo uno unum’ — Christ is our savior and in him we are one, a family of God, beyond the rich variety of our languages, cultures, and experiences,” he added.
Describing apsotolic zeal as “more urgent in our own day,” Pope Leo said the Gospel message of love, reconciliation, and grace through Jesus Christ is needed in a world “wounded” by war and injustice.
Pope Leo XIV greets members of the Pontifical Missions Societies on May 22, 2025, at the Vatican. Credit: Vatican Media
“In this sense, the Church herself, in all her members, is increasingly called to be ‘a missionary Church that opens its arms to the world, proclaims the word … and becomes a leaven of harmony for humanity,” he said, echoing words from his homily given during his May 18 inauguration Mass.
Asking his listeners to be inspired and renewed in their vocation to “be a leaven of missionary zeal within the people of God,” the Holy Father reiterated the message of his predecessor to be “missionaries of hope among all peoples,” especially in light of the 2025 Jubilee Year.
“In the words of Pope Francis, ‘The Lord has overcome the world and its constant conflict “by making peace through the blood of his cross,”’” Pope Leo said, citing Evangelii Gaudium. “Hence we see the importance of fostering a spirit of missionary discipleship in all the baptized and a sense of the urgency of bringing Christ to all people.”
Pope Leo XIV greets Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle during a meeting with members of the Pontifical Missions Societies on May 22, 2025, at the Vatican. Credit: Vatican Media
According to Monsignor Roger Landry, head of the Pontifical Mission Societies USA, who was present at the meeting, the Holy Father warmly encouraged national directors to continue to promote World Mission Sunday, celebrated on the second-to-last Sunday of October, and ensure their outreach programs are driven by a “universality that flows from a sense of communion.”
“He doesn’t want us to exclude anybody,” Landry told CNA on Thursday. “Like Pope Francis before him, he was getting us to focus on the peripheries — those who are not yet close to us and those who are not united with us.”
After speaking about the beauty of having representatives from over 120 countries come together “as equals” before the Holy Father at the meeting, Landry said each person present received rosary beads from Pope Leo that were blessed by Pope Francis before he died.
“There was a sense of continuity as he was giving us Pope Francis’ rosary beads,” he said.
From the popemobile, Pope Leo XIV greets thousands of people lined up along Via della Conciliazione on the morning of his inaugural Mass, Sunday, May 18, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, May 22, 2025 / 14:18 pm (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV has appointed Sister Tiziana Merletti as secretary of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
According to the Vatican Press Office, the 66-year-old consecrated religious previously served as superior general of the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor for nine years.
She will report directly to another nun, Sister Simona Brambilla, whom Pope Francis appointed in January as prefect of the Vatican department, responsible for all matters concerning the government, discipline, studies, assets, rights, and privileges of institutes of consecrated life.
Under the late Argentine pontiff, women’s leadership increased significantly. According to data maintained by the Vatican on its website, the female presence increased from almost 19.2% to 23.4% during Francis’ pontificate. With the 2022 apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium, Francis decreed that laypeople, in addition to women, could lead a dicastery and become prefects, a position previously reserved for cardinals and archbishops.
Doctorate in canon law, experience in Church government
Born Sept. 30, 1959, in Pineto in the Teramo province of Italy, Merletti made her first religious profession in 1986 at the Institute of the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor. She holds a degree in civil law from the then-Libera Università Abruzzese degli Studi “Gabriele d’Annunzio” in Teramo (1984) and obtained her doctorate in canon law in 1992 from the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome.
From 2004 to 2013, she served as superior general of her congregation. Currently, Merletti is a professor in the canon law department of the Pontifical Antonianum University in Rome and collaborates as a canon lawyer with the International Union of Superiors General, the organization representing women religious of apostolic life worldwide.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson speaks as (left to right) House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Lisa McClain, Rep. Jason Smith, Rep. Jim Jordan, Rep. Mark Green, House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise, and House Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer listen during a news briefing after a House Republican Conference meeting with President Donald Trump at the U.S. Capitol on May 20, 2025, in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images
CNA Staff, May 22, 2025 / 13:48 pm (CNA).
Catholic leaders and pro-life advocates on Thursday praised the passage of the House of Representatives’ major budget bill, hailing the reconciliation package’s defunding of abortion providers including Planned Parenthood.
The massive spending and tax cut bill, called the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,� includes a provision that forbids Medicaid dollars from flowing to abortion providers. The ban will last for 10 years, according to the text of the bill.
Federal funding will still be permitted for clinics that assist pregnant women in medical emergencies or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.
‘The intrinsic dignity of the human person’
The abortion defunding measures have received strong support from Catholic advocates around the U.S.
Stressing “the sacredness of every human life and the intrinsic dignity of the human person, created male and female, and made in the image and likeness of God,� the bishops said they “strongly support[ed]� the ending of taxpayer funding for abortion providers as well as a ban on funding for “gender transition for minors.�
Following the bill’s early passage on Thursday, Catholic Association Senior Fellow Ashley McGuire said in a statement that the organization “applaud[ed] the House’s efforts to protect women and children from exploitation at these dangerous clinics.�
“American taxpayers overwhelmingly oppose funding abortions and harmful hormones for children,� McGuire said. “Planned Parenthood is a corporate abortion chain that is a leading provider of both, without basic and commonsense health and safety guardrails.�
“America’s women and children deserve better and American taxpayers should have no role in funding these atrocities,� she said.
Students for Life Action President Kristan Hawkins, meanwhile, said in a statement that abortion providers were “cut out� of the bill and “told to go fund themselves.�
The pro-life group “will now turn our attention to the U.S. Senate� in order to help secure the bill’s passage there, she said.
The advocacy group CatholicVote on Thursday said Catholics should be “ecstatic� at the House passage of the bill.
“We’re closer to defunding Planned Parenthood, ending federal funding of gender transition surgeries for minors, [and] expanding the Child Tax Credit,� the organization said in a post on X, urging Catholics to “pray the Senate passes this bill.�
🚨 The "Big, Beautiful Bill" has passed the House 215-214.
Catholics should be ECSTATIC. We're closer to
• DEFUNDING Planned Parenthood • ENDING federal funding of gender transition surgeries for minors • EXPANDING the Child Tax Credit
SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said Congress “took a big step toward stopping forced taxpayer funding of the Big Abortion industry.�
The passage of the bill was “a crucial win in the fight against America’s No. 1 cause of death — abortion,� Dannenfelser wrote.
“There is no excuse for forcing taxpayers to prop up a scandal-ridden industry that prioritizes abortions, gender transitions, and partisan political activism instead of prenatal care, cancer screening, and other legitimate health services that are in continual decline,� she said.
Dannenfelser urged the Senate to “do its part� and pass the bill.
“More than 400,000 babies a year, their mothers, and countless American taxpayers are depending on you,� she said.
Not all reaction from pro-life groups was positive, however. Katie Brown Xavios, the national director of the American Life League, said in a statement that the bill’s allowance for abortions to be performed in some limited circumstances “will still allow for the murder of millions.�
“Give Planned Parenthood an inch, and it will take a mile,� she said. “If the exceptions are the only way Planned Parenthood will get paid, you better believe that every abortion will now become a life-or-death situation so that Planned Parenthood ensures that it will get its money.�
Pope Leo XIV prays in front of the famous icon at the Shrine of the Mother of Good Counsel in Genazzano, Italy, on Saturday, May 10, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media
CNA Staff, May 22, 2025 / 13:12 pm (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV, the first pope to come from the Order of St. Augustine (OSA), made a visit very early in his pontificate to the Shrine of the Mother of Good Counsel in Genazzano, Italy, near Rome. It houses a famous image of the Virgin Mary that according to tradition appeared there under miraculous circumstances.
Known by the title “Our Lady of Good Counsel” or “Mother of Good Counsel,” the small image of the Virgin Mary housed in the church at Genazzano has been held dear by the Augustinians for centuries. The Midwest Augustinians, which Pope Leo led as prior provincial before his election, oversee the Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel.
During his May 10 visit to the church, Leo spoke of the Virgin Mary’s protection and the importance of devotion to her. He prayed at the altar and before the Marian image there, and also prayed a prayer to the Mother of Good Counsel with the assembly.
“As the mother never abandons her children, you must also be faithful to the Mother,” Pope Leo said.
Pope Leo XIV speaks in front of the famous icon at the Shrine of the Mother of Good Counsel in Genazzano, Italy, on Saturday, May 10, 2025. Credit: Vatican Media
Who is Our Lady of Good Counsel?
The title of “Good Counsel” given to Mary is a recognition of Christ’s mother as a source of heavenly wisdom and guidance.
According to tradition, on April 25, 1467, the feast of St. Mark, a mysterious cloud descended on an ancient fifth-century deteriorated church in Genazzano, which had previously been dedicated to Our Lady of Good Counsel and was being renovated by the Augustinians, having been entrusted to that order in 1356.
When the cloud disappeared, a fragile image of the Blessed Virgin and Child was found on a thin sheet of plaster. The painting, about 18 inches square, is said to have hung in midair, suspended without support.
The icon of Our Lady of Good Counsel. Credit: Vaticano/EWTN
It was widely believed that the image — said to date to the time of the apostles — had been miraculously transported to Italy from a church in Albania’s capital city, Scutari, just before its invasion by the Ottomans that same year. As the Midwest Augustinians tell it, however, scientific tests done in the 1950s gave evidence that the small image was probably painted sometime between 1417 and 1431 for the church and was painted over before later being uncovered when a poor widow gave all she had to fund the renovation of the church.
Regardless of how it arrived, in the months following the appearance of the image, a local priest acting as a notary recorded over 160 miracles, including physical healings, answered prayers, and dramatic conversions.
Much of the church of Our Lady of Good Counsel was destroyed during World War II, but the image remained intact and in place. Today it is housed in a small chapel that forms the heart of the church.
As described by EWTN Vatican, the Virgin Mary is depicted wearing a blue mantle — symbolizing humanity — while the child Jesus wears a red robe, signifying his divinity. Mary’s face reflects the classical artistic tradition, while the child displays features of the Byzantine style, symbolizing a union between East and West. Above them arches a rainbow, the biblical sign of peace.
Over the years, a large number of popes — including saintly popes — have visited the church in Genazzano seeking Mary’s guidance and wisdom, and have promoted devotion to Our Lady under this title.
Pope Urban VII (1521–1590) prayed for the end of a plague in Rome; Pope Pius IX sought the Virgin’s intercession before the First Vatican Council, which began in 1869.
Leo XIII, Leo XIV’s spiritual predecessor and a devotee to Our Lady of Good Counsel, added the invocation “Mater boni concili, ora pronobis” (“Mother of Good Counsel, pray for us”) to the Litany of Loreto in 1903. Leo XIII also approved the white scapular of Our Lady of Good Counsel and entrusted it to the Augustinians.
In more recent times, St. John XXIII came to the shrine to, in similar fashion to Pius IX, seek guidance for the Second Vatican Council. St. John Paul II endorsed the devotion during an April 22, 1993, visit to the church, and soon afterward consecrated Albania to Our Lady of Good Counsel. Pope Benedict XVI had an image of the icon placed in the Vatican Gardens in 2009.
Many pilgrims visit the church in Genazzano and take part in the annual spring celebration, observed on April 25. Elsewhere in the world, the feast of Our Lady of Good Counsel is celebrated on April 26.
How can you increase your devotion to Our Lady of Good Counsel?
The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Wolfgang Schaller|Shutterstock
CNA Staff, May 22, 2025 / 12:12 pm (CNA).
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday declined to issue a ruling in a contentious case involving what was proposed to be the nation’s first religious charter school, leaving untouched a lower court ruling that forbids the Catholic institution from accessing state funds.
In its Thursday ruling, the high court said its judges had split evenly on whether or not to allow St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School to launch in the state of Oklahoma. The ruling leaves in place an Oklahoma Supreme Court order that said the school’s use of public money would violate state and federal law.
“The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided court,” the unsigned order said.
The per curiam decision noted that Justice Amy Coney Barrett “took no part in the consideration or decision” of the case. Barrett had recused herself from the case for unknown reasons, though it was likely due to her ties to the University of Notre Dame. The school’s religious liberty clinic helped the Catholic charter school in its bid before the Supreme Court.
At issue was whether the Catholic charter school would violate laws regarding the separation of church and state and the establishment of state-supported religion. Charter schools are privately-run institutions that are funded by the government similar to public schools.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond had argued against the incorporation of the school, claiming it violated Oklahoma and federal laws. The prosecutor referred to the institution as a “state-established religious school” and described it as “repugnant to Oklahoma and federal law.” He alleged that Oklahoma might be forced to subsidize “radical Islamic” schools if it allowed the Catholic institution access to public money.
The school was backed by religious liberty advocates, meanwhile, as well as the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa, both of which were involved with the school’s creation.
Archbishop Paul Coakley and Bishop David Konderla last month said they “pray[ed] and hope[d] for a decision that stands with religious liberty and the rights of Oklahoma families to make their own decisions in selecting the best educational options for their children.”
On Thursday the prelates said in a statement that they were “disappointed that the Oklahoma state Supreme Court’s decision was upheld in a 4-4 decision without explanation.”
“We remain firm in our commitment to offering an outstanding education to families and students across the state of Oklahoma,” they said. “And we stand committed to parental choice in education, providing equal opportunity to all who seek options when deciding what is best for their children.”
Meanwhile, Drummond’s office told CNA on Thursday said the ruling “represents a resounding victory for religious liberty and for the foundational principles that have guided our nation since its founding.”
“This ruling ensures that Oklahoma taxpayers will not be forced to fund radical Islamic schools while protecting the religious rights of families to choose any school they wish for their children,” he said.
The charter school had received the backing of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which told the Supreme Court last month that charter schools “have long performed the function of educating students” in the United States and that St. Isidore’s participation in the state charter program would “not make it a state actor.”
Two dozen amicus briefs were filed at the Supreme Court in support of the Catholic charter school, including from the U.S. Solicitor General’s Office and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.
Also backing the school were a dozen states including Ohio, Texas, South Carolina, and Kansas, who argued in a brief that they had “a compelling interest in expanding educational opportunities for their citizens.”
This story was updated Thursday, May 22, 2025, at 1:20 p.m. ET with the statement from Archbishop Paul Coakley and Bishop David Konderla.
St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. / Credit: travelview/Shutterstock
CNA Staff, May 22, 2025 / 11:52 am (CNA).
The Archdiocese of New Orleans this week agreed to pay a massive $180 million to victims of clergy abuse there, bringing an end to years of bankruptcy proceedings in federal court and pointing to what Archbishop Gregory Aymond called “a path to healing for survivors and for our local Church.”
The law firm Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones LLP, which represented abuse victims in the proceedings, said in a press release that the sum represented “more than 20 times the archdiocese’s initial settlement estimate” when the archdiocese first filed for bankruptcy in 2020.
The settlement, if it is accepted by the abuse survivors, brings an end to almost exactly five years of bitter disputes over how the archdiocese handled sex abuse cases in the past and how it planned to compensate victims of clergy abuse now.
The process was protracted enough that U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Grabill made the unusual move last month to order the archdiocese to defend the ongoing proceedings, demanding that Church officials explain why the bankruptcy case should not be dismissed by the court.
The law firm representing the victims said this week that in addition to the multimillion-dollar settlement amount, the archdiocese will also be required to publish “perpetrator files and other abuse-related documents.”
As well, the settlement will establish “a public archive that will serve as a repository of the history of abuse” within the archdiocese. That archive will be administered by a secular college or university.
As well, the former Hope Haven orphanage just outside of New Orleans will receive a memorial to those who suffered sex abuse there. Multiple priests on the archdiocese’s list of credibly accused clergy allegedly committed abuse at that facility in the 1950s and 1960s.
In a statement on Thursday, Aymond said the settlement gave him “great hope.”
The agreement “protects our parishes and begins to bring the proceedings to a close,” the prelate said, adding: “I am grateful to God for all who have worked to reach this agreement and that we may look to the future towards a path to healing for survivors and for our local Church.”
The archbishop in the statement praised abuse victims for speaking out about what they endured.
“Please know that because of your courage in coming forward and your steadfast commitment to preventing the horrors of child sexual abuse, we are a better and stronger Church,” he said.
The settlement represents one of the larger sums in the U.S. paid out to victims of clergy sexual abuse.
The Diocese of Buffalo, New York, last month said it will pay out $150 million as part of a settlement with victims of clergy sexual abuse there.
The Rockville Centre sum represents the highest abuse settlement paid out by a single U.S. diocese, though the Archdiocese of Los Angeles last year said it would pay out nearly $900 million in abuse settlements, which remains the most that any part of the U.S. Church has paid in such proceedings.
San Diego Bishop-elect Michael Pham. / Credit: Father Michael Pham
Vatican City, May 22, 2025 / 11:22 am (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV on Thursday appointed Bishop Michael Pham as bishop of the Diocese of San Diego. He will rise from the position of auxiliary bishop there and succeed Cardinal Robert McElroy as head of the diocese.
Having received his episcopal consecration in September 2023, the 58-year-old Vietnam-born bishop has also served as titular bishop of Cercina. He was appointed the San Diego Diocese’s temporary administrator after McElroy was installed as bishop of Washington in March.
Since his ordination to the priesthood in 1999, Pham has ministered to Catholic faithful in parishes throughout the San Diego Diocese.
From 1991 to 2001, he served as assistant priest for St. Mary, Star of the Sea, in Oceanside. Between 2004 and 2023 he was appointed parish priest for the San Diego parishes of Holy Family and St. Therese.
Other offices the new bishop-elect has held in the San Diego Diocese include vocations director from 2001 to 2004, vicar for ethnic and intercultural communities since 2017, and vicar general of San Diego.
He has also been a member of the diocese’s executive board, presbyteral council, finance council, college of consultors, and boards for priests and seminarians.
Pham began his seminary studies in the 1990s at St. Francis Seminary at the University of San Diego and completed his training at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park, where he was awarded a bachelor’s degree in systematic theology and a master’s degree in divinity.
In 2020, he completed a licentiate degree in sacred theology at the University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome.
The bishop-elect also obtained a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering from San Diego State University and completed a master’s degree in psychology at the University of Phoenix in 2009.
In this week's News from the Orient, produced in collaboration with L'Å’uvre d'Orient: 1700th anniversary of Council of Nicaea, Eastern Churches welcome Pope Leo XIV, and Monsignor Gollnisch honoured in Armenia.
Photograph of Pope Leo XIV released by the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media
CNA Newsroom, May 22, 2025 / 10:33 am (CNA).
Follow our live coverage as Pope Leo XIV, first U.S.-born pope in history, begins his pontificate: Experience history in the making with former Cardinal Robert Prevost.
Pope Leo XIV authorizes the promulgation of various decrees for three Servants of God: Colombian Sister Agnese Arango Velásquez, Indian Bishop Matthew Makil, and Spanish Bishop Alessandro Labaka Ugarte.
The childhood home of Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, in Dolton, Illinois. / Credit: Michael Howie, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons
CNA Staff, May 22, 2025 / 09:21 am (CNA).
The village of Dolton, a suburb just south of Chicago and the hometown of Pope Leo XIV, is seeking to acquire his childhood home for use as a historical site.
Steve Budzik, the home’s listing broker, told CNA he and the home’s current owner, Pawel Radzik, are eager to work with the village and come to an agreement.
“The seller wants to sell and the village wants to buy,” Budzik told CNA. “The question is: How do we determine what is fair market value for something so unique, so rare? There are no comps, there is nothing else like this.”
According to Budzik, they received a letter from the village last week indicating its interest in purchasing the home. The letter said the Archdiocese of Chicago is also working with the city to acquire the home. The archdiocese did not respond to a request for comment.
According to village attorney Burt Odelson, Dolton would like to purchase the home, which was listed for sale in January, in order to turn it into a publicly accessible historic site. If an agreement on price cannot be reached, however, Odelson told Fox2Now the village will attempt to acquire the home by eminent domain.
“We have a legal right to take the property for public use. That’s the key word — public use. A historic site is public use,” he said.
Recently-elected Dolton Mayor Jason House told ABC7 Chicago that the village will only use that option if current negotiations fail.
Last year, Radzik paid $66,000 for the three-bedroom, three-bathroom, 1,050-square-foot home at 212 E. 141st Place. After extensive remodels, it was listed for sale for $219,000 in January. The price dropped to $199,900 in April.
Upon learning on May 8 that the home had belonged to the newly elected pope’s parents, who bought the house from the builder in 1949 and lived in it for decades, the owner removed it from the market “to regroup” and reassess the situation, according to Budzik.
About a week later, after enlisting the help of Paramount Realty USA in order to sell the house at a closed bid auction, Radzik put the house back on the market. Bids are currently active and are open until June 18.
However, House told ABC7 Chicago that if anyone else purchases the house through the auction, they should know that their purchase would only be “temporary” because the city will still attempt to acquire it through eminent domain.
The listing states the home is “a piece of papal history,” calling it “a one-of-a-kind opportunity” with “a story of transformation, legacy, and limitless potential,” and where a buyer can “own a place where history was made.”
“Born Robert Francis Prevost in Chicago and raised right here in Dolton, Pope Leo XIV’s journey from this humble neighborhood to the Vatican is a testament to faith, perseverance, and purpose. Now, you have the rare chance to own a tangible piece of his inspiring legacy,” the listing says.
This past Monday, Dolton officials moved to rename a portion of 141st Place after the first U.S.-born pope, Budzik told CNA.
Ward Miller of the group Preservation Chicago, a nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to preserving historic sites of Chicago and encouraging landmark designations in the city, told CNA that while the home will not be a candidate for historic landmark designation through the city of Chicago because it falls outside its service area, he hopes it will receive a local Dolton landmark designation at the very least.
He said that “would not stop the house from eventually being” listed as a National Register of Historic places site “or even a National Historic Landmark.”
Miller is advocating for Pope Leo’s childhood parish, St. Mary of the Assumption, which is within the city’s jurisdiction, to receive a Chicago landmark designation. A petition has been set up for the purpose.
The parish has been vacant since 2011. “A Chicago landmark designation is the only thing that will keep the building from being demolished,” Miller told CNA. It was purchased recently by Joel Hall, who told ABC7 Chicago he is open to pursuing the Chicago landmark designation.
Miller told CNA that Preservation Chicago went before a committee of the Commission on Chicago Landmarks last Friday recommending the creation of a landmark district that would include many of the sites — including St. Mary of the Assumption — associated with Pope Leo XIV.
He said he hopes the decision to create the landmark district will be expedited considering the “phenomenal, remarkable thing that happened” with Prevost’s election to the papacy.
This is “a chance for Chicago to rise to the top,” Miller, a Catholic, told CNA. “It’s amazing, the first American pope, and he’s from Chicago!”
“Recognised as a martyr of honesty and moral integrity,” Floribert Bwana Chui Bin Kositi will be beatified on Sunday, 15 June 2025, in Rome, at the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, during the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity. In announcing this “joyful event,” the Bishop of Goma, Bishop Willy Ngumbi M. Afr., indicated that the location and date were communicated by the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.
As gang violence spirals in Haiti, children are being pulled from classrooms and into chaos. Confiance Haiti is on the frontline, offering education, safety, and hope where the world has turned away.
Those who want to participate can visit the eCatholic website to “take a moment to offer a message of prayer, encouragement, or support” and submit a video. / Credit: "EWTN News Nightly"/Screenshot
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 22, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).
Tech company eCatholic is collecting video messages of prayer, encouragement, and support from Catholics across the globe this month to create a montage of “blessings” for Pope Leo XIV.
Jason Jaynes, CEO of eCatholic, said the initiative was born during a meeting earlier this month when a team member asked: “Wouldn’t it be a really great and cool initiative [if] we could let Catholics all over the world share their blessings with the new pope?”
The effort, launched shortly after Pope Leo XIV’s election, has already received submissions from “every continent across the globe,” Jaynes told “EWTN News Nightly” anchor Catherine Hadro.
Planning for the initiative started during the first day of the conclave, when eCatholic employees “had no idea that just 24 hours later, there’d be white smoke and we’d already have a new pope,” Jaynes said.
“We wanted to do something meaningful — and a little creative — to mark the moment and celebrate with the universal Church,” eCatholic marketing director Michael Josephs told EWTN’s ChurchPop.
Some of the submissions eCatholic has received so far feature children singing in Latin, people offering prayers to the first U.S.-born pope, and group messages from parishes congratulating Pope Leo XIV on his election.
The videos have come from people around the world speaking multiple languages, which Jaynes said “reinforces the universal nature of our Church.”
Those who want to participate can visit the eCatholic website to “take a moment to offer a message of prayer, encouragement, or support” and submit a video.
“We’re going to keep the submissions open through the end of this month,” Jaynes said. “Then we’ll be reaching out with the montage, probably first over social media since Pope Leo has a presence there, and also trying to reach out to work with the Vatican media and others to get these messages in front of him.”
Spanish Augustinian Bishop Luis Marín de San Martín and Cardinal Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV. / Credit: Courtesy of Bishop Luis Marín
Vatican City, May 22, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).
The undersecretary of the general secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, the Spanish Augustinian Bishop Luis Marín de San Martín, is among those who have collaborated most closely with Pope Leo XIV.
In 2008, Marín moved to Rome because the then-prior general of the Augustinians asked him to take charge of the order’s archives. The past 17 years of association equips him to make a clear prognosis of what Pope Leo’s pontificate will be like.
“He’s not a person who governs from his office; he goes out to meet people,” the bishop told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. He also noted that Pope Leo XIV is a son of the Second Vatican Council: “He embraces its theological development, above all, the ecclesiology of the constitution Lumen Gentium, which is a point of reference for synodality, although the term does not appear in it.”
The then-Cardinal Robert Prevost — now Pope Leo XIV — actively participated in all phases of the Synod on Synodality, a signature project of Pope Francis launched three years ago that aimed to make the Church more coherent and participatory, and less clerical. This is an approach that the pope “holds very dear,” since “Augustinian spirituality is very synodal,” as are “our style and structures,” Marín emphasized.
“The Augustinian charism very much fosters communion, fraternal life. It’s our most distinctive feature. We Augustinians are also a mendicant order that doesn’t have a pyramidal structure like the monastic structures do, but rather a much more horizontal one. We are governed by the prior, a ‘primus inter pares’ [first among equals]. And our chapter is very participatory: Decisions are made among all the friars,” he explained.
Bishop Luis Marín de San Martín, undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops. Credit: Victoria Cardiel/EWTN News
The key to synodality, Marín emphasized, is not ideological or political but theological and ecclesial: “Pope Leo XIV is synodal because the Church is synodal. To realize this, it’s enough to know sacred Scripture, patristics, Church history, canon law … It’s the life of the Church, which becomes experience and witness.”
In 1985, Prevost, then a priest, was sent to Peru to work in the Chulucanas mission. After a brief return to Chicago in 1987, he returned to Peru in 1988, specifically to Trujillo, where he served as a teacher and formator. While there, he was elected prior provincial of the Augustinian Province of Chicago in 1998 and, in 2001, prior general of the Augustinian order, a position he held until 2013.
“The Church has required him to make big changes in his life, but he has always trusted in what God asked of him at each moment, with total availability to the Lord and great love for the Church,” Marín commented.
In October 2013, Prevost returned to Chicago to serve again as master of the professed and vicar provincial, a role he held until Nov. 3, 2014, when Pope Francis appointed him apostolic administrator of the Peruvian Diocese of Chiclayo, making him a bishop and assigning him the titular diocese of Sufar, until he was appointed bishop of Chiclayo the following year.
Pope Leo XIV loves to drive
Marín visited him in Chiclayo, and together they toured the coastal city by car: “Prevost loves to drive, and I was able to see the affection the people had for Padre Roberto, my bishop, as they called him.”
The prelate described him above all as “a simple, genuine, authentic person, somewhat reserved, but one who greatly values fraternity” and highlighted his great “sensitivity to social justice, to the poorest, the most needy, and the oppressed.”
“He has great inner balance. He is a profound, serene, precise, thoughtful, and prayerful man. He’s not given to improvisation,” the undersecretary summarized, also highlighting his ability to work as part of a team.
“He will exercise global leadership, and his voice will be greatly taken into account,” he added.
The 12 years he served as prior general of the Augustinians, from 2001 to 2013 — the order is present in 47 countries — gave him a vision of the universal Church that also demonstrated his abilities.
“During those years, he visited all the communities in the order, some several times, and embraced cultural diversity. He has a panoramic view of the universal Church; he knows it well,” the prelate explained.
Continuity with Francis
In January 2023, Pope Francis appointed him to head the Dicastery for Bishops, one of the most important departments of the Roman Curia, from which the future leadership of the Church is drawn.
“He had his full confidence. They had known each other since Prevost was prior general and [then-Jorge] Bergoglio was archbishop of Buenos Aires,” he recounted, recalling a pivotal episode in their relationship.
“Pope Francis had just been elected, and Prevost, who was ending his term as prior general, asked him, without much hope, to preside over the opening Mass of the general chapter of the Augustinians in St. Augustine Basilica in Rome. And he accepted. It was historic. Never before had a pope presided over the opening Eucharist of the general chapter of the Order of St. Augustine,” he noted.
In any case, Marín made it clear that Pope Leo XIV will not be a “Francis clone,” although “there will be continuity in many aspects.”
The new pope is, above all, a man of profound interior life. He possesses a solid spirituality, forged through prayer, which is also reflected in his apostolate and his understanding of ecclesial leadership.
“Communion with Christ,” the prelate said, “leads us not only as priests but also all Christians to feel responsible for the Church. Each with a different vocation, but all co-responsible and interconnected to proclaim the risen Christ and bear witness to him in today’s world.”
For Marín, the election of this Augustinian as the successor of Peter has immense value: “It’s a blessing from God. An extraordinary gift not only for the order but for the universal Church. As you get to know Pope Leo XIV, you will see what a gift the Lord has given us, you will get to know his qualities. He is the right person for the right time.”
According to the undersecretary, the spirituality of the order to which the man who now sits on the chair of Peter belongs is based on four pillars: community life, interior life, integration into the world, and availability to the needs of the Church.
“The Church is like a family, the family of God, which, in love, integrates unity and diversity. I believe it is crucial to strengthen communion,” he emphasized after warning against empty activism.
“Furthermore, if we don’t cultivate the interior life, we’re not offering anything. We have to bear witness to Christ, to communicate him to the world. And we can only bear witness to Christ if we know him from experience. Because the risen Christ is a living person.”
Marín concluded by recalling that Pope Leo XIV’s first words in his greeting to the people of God were those of the risen Christ: “Peace be with you all.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Pope Leo XIV praises the important global efforts of the Pontifical Mission Societies, marveling that they are "effectively the 'primary means' of awakening missionary responsibility among all the baptized and supporting ecclesial communities in areas where the Church is young.
Pope Leo XIV has appointed Sr. Tiziana Merletti as the Secretary of the Dicastery for Consecrated Life, which is responsible for orders and religious congregations, as well as secular institutes.
The Canadian government’s abolishment of a government ministry for disabled citizens underscores the government’s “demeaning attitude” toward disabled people, advocates say, particularly after the country opted to expand the national euthanasia program to include those with disabilities.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, the Liberal Party leader who assumed office in March, unveiled his new cabinet last week vowing a government that will promote “new ideas, a clear focus, and decisive action.”
Notably missing from the cabinet, however, was any minister charged directly with administering to the needs of disabled Canadians.
The position was held most recently by Kamal Khera, who served as the country’s minister of diversity, inclusion, and persons with disabilities until March before she became the Canadian minister of health.
Direct support for disabled Canadians has been ministered via a variety of government positions over the years. The position most recently vacated by Khera was first created in 2019. Following Khera’s departure it was consolidated under the minister of jobs and families.
‘Demeaning attitude towards disabled Canadians’
Advocates have criticized the abolishment of the cabinet position that directly provided support for disabled Canadian citizens. Data show that slightly more than 25% of Canadians report having a disability of some kind.
Disability advocates say the removal of the ministry is particularly troubling in light of the government’s permitting disabled Canadians to seek euthanasia under the country’s medical assistance in dying (MAID) law. The government in 2021 expanded the law to allow euthanasia for people who are not actively dying — an option known as “Track 2” — including those with disabilities.
The Carney government’s “glaring omission of a minister for disabled Canadians” reflects “the demeaning attitude of the Liberal Party towards disabled Canadians,” said David Cooke, the campaigns manager for Campaign Life Coalition, a Canadian pro-life group.
Cooke argued that the Carney government is “prioritizing euthanasia over improving medical and social supports for this vulnerable and marginalized group.”
The 2021 expansion of the euthanasia law, Cooke said, “defined disabled Canadians as ‘killable,’ allowing them to qualify for consensual death by lethal injection on the basis of their disability.”
Cooke pointed out that the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities last month called for Canada to repeal the Track 2 provision of the euthanasia law. The U.N. committee said in its report that the expansion of the law was made “on the basis of negative, ableist perceptions of the quality and value of the life of persons with disabilities.”
Amanda Achtman, a pro-life activist who launched the anti-euthanasia group Dying to Meet You in 2023, said the abandonment of a disability cabinet position suggests disabled Canadians “have become less of a priority for the federal government.”
“The fact that the Canadian government now has a minister of artificial intelligence but not a minister for persons with disabilities is symptomatic of a broader cultural shift,” she said.
Achtman pointed out, however, that the presence of a disabilities minister did not stop the expansion of the country’s euthanasia law to cover disabled Canadians. Earlier disability ministers voted for both the original 2016 law and the 2021 expansion.
“There is a kind of social euthanasia that happens whenever a person is discarded, dismissed, or discounted,” she said of the law.
Alex Schadenberg, the executive director of the Canadian Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, agreed. The disability ministry “was an important appointment,” he said, “except for the fact that the ministers who had the role did not share the point of view of the disability community concerning MAID.”
“The government needs to focus on providing the needs for people with disabilities but this should be done from the point of view of people with disabilities,” he said.
Government data indicate a high percentage of individuals seeking euthanasia under Track 2 are disabled. The most recent Canadian government report on euthanasia found that, of those who reported a disability prior to being euthanized, more than 58% were under Track 2, meaning their deaths were not “reasonably foreseeable.”
The government in its report claims that “several enhanced safeguards are in place for individuals under Track 2 to provide additional protections.” Yet there are “some concerns regarding the quality and reliability” of data regarding disabilities, the government admitted.
There are further possible expansions of Canada’s euthanasia law on the horizon: The federal government in 2027 will consider expanding MAID provisions to those suffering from mental illness.
The government has also considered allowing so-called “mature minors” to request to be killed by doctors, and the government is also debating whether to allow citizens to prearrange to be euthanized at a time when they are unable to consent to the procedure.
Achtman acknowledged the “disappointment at the removal of this portfolio from cabinet,” though she said it presented “an opportunity to citizens to offer a corrective to the shortcomings of government when it comes to disability advocacy.”
She quoted Pope Francis, who in his encyclical Fratelli Tutti wrote: “Only a gaze transformed by charity can enable the dignity of others to be recognized.”
“That gaze is at the heart of the authentic spirit of politics,” the late Holy Father wrote. “It sees paths open up that are different from those of a soulless pragmatism.”
Achtman argued that both Canadians and Americans should work to “find creative ways to ‘give voice’ to those with disabilities as Pope Francis said.”
This “depends on encounter, solidarity, and presence, experiences of which we are all capable,” she said.
Bishop Nicolai Gennadevich Dubinin, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of the Mother of God in Moscow, tells Vatican News that Pope Leo XIV has impressed the Church and people of Russia with his call for a “disarmed and disarming peace.”
On the Jubilee of Sport in mid-June, the Augustinianum Institute in Rome will host an international conference to explore the Church’s desire to support the “Momentum of Hope” offered by sport.
WASHINGTON – Pope Leo XIV has appointed Most Reverend Michael Pham, auxiliary bishop of San Diego and diocesan administrator, as the Bishop of San Diego.
The appointment was publicized in Washington, D.C. on May 22, 2025, by Monsignor Većeslav Tumir, chargé d’ affaires, a.i. of the Apostolic Nunciature, in the temporary absence of Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States.
The Diocese of San Diego is comprised of 8,852 square miles in the State of California and has a total population of 3,454,921 of which 1,381,968, are Catholic.
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Recognizing themselves as members of the one body of Christ, all Catholics should sense an urgency to share the Gospel message of God's love with others and to welcome them as brothers and sisters, Pope Leo XIV said.
"Our world, wounded by war, violence and injustice, needs to hear the Gospel message of God's love and to experience the reconciling power of Christ's grace," the pope said May 22 as he met more than 120 national directors of the Pontifical Mission Societies.
Working in coordination with the Dicastery for Evangelization, the societies are: the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, the Society of St. Peter Apostle, the Holy Childhood Association and the Missionary Union of Priests and Religious.
The societies raise awareness about the foreign missions, educate Catholics of all ages about their responsibility to be missionary disciples and raise money to support the missions and missionaries.
A religious sister gives Pope Leo XIV a jar of cookies at the end of his meeting with the national directors of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the Vatican's Clementine Hall May 22, 2025. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
The work of the societies "is indispensable to the church's mission of evangelization, as I can personally attest from my own pastoral experience in the years of my ministry serving in Peru," said the pope, who spent more than two decades in Peru as a missionary and a bishop.
Raising missionary awareness among all Catholics and helping them take responsibility for sharing the Gospel "remains an essential aspect of the church's renewal as envisioned by the Second Vatican Council," the pope said, and it is "all the more urgent in our own day."
"We are to bring to all peoples, indeed to all creatures, the Gospel promise of true and lasting peace, which is possible because, in the words of Pope Francis, the Lord has overcome the world and its constant conflict 'by making peace through the blood of his cross,'" he said.
Recognizing "our communion as members of the body of Christ naturally opens us to the universal dimension of the church's mission of evangelization," he said, and it should inspire Catholics "to transcend the confines of our individual parishes, dioceses and nations, in order to share with every nation and people the surpassing richness of the knowledge of Jesus Christ."
Pope Leo asked the national directors "to give priority to visiting dioceses, parishes and communities, and in this way to help the faithful to recognize the fundamental importance of the missions and supporting our brothers and sisters in those areas of our world where the church is young and growing."
Pope Leo XIV's coat of arms with his episcopal motto, "In Illo uno unum," literally "In the One (Christ), we are one," is seen in an image published by the Vatican Secretariat of State May 10, 2025. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
And he asked them to focus on cultivating and promoting "the vision of the church as the communion of believers, enlivened by the Holy Spirit, who enables us to enter into the perfect communion and harmony of the blessed Trinity."
"Indeed, it is in the Trinity that all things find their unity," the pope told them.
"This dimension of our Christian life and mission is close to my heart and is reflected in the words of St. Augustine that I chose for my episcopal service and now for my papal ministry: 'In Illo uno unum' ('In the One (Christ), we are one')," the pope said.
"Christ is our savior and in him we are one, a family of God, beyond the rich variety of our languages, cultures and experiences," Pope Leo said.
After much debate had taken place,
Peter got up and said to the Apostles and the presbyters,
"My brothers, you are well aware that from early days
God made his choice among you that through my mouth
the Gentiles would hear the word of the Gospel and believe.
And God, who knows the heart,
bore witness by granting them the Holy Spirit
just as he did us.
He made no distinction between us and them,
for by faith he purified their hearts.
Why, then, are you now putting God to the test
by placing on the shoulders of the disciples
a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?
On the contrary, we believe that we are saved
through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they."
The whole assembly fell silent,
and they listened
while Paul and Barnabas described the signs and wonders
God had worked among the Gentiles through them.
After they had fallen silent, James responded,
"My brothers, listen to me.
Symeon has described how God first concerned himself
with acquiring from among the Gentiles a people for his name.
The words of the prophets agree with this, as is written:
After this I shall return
and rebuild the fallen hut of David;
from its ruins I shall rebuild it
and raise it up again,
so that the rest of humanity may seek out the Lord,
even all the Gentiles on whom my name is invoked.
Thus says the Lord who accomplishes these things,
known from of old.
It is my judgment, therefore,
that we ought to stop troubling the Gentiles who turn to God,
but tell them by letter to avoid pollution from idols,
unlawful marriage, the meat of strangled animals, and blood.
For Moses, for generations now,
has had those who proclaim him in every town,
as he has been read in the synagogues every sabbath."
R.(3) Proclaim God's marvelous deeds to all the nations.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Sing to the LORD a new song;
sing to the LORD, all you lands.
Sing to the LORD; bless his name.
R. Proclaim God's marvelous deeds to all the nations.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Announce his salvation, day after day.
Tell his glory among the nations;
among all peoples, his wondrous deeds.
R. Proclaim God's marvelous deeds to all the nations.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Say among the nations: The LORD is king.
He has made the world firm, not to be moved;
he governs the peoples with equity.
R. Proclaim God's marvelous deeds to all the nations.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Jesus said to his disciples:
"As the Father loves me, so I also love you.
Remain in my love.
If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father's commandments
and remain in his love.
"I have told you this so that
my joy might be in you and
your joy might be complete."
UNDA legal academic Anna Walsh will discuss the legal ramifications – and possibilities – for healthcare employees of faith. Photo: Giovanni Portelli
Dr Anna Walsh is a lawyer and bioethicist and lectures in the School of Law at the University of Notre Dame.
In the United States, the majority of abortions are achieved through the use of the drugs Mifepristone and Misoprostol. Known as “medical abortion,” it allows women to abort their child in the early stages of pregnancy in the privacy of her own home over a period of 36 to 48 hours. With few safety requirements and guidelines for its safe administration to women, the prolife movement has long been concerned about the false description of medical abortion as safe, simple and as reliable as using Panadol to cure a headache. Whilst anecdotal evidence of serious side effects was always strong, this has been bolstered by the findings of a recent study that reveal a very different and frightening reality.
On 15 May 2025, the findings of the largest known real world analysis of medical abortion were released to the world via a nationwide webcast in the United States that included commentary from leading prolife activists such as Ryan T Anderson of the Ethics in Public Policy Centre (“EPPC”), Lila Rose of Live Action, Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B Anthony Centre, Katy Faust of Them Before Us, and Jor-El Godsy of Pregnancy Health Centres. Based on insurance data covering over 855,000 abortions occurring in the United States between 2017 and 2023, the study was conducted by Anderson’s EPPC, a conservative think tank and advocacy group based in Washington DC.
This study is 28 times larger than the studies used by the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) to initially approve these drugs for abortion in the United States. As noted by various commentators on the webcast, the abortion pill was fast tracked for approval by the FDA under the Clinton administration. However at that time, women had to have three in-person consultations with a doctor. First, she had to visit a doctor’s office to have the pill prescribed and dispensed. Second, she had to visit a doctor after the second pill was ingested at home. Third, she had to have a final consultation with a doctor after the abortion to check for any complications.
During the Obama and Biden Administrations, these safety requirements were dispensed with one by one so that now, the abortion pill can be prescribed in the United States without any in-person doctor consultations. Additionally, non-doctors such as nurses can prescribe these pills to women, and consultations can be undertaken via tele-health with the pills posted out to the woman in the mail. Alarmingly, reporting requirements of adverse side effects are now limited to lethal outcomes only and whilst the abortion pill was initially used for aborting a chid of less than 7 weeks gestation, it is now used to abort a child of up to 10 weeks gestation.
As Dr Brick Lantz of the Christian Medical and Dental Fellowship noted, whist not a prospective randomised study, the value of these types of studies lies in the large amount of data that is reviewed which can change the way certain medical procedures are performed. The findings of the study include that 11 per cent of the time, there is an adverse side effect experienced by the woman within 45 days of taking these pills. These adverse effects include excessive bleeding, infection, multiple and prolonged hospitalisation and emergency department visits and failure to diagnose ectopic pregnancy. This challenges the 0.5 per cent risk of an adverse event that is currently published, which is 22 times lower.
About 5 per cent of the time the pills do not work as intended and the woman must undergo a surgical abortion or take a second dose of the pills. Of concern, there are no guidelines in the United States on how to administer this second dose. Commentators called for replication of the study and as a minimum, updated information on the label so as to ensure women are receiving correct and current information which allows them to provide genuine informed consent, and a reinstallation of the earlier requirement for three face to face medical consultations. Many such as Lila Rose noted that as the abortion pill is not medicine but is designed to kill, it should not be on the market in the first place.
Lila Rose, founder of the pro-life group Live Action, speaks during the second revival night July 18, 2024, of the National Eucharistic Congress at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. (OSV News photo/Bob Roller)
Commentators urged listeners to agitate the issue further by holding the government accountable. A strong emphasis was placed on the need for mandatory reporting of adverse effects with Marjorie Dannenfelser stating that “if information is secret it is ideological, but if it is transparent it is medical,” Kirstin Hawkins, President of Students for Life, noted that rapists can order these drugs and Katy Faust described the decision to undergo medical abortion as one which saves the government almost 7 billion dollars by not having to spend on prenatal care, labour, delivery and postnatal care, but which creates a relationship between a woman and her mailman instead of a woman and her doctor.
With the study touted as a coalition effort, lead author Ryan T Anderson commented that in the prolife space there is a role for everyone and not just academics to do data analysis and research, but grass roots activists, lobbyists, doctors, pregnancy resource centres, the “culture shapers” and “communicators.” But most of all, he noted, there is a role for the church in praying for the success of the project to protect babies and women. This is a message worth repeating for Australians as we face the constant onslaught of abortion law “reform” to widen access to it, reduce safety requirements, prohibit discussion about it and refuse to collect data about it.
John Mize of Americans United for Life told listeners to “flood the government with our collective voice.” This recommendation seems to have been effective in diluting the Greens’ abortion amendment bill in New South Wales. Whilst many dangerous clauses have been removed, such as further limitations on health professionals’ right to conscientiously object to performing or participating in abortion, the push to allow nurse practitioners and midwives to perform abortion up to 22 weeks remains. This is hardly surprising given the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s decision to remove restrictions so that health professionals other than doctors can prescribe the abortion pill.
Should the bill pass on its return to the Upper House at the end of May, this study should be disseminated with a focus on how health professionals authorised by law to prescribe the abortion pill should be trained in how to provide informed consent. Australian law requires the health professional to disclose the material risks of medical abortion to the woman, as well as any risks the woman places importance on that would affect her decision to undergo it. Replication of the study in Australia is something for the future but would require proper data collection and mandatory reporting of adverse effects, as well as the time and dedication of researchers to do the work.
Pope Leo XIV speaks with Jannik Sinner, the No. 1 rated tennis player in the world, May 14, 2025, during a meeting at the Vatican. Jannik gave a racket to the pope, who likes to play tennis. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
World number one tennis pro Yannick Sinner met world number one tennis fan Pope Leo XIV last week with his parents. The pope, newly garbed in a white soutane, joked with Sinner and quipped, “They’d let me play at Wimbledon,” alluding to the all-white dress code on the grass courts.
That relaxed and genial good humour is typical of the man he knows, Fr David Austin OSA told The Catholic Weekly.
Fr Austin, a former Prior Provincial of the local Augustinians, met Fr Robert Prevost OSA when the now-pope was the Prior General, or the world head of the order, in Australia during a provincial chapter in 2002. He met him again on numerous other occasions, including a province visitation by Fr Prevost in 2005 and World Youth Day in 2008.
They have kept in touch from time to time ever since, and soon after Pope Francis’ death the then-cardinal Prevost responded to Fr Austin’s text message of condolence.
In describing the new pontiff, Fr Austin, now prior of the Augustinian Community in St Clair in western Sydney and associate pastor of Holy Spirit parish highlighted a few qualities.
He is a “compassionate listener,” he began.
Fr David Austin OSA an Augustinian colleague in Australia of Pope XIV. Photo: Supplied.
“He’s a quiet man, but a very warm and very attentive to everybody that crosses his path. He’s really quite extraordinary in that sense. He’s a very genuine, down-to-earth man who gives full attention to every individual person, and he has a great sense of humour as well.”
But Pope Leo is also a talented administrator. “He does take hard decisions. He takes his time, listens very carefully to all the points of view, but he will make hard decisions if that’s what’s required.”
He has a very orderly mind. As an undergraduate at Villanova University, Robert Prevost studied mathematics and later he taught at a high school in Chicago. His background in mathematics probably helped him to have a systematic approach to problem solving.
Finally, with a doctorate in canon law, the new pope has a “strong and broad understanding of the church”, said Fr Austin.
“When I was in the seminary, canon law was in a state of flux. But I’ve discovered over the years, as a priest and as an administrator that the law can be your best friend in terms of protecting people. It would certainly have given him a broad view of the church and how it functions.”
Above all, Leo is a man of “serene prayer.” The destination of his first trip outside the Vatican after his election was to the shrine of the Mother of Good Counsel in Genazzano, on the outskirts of Rome, and to the Augustinian community there.
Pope Leo XIV uses incense to venerate the tomb of St. Peter in St. Peter’s Basilica before his inauguration Mass at the Vatican May 18, 2025. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
Fr Austin highlighted his deep commitment to Augustinian spirituality. Among his first words from the balcony of the central loggia of St Peter’s was a phrase drawn from St Augustine: “With you I am a Christian, and for you I am a bishop.”
“That’s a marvellous statement of ecclesiology,” says Fr Austin. “It’s affirming that the church is fundamentally the people of God, and we’re all people, equal by our baptism, but then the bishop is called to serve the body of Christ, to serve the people of God.” It also expresses the Augustinian ideal of “community, friendship, humility and interiority.”
Participants at the conference held at UNDA, Sydney. Photo: Supplied.
Theology enthusiasts from around Sydney braved inclement weather to attend a conference on the Council of Nicaea held at the University of Notre Dame Australia in honour of the council’s 1700th anniversary.
The day conference hosted on 15 May by UNDA’s School of Philosophy and Theology with the Catholic Institute of Sydney (CIS) brought together scholars from a range of ecclesiastical and academic backgrounds to address the world’s first ecumenical or universal church council: both within its immediate context and its historical and theological legacy.
As Senior Lecturer and Post-Graduate Theology Co-ordinator, UNDA, I (Dr Mario Baghos) spoke first, on ‘The Historical Context of the Council of Nicaea.’
Tracing the scriptural roots of councils as authoritative instruments of the church to articulate matters of faith and doctrine, I then spoke about the unprecedented intervention of a Roman emperor – in this case, the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine I the Great – in church affairs.
His convocation of the council of Nicaea, which was in any case (providentially) presided by a bishop, helped the church to formally explain its belief in Christ as fully God against the Arians who believed that Christ was not God, and were thus subordinationist.
The second paper by Professor Carole Cusack (USyd) was entitled On the Wrong Side of History: Homoian Christians in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries.
While emphasising the positive role of doctrinal formulation in maintaining the identity of Catholics, nevertheless the attribution of the term “Arian” to groups like the imperially displaced “homoian” Goths was problematic because, apart from the bishop Wulfila, they probably did not know what it meant, and it had terrible consequences for them in the long run.
A very interesting sociological comparison with the fate of Assyrian Christians in China made for thought-provoking discussion thereafter.
We then moved to theology with Dr Peter John McGregor’s (CIS) talk on “Arius and Apollinarius: False Cataphatic Responses to the Humanity and Divinity in Christ.”
Dr Peter McGregor giving his talk. Photo: Supplied.
Dr McGregor navigated the complex thought-world of fourth century heresies such as Arianism and Apollinarianism which he affirmed were rationalistic in their approach to the identity of Jesus, but in the wrong way.
Instead, he argued, the great orthodox theologians of the period utilised reason in a way that was sensitive to the paradox that Christ is both God and man; as such, they used positive words to describe this mystery (what is known in theology as “cataphaticism”) but also appreciated the transcendent mystery at play here (“apophaticism”).
Fr Antonios Kaldas (St Cyril’s) took us on a journey into fourth century asceticism by addressing ‘“A Flesh-Bearing Man”: The importance of embodiment in the Nicene Christology of Athanasius and Antony.’
St Athanasius is best known for his championing of the Nicene doctrine that Christ is “one essence” (homoousios) with God the Father, and Fr Kaldas encouraged us to see the connection between this important doctrine and embodiment in Christian life, with the figure of St Antony – a monastic exemplar in the Nicene period – taming the bodily passions with God’s grace to present it to the latter purified.
This, he concluded, had ramifications for Christian worship which should include the senses, and the body, in way that glorifies God.
Dr Mariusz Biliniewicz (UNDA) entitled “Filioque 1700 years after Nicaea – some contemporary perspectives” importantly brought the early theological articulation of the procession of the Holy Spirit from both the Father “and the Son” (filioque) into contemporary ecumenical discussions in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox milieus.
For while the former inserted the filioque into the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed that is recited at every Mass as part of a history of doctrinal development, the latter did not.
And while this has been a theological point of contention between the two churches in the past, with contemporary ecumenical moves on behalf of both to enter into full communion, further exploration is necessary, and so Dr Biliniewicz brought us up to speed on the status quaestionis in Catholic and Orthodox scholarship.
Professor Garry W. Trompf (centre), Dr Vassilis Adrahtas (right), and Dr Mario Baghos. Photo: Supplied.
Dr Vassilis Adrahtas (Western Sydney) broadened our horizons to appreciate the Nicene Creed as a possible medium for integrating people from other religious traditions.
By delimiting the beliefs that belong exclusively to Christians in the Creed, Dr Adrahtas demonstrated that the general vocabulary in other parts of the text – familiar as this vocabulary would have been to persons in late antiquity – would have made it possible for people from other faiths to embrace Christianity, thereby acting as a bridge for a holistic vision and experience of the world where Jesus Christ takes pre-eminence.
Dr Robert Andrews’ (CIS) presentation ‘In a Higher World it is Otherwise: First Nicaea and the Development of Doctrine’ addressed the nuanced reception of Nicaea by St John Henry Newman over the course of his own life (from Anglicanism to Catholicism) but also as informing his approach towards the development of doctrine as a necessary element to the church’s mission on earth.
Associate Prof Bernard Doherty (Charles Sturt) ended the day with a talk entitled “Haunted by the Spectre of Arius: Archetypal Heresy, Subordinationist Christology and the Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
Dr Doherty spoke about the resurgence of subordinationism in the Reformation period, particularly the radical reformation which saw the persecution of theological and political dissenters from the official doctrines of Protestant Reformed Churches and States.
This marginalisation by way of comparison can also been seen in the case of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose subordinationist Christology Dr Doherty argued is clear but who have also suffered violent persecution by various groups for their existing on the margins.
The wide range of talks and approaches made it a thoughtful and engaging event, with lots of questions and confraternity.
Father Mike Schmitz, a priest of the Diocese of Duluth, Minn., and host of “The Bible in a Year” podcast, speaks to the crowd at a previous Parables Tour in 2025. Father Mike took the tour to Constitution Hall in the nation’s capital May 19, 2025. (OSV News photo/courtesy Ascension)
Father Mike Schmitz is on a mission from God.
Not just to convince more people to read the Bible through his wildly popular “The Bible in a Year” podcast, or mine the riches of the Catholic Church’s magisterium with “The Catechism in a Year” podcast, or listen to his titular podcast and Sunday sermons—all from Ascension Press.
In (one of) his day job(s)—in addition to serving as director of youth and young adult ministry in the Diocese of Duluth, Minnesota—Father Schmitz shepherds student souls as chaplain of the Newman Center at the University of Minnesota Duluth.
Now in his 20th year of “Bulldog Catholic” campus ministry, Father Schmitz has seen steady and encouraging growth—defying the prevailing narrative that 85 per cent of Catholic college students will likely lose their faith before they graduate.
And with that growth came a goal—a goal that has taken him on a nationwide speaking tour since February titled “Parables. A Time of Reflection with Fr Mike Schmitz.”
The proceeds of the circuit will fund the “Seeds of Faith” campaign, envisioning an enlarged UMD Newman Center and worship space to welcome students and community—and, with dedicated studio facilities, to serve as a content-producing platform for the global reach of Father Schmitz’s evangelisation.
OSV News caught up with Father Schmitz for his 19 May “Parables” stop at Washington’s DAR Constitution Hall.
Father Mike Schmitz, a priest of the Diocese of Duluth, Minn., and host of “The Bible in a Year” podcast, speaks to the crowd at a previous Parables Tour in 2025. Father Mike took the tour to Constitution Hall in the nation’s capital May 19, 2025. (OSV News photo/courtesy Ascension)
So why the parables?
After consideration, Father Schmitz came to a conclusion. “I know that there’s a message that is both important and urgent,” he said. “And so, just in really reflecting and praying about it, it was like, ‘Well, the parables.'”
Collections of Jesus’ sayings, he observed, “are so limited.” But even so, the parables command attention because they seem to be Jesus saying, “If you know anything about my heart; if you need to know anything about my Father’s heart, or the kingdom, or yourself— then these are the things you need to know.'”
According to “various estimates,” Jesus’ parables number in the 30s, Father Schmitz continued. “These must be very, very important. And if we don’t know them, then they’re definitely urgent.”
And did Father Schmitz realize “The Bible in a Year” podcast—originally intended as a resource for UMD students and recorded on campus—would be a smash spiritual hit?
“I didn’t know if it was going to be anything significant to anyone outside,” he admitted. “But I knew that, here’s this group of people I know that need it. And it was so great, because Ascension really put their efforts behind it.”
When Father Schmitz launched his UMD chaplaincy, perhaps six people attended daily Mass, with 20 to 30 Sunday worshippers. There are now 80 to 100 daily Massgoers, and about 800 total on Sundays between two Masses.
There was one Bible study at UMD—his own—to start. Now there are dozens of student-run Bible studies. At least 5 per cent of UMD’s 9,253 students have taken part in a Bible study, while 10 per cent have come to Mass.
Father Mike Schmitz, a priest of the Diocese of Duluth, Minn., and host of the Bible in a Year podcast, speaks during the July 18, 2024, second revival night of the National Eucharistic Congress at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. (OSV News photo/Bob Roller)
The dilapidated split-level house UMD calls its Newman Center was long ago outgrown— daily Mass is celebrated in a 400-square-foot converted garage that seats 60; students crowd into gathering spaces to socialise and support one another—and borrowed facilities for Sunday Mass are less than ideal.
Nor is the tiny dwelling always recognised as a Newman Center, which means some spiritually drifting students don’t even realise the resource is there for them.
“It’s a part of a bigger problem—and I think it’s part of a bigger solution, too,” said Father Schmitz. “What is the time in a person’s life when they either decide, or just drift? Because sometimes, it’s one or the other.”
The hopeful online architectural renderings reveal spaces that would solve all of these issues. Initial cost estimates were $25 million, but discussions expanded that.
“So the goal—this is the first time I’ve said this out loud—we’ve raised $30 million so far, and the goal is twice that for the building and full funding with endowment—so the next priest, the next generation of priests, never have to worry,” Father Schmitz said. “We’re going to make sure this building continues to serve these students.”
While raising the funds to cover projected construction plans marks a significant milestone, it’s not the end of the campaign. Once the doors open, there are daily costs: keeping the lights and heat on; the regular maintenance any homeowner knows is critical to a solid household budget.
The same is true of a replacement worship space and Newman Center—so with an extended fundraising sprint, Father Schmitz has also vowed to fund those additional costs with a general operating endowment for the years ahead.
And the “Parables” tour is one way to do that.
Father Mike Schmitz, a priest of the Diocese of Duluth, Minn., and host of the Bible in a Year podcast, is seen in this undated photo. (OSV News photo, courtesy Ascension)
With his trademark rapid-fire delivery, Father Schmitz’s appearances unpack four of Jesus’ well-known parables, delivering their essential kernels of truth:
The lost sheep and lost coin (Lk. 15:1-10; “You are relentlessly pursued and … ridiculously celebrated” by God.)
The sower and the seed (Mt. 13:1-23; “Jesus says worry; anxieties of daily life … choke the Word. Why? Because you can’t be both worried and joyful.”)
The dishonest steward (Lk. 16:1-13; the dishonest steward craftily attempted to gain material wealth; the faithful should be just as resourceful in their pursuit of eternal life.)
The wise and foolish bridesmaids (Mt. 25: 1-13; “the oil stands for something that can’t be shared” … the foolish bridesmaids know Jesus, “but they didn’t have a relationship with him.”)
Sold-out dates attest to a public thirst for the Scripture—so what’s next for Father Schmitz?
More “Parables” engagements have been added in October for Michigan and Texas.
“I’m always thinking about what is the next thing for the church? What is the next thing for the church in America?” he said.
It’s not about topping “The Bible in a Year,” he added.
“That came out of just seeing a need of the moment,” explained Father Schmitz. And so for the future, he said, “I think something similar: continuing to be attentive and pray, and see the need of the moment.”
Pope Francis pours dirt into a potted olive tree during the meeting, “Faith and Science: Towards COP26,” with religious leaders in the Hall of Benedictions at the Vatican Oct. 4, 2021. The meeting was part of the run-up to the U.N. Climate Change Conference, called COP26, in Glasgow, Scotland, Oct. 31 to Nov. 12, 2021. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
Pope Francis, who took his name from the patron saint of ecology—St Francis of Assisi— died the day before Earth Day and about five weeks before the 10th anniversary of his landmark encyclical on care for creation.
Dated 24 May, the solemnity of Pentecost in 2015, the document, “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home,” presented the core of his teachings on integral ecology, its principles and practical applications.
Integral ecology recognises the interconnectedness and interdependence between human beings and the earth, he said, and how the values, mindsets and actions of people affect all human endeavors and the planet.
Pope Francis insisted social, economic, political and environmental issues are not separate problems, but are the many dimensions of one overarching crisis.
The flora and fauna, the heavens and seas and all human beings are not objects to be used and controlled, but are wondrous reflections of the divine; they are God’s creations and are gifts to be protected, loved and shared.
It was the first papal encyclical on the environment; however, it came out of a long theological tradition that sees the natural world as a form of divine revelation that “must also lead us to rediscover our fraternity with the earth, to which we have been linked since creation,” as St. John Paul II said.
Police patrol in Mexico City. / Credit: David Ramos/ACI Prensa
Puebla, Mexico, May 21, 2025 / 19:22 pm (CNA).
The Mexican Bishops’ Conference expressed its “profound consternation” following the assassination of two senior officials of the Mexico City government, which occurred Tuesday in the Mexican capital.
The victims of the shooting are Ximena Guzmán, private secretary to Clara Brugada, Mexico City’s mayor, and José Muñoz, adviser to the city government.
“We join in the grief of their families, friends, and colleagues. To them, we express our closeness, prayers, and solidarity, asking God to grant them comfort, hope, and strength in the face of this painful loss,” the Mexican bishops expressed in a message following the assassinations.
The Mexico City government reported in a statement that the “direct attack” occurred in the Moderna neighborhood of the Benito Juárez borough, approximately four miles south of Mexico City’s historic Zócalo (main square).
“Personnel from the Mexico City Secretariat of Citizen Security and the attorney general’s office, both with support from the Mexican [federal] government, are already conducting the corresponding investigations to determine the motive for the attack. Additionally, video surveillance cameras in the area are being analyzed to identify the probable perpetrators, who are known to have been traveling on a motorcycle,” the Mexico City government stated.
“There will be no impunity; those responsible will be arrested and must face justice,” the statement assured.
The Mexico City attorney general’s office stated that “according to initial reports, the incident occurred while the victims were in the course of their daily routines, when the vehicle they were traveling in was intercepted by individuals who reportedly opened fire from a motorcycle.”
“Departmental, forensic, and investigative police personnel are carrying out the corresponding investigations to determine the facts of the case,” he said, indicating that they are analyzing recordings “from video surveillance cameras in the area” and gathering information from witnesses “that will allow us to identify and locate the probable perpetrators.”
May Christ ‘sustain us in this dark moment’
In their statement, the Mexican bishops lamented that this recent crime “joins a painful chain of violent events that, as we noted in our statement of May 19, following the massacre of seven young people in Guanajuato, ‘is an alarming sign of the weakening of the social fabric, impunity, and the absence of peace in vast regions of our nation.’”
“As shepherds of the people of God, we do not resign ourselves to living with fear nor with violent death. We trust that, with the power of the Gospel and the collaboration of all, it is still possible to build a Mexico where life, justice, and peace flourish,” the bishops said.
“May Christ, our peace, sustain us in this dark moment. May Our Lady of Guadalupe, queen of peace, intercede for our nation,” they concluded.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Solemn Pontifical Requiem Mass for Pope Francis. Photo: Giovanni Portelli.
This is the edited text of the Homily for the Solemn Pontifical Requiem Mass for Pope Francis, St Mary’s Basilica, Sydney, 1 May 2025.
“I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for hiding these things from the wise and learned, and revealing them to mere children” (Mt 11:25-26). Jesus’ words of thanksgiving tonight upend conventional wisdom: God’s revelation, He makes clear, is not first and foremost for the clever or powerful, but rather for the childlike in their neediness, simplicity and trust. Put another way, to get to God we must approach Him as a child their loving father—as Jesus so often taught. What gifts does God offer his trusting children?
When Pope Francis first stepped out onto the balcony of St Peter’s at his election in 2013, he humbly asked the faithful gathered in the square to pray for him. He would often end his encounters with “Don’t forget to pray for me.” Tonight we respond yet again. For Francis was aware that to steer the Barque of Peter and his own soul too, he would need to rely not only on his own efforts, but above all on the grace of God generously poured out through the prayers of the church.
He chose as his motto Miserando atque eligendo—“having and choosing Mercy”—for Mercy with a capital-M was his favourite name for God and what he thought God’s best gift after life itself. It’s what Francis knew he needed, and we all need. Broken and disfigured by sin, only God’s healing balm makes us whole again. Back in his youth, Francis had had a deeply moving experience of that in Confession. And he was convinced that, like the prodigal son, we must all return to the Father again and again, throwing ourselves upon His mercy.
Sovereign Military Order of Malta paying their respects to the late Pope Francis. Photo: Giovanni Portelli.
Thus Francis called the church to be “a field hospital” for wounded bodies, hearts and souls, a place of “mercy freely given, where everyone can feel welcomed, loved, forgiven”, a body ensouled by Mercy as her animating pastoral sensibility. Having experienced God’s mercy, we share it with others: forgiving others their trespasses and having our trespasses forgiven are intimately connected, receiving mercy and being merciful.
From this first gift of God’s mercy, flows a second: Joy. In his programmatic Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, the Holy Father wrote that “The joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ, joy is constantly born anew.” This does not mean Christians will always be “happy clappy,” with at least a feigned smile on their faces whatever is going on, or be anaesthetised to their own or other people’s troubles. Sympathy and compassion are, after all, “suffering with” the other, not pretending suffering away. Only when we share the hurt will we respond with efforts to heal. So the joy of the Gospel is certainly not insensitivity or pretence.
Nor is it a fleeting emotion or fuzzy feeling. Spiritual joy is something deeper and more persistent, perhaps most evident in the face of suffering, as stars are most evident amidst darkness. Joy is, again, a name of God, and a sharing in God’s life. It flows from the same inexhaustible well of Easter love as does Mercy. And like mercy it is not something to be privatised but rather generously shared with others. Ours must be an infectious joy, persuasive and compelling, preached with demeanour and actions as much as words. Hence Pope Francis’ counsel that Gospel people should not look as though they have just returned from a funeral or are stuck in Lent even when it’s Easter.
Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP with Governor general of NSW Margaret Beasley. Photo: Giovanni Portelli.
It was this life-giving joy that animates Peter in today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles. Gradually realising the true extent of God’s mercy—that the salvation He offers knows no bounds or partiality—Peter joyfully preaches the Good News to the pagan Cornelius and his household. He proclaims for the first time the Christian doctrine that God’s love transcends nation, race and status and is greater than anything that separates us. Through Christ’s death and resurrection, divine mercy and joy extend throughout time and space, calling forth all people (Acts 10:34-43).
“Todos, todos, todos—everyone, everyone, everyone” Pope Francis said at the World Youth Day in Lisbon: the divine mercy and joy we call “salvation” are for all. That means viewing all humanity as “Fratelli Tutti”—all our brothers and sisters—as he wrote in his 2020 encyclical of that name. It means repudiating the “globalisation of indifference” towards refugees and the poor, the “ideological colonisation” of the developing world by the secularising West, and the “throwaway culture” that discards those deemed useless, including the unborn and elderly. It assumes instead the tender concern and active care of the Good Samaritan.
And so, we arrive at a third of God’s gifts and Pope Francis’ names for God: Hope. In tonight’s epistle, the very first New Testament writing, St Paul cautions the Thessalonians about grieving like those who lack hope (1Thes 4:13-18). With Easter ever fresh in their minds, Christians must never lose faith that “God will raise with Jesus all who have fallen asleep in him.” At the last trumpet the dead will be raised, the just to glory, and so we should not despair. Christian hope, Pope Francis recalled when convoking this Jubilee Year of Hope, does not disappoint. Borne out of the experience of God’s mercy and joy, we have confidence that, as Paul said, “neither death nor life, not angels or rulers, nothing present or to come, no height or depth, nor anything else in all creation, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:35-39).
Pope Francis appears on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to deliver his Easter blessing “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world) at the Vatican April 20, 2025. Pope Francis, formerly Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, died April 21 at age 88. (CNS photo/Pablo Esparza)
Pope Francis died on Easter Monday, only hours after giving his Easter Sunday “Urbi et Orbi” blessing to the city and the world. In this last message to us he said, “From the empty tomb in Jerusalem, we hear unexpected Good News: ‘Jesus, who was crucified, is not here, he has risen.’ Jesus is not in the tomb, he is alive! Love has triumphed over hatred, light over darkness, truth over falsehood, forgiveness over revenge. Evil no longer has the upper hand; it no longer has power over those who accept the grace of this day.”
It is still too soon to assess the legacy of Pope Francis: his gestures of humility, his provocations of new thinking and practice, his emphasis on those at the peripheries, his re-imagining “synodality” as listening, co-responsibility and discernment. Some of his moves occasioned both excitement and alarm. They both united people and divided. Some of this will last, some be forgotten. But even as his own strength ebbed away, Francis’ joy remained undiminished. Through his witness, we saw that to approach God as a child means to retain hope to the end. And with the simplicity of a child and the wisdom of a pastor, he pointed once more to the source of all mercy—the Easter tomb. There we hear the promise that in the Father’s house, there is room for all who come with hearts open to receive what can never be deserved, only given.
Eternal rest grant unto Pope Francis O Lord and may perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace and rise in glory!
This year we are celebrating the Jubilee Year: Pilgrims of Hope as declared by Pope Francis. We are also currently in the Season of the Resurrection in our Maronite Lectionary. The Resurrection is the source of our greatest hope, so let us delve a little more into this.
The Season of the Resurrection spans over seven weeks in the Maronite Lectionary and the Gospel passages focus on the appearance of Jesus to the disciples.
The Eastern Churches celebrate the feast of the Resurrection of the Lord as the main event of the liturgical year. The faithful greet one another with the refrain, “Christ is risen! He is truly Risen!” Words of hope that life is greater than death. If Jesus can rise from the dead, then so can we.
The Resurrection Season commences with the Easter Sunday Gospel of women arriving at the tomb (Mk 16:1-8), but soon flee in fear. Not a great start to the Resurrection message but it is expected. Hope is to believe in what is impossible to believe. However, it takes time as fear and grief can overwhelm one and blind them to possibilities.
The second Sunday also referred to as New Sunday in the Maronite Church, is an apt title. In Christ all things become new.
The Resurrection sheds new light on our lives and offers hope. We are presented with Jesus appearing to Thomas (Jn 20:26-31). Before criticising Thomas for his lack of faith, it is worthwhile noting his desire to see Jesus that indeed resulted in his wish being granted. Hope is about desiring even when we find it difficult to understand.
In the third Sunday, we are greeted with the Sunday Gospel of the Emmaus encounter (Lk 24:13-35). One of the key themes in this passage is to “remember.” The disciples on the road remember Jesus’ life.
Around the table, Jesus breaks bread and they remember and recognise him in the actions. Their hope arose because they chose to face the past despite the pain. They walked through it, thus they were able to enter into a new hope because their eyes were opened to recognise that Jesus was with them all along.
Fr Abdo Badwi’s icon of The New Sunday. Photo: Supplied.
In the Maronite Calendar, the fourth and fifth Sundays focus on the fishing trip (Jn 21:1-14 & Jn 21:15-19). This is a great story of hope, forgiveness and joy. The disciples decide to return to their work routine of fishing but are unsuccessful. It is only when Jesus enters the scene that their fortunes change for the better.
Hope calls us not to wallow in our misery and to remain stagnate. Hope calls us to move forward and pursue better things. The haul of fish and the forgiveness of Peter are two sure signs that Jesus is with us and loves us and when we place our trust in Christ then we can hope for all things.
The sixth Sunday is the final Sunday where we have the Resurrected Jesus appearing. This time it is to the Twelve (Lk 24:36-48). One of the key messages in this appearance is that Jesus’ first words are of peace. The invitation is to rest assured God is always with us and we need not fear. We are meant to be people of hope. It is only in hope that we can truly be disciples of the living God.
The Maronite lectionary in its wisdom has placed the Gospel passage of the New Commandment (Jn 13:31-35) as the final Sunday Gospel reading in the Season of the Resurrection. It is a statement that Jesus is Risen from the dead. Death and evil have been conquered and now as people of hope, we too must live the message of Jesus. That message is to love as Jesus loved.
There are many other resurrection appearances that we read throughout the weeks of the Season of the Resurrection. Each appearance is a reminder that God’s love is greater than any fear, condemnation, hate or suffering that we experience.
Knowing this means we should live confident in the knowledge that love conquers all and we are to be messengers of hope.
Pope Francis greets visitors as he speaks during his general audience in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican 23 October 2024. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)
No doubt, many Catholics felt an acute sense of discomfort in relation to the papacy of Pope Francis. Therefore, it is understandable that they are eager to move on, as though his papacy was like a bad dream one longs to wake up from. Ironically, however, even what they claim to look for in the new pope betrays the fact that they are still hung up on Pope Francis.
For example, many are repeating the talking point that the new pope needs to restore doctrinal clarity and church unity, after the confusion and division caused by…who else but Pope Francis? But there is a serious flaw with this popular narrative and I am afraid that, without addressing it, we will struggle not only with the new pope but also with the faith itself.
When Amoris Laetitia (Joy of Love) was issued by Pope Francis in 2016, the term “ambiguous” was permanently coined as, supposedly, an entirely appropriate label for his papacy. This was because many believed that holy communion was denied to those in irregular (marital) situations primarily due to the fact, according to church teaching, they were in mortal sin.
Therefore when Pope Francis taught in Amoris Laetitiathat the help of the sacraments, including communion, could be offered to those in irregular situations in certain cases, many believed that what the church had clearly taught was now made ambiguous by Pope Francis. But there was one problem: they were wrong about what the church had actually taught.
Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who has chosen the papal name Leo XIV, appears on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican May 8, 2025, following his election during the conclave. He is the first American pope in history. (OSV News photo/Guglielmo Mangiapane, Reuters)
Even Pope John Paul II who upheld the practice of not allowing communion to those in irregular situations, in the same breath, exhorted the whole church to ensure that “they do not consider themselves as separated from the church.” (Familiaris Consortio, 84) In other words, no, he did not teach that those in irregular situations were in mortal sin, at least not necessarily.
A person can be in an objective situation of grave sin (e.g. being remarried when the first marriage is still valid). But it is possible that their knowledge and/or freedom can be so restricted that their subjective culpability is mitigated to the point of not placing them in mortal sin. And if their desire is to conform evermore to God’s will, then, they can benefit from the help of the sacraments.
The church sets certain standards so as to teach the faithful about the danger of grave sins. After all, no one gets away with a grave sin without consequences. Nevertheless, the church can also shift the emphasis in order to optimise the application of mercy to actual situations of people’s lives, so as to help them toward incrementally better places within God’s economy of salvation.
This is merely one example among many whereby doctrinal clarity was presumed by many when, in reality, there was still ambiguity which needed to be clarified over time by way of doctrinal development.* But, as history has shown, those who cling to the illusory certainty of the past tend to accuse the church of being ambiguous or worse, even to the point of causing schism.
Pope Leo XIV waves to the crowd from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican as he leads, for the first time, the midday recitation of the “Regina Coeli” prayer May 11, 2025. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)
More often than not, during the papacy of Pope Francis, doctrinal clarity was presumed by many who felt an unhealthy amount of certainty about what they thought the church had taught, who therefore blamed the pope for any confusion or division. But what if he was the one who brought the sacred clarity of God’s revelation rather than the seductive clarity of ideologies?
Pope Francis would have been the first to want us to be clear about and united by the joy of the Gospel. But we cannot move on to where we ought to be without first acknowledging what the Holy Father was right about and what we were wrong about. The power of mercy always requires our humility (or the willingness to do self-critique) in order to become truly effective in us.
Pope Francis was exceptional in this regard as a pinnacle-leader. Take, for example, what he said in his recent autobiography: “I feel unworthy. I feel ungrateful, because in the face of so much good that I have received, I have made so many errors, so many mistakes…I consider what is the greatest gift that I desire from the Lord, and have experienced, it is the gift of shame.” (Hope, p.182)
I was already excited about the new pope before finding out who was elected. This was because of the conviction that the Holy Spirit who worked in Pope Francis would continue to bring us surprises of joy. No doubt, Pope Francis prays for us to move on not merely to the next pope but also to the spiritual depth of God’s revelation, and therefore to a long-awaited new springtime.
Pope Leo XIV greets photographers as he welcomes members of the media who covered his election, during a meeting in the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican May 12, 2025. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)
*Other examples include the issue of salvation for non-Catholics, the relatively new practice of allowing funerals for those who commit suicide, the latest update regarding death penalty in the Catechism of the Catholic Church or the possibility of blessing those in irregular situations. In all these, clarity regarding what the church actually teaches has increased, not decreased.
Gold dome of the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta. / Credit: Rob Hainer/Shutterstock
CNA Staff, May 21, 2025 / 17:33 pm (CNA).
In response to national outcry over the case of Adriana Smith, a brain-dead pregnant woman on life support, the Georgia attorney general’s office released a statement clarifying that the state’s heartbeat law, which prohibits abortions after detection of a fetal heartbeat, does not require Smith be kept alive.
“There is nothing in the LIFE act that requires medical professionals to keep a woman on life support after brain death,” said the statement, issued by Attorney General Chris Carr’s office last week.
Quoting the law itself, the statement continued: “Removing life support is not an action ‘with the purpose to terminate a pregnancy.’”
Doctors at Emory University Hospital declared Smith, who was nine weeks pregnant at the time, brain dead in February after she was diagnosed with multiple blood clots in her brain.
According to Smith’s mother, April Newkirk, doctors told her that Georgia’s law protecting unborn children with a heartbeat required that they keep Smith on life support until her child could be safely delivered.
Echoing the attorney general’s statement, a spokesperson for the Georgia state House told the Washington Post this week that the LIFE Act is “completely irrelevant” regarding Smith’s situation, saying “any implication otherwise is just another gross mischaracterization of the intent of this legislation by liberal media outlets and left-wing activists.”
Although he supports the hospital’s decision to keep the unborn child alive until viability, state Sen. Ed Stetzer, the original sponsor of the LIFE Act, told CNA last week that “the removal of the life support of the mother is a separate act” from an abortion.
Section 31-32-9 of that law states that if a woman is pregnant and “in a terminal condition or state of permanent unconsciousness” and the unborn child is viable, certain life-sustaining procedures may not be withdrawn.
“The majority of states have advance directive laws with a pregnancy exclusion,” Gibbs explained.
“When in doubt, the law should err on the side of life,” he said.
A pregnancy exclusion means that if a patient is pregnant, the law prioritizes the survival of her unborn child over her stated wishes in an advance directive if there is a conflict between her wishes and the child’s well-being.
Several Democratic Georgia legislators have continued to demand the attorney general provide clarification of the heartbeat law, and some are calling for its repeal.
In a letter sent to the attorney general’s office last Friday, state Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes characterized the hospital’s decision to keep Smith on life support to sustain the life of her unborn child as “inhumane” and called it “a grotesque distortion of medical ethics and human decency.” She asked the attorney general to “speak clearly and candidly” about the applicability of the law.
In a statement released Monday, state Reps. Kim Schofield, Viola Davis, and Sandra Scott called Smith’s case “barbaric” and cited the “emotional torture” her family is enduring. They are calling for the repeal of Georgia’s heartbeat law, even though Carr made it clear on Friday that the LIFE Act does not require Smith be kept alive.
Joe Zalot, an ethicist and director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, told CNA Wednesday: “I don’t know what’s barbaric or inhumane about seeking to sustain the life of the unborn child, who is a fellow human being.”
For its part, Emory Healthcare released a statement saying that while it cannot comment on particular patients, it “uses consensus from clinical experts, medical literature, and legal guidance to support our providers as they make individualized treatment recommendations in compliance with Georgia’s abortion laws and all other applicable laws.”
“Our top priorities continue to be the safety and well-being of the patients we serve,” the statement continued.
Newkirk told 11Alive last week that Smith was transferred to Emory Midtown recently because she was told that the hospital is better at providing obstetric care.
On a GoFundMe page Newkirk has set up since the story broke last week, she said she was saddened to have “no say so regarding [Smith’s] lifeless body and unborn child,” who, she claimed, “will suffer disease which will lead to major disabilities.”
Newkirk could not be reached for comment by time of publication.
Pope Leo XIV shakes hands with U.S. President JD Vance in the papal library. The two had a private encounter before they were joined by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on May 19, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 21, 2025 / 17:02 pm (CNA).
In a sit-down interview with the New York Times’ Ross Douthat, Vice President JD Vance opened up about how his Catholic faith informs his political views and how he squares his religious beliefs with his hard-line views on immigration enforcement.
During the interview, Vance discussed how his faith and Catholic social teaching contribute to his views on governance. Yet, he also explained why he believes an American vice president cannot simply “do everything the Holy Father tells me to do” because of his obligations to serve the interests of the American people.
A Catholic American approach to governing
“When you really believe something, it ought to influence how you think about the way that you do your job, the way that you spend time with your wife and your children,” Vance said. “It just kind of necessarily informs how I live my life.”
Regarding governing, this philosophy means he thinks “the purpose of American politics” is “to encourage our citizens to live a good life.”
Vance said his faith informs his care for “the rights of the unborn” along with his belief in “dignified work,” where a person has “a high enough wage that [he or she] can support a family.”
On family policy, Vance said he fears that American and other Western societies have “become way too hostile to family formation,” contending that they “have been quite bad at supporting families over the last generation, and I think you see that in the fact that fewer people are choosing to start families.”
Vance added that he has faced criticism from the political right for being “insufficiently committed to the capital-M market.” Although he said “I am a capitalist,” he said he is not in principal against all interventions in the marketplace and cited the administration’s tariff policies as an example.
“I think one of the things that I take from my Christian principles and Catholic social teachings — specifically whether you agree with the specific policies of our administration — is the market is a tool, but it is not the purpose of American politics,” the vice president said.
Vance also discussed the potential benefits and drawbacks of developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and said he looks forward to Pope Leo providing moral guidance on these questions.
“The American government is not equipped to provide moral leadership, at least full-scale moral leadership, in the wake of all the changes that are going to come along with AI,” he said. “I think the Church is. This is the sort of thing the Church is very good at.”
Vance said he disagrees with the view that policy and religion are “two totally separate matters … because it understates the way in which all of us are informed by our moral and religious values.” Yet, he also said that taking direct orders from the Vatican on policy matters “would be a violation of the U.S. Constitution.”
“My obligation more broadly as a vice president [is] to serve the American people,” Vance said.
During his time in Rome, he said, “I’m not there as JD Vance, a Catholic parishioner” but rather “I’m there as the vice president of the United States and the leader of the president’s delegation to the pope’s inaugural Mass.”
“So some of the protocols about how I respond to the Holy Father were much different than how I might respond to the Holy Father, or how you might respond to the Holy Father purely in your capacity as a citizen,” Vance told Douthat.
For example, the vice president said he did not bow down to kiss Leo’s ring. Although that is a common act of respect for the pontiff, he noted that kissing the ring of a foreign leader would be against the protocol for an American vice president.
“So, no sign of disrespect, but it’s important to observe the protocols of the country that I love and that I’m representing and that I serve as vice president of, the United States,” he added.
When explaining this balance, Vance said he does not “just disregard” positions of Church hierarchy but that “you make a prudential judgment informed very much by the Church’s teachings as reflected by these leaders.”
The dignity of migrants and immigration enforcement
One of the primary issues on which President Donald Trump’s administration has sparred with the Vatican and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is the enforcement of American immigration laws.
During the first four months of Trump’s presidency, he has clamped down on illegal border crossings, halted the entry of most refugees, stripped federal funding from nongovernmental organizations (including Catholic ones) that resettle migrants, and vowed mass deportations of those who are in the country illegally.
These policies have been criticized by Catholic charitable organizations, the USCCB, Pope Francis, and then-Cardinal Robert Prevost, who is now Pope Leo XIV.
On U.S. immigration policy, Vance noted that the Catechism of the Catholic Church and Catholic leaders acknowledge “the right of a country to enforce its borders” but also emphasize the need to respect “the dignity of migrants.” He said: “You have to be able to hold two ideas in your head at the same time.”
“There are obligations that we have to people who in some ways are fleeing violence, or at least fleeing poverty,” the vice president said. “I also have a very sacred obligation, I think, to enforce the laws and to promote the common good of my own country, defined as the people with the legal right to be here.”
Vance said he spoke with “a lot of cardinals this weekend” about immigration policy and “had a lot of good, respectful conversations, including with cardinals who very strongly disagree with my views on migration.”
“The point that I’ve tried to make is I think a lot about this question of social cohesion in the United States,” he said. “I think about how we form the kind of society again where people can raise families, where people join institutions together.”
The vice president argued that proponents of mass migration do not recognize “how destructive immigration at the levels and at the pace that we’ve seen over the last few years is to the common good” and that “I really do think that social solidarity is destroyed when you have too much migration too quickly.”
“That’s not because I hate the migrants or I’m motivated by grievance,” he said. “That’s because I’m trying to preserve something in my own country where we are a unified nation. And I don’t think that can happen if you have too much immigration too quickly.”
Vance became Catholic in August 2019, when he was 35 years old, and is the second Catholic vice president of the United States. Former president Joe Biden was the first when he served under former president Barack Obama from 2008–2016.
Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia speaks at a press conference for a Vatican summit on longevity on March 24, 2025, at the Vatican. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 21, 2025 / 15:22 pm (CNA).
The Pontifical Academy for Life, the elderly advocacy group AARP, and the Muslim Council of Elders this month signed a declaration promising to support elderly populations and promote research on brain health.
The organizations launched the initiative in order to help safeguard the elderly from discrimination and abuse and to protect their human dignity, right to independence, and engagement in society.
The leaders met at a two-day global symposium held at the Vatican titled “The Memory: Addressing the Opportunities and Challenges of an Aging Global Population.”
Representatives from the Vatican and AARP talked with doctors, scientists, academics, nongovernmental organizations, and nonprofits from more than 20 countries about the future of the elderly population and how organizations can advocate for older generations.
“We promote this symposium in partnership with AARP to reflect with scientific and academic institutions on how to promote a model of longevity that does not limit itself to extending the years of life but to enriching them,” Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said at the summit.
The event concluded with Paglia, AARP CEO Myechia Minter-Jordan, and Muslim Council of Elders Secretary-General Mohamed Abdelsalam signing the official declaration pledging their commitment to the mission.
The “landmark initiative marks the first official activity of the Vatican under Pope Leo XIV,” Abdelsalam wrote in a post to X.
“Caring for the elderly is a religious and moral responsibility, as they are the memory keepers of human societies,” he wrote. “They serve as a living record for transmitting wisdom and knowledge across generations.”
A historic global charter dedicated to the care of the elderly, safeguarding their human dignity, their right to independence, and their full engagement in society—while protecting them from all forms of discrimination and abuse—has been signed by the Muslim Council of Elders,… pic.twitter.com/JTMYRFIeMa
— Judge Mohamed Abdelsalam (@m_abdelsallam) May 17, 2025
The event and declaration were spearheaded by the leaders to help plan for future demographic shifts.
“By 2050, 1 in 5 people worldwide will be over the age of 60,” AARP reported. “Globally, systems and supports are not in place to handle the unique needs of a rapidly aging population.”
“Aging is not a problem to solve,” Minter-Jordan said at the event. “It is an opportunity to rethink how we support our communities.”
Pope Leo XIV at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls on May 20, 2025. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/EWTN News
Vatican City, May 21, 2025 / 14:32 pm (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV on May 20 visited St. Paul Outside the Walls Basilica, one of the papal basilicas located outside Rome, to pray at the tomb of the “apostle to the Gentiles.”
Upon his arrival, the Holy Father was welcomed by basilca abbot Father Donato Ogliari, OSB, and the archpriest of the basilica, Cardinal James Michael Harvey.
Accompanied by Benedictine monks, custodians of the church built over the tomb of St. Paul the Apostle, Pope Leo XIV entered the basilica through the Holy Door amid the chants of the Sistine Chapel choir and the Benedictine community.
He then descended to the altar of confession to venerate the tomb of St. Paul, kneeling in silence. After returning to the apse of the church, a passage from St. Paul the Apostle’s Letter to the Romans was read.
In his homily, delivered in Italian, the Holy Father emphasized that the reading revolves around three themes — “grace, faith, and justification” — and entrusted the beginning of his pontificate to the intercession of the apostle to the Gentiles.
Leo XIV reminded the nearly 2,000 faithful gathered in the basilica that St. Paul claimed to have received “from God the grace of his vocation.”
An interior view of St. Paul Outside the Walls Basilica on May 20, 2025. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/EWTN News
“He acknowledges, in other words, that his encounter with Christ and his own ministry were the fruit of God’s prior love, which called him to a new life while he was still far from the Gospel and persecuting the Church,” he explained.
He also quoted the convert St. Augustine, the pope’s spiritual father, “who spoke of the same experience.”
In this context, he emphasized that “at the root of every vocation, God is present, in his mercy and his goodness, as generous as that of a mother who nourishes her child with her own body for as long as the child is unable to feed itself.”
Recalling how St. Paul spoke of the “obedience of faith,” he pointed out, however, that on the road to Damascus, the Lord “did not take away his freedom but gave him the opportunity to make a decision, to choose an obedience that would prove costly and entail interior and exterior struggles, which Paul proved willing to face.”
The pontiff thus pointed out that “salvation does not come about by magic but by a mysterious interplay of grace and faith, of God’s prevenient love and of our trusting and free acceptance.”
In this regard, he invited the faithful to “ask him to enable us to respond in the same way to his grace and to become, ourselves, witnesses of the love ‘poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.’”
“Let us ask the Lord for the grace to cultivate and spread his charity,” he continued, “and to become true neighbors to one another. Let us compete in showing the love that, following his encounter with Christ, drove the former persecutor to become ‘all things to all people’ even to the point of martyrdom.”
He further emphasized that “the weakness of the flesh will show the power of faith in God that brings justification.”
From this basilica, entrusted to the care of the Benedictine community, Pope Leo XIV also recalled St. Benedict, who proposed “love as the source and driving force of the preaching of the Gospel,” noting his insistent exhortations “to fraternal charity.”
The pontiff did not want to end his homily without recalling Pope Benedict XVI and his words at World Youth Day in Madrid in 2011: “‘Dear friends,’” he said, “‘God loves us. This is the great truth of our life; it is what makes everything else meaningful.” Indeed, “our life originates as part of a loving plan of God,” and faith leads us to “open our hearts to this mystery of love and to live as men and women conscious of being loved by God.’”
“Here we see, in all its simplicity and uniqueness, the basis of every mission, including my own mission as the successor of Peter and the heir to Paul’s apostolic zeal. May the Lord grant me the grace to respond faithfully to his call,” Leo XIV concluded.
At the end of his homily, the Holy Father knelt again before the altar, located above the apostle’s tomb. Later, the Lord’s Prayer and the Regina Caeli were sung in Latin.
Pope Leo XIV left the basilica again in procession, preceded by Benedictine monks, to the applause of the faithful.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Catholic Health building in Buffalo, New York. / Credit: Andre Carrotflower, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
CNA Staff, May 21, 2025 / 14:01 pm (CNA).
A Catholic health care system in New York state has agreed to pay a multimillion-dollar settlement over allegations that it violated federal Medicare reporting laws.
The U.S. attorney’s office for the western district of New York said in a press release that Catholic Health Systems agreed to pay nearly $3.3 million in order to resolve allegations that the network “knowingly submitted or caused to be submitted false claims to the Medicare program” in violation of federal law.
The government had alleged that the Catholic hospital system violated the Stark Law, a federal rule that prohibits health care entities from receiving Medicare payments for services referred by a physician with “a financial relationship to the health care entity.”
The prosecutor’s office claimed that the Catholic health provider “had financial relationships with nonemployee physicians” who “referred health services, such as laboratory testing, hospital services, or medical supplies, to CHS and its affiliated hospitals.”
“The Stark Law is designed to protect Medicare by ensuring that physician referrals are not influenced by financial interest,” U.S. Attorney Michael DiGiacomo said in the press release, stating that his office “is committed to holding health care providers accountable who engage in such conduct.”
Though the Catholic medical system will pay more than $3 million over the claims, the payout does not establish the guilt of the hospital, the government said.
“The claims resolved by the settlement are allegations only and there has been no determination of liability,” the press release stated.
Federal authorities were originally tipped off to the alleged violations by Gary Tucker, a former executive in the Catholic Health Systems network. Under whistleblower provisions, Tucker “will receive a share of the settlement,” the government said.
In a statement provided to CNA, Leonardo Sette-Camara, the general counsel of the hospital system, said: “Defending these types of subjective allegations requires an unsustainable and unacceptable allocation of Catholic Health resources.”
“This investigation was never about the quality of care provided to our patients. By resolving the case now, we can move forward and remain fully focused on delivering the highest standard of care,” he said.
This report was updated on Wednesday, May 21, 2025, at 3 p.m. with a statement from the hospital.
As the world marks 30 days since Pope Francis’ death, Cardinal John Ribat, MSC, from Papua New Guinea shares his memories of the late pontiff, who travelled to the Pacific island country in September 2024.
Pope Leo XIV smiles during his first general audience in St. Peter's Square on May 21, 2025. / Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Vatican City, May 21, 2025 / 10:46 am (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV will hold a meeting of cardinals on June 13 to give the final approval to the canonizations of several beatified men and women.
The ordinary public consistory, as it is called, will be the first of Leo’s pontificate. Pope Francis had called for the consistory in late February, when he was in the hospital, but the date was never set.
At the consistory, cardinals will vote to approve the canonizations of five beatified men and women whose causes were advanced earlier this year by Pope Francis. The vote of the cardinals marks the final step in the canonization process and allows a date for the Mass of canonization to be set.
Among the almost-canonized saints expected to be discussed on June 13 is Blessed Bartolo Longo (also known as Bartholomew Longo).
Longo, an Italian layman and lawyer, was a former Satanist “priest” who returned to the practice of the Catholic faith through the influence of Mary and the rosary.
The canonization of the Venezuelan “doctor of the poor,” José Gregorio Hernández, is also expected be voted on at the June 13 consistory, along with Pietro To Rot, the first blessed from Papua New Guinea; Vincenza Maria Poloni, the founder of the Sisters of Mercy of Verona; and Ignazio Maloyan, a bishop martyred in the Armenian genocide in 1915.
The consistory will take place in the consistory hall in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace with all of the cardinals resident or otherwise present in Rome. It usually begins with a short time of prayer.
The Vatican also announced Wednesday a slew of liturgies to be celebrated by Pope Leo XIV in June, including a Mass at the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran followed by a Eucharistic procession through Rome to the Basilica of St. Mary Major for the solemnity of Corpus Christi on June 22.
Here is the full list of public Masses Pope Leo will celebrate during the month of June:
June 1: Mass in St. Peter’s Square for the Jubilee of Families, Children, Grandparents, and the Elderly
June 8: Mass in St. Peter’s Square for the solemnity of Pentecost and the Jubilee of Movements, Associations, and New Communities
June 9: Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica for the memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, and the Jubilee of the Holy See
June 15: Mass in St. Peter’s Square for the solemnity of the Holy Trinity and the Jubilee of Sports
June 22: Mass in the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran and procession to the Basilica of St. Mary Major with Eucharistic benediction for the solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
June 27: Mass in St. Peter’s Square for the solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Jubilee of Priests
June 29: Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica for the solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, with the blessing of the palliums for the new metropolitan archbishops
As Tanzania faces increasing cases of human trafficking, particularly involving women and girls, the Tanzanian Government has called for a comprehensive response. This response foresees the active involvement and participation of Faith-Based Organisations (FBOs) and civil society organizations, especially at the grassroots level.
Students pose after being called to “Petra House” at JSerra Catholic High School in Orange County, California, April 28, 2025. / Credit: JSerra Catholic High School
CNA Staff, May 21, 2025 / 10:05 am (CNA).
A Catholic school in Southern California is preparing to launch a “house system” that it says will help students connect with one another and foster leadership among young Catholics preparing to go out into the world.
JSerra Catholic High School in San Juan Capistrano said in a press release that the house arrangement will “foster community, provide mentorship, and cultivate leadership rooted in Gospel values.”
The six houses into which students can be grouped — Alta, Carmel, Monterey, San Onofre, Petra, and Ventura — are “each named after places significant to the life of St. Junipero Serra.”
The school said the new program “comes at a critical time as young people are experiencing greater social disconnection and mental health challenges than ever before.” It cited studies indicating that young people are experiencing extreme social disconnection with their peers, engaging in “70% less social interaction with their friends” compared with two decades ago.
“This new house system is more than just a way to build school spirit, it’s a transformative approach to helping our students grow as leaders and deepen their faith,” Eric Stroupe, the principal of JSerra, said in the release.
Students pose after being called to "Monterey House" at JSerra Catholic High School in Orange County, California, April 28, 2025. Credit: JSerra Catholic High School
‘We really want God to do something miraculous’
Brian Ong, the house director for JSerra, told CNA in an interview that the school has developed the house system — and its approach to education more generally — with the mindset of “fields, not factories.”
“The Bible often uses metaphors from the field,” he pointed out. “We’re trying to cultivate the seeds we feel God has planted. We really want God to do something miraculous.”
The school, founded in 2003, had been debating launching the house system for several years starting in 2021, Ong said. He pointed out that numerous other schools in the area have house systems of their own, though JSerra wanted to develop a unique approach to the practice.
“Last year we decided that this was something God was leading us to do,” he said.
Students pose after being called to "Ventura House" at JSerra Catholic High School in Orange County, California, April 28, 2025. Credit: JSerra Catholic High School
One goal of the house system, Ong said, is to help the large student body feel more connected to those with whom they might not normally interact.
“We have approximately 1,300 students at JSerra,” he said. “When you ask students how many people they really know, it’s usually less than 50. Even if you double that, there’s still 1,200 students you don’t know.”
“You don’t interact [with others] because you don’t play the same sport, or do the same extracurricular activity, or they’re in the business magnet and you’re in the law magnet,” Ong acknowledged. With the house system, “we’re trying to intentionally have them interact with each other if they wouldn’t normally.”
There is a significant mentorship component to the program as well.
“We want every student at JSerra to have a mentor,” he said. Students will meet in their “dens” three times per week for 30 minutes each time, speaking to older mentors and “ensuring that freshmen and sophomores experience friendship, encouragement, and support,” according to the school.
Students pose after being called to "Alta House" at JSerra Catholic High School in Orange County, California, April 28, 2025. Credit: JSerra Catholic High School
Houses will also allow students a chance to excel in leadership, he said, with opportunities for students to serve as presidents, curriculum directors, and other roles to teach them real-life skills.
Ong said the school has already hosted a “calling day” in which students were “called” into their respective houses. “Next school year it will really take off,” he said.
The parental response has been “overwhelmingly positive” as the program has launched, Ong said.
Other Catholic institutions have implemented similar programs. Franciscan University of Steubenville’s “faith households,” for instance, bring students together “to help members grow in mind, body, and spirit through prayer, mutual support, and accountability in the ongoing conversion process exemplified in the life of St. Francis.”
The university allows students to join one of several dozen single-sex households together with others who “seek to do the will of the Father in their lives.” Joining a household is not a requirement, but according to Gregg Miliote, director of media relations at Franciscan University, the vast majority of students do join one. There are currently 49 different households at Franciscan University.
At JSerra, meanwhile, student houses “will earn points through competitions, service projects, and school spirit initiatives, culminating in the awarding of the JSerra Cup to the top-performing house at the year’s end.”
Ong said the system “immerses students in very practical and hands-on ways into a culture that allows them to internalize the core Christian values we idealize as a school.” The program “multiplies their opportunities for exercising the virtues that are at the heart of our mission,” he said.
Bishop Francisco Javier Acero with the mothers of the disappeared and priests. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Bishop Acero
