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ACI Prensa's latest initiative is the Catholic News Agency (CNA), aimed at serving the English-speaking Catholic audience. ACI Prensa (www.aciprensa.com) is currently the largest provider of Catholic news in Spanish and Portuguese.

Supreme Court asked to block California school gender secrecy rules amid ongoing lawsuit
Fri, 09 Jan 2026 10:47:00 -0500

Jan 9, 2026 / 10:47 am (CNA).

The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to block the state of California from allowing schools to hide student “gender transitions” from parents amid an ongoing federal lawsuit.

The Thomas More Society, a Chicago-based legal group, asked the high court to intervene in the case Mirabelli v. Bonta while the dispute works its way through a federal appeals court.

The suit was originally brought by two Christian teachers in California. U.S. District Court Judge Roger Benitez on Dec. 22, 2025, issued a ruling in the class action lawsuit, striking down the secretive school gender policies on First Amendment grounds and holding that parents “have a right” to the “gender information” of their children, while teachers themselves also have the right to provide parents with that information. 

In a Jan. 5 ruling, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit blocked Benitez’s order, holding in part that the “public interest in protecting students and avoiding confusion among schoolteachers and administrators” justified a stay.

In an emergency application to the Supreme Court, lawyers with the Thomas More Society argued that the rights of parents, and the health and safety of children, are “too precious” to wait for the appeal to play out.

The high court should strike down the block by the appeals court, the attorneys said, in part because it “strips parents of their core authority with respect to an issue with significant religious and developmental impact.”

Disputes over hiding a student’s “gender identity” from parents have played out in schools around the country in recent years. LGBT advocates claim that teachers and administrators should be allowed to hide student “transitions” in order to keep children safe from parents who may not “affirm” an LGBT identity.

Critics have countered that parents have a right to know important and health-related decisions of their children, particularly concerning “gender identity” beliefs, which often compel young people to seek out drugs and surgeries.

The debate has reached the highest levels of U.S. government. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in August 2025 directed U.S. states to remove gender ideology material from their curricula or face the loss of federal funding, while in February of that year the Department of Education launched an investigation into several Virginia school districts to determine if they violated federal orders forbidding schools from supporting the so-called “transition” of children.

Thomas More Society attorney Paul Jonna this week said California’s “parental deception scheme” is “keeping families in the dark and causing irreparable harm,” necessitating the intervention of the Supreme Court.

“The state is inserting itself unconstitutionally between parents and children, forcing schools to deceive families, and punishing teachers who tell the truth,” he said, adding that “no parent should learn their child was in crisis because the government ordered schools to keep secrets.”

Pope Leo condemns ‘zeal for war,’ weak multilateralism in speech to diplomats
Fri, 09 Jan 2026 10:17:13 -0500

Jan 9, 2026 / 10:17 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV condemned the weakening of international multilateralism and the increased use of force in a speech to diplomats at the Vatican on Friday.

He also said states should respect fundamental human rights, such as religious freedom and freedom of speech, and comply with international humanitarian law in the lengthiest speech to date of his pontificate.

“A diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force, by either individuals or groups of allies. War is back in vogue and a zeal for war is spreading,” he told ambassadors and other diplomatic representatives to the Holy See in the Apostolic Palace on Jan. 9. Currently, 184 states have diplomatic relations with the Holy See.

“Peace is no longer sought as a gift and a desirable good in itself,” the pontiff continued. “Instead, peace is sought through weapons as a condition for asserting one’s own dominion. This gravely threatens the rule of law, which is the foundation of all peaceful civil coexistence.”

The Holy Father called for concern for the common good of peoples to take precedence over “the defense of partisan interests” amid escalating tensions, pointing in particular to Venezuela, for which he reiterated an appeal “to respect the will of the Venezuelan people, and to safeguard the human and civil rights of all.”

Leo framed his speech, part of the annual new year greeting to the diplomatic corps, within St. Augustine of Hippo’s work of Christian philosophy “De Civitate Dei” (“City of God”).

“The ‘City of God’ does not propose a political program. Instead, it offers valuable reflections on fundamental issues concerning social and political life, such as the search for a more just and peaceful coexistence among peoples. Augustine also warns of the grave dangers to political life arising from false representations of history, excessive nationalism and the distortion of the ideal of the political leader,” the pope said.

He called “City of God,” written in the fifth century, highly relevant to the present time, marked by widespread migration and the “profound readjustment of geopolitical balances and cultural paradigms.”

Human rights short-circuited

Leo lamented what he called a “short circuit” of human rights around the world today, especially the right to life.

“We firmly reiterate that the protection of the right to life constitutes the indispensable foundation of every other human right. A society is healthy and truly progresses only when it safeguards the sanctity of human life and works actively to promote it,” he said.

He also called out the restriction of the right to freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, religious freedom, and the right to life in favor of other “so-called new rights,” so that “the very framework of human rights is losing its vitality and creating space for force and oppression.”

“This occurs when each right becomes self-referential, and especially when it becomes disconnected from reality, nature, and truth,” he added.

Christian persecution

Pope Leo said Christian persecution is one of the most widespread human rights crises today, with over 380 million believers around the world suffering high or extreme levels of discrimination, violence, and oppression.

He recalled the victims of religiously motivated violence in Bangladesh, in the Sahel region, in Nigeria, and those killed or injured in the terrorist attack on the parish of St. Elias in Damascus in June.

The pontiff also decried “a subtle form of religious discrimination against Christians” taking place even in Christian-majority countries in Europe and the Americas.

“There, they are sometimes restricted in their ability to proclaim the truths of the Gospel for political or ideological reasons, especially when they defend the dignity of the weakest, the unborn, refugees and migrants, or promote the family,” he said.

Leo also called for respect for the freedom of other religious communities and the rejection of all forms of antisemitism.

The meaning of words

The Holy Father also spoke about debates over the meaning of words and how they are tied to attacks on freedom of expression.

“Rediscovering the meaning of words is perhaps one of the primary challenges of our time. When words lose their connection to reality, and reality itself becomes debatable and ultimately incommunicable,” he said.

“We should also note the paradox that this weakening of language is often invoked in the name of freedom of expression itself. However, on closer inspection, the opposite is true, for freedom of speech and expression is guaranteed precisely by the certainty of language and the fact that every term is anchored in the truth,” he noted.

He called it painful to see the space for genuine freedom of expression rapidly shrink, especially in the West.

“At the same time, a new Orwellian-style language is developing which, in an attempt to be increasingly inclusive, ends up excluding those who do not conform to the ideologies that are fueling it,” he said.

A consequence of this, Leo said, is that the freedom of conscience, another fundamental human right, is increasingly questioned by states.

The freedom of conscience, which “establishes a balance between the collective interest and individual dignity,” protects individuals “to refuse legal or professional obligations that conflict with moral, ethical, or religious principles deeply rooted in their personal lives,” such as military service, abortion, or euthanasia.

“Conscientious objection is not rebellion but an act of fidelity to oneself,” he underlined.

Life and the family

Pope Leo urged states to protect the institution of the family as “the vocation to love and to life” manifested in the “exclusive and indissoluble union between a woman and a man” and implying a “fundamental ethical imperative for enabling families to welcome and fully care for unborn life.”

Noting the increasing priority of raising birth rates, he emphasized life as a gift to be cherished and said “we categorically reject any practice that denies or exploits the origin of life and its development,” including abortion and surrogacy.

He added that the Holy See is also concerned about projects aimed at financing cross-border mobility to increase access to abortion and “considers it deplorable that public resources are allocated to suppress life rather than being invested to support mothers and families.”

For the sick and elderly, “civil society and states also have a responsibility to respond concretely to situations of vulnerability, offering solutions to human suffering, such as palliative care, and promoting policies of authentic solidarity rather than encouraging deceptive forms of compassion such as euthanasia,” he said.

The pontiff underlined the inalienable dignity of every person and that migrants, as people, have “inalienable rights that must be respected in every situation.”

“I renew the Holy See’s hope that the actions taken by states against criminality and human trafficking will not become a pretext for undermining the dignity of migrants and refugees,” he said.

Pride and self-love

Leo recalled that in Augustine’s “City of God,” the saint interprets events and history according to a model of two cities. The city of God is characterized by God’s unconditional love and love for one’s neighbor, especially the poor, while the earthly city “is centered on pride and self-love (‘amor sui’), on the thirst for worldly power and glory that leads to destruction.”

“While St. Augustine highlights the coexistence of the heavenly and earthly cities until the end of time, our era seems somewhat inclined to deny the city of God its ‘right of citizenship,’” the pope noted.

“Yet, as Augustine notes, ‘Great is the folly of pride in those individuals who think that the supreme good can be found in this life and that they can become happy by their own resources,’” Leo said. “Pride obscures both reality itself and our empathy towards others. It is no coincidence that pride is always at the root of every conflict.”

‘One Nation Under God:’ 2026 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage inspired by 250th anniversary of U.S.
Fri, 09 Jan 2026 08:00:00 -0500

Jan 9, 2026 / 08:00 am (CNA).

In celebration of the United States of America’s 250th anniversary, the 2026 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage’s theme is “One Nation Under God.” Pilgrims will journey on the St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Route to honor the first American citizen to be canonized.

“One Nation Under God is not a borrowed slogan; rather, it is an invitation to realign our lives, our communities, and our country under the sovereignty of Jesus Christ,” said Jason Shanks, president of the National Eucharistic Congress, in a press release.

The 2026 pilgrimage will take place 75 years after the phrase “One Nation Under God” was officially added to the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance. On June 14, 1954, Flag Day, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the law adding “under God,” completing a campaign launched in 1951 by the Knights of Columbus.

Inspired by the nation’s historic anniversary, the National Eucharistic Congress wanted “to lean into that moment in our Church and in our country to highlight how Catholics have contributed to this great American experience,” said Shanks during a Jan. 8 interview with “EWTN News Nightly.”

Cabrini Route

The 2026 pilgrimage is set to kick off on May 24 in St. Augustine, Florida, and conclude on July 5 in Philadelphia.

The pilgrimage will pass through most of the original 13 colonies. Pilgrims will travel the Eastern Seaboard along the Cabrini Route in honor of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, the first American citizen to be canonized.

As an Italian immigrant, Cabrini “really gave her life, her heart, her passion to serving immigrants in New York,” Shanks said during the interview. “We just thought that she was a good representation, particularly as we focused on a national moment to think about how the United States is made up of a variety of cultures and diversity. She also gives us a real sense of what it looks like to be Catholic and to be patriotic.”

“It gives us a moment to reflect on her service and her life as we process to Philadelphia,” Shanks said. “We’re asking for her blessing and her intercession as we embark on this great pilgrimage.”

Throughout the pilgrimage, 18 dioceses will host public events as pilgrims make their way up toward Pennsylvania. The procession will pass through the dioceses of St. Augustine, Florida; Savannah, Georgia; Charleston, South Carolina; Charlotte, North Carolina; Richmond and Arlington, Virginia; Washington D.C.; Baltimore; Wilmington, Delaware; Camden and Paterson, New Jersey; Manchester, New Hampshire; Portland, Maine; Boston, Springfield, and Fall River, Massachusetts; Providence, Rhode Island; and Philadelphia.

Pilgrimage highlights

Bringing Jesus’ presence to the streets is an opportunity to “pray for unity and healing in our great country,” Shanks said.

In light of the United States Conference Bishops’ (USCCB) decision to consecrate America to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the 2026 pilgrimage brings Jesus himself directly to the American people with opportunities for public participation in processions, Masses, devotionals, service projects, and more.

The journey will begin with an opening Mass at Our Lady of La Leche Shrine in Florida, the site of the first Mass celebrated on American soil. Other events include commemorations of the Georgia Martyrs and a celebration of the feast of Corpus Christi in the Archdiocese of Washington and the Diocese of Arlington.

A national prayer campaign and a digital lecture series also will be launched highlighting themes of America through a Catholic lens.

While all Catholics are invited to join for part of the journey, eight young adult perpetual pilgrims and a media missionary will travel the full route. They will partake in a private midpoint retreat at the St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Shrine in New York City.

“These are young people from all walks of life in our country. Typically, what we see post-pilgrimage is their lives are transformed,” Shanks said. “Some join seminary, others join religious life. But they’re a real inspiration to all of us. But they’re like all of us. Their lives are there to be transformed by the Lord.”

The pilgrims final stop will be in Philadelphia, the city where the Declaration of Independence was signed. The concluding weekend will feature all-day Eucharistic adoration on July 4, a closing Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul, and a final Eucharistic procession to the National Shrine of St. John Neumann.

President of Venezuelan bishops’ conference: We are living in a ‘tense calm’
Fri, 09 Jan 2026 07:00:00 -0500

Jan 9, 2026 / 07:00 am (CNA).

The president of the Venezuelan Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Jesús González de Zárate, experienced hours of anxious concern Jan. 3 when the United States launched a military operation in Venezuela that included bombing strategic military installations and culminated in the capture of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.

Almost a week has passed, but “a comprehensive understanding of the events of last Saturday and their consequences is difficult, because new information is emerging every day and new dynamics are developing around these events, which advises us to exercise prudence and patience,” González told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner.

He noted that the way things were assessed on Saturday morning was not the same as in the afternoon, because “many questions arose” after Trump’s press conference, in which he asserted that his country would govern Venezuela and dismissed opposition leader María Corina Machado as a potential leader.

Many questions about the immediate future

The entire Catholic community is experiencing, like the rest of the country, “a tense calm,” the archbishop said. “Many questions are arising among the population about the immediate future,” he added.

On the day of the military intervention, in the afternoon, people took to the streets and supermarkets to stock up on supplies, but since Sunday, “vehicle traffic and work activities have been gradually resuming,” he stated.

Before Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, who has called for cooperation with Washington, was sworn in before the new National Assembly on Jan. 5 as acting president following a ruling from the Supreme Court of Justice, the Venezuelan bishops issued a statement to express their solidarity and support for the Venezuelan people.

Faith will get the country through these difficult times

In their prayers, González noted they also included “the families of those who have been injured or have lost their lives.”

“To all of them, we say that faith gives us reasons to live through these difficult times, trusting in God’s love, and with strength and hope.”

Another of his concerns is the 7.9 million Venezuelans who have left their country seeking protection and a better life, according to data from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

“The Venezuelan bishops have spoken out on many occasions about the reality of the migration of millions of our compatriots to other countries. It is an issue that worries us, especially because in recent times public policies have been implemented that significantly affect them,” he explained.

Beyond these considerations, the president of the Venezuelan bishops said he prefers not to comment officially on the political situation until a “clearer” picture emerges.

“The bishops have maintained constant monitoring and discernment of these events, in a spirit of faith and in a climate of prayer, guided by the great principles of the Church’s social doctrine. When we have a more comprehensive and accurate understanding, we will be able to comment on them,” he added.

González said that the Church’s perspective aligns with Pope Leo XIV’s call to “guarantee the national sovereignty” of the country.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

English diocese responds to rising conversions with evidence-based faith training
Fri, 09 Jan 2026 06:00:00 -0500

Jan 9, 2026 / 06:00 am (CNA).

A diocese in England and Wales has launched a pioneering apologetics project aimed at empowering Catholics to talk more authoritatively about their faith.

The project, titled “Ambassadors for Christ,” is a fresh approach to apologetics in England and Wales and takes an evidence-based approach to the big questions surrounding the Catholic faith.

In a Jan. 5 statement, the Archdiocese of Southwark explained that it has launched the project in response to the rise in people joining the Catholic Church.

“As more people become interested in the faith, practicing Catholics are experiencing more questions from their family, friends, and colleagues but often remain unsure where to look for evidence-based answers,” the statement said.

“These can range from fundamental questions like ‘Is Jesus really God?’ or ‘How do we know God is real?’ to more practical questions about the Catholic faith, such as ‘Why do Catholics make the sign of the cross?’ or ‘What is happening during Mass?’”

In the same press statement, Archbishop John Wilson of Southwark said: “As someone who converted to Catholicism as a teenager myself, I know what it is like to search for answers, to thirst for the truth, which only the Lord Jesus offers. Every day, people are searching for the same answers I did, thirsting for the truth I found, and it is our job to guide them on the right path.”

“As Catholics, leading people to Christ has to be at the heart of everything we do, because it is the Lord Jesus who is the way, the truth, and the life,” he continued. “It is the Catholic Church, founded by Jesus, where people will find the answers to their burning questions, where their thirst for truth will be sated.”

“As the archbishop of the diocese, I am responsible for catechesis and ensuring the faithful know and understand their faith. That’s why this project goes beyond providing answers; it is about building ambassadors for Christ in our parishes and schools.”

“I want the faithful — from converts to cradle Catholics — to feel confident and assured of their faith, so that when they are asked the reason for the hope within them, they can confidently speak of the Lord Jesus and his saving work,” he said.

The course is made up of 52 videos, which will be released each Monday on YouTube throughout 2026 and each topic is presented by a Catholic priest.

According to the Jan. 5 statement from the archdiocese, each video has been thoroughly checked by theologians to ensure accuracy and fidelity to Church teaching.

Father Dermott O’Gorman, the director of youth for the Archdiocese of Southwark, said: “We are often told that young people are not interested in religion or that they don’t care about God. But this could not be further from the truth. In a world where they feel disillusioned and lost, our young people are searching for meaning.”

He added: “The Church needs to meet them where they are, and that is what we’re doing with ‘Ambassadors for Christ.’ By providing engaging content that directly answers their questions, we hope to help them discover meaning and purpose that can be found only in Jesus Christ and his Church.”

Stephen Bullivant, professor of theology and the sociology of religion, welcomed the new initiative.

In an email to CNA on Jan. 9 commenting more generally on why Catholic congregations are growing in England and Wales, he said: “It’s hard to know the full reasons for the new growth we’re seeing, but there certainly does seem to a new cultural mood around Christianity.”

“Feasibly, we’ve also hit a point, after decades of secularization, where a kind of ‘herd immunity’ to ever taking faith seriously — a resistance built up from lots of weak or dead strains of cultural Christianity — has now worn off,” he continued. “So for the youngest generations, who have not been raised even ‘nominally’ Church of England or Catholic, it’s now possible to encounter Christianity as something genuinely new, intriguing, and perhaps exciting.”

This story was updated at 9:22 a.m. ET on Jan. 9, 2026, with the comments from Stephen Bullivant.

Pope Leo XIV to hold next consistory in June, hopes for annual meetings with cardinals
Thu, 08 Jan 2026 19:18:49 -0500

Jan 8, 2026 / 19:18 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV will be hosting a second consistory of cardinals at the end of June and wants to hold such meetings annually.

The Vatican made the announcement Thursday evening at the conclusion of the Holy Father’s first extraordinary consistory of cardinals that lasted two days. The next such meeting is expected to be held on June 27–28, the vigil of Sts. Peter and Paul.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said the pope would like to hold annual meetings lasting three to four days, allowing more time for discussion on various topics of importance and for free interventions by the members of the Sacred College of Cardinals.

Cardinal Stephen Brislin of Johannesburg, South Africa, told reporters at a closing Vatican briefing that he and the other cardinals found this consistory a “very enriching and very deepening experience.” He said they also appreciated that it also gave the opportunity for the cardinals to “get to know each other and to listen to each other.” The fact that the pope wishes to hold more meetings, he added, shows that the pope, too, “found it very important” and helpful. 

The cardinal said some doubts were expressed when they were told they would be split into small groups, and “certainly a concern” was that there would be insufficient opportunity for them “to express themselves and to listen to others.” Still, he said he thought the way the groups were constructed, having been split into two blocks, was “very helpful” and “gave the opportunity for every cardinal to speak,” even if it wasn’t heard by the whole assembly. 

The liturgy was briefly mentioned, Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, archbishop emeritus of Durban, South Africa, told the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner. But he said the Traditional Latin Mass and “particulars like that” were not discussed. “I think the whole thing was how do we get the whole Church onto the same level at evangelizing, I think that was the main point,” he said.” Hope was expressed by various cardinals that other topics not discussed would be covered at forthcoming consistories. 

Little information emerged both during and after the consistory as cardinals told reporters that Pope Leo had instructed them to keep the proceedings confidential. Nevertheless, Brislin, who was joined by Filippino Cardinal Pablo David and Colombian Cardinal Luis José Rueda Aparicio at Thursday’s press briefing, spoke relatively freely.

After Maduro’s capture, there’s hope for Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba, leader says
Thu, 08 Jan 2026 18:10:00 -0500

Jan 8, 2026 / 18:10 pm (CNA).

Arturo McFields, former Nicaraguan ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), stated that, following the capture of Nicolás Maduro, “winds of hope are blowing” for Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba.

“At this moment, it’s impossible not to share the joy of the Venezuelan people, the hope for a new day, although it’s complex because democracy is not easy, but hope has strongly resurged among Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, and Cubans, the hope that no dictatorship is eternal, and today that hope is more alive than ever,” the exiled former diplomat told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, on Jan. 6.

“We are seeing right now, in real time, how the powerful figures who thought they were gods or demigods are now brought to their knees and dressed in prison uniforms,” McFields said in reference to Maduro’s appearance this week in New York, where he pleaded not guilty.

Maduro has been accused of narcoterrorism conspiracy, conspiracy to import cocaine, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States.

After stating that the most important thing for a people is their faith in God, the former ambassador emphasized that “all these earthly gods, these Baals, are transient, and we are seeing this in real time. That is a very important message, a very important message of hope for the people of Nicaragua as well, because we know that one day we will see justice, not only divine justice, but in some way even earthly justice.”

Dictatorships are not eternal

“A very important message to consider is that dictatorships are not eternal: We have the dictatorship of the socialist bloc, which lasted more than 70 years. Then we have Syria, more than 50 years. Then we have the dictatorship of Evo Morales [in Bolivia] and the socialist movement, more than 20 years. And each and every one of them eventually fell, and now we are seeing the collapse in Venezuela of more than 26 years of 21st-century socialism, Chavismo, and Maduroism,” McFields continued.

The former ambassador was referring to the socialist political and economic policies of former presidents Hugo Chávez and his successor Maduro.

Great empires like the Roman one, McFields pointed out, “or great dictatorships, fall, and some are more complex, like the socialist dictatorship or the dictatorship in Syria, or the Roman Empire itself, which fell. So, if all those great regimes fell, how could a simpler and less sophisticated regime like Nicaragua’s not fall?”

International law must change to confront ‘criminal dictatorships’

“Under international law, it’s not legal to invade a country, nor is what Maduro was doing legal,” Nicaraguan researcher Martha Patricia Molina, author of the report “Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church,” told ACI Prensa. Her latest report documented that more than 16,500 religious processions were banned by the dictatorship and nearly 1,000 attacks were carried out against Catholics.

“The domestic law of several countries establishes that when someone needs help because they are in imminent danger, you can enter a house without authorization to save the person who needs help. In international law, it’s not like that,” the author continued, addressing those who criticize the Jan. 3 U.S. military intervention during which Maduro was captured in Caracas.

“I believe that international laws are not suited to the criminal dictatorships of Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua but rather to countries that respect the rule of law. Current international laws must change and adapt to reality to allow this type of intervention against perpetrators of crimes against humanity,” she emphasized.

In her opinion, an intervention in Nicaragua, like the one the United States carried out in Venezuela, would not happen because “we are not a country of interest to the international community.”

Tyrants feign courage but live in fear

“The one who is most afraid is the most powerful. Tyrants feign courage and present themselves as high and mighty and aggressive, but they live constantly threatened by fear and turn others, even those in their own inner circle, into rivals or enemies to be eliminated. And they don’t hesitate to do so when they see their power threatened,” said Silvio Báez, the exiled auxiliary bishop of Managua, Nicaragua, in his Sunday, Jan. 4, homily for the Mass for the Epiphany of the Lord.

Speaking about the capture of Maduro, but without mentioning him by name, the bishop emphasized that “this is the world of the powerful and of tyrants. [King] Herod and his court personify the dark world of power, where everything is justified and anything goes: calculation, cynicism, lies, cruelty, contempt for life. However, and you will agree with me, ancient history, let’s think of Herod, and recent history, let’s think about what happened yesterday, teaches us that all tyrants pass away, all of them, and end up condemned by God and by history.”

Regarding the Three Wise Men who came to adore the newborn baby Jesus, the Nicaraguan prelate said this act of adoration “transforms us and gives us strength, because only God is to be worshipped; it gives us the strength never to kneel down or be subservient to any idol or power of this world.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

‘Pray with the Pope’: Leo XIV proposes monthly prayer for the challenges of the world
Thu, 08 Jan 2026 17:40:21 -0500

Jan 8, 2026 / 17:40 pm (CNA).

The Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication has launched a new prayer campaign in which Pope Leo XIV invites Catholics to pray with him for the great challenges facing the world.

The “Pray with the Pope” initiative is part of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, which, during the pontificate of Pope Francis, launched the project known as “The Pope’s Video,” through which the faithful were invited each month to unite in prayer for a specific intention.

Continuing this mission, the new campaign not only invites people to pray but also offers a specific prayer from Leo XIV, who will present his monthly intention from a renewed perspective, encouraging an intimate and serene experience with Christ.

Transforming life from within

According to Jesuit Father Cristobal Fones, international director of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, who presented the initiative Jan. 7 in Rome alongside Paolo Ruffini, prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, the initiative proposes “a shared inner experience that aspires to transform life from within.”

The focus of this new phase, as the Jesuit priest explained, “will be more centered on supporting a spiritual experience, which often becomes difficult amidst our busy and noise-filled daily lives.”

“The pope is very aware of this and wants to help us, inviting us to pray together for others,” he added. The “update” of the initiative, according to Fones, stems “from the profound need we have to slow down in order to achieve greater depth in our decisions and relationships.”

With a simple and accessible format, “Pray with the Pope” aims to allow anyone, wherever they are, to join in the Holy Father’s prayer intention, which this year 2026 begins with the invitation to “learn to pray with the most definitive Word, which is not our own, so full of empty promises, but Jesus Christ.”

In this month’s video, Pope Leo XIV is seen silently reading a passage from the Bible in the presence of the Lord, and then he recites a short prayer:

“Lord Jesus, living word of the Father, in you we find the light that guides our steps.

“We know that the human heart lives restless, hungry for meaning, and only your Gospel can give it peace and fullness.

“Teach us to listen to you each day in the Scriptures, to let ourselves be challenged by your voice, and to discern our decisions from the closeness to your heart.

“May your word be nourishment in weariness, hope in darkness, and strength in our communities.

“Lord, may your word never be absent from our lips or from our hearts — the word that makes us sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, disciples and missionaries of your kingdom.

“Make us a Church that prays with the word, that builds upon it and shares it with joy, so that in every person the hope of a new world may be born again.

“May our faith grow in the encounter with you through your word, moving us from the heart to reach out to others, to serve the most vulnerable, to forgive, build bridges, and proclaim life. Amen.”

Countering the globalization of indifference

For Fones, this January’s intention will be the basis for the rest of the year’s intentions, which will include children with incurable diseases, the end of war, priests in crisis, respect for human life, and families experiencing the absence of a mother or father, among others.

The priest explained that the initiative also seeks to “highlight important and crucial issues for everyone, opening our hearts to urgent realities and transforming our environment to counteract the globalization of indifference.”

The campaign can be followed on the pope’s prayer website in several languages, and will also be available in audio format through Vatican Radio and partner platforms such as Pray as You Go, RezandoVoy, and Hallow. The Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network is currently present in more than 90 countries and reaches over 22 million people.

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 to cardinals: ‘We gather not to promote personal or group agendas’
Thu, 08 Jan 2026 17:04:08 -0500

Jan 8, 2026 / 17:04 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Thursday called on cardinals to experience the extraordinary consistory as a time of spiritual discernment in unity and warned against the temptation to put personal interests ahead of the common good.

“We gather not to promote personal or group ‘agendas’ but to entrust our plans and inspirations to a discernment that transcends us — ‘as the heavens are higher than the earth’ — and which comes only from the Lord,” he said in his homily for the Mass he celebrated Jan. 8 in St. Peter’s Basilica with the cardinals present in Rome for this important two-day ecclesial meeting convened to help him make decisions about the future of the Catholic Church.

Leo XIV urged the cardinals to experience the Eucharist as the place where this discernment is purified and transformed, asking them to place all their “hopes and ideas upon the altar.”

Truly listening to the voice of God

“Only in this way will we truly know how to listen to his voice and to welcome it through the gift that we are to one another — which is the very reason we have gathered,” he added.

The pope linked this vision to the spirituality of communion, recalling that Christian love is “Trinitarian” and “relational,” and quoted St. John Paul II, who defined it as “the heart’s contemplation of the mystery of the Trinity dwelling in us.”

This extraordinary consistory — different from the ordinary ones, which are more limited and frequent — was planned to take place immediately after the Jubilee of Hope to “offer support and advice to the Holy Father in the exercise of his high and arduous responsibility of governing the Church,” according to a statement from the Holy See.

St. John Paul II convened six extraordinary consistories during his 26-year pontificate, while Pope Benedict XVI chose to hold consultative meetings with the cardinals on the eve of the ordinary consistories. In total, he held three such meetings during his pontificate.

During the 12 years of his pontificate, Pope Francis held only one extraordinary consistory, on Feb. 20, 2014, which focused primarily on the family and marriage, ahead of the Synod on the Family held that same year.

Unlike his predecessor, who preferred to consult with a smaller council, Leo XIV convened the entire College of Cardinals to assist him in governing the universal Church.

Evangelization and synodality

The cardinals are expected to offer the new pontiff their views on two specific topics: the Synod and synodality, and the mission of evangelization and the missionary character of the Church in light of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium. Initially, the meeting topics also included discussions on the liturgy and the apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium, but lack of time has limited the issues that will be addressed.

The pontiff reflected on the very meaning of the consistory, recalling that the word “consistorium” in Latin refers to the idea of ​​“pausing.”

“Indeed, all of us have ‘paused’ in order to be here. We have set aside our activities for a time, and even canceled important commitments, so as to discern together what the Lord is asking of us for the good of his people,” he emphasized.

Not a group of experts, but a community of faith

In his homily, the Holy Father reminded those present that this gathering is not about a “mere group of experts” but “a community of faith. Only when the gifts that each person brings are offered to the Lord and returned by him, will they bear the greatest fruit according to his providence.”

The pontiff also recalled the words of St. Leo the Great to emphasize the communal dimension of ecclesial service: “In this way,” he said, “‘the hungry are fed, the naked clothed, the sick visited, and no one seeks his or her own interests, but those of others.’”

Referring to the challenges of today’s world, marked by profound inequalities and a widespread “hunger for goodness and peace,” the pope acknowledged the feeling of inadequacy in the face of the mission but encouraged them to face it together, trusting in providence.

“We will be able to help one another — and in particular, to help the pope — to find the “five loaves and two fish” that providence “never fails to provide,” he affirmed.

Leo XIV concluded his homily by offering the cardinals his “heartfelt thanks” for their service and reminding them that, even if they don’t always manage to find solutions to the problems they face.

‘We may not always find immediate solutions to the problems we face’

“We may not always be able to find immediate solutions to the problems we face. Yet in every place and circumstance, we will be able to help one another — and in particular, to help the pope,” he said, calling for collaboration.

“Beloved brothers,” the pope noted, “what you offer to the Church through your service, at every level, is something profound and very personal, unique to each of you and precious to all.”

According to what the director of the Holy See Press Office, Matteo Bruni, reported Jan. 7, of the 245 cardinals who currently make up the College of Cardinals, 170 are in Rome participating in the closed-door meetings that concluded Thursday.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

‘Making room for God’: MEHR conference draws over 11,000 in Germany
Thu, 08 Jan 2026 15:06:31 -0500

Jan 8, 2026 / 15:06 pm (CNA).

More than 11,000 Christians gathered in the Bavarian city of Augsburg this week for one of Europe’s largest ecumenical faith events — the MEHR conference — which its founder says aims to “make room for God” in an increasingly secular region.

The four-day MEHR conference (German for “more”), held Jan. 3–6 at the Augsburg Trade Fair grounds, drew participants from across the continent to hear from international speakers — including American author John Eldredge — and to engage in prayer and worship.

Led by Catholic theologian Johannes Hartl and the Augsburg Gebetshaus (“House of Prayer”), the 14th annual gathering brought together Catholics, Lutherans, and evangelicals under the theme “The Sound of Joy,” defying trends of declining church attendance in German-speaking Europe.

While most attendees came from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, organizers on opening night welcomed visitors from as far away as Costa Rica, Italy, and Norway.

Ecumenical celebration

The conference opened with prayer and praise. Designed as an interdenominational gathering, MEHR unites diverse Christian traditions and incorporates varied styles of worship.

Auxiliary Bishop Florian Wörner celebrated a Catholic Mass on Sunday, while Augsburg Bishop Bertram Meier presided at Mass for the solemnity of the Epiphany on Jan. 6. Most worship bands came from evangelical communities, while Lutheran Bishop Tobias Pilz led a Protestant service on Monday.

Prayer is the centerpiece of the conference, transcending denominational lines, Hartl explained in an interview with CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner, and EWTN News.

“When we pray, sing, and speak about him — when we direct the attention of 10,000 people toward him — something comes back: his presence, his joy, his peace,” he said.

Finding spiritual resonance

This year’s theme, “The Sound of Joy,” focused on helping participants tune in to that spiritual resonance.

“Participants often tell us that when they enter our main hall, their eyes are opened; they receive new hope, new perspectives, and life’s questions find answers,” Hartl said. “We aren’t doing that — we can’t. Only God can. But we can make room for God.”

Katharina Achammer, who traveled from Salzburg, experienced this joy firsthand. Having attended three times before, she said she remains impressed by how people from different Christian traditions can focus together on Jesus. “When young people pray together, that simply radiates joy for me,” Achammer said.

Hartl defended the scale of the event by emphasizing the unique dynamic of mass gatherings.

“Some things you can only see on a large scale,” he said, comparing the conference to the World Cup: While it doesn’t replace the weekly practice of local church life, “sometimes you need these special experiences.”

The Bible, Hartl noted, is full of large festivals — and the Church marks major events such as World Youth Day and holy years. “We celebrate a big festival because God is worth celebrating in a generous, beautiful way,” he said.

While shared experiences are vital, Hartl emphasized that MEHR is not only about emotional experiences. Each year, he includes a theological track to engage scholars on contemporary questions.

“Ideas have long-term consequences,” he said. “What a society holds to be true changes everything in the long run.” His goal, he explained, is to shape ideas, not just spread feelings.

Dealing with secular media

The House of Prayer’s influence has drawn negative attention in Germany’s secular media, as CNA Deutsch reported.

A recent documentary by public service Bavarian Broadcasting scrutinized Catholic renewal movements, portraying Hartl and his team as “ hip missionaries” who, it claimed, stand “with Jesus against freedom.”

Asked about the critical reporting, Hartl said: “Over the years, we’ve received plenty of positive coverage. Recently, there was a somewhat critical report — but if you come here, talk to the people, and soak up the atmosphere, you can decide for yourself whether this is a dogmatic, fear-obsessed, hostile culture — or a life-affirming, joyful one.”

Speakers and future generations

Chris from Cologne attended the conference specifically to hear author John Eldredge, who spoke on resilience and living in God’s presence. He also enjoyed the Sunday evening concert by the Christian band O’Bros.

“Those two sessions alone made the trip worthwhile,” he said.

A separate “MEHRkids” program offered games and age-appropriate catechesis for younger visitors. Eight-year-old Tobias, visiting from Italy with his parents, said his favorite part was the trampolines.

“We also talked about how we can encounter God,” Tobias said. While the workshops didn’t interest him as much, he still had fun — and hopes to return next time.

Creating space for 11,000 people to encounter God is no small task. But true to its theme, the “sound of joy” echoed through the packed halls of the Augsburg fairgrounds as thousands made room for God at the start of the new year.

This article was first published by CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner, and has been translated and adapted by CNA.

This is Pope Leo XIV’s prayer intention for the month of January
Thu, 08 Jan 2026 14:17:00 -0500

Jan 8, 2026 / 14:17 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV’s prayer intention for the month of January is for the faithful to pray with the word of God.

In a video released Jan. 7 on X, the Holy Father said that he is praying “that we may learn, practice, and love praying with the word of God.”

“The gift of Scripture is God’s love letter to humankind,” he said. “Let’s pray that we all draw from this gift and get to know Our Lord.”

‘Pray with the Pope’ initiative

The Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network and the Dicastery for Communication announced Jan. 7 the “Pray with the Pope” project. According to a press release, this is a new initiative in which the pope will share his monthly prayer intentions through both video and audio, “inviting the universal Church and all people of goodwill to unite spiritually, using the same prayer that will now be led by the pope himself.”

“This initiative aims to increase the visibility of the pope’s prayer intentions, using a language suitable for prayer, in new formats, so as to better reach the faithful throughout the world, especially in today’s world of digital communication,” the press release stated.

In the full video shared on the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network website, Pope Leo recites an original prayer written specifically for this month’s prayer intention.

Here is the pope’s full prayer:

Lord Jesus, living Word of the Father,

in you we find the light that guides our steps.

We know that the human heart lives restless, hungry for meaning,

and only your Gospel can give it peace and fullness.

Teach us to listen to you each day in the Scriptures,

to let ourselves be challenged by your voice,

and to discern our decisions

from the closeness to your heart.

May your word be nourishment in weariness,

hope in darkness,

and strength in our communities.

Lord, may your word never be absent from our lips or from our hearts —

the word that makes us sons and daughters, brothers and sisters,

disciples and missionaries of your kingdom.

Make us a Church that prays with the word,

that is built upon it and shares it with joy,

so that in every person the hope of a new world may be born again.

May our faith grow in the encounter with you through your word,

moving us from the heart

to reach out to others,

to serve the most vulnerable,

to forgive, build bridges, and proclaim life.

Amen.

“Pray with the Pope” is accessible on the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network website and its digital platforms.

Upcoming New York Encounter to focus on finding ‘true belonging’
Thu, 08 Jan 2026 13:47:22 -0500

Jan 8, 2026 / 13:47 pm (CNA).

Next month Catholics from across the globe will gather for the 18th annual New York Encounter dedicated to education, dialogue, and friendship.

The cultural conference is organized annually by members of Communion and Liberation, an ecclesiastical movement founded by the Italian priest Father Luigi Giussani. The event will take place Feb. 13–15 at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood. Several of the presentations will be livestreamed, but for those who wish to attend in person, the event is free and open to all.

The 2026 theme is “Where Everything Is Waiting for You” to address “the reemerging human desire for authentic belonging amid global isolation, emphasizing how freedom, truth, forgiveness, and dignity foster certainty and openness in true community,” Communion and Liberation reported.

The event is set to feature a number of exhibits, panels, and discussion from a wide range of speakers. Dialogue and reflection will focus on urgent questions shaping common life, the event’s website reported. The Encounter plans to bring together leading voices from culture, academia, faith, and the arts to explore how human flourishing is possible in today’s world.

Speakers and events

The Encounter will host events on “pressing social issues” to encourage “reflection that goes beyond superficial or popular judgments,” Communion and Liberation reported. Among the topics, speakers will discuss the crisis of globalization, trade wars, and immigration.

The 2026 conference will welcome dozens of well-known Catholic leaders. The event will kick off the evening of Feb. 13 with a talk by author Colum McCann followed by a reflection led by Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem.

Feb. 14 will feature a number of panels including a discussion, “A Home in the Storm,” by Bishop Pavlo Honcharuk of Kharkiv and Father Wojciech Stasiewicz, the director of Caritas-Spes in Kharkiv. The conversation will address the faith that sustains the Church in Ukraine and be moderated by Bishop Earl K. Fernandes of Columbus, Ohio.

Another panel will tackle artificial intelligence (AI). Louis Kim, former vice president of personal systems and AI at Hewlett Packard, and Paul Scherz, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, will discuss how Catholic social doctrine is addressing the challenges of the technology.

Attendees can also start to check out the exhibits including “You Can’t Die for a Dollar” about the Catholic founder of Bank of America, Peter Giannini, or “The Matter of Time” about the meaning of time in science, history, and life.

Feb. 15 will begin in prayer with a Mass honoring the 21st anniversary of Giussani’s death, which will be celebrated by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop emeritus of New York. Following Mass, discussions and exhibits will resume.

Bishop Evelio Menjivar-Ayala, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., will speak alongside legal expert Ashley Feasley and executive director at the Center for Migration Studies Mario Russell to offer a Catholic view on the status of immigration in the country.

In light of the 250th anniversary of America, the Encounter will hold a panel addressing the relevance and future prospects of America’s founding ideals with Mary Ann Glendon, professor of law at Harvard, and Meir Soloveichik, an Orthodox rabbi and author.

The weekend will feature a number of other speakers and exhibits to address cultural matters and to continue to tackle the 2026 theme of “Where Everything Is Waiting for You.”

Indian Church takes up mental health ministry as ‘major concern’
Thu, 08 Jan 2026 11:22:00 -0500

Jan 8, 2026 / 11:22 am (CNA).

The Catholic Church in India has launched a systematic campaign to address growing mental illness in groups including families and religious communities.

“We decided to take up mental health as a major concern and set up the structure in response to increased family conflicts, death by suicide among young adults, and even among religious,” said Archbishop Thomas Tharayil, the chairman of the Mental Health Ministry of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India.

“Mental health issues are on the increase both in personal lives and in families and service fields. The Church has to reach out to those in trouble at different levels from diocese to parishes,” Tharayil told CNA from Changanacherry in southern Kerala state.

After informal consultations and discussions, the ministry emerged at the national convention jointly organized by the India chapter of the International Association of Catholic Mental Health Ministers and the Indian bishops’ health care commission in April 2024 in Bangalore.

The two-day conference, which was attended by half a dozen bishops besides more than 250 religious, clergy, experts, and professionals, examined “the role of the Church as a healing community and the difference between mental health and spiritual well-being.”

The conference called for “spiritually accompanying individuals suffering from mental illness at the grassroots level — the diocese, parish, and community level.”

“The setting up of the Mental Health Ministry is the fruit of this conference,” Medical Mission Sister Joan Chunkapura told CNA.

“Depression and anxiety and other personality disorders are also on the increase due to stress and uncertainty and work pressure. Increasing numbers of suicides challenge us to set up more systems to serve those in mental crisis,” said the nun, who serves as the ministry secretary and who has done psychological counseling for four decades.

Dozens of priests and nuns have died by suicide in the past two decades due to depression, other mental health issues, or sexual exploitation, she said.

Conferences and seminars are being held in different parts of the country, Chunkapura said.

“We have been looking at setting up a national framework to address mental health effectively amid increasing challenges,” Carmelite Father Shinto Thomas told CNA. The priest, based in Bangalore, has been appointed president of the mental health ministry.

Thomas has worked with the U.S.-based Deacon Ed Shoener in setting up the ministry. The deacon had addressed the national conference in 2024.

Shoener, who was ordained a permanent deacon in 2004 at St. Peter’s Cathedral in the Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania, is the founding president of the International Association of Catholic Mental Health Ministers. He was drawn to that mission following the death by suicide of his daughter Kathleen in 2016.

“The Indian Bishops’ Conference is setting an example to inspire other countries,” Shoener told CNA.

“Though our Mental Health network is associated and working in 75 countries, India is one of the countries where [the bishops have] taken it up seriously and set up a program for it,” the deacon said.

“I have met representatives from the CBCI in my trips to India in 2024 and then again in 2025. They have embraced mental health ministry and have taken important steps to develop the ministry for the Indian context,” he added.

“Mental health remains a serious problem in families, among the youth ,and at work place and religious life with nuns and priests facing mental problems and depression,” Father Santhosh Dias, the secretary of the Indian bishops’ health care commission, told CNA.

“Unless the Church is fully involved in this mission, there will be apprehension about the work of such centers. So the health care commission is fully with the mental health ministry and we are preparing guidelines for the whole Church in India,” he said.

Dias said the final guidelines for the mental health ministry will be presented at the Indian bishops’ national assembly in February.

Liturgy sidestepped at Pope Leo XIV’s first consistory
Thu, 08 Jan 2026 10:52:03 -0500

Jan 8, 2026 / 10:52 am (CNA).

ROME — Some cardinals and faithful who have a devotion to the traditional Roman rite have expressed concern that the liturgy appears to be sidelined in the extraordinary consistory currently underway at the Vatican after the cardinals voted to give priority to other issues on the agenda.

In his opening address to the consistory yesterday, Pope Leo XIV reaffirmed to the cardinal participants that they will have the opportunity to “engage in a communal reflection” on four themes already preannounced to be on the meeting’s agenda.

Those topics, he said, were Pope Francis’ 2013 apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, “that is, the mission of the Church in today’s world”; Praedicate Evangelium, the late pope’s apostolic constitution reforming the Roman Curia; the Synod and synodality “as both an instrument and a style of cooperation”; and the liturgy, “the source and summit of the Christian life.”

But Leo added that “due to time constraints, and in order to encourage a genuinely in-depth analysis, only two of them will be discussed specifically.”

The cardinals were then asked to make clear which two of the four they would want to be specifically debated and, according to Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni, “a large majority” decided the topics would be “evangelization and the Church’s missionary activity drawn from rereading Evangelii Gaudium,” and “the Synod and synodality.”

Bruni told reporters at a press briefing Wednesday evening that the 170 cardinals taking part were divided into 20 groups, which were then divided into two blocks. Eleven groups consisted of cardinals in Rome including curial cardinals and those who have concluded their service and are no longer electors. The remaining nine groups were cardinal electors of local Churches (archbishops and bishops of dioceses), cardinal electors who are nuncios and cardinal electors who have concluded their service but remain electors due to being under the age of 80.

Bruni said that “for reasons of time,” the cardinal secretaries of the second block had the job of reporting back the decision of the cardinals. “They had three minutes to explain the work done within the groups and the reasons that led to the choice of the two themes.”

The Holy Father had made clear in his opening address that it was his preference to hear back from the second block as he does not usually receive advice from those cardinals. “It is naturally easier for me to seek counsel from those who work in the Curia and live in Rome,” he said.

But the decision not to make the liturgy a key theme was disappointing to some cardinals and traditional faithful.

The liturgy has long been a particularly sensitive issue, and especially to traditional-minded Catholics following recent sweeping restrictions on the older form of the Latin rite during Pope Francis’ pontificate. These faithful experienced the restrictions not as a mere disciplinary change but as a judgment on their fidelity, spirituality, and ecclesial belonging, which many have described as deeply wounding and divisive.

The popular Italian traditional website “Messa in Latino“  wrote Jan. 7 that it had contacted some anonymous but important cardinals who all said they were “discouraged and disappointed” about the relegation of the liturgy as a discussion topic.

In comments to the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, on Jan. 8, the website’s editor Luigi Casalini asked: “To whom did the pope delegate this choice, and according to what criteria were these cardinals of the nine local Churches selected in order to remove — in effect — two topics?” He also wondered “why cardinals sensitive to the issue” appear to have “made no attempt to lobby” for the liturgy to be included as a core topic of discussion, “even before the consistory.”

The consistory, he added, “appears to be in perfect continuity with the synods and the thought of Francis” — a reference to how recent synods were silent on the traditional liturgy.

Speaking to journalists Wednesday, Bruni tried to offer some reassurance. “The other two themes will still be addressed in some way, because mission does not exclude the liturgy,” he said. “On the contrary, in many ways it does not mean exclusion. It means that they will still be addressed within the others or in some other way.”

He added: “As the pope said and as he noted in both his opening and closing speeches [on Wednesday], the themes cannot be separated from each other, because in mission and evangelization there is liturgy.”

Casalini said he was looking ahead to the two free discussions today to see “whether the topic of the liturgy will be taken up again.”

This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA's sister news partner, and has been adapted by CNA.

Late vocations program in Austria allows priest to keep his current job
Thu, 08 Jan 2026 07:00:00 -0500

Jan 8, 2026 / 07:00 am (CNA).

The Catholic Church in Austria has launched a new formation program to promote late vocations, aimed at men between 45 and 60 years old who are currently employed and can complete the process without having to leave their jobs.

The initiative, promoted by the Conference of Rectors of Austrian Seminaries, breaks with the traditional model of formation and preparation for priestly ordination and opts for a more flexible model as a response to the shortage of vocations.

Under the name “ Zweiten Weg für Spätberufene” (“Second Path for Late Vocations”), the program is specifically aimed at men with professional experience and offers the possibility of pursuing theological studies remotely, without requiring community life in the seminary or exclusively in-person formation, adapting to the professional demands of each candidate.

This new program also allows them to continue practicing their profession after being ordained priests — with the exception of political positions — albeit in a limited capacity, with the express authorization of their diocese and provided that their profession is compatible with the priestly ethos.

With this new proposal, the Church in Austria is committed to integrating the path to the priesthood with the daily lives of the candidates, who must be single or widowed and commit to a life of celibacy.

The fundamental pillar of the initiative is the document Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis, from the Dicastery for the Clergy, on the gift of the priestly vocation and the importance of formation.

According to the latest data provided by the Austrian Bishops’ Conference for the year 2024, there are currently 3,269 priests in the country, a number that has experienced a slight but steady decline in recent years.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Czech town may build world’s largest 3D-printed church in historic reversal
Thu, 08 Jan 2026 06:00:00 -0500

Jan 8, 2026 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Communists in former Czechoslovakia wanted to turn Neratovice into the first church-free city. Now, in democratic Czech Republic, which banned the promotion of communism starting this January 2026, the city may become home to the world’s largest 3D-printed church.

The tower will be constructed using 3D printing technology, but whether the entire church will be printed is to be decided soon based on calculations and estimation of the building’s vault.

“The decision to 3D-print the entire above-the-ground part of the building should be made in the near future, that is at the beginning of 2026,” Marek Matocha, member of the board of directors of the Neratovice Community Center Foundation, confirmed to CNA. The foundation, which facilitates the construction, was created by the Archdiocese of Prague since Neratovice is in its territory.

Architectural innovation

In December, the Czech version of Forbes hailed the future “exceptional church, which has an ambition to change the foundations of construction.” It can “put Czechia back on the architectural map of the world after a long time,” the business magazine wrote.

The founding stone of the Church of the Holy Trinity and of Cardinal Josef Beran Community Centre was blessed by Archbishop of Prague Jan Graubner in 2024. The future church is modeled on Noah’s Ark by award-winning architect Zdeněk Fránek, who has constructed religious buildings previously.

Both buildings will be energy efficient, covered by green roofs irrigated by means of rainwater retention tanks. A park with a pond and a children’s playground nearby are planned, too.

Financial considerations

Local parish administrator Father Peter Kováč said that 3D printing could bring savings and a unique solution — possibly the largest 3D-printed church in the world.

“It is important that the project is sustainable and meaningful financially,” he told a local Catholic weekly. Various donors have already contributed several millions and the whole project is estimated to cost 204 million Czech crowns (more than $8 million).

For the time being, the parishioners go to Mass in a chapel.

The church design consists of an ark-like structure made up of 520 3D-printed blocks, assembled like a puzzle. These blocks are generatively designed and are characterized by a wavelike structure that has an acoustic function.

Historical significance

Among the patrons of the project is Member of the European Parliament Tomáš Zdechovský. The Czech Christian Democrat sees the construction as “absolutely great news” because the church “will be a unique building that will be visited by people from all over the country.”

The town of Neratovice, an industrial community with a population of about 16,000, was founded by the communist regime in 1957 and has never had a church. The creation of the 3D-printed structure is thus significant for local Roman Catholics, who have been trying to have a church built for decades.

Cardinal Josef Beran (1888–1969) was an archbishop of Prague who suffered in the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau before World War II. When the communists took over Czechoslovakia, he refused to pledge loyalty to the atheist regime. He was interned for 14 years in several locations, including complete isolation from the outside world.

When he was created a cardinal by Pope Paul VI in 1965, he was allowed to travel to Rome but was unable to return. The prelate spent the rest of his life in exile, visiting compatriots in Europe and the U.S. His beatification process is currently underway.

After ICE shooting of U.S. citizen, Minneapolis archbishop pleads for prayers, calm
Wed, 07 Jan 2026 19:32:00 -0500

Jan 7, 2026 / 19:32 pm (CNA).

Saint Paul and Minneapolis Archbishop Bernard Hebda on Jan. 7 pleaded for prayers and calm after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer shot and killed a U.S. citizen in Minneapolis.

Officials said the ICE officer shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good after what was reported as an altercation in the street in south Minneapolis. The officer reportedly fired into Good’s vehicle after she apparently attempted to drive away while surrounded by agents.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem alleged on Jan. 7 that Good was “harassing and impeding” agents prior to the shooting. Law enforcement including the FBI and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension are investigating the incident.

‘We need to lower the temperature of rhetoric’

Hebda in his statement pleaded for “all people of goodwill to join me in prayer for the person who was killed, for their loved ones, and for our community.”

“We continue to be at a time in this country when we need to lower the temperature of rhetoric, stop fear-filled speculation, and start seeing all people as created in the image and likeness of God,” the prelate said.

“That is as true for our immigrant sisters and brothers as it is for our elected officials and those who are responsible for enforcing our laws,” he continued. “I echo today the repeated call of the U.S. Catholic bishops that we come together as a nation and pass meaningful immigration reform that does justice to all parties.” 

“The longer we refuse to grapple with this issue in the political arena, the more divisive and violent it becomes,” Hebda added.

The archbishop was referencing a November 2025 statement from the U.S. bishops urging immigration reform and opposing the indiscriminate mass deportation of immigrants who lack legal status.

“We pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement,” the bishops said at the time. “We pray that the Lord may guide the leaders of our nation, and we are grateful for past and present opportunities to dialogue with public and elected officials.”

Officials in Minnesota responded with criticism to the shooting on Jan. 7. State Gov. Tim Walz in a post on X decried what he called the “propaganda machine” surrounding the incident, while Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said officials were “demanding ICE to leave the city immediately.”

Hebda, meanwhile, said in his statement: “It is only by working together — with God’s help — that we will have peace in our communities, state, and world.”

As consistory opens, Pope Leo XIV tells cardinals ‘I am here to listen’
Wed, 07 Jan 2026 19:12:19 -0500

Jan 7, 2026 / 19:12 pm (CNA).

In his opening address at the extraordinary consistory convened for Jan. 7–8, Pope Leo XIV assured the cardinals from around the world gathered at the Vatican that “I am here to listen.”

The Holy Father reminded the cardinals, assembled in the Synod Hall, that “as we learned during the two assemblies of the Synod of Bishops in 2023 and 2024,” within the framework of the so-called Synod on Synodality, “the synodal dynamic implies a listening par excellence.”

“Every moment of this kind is an opportunity to deepen our shared appreciation for synodality,” Pope Leo said, recalling that in the speech Pope Francis delivered on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the institution of the Synod of Bishops in 2015, the late pontiff said that it is “precisely this path of synodality which God expects of the Church of the third millennium.”

“We must not arrive at a text,” the pope clarified regarding the task of the consistory, “but continue a conversation that will help me in serving the mission of the entire Church.”

The 4 themes of the consistory

In his address, the Holy Father outlined the four themes that will be discussed during the extraordinary consistory. Two of them are named after papal documents of his predecessor, Francis: the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium and the apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium.

Evangelii Gaudium, he noted, has to do with “the mission of the Church in today’s world,” while Praedicate Evangelium refers to “the service of the Holy See, especially to the particular Churches.”

The third and fourth topics will be “synod and synodality,” as “both an instrument and a style of collaboration,” and “the liturgy, the source and summit of Christian life.”

However, he clarified, “due to time constraints and in order to encourage a genuinely in-depth analysis, only two of them will be discussed specifically.”

“While each of the 21 groups will contribute to the choice that we will make, the groups that will be reporting will be those nine coming from the local Churches, since it is naturally easier for me to seek counsel from those who work in the Curia and live in Rome,” he added.

On Jan. 8, he said, the two chosen themes will be addressed with the following question as a guide: “Looking at the path of the next one or two years, what considerations and priorities could guide the action of the Holy Father and of the Curia regarding each theme?”

As the consistory proceeds, the pope called on the cardinals to be “attentive to the heart, mind, and spirit of each; listening to one another; expressing only the main point and in a succinct manner, so that all can speak.”

“The ancient Romans in their wisdom used to say: ‘Non multa sed multum!’ [Not many things, but much],” Leo pointed out, a phrase understood as prioritizing quality over quantity.

“And in the future, this way of listening to one another, seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit and walking together, will continue to be of great help for the Petrine ministry entrusted to me,” he affirmed.

“Even the way in which we learn to work together, with fraternity and sincere friendship, can give rise to something new, something that brings both the present and the future into focus,” Leo declared.

A conciliar perspective

From the beginning of his address, the pope made clear the perspective of the Second Vatican Council for this consistory, quoting the first paragraph of the dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium, which emphasizes that “Christ is the light of the nations” and that it is the Church’s duty to ensure that “all men, joined more closely today by various social, technical, and cultural ties, might also attain fuller unity in Christ.”

“We can understand the overall pontificates of St. Paul VI and St. John Paul II within this conciliar perspective, which sees the mystery of the Church as entirely held within the mystery of Christ and thus understands the evangelizing mission as a radiation of the inexhaustible energy released by the central event of salvation history,” Leo XIV said.

He then noted that both Benedict XVI and Francis “summarized this vision in one word: attraction.”

“Pope Benedict did this in the inaugural homily of the Aparecida Conference in 2007 when he said: ‘The Church does not engage in proselytism. Instead, she grows by ‘attraction’: Just as Christ ‘draws all to himself’ by the power of his love, culminating in the sacrifice of the cross, so the Church fulfills her mission to the extent that, in union with Christ, she accomplishes every one of her works in spiritual and practical imitation of the love of her Lord,’” Leo recalled.

“Pope Francis was in perfect agreement with this and repeated it several times in different contexts,” he added.

‘Unity attracts, division scatters’

Pope Leo XIV also emphasized in his speech that “unity attracts, division scatters. It seems to me that physics also confirms this, both on the microscopic and macroscopic levels.”

“Therefore, in order to be a truly missionary Church, one that is capable of witnessing to the attractive power of Christ’s love, we must first of all put into practice his commandment, the only one he gave us after washing his disciples’ feet: ‘Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.’”

“And he adds: ‘By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another,’” the pope emphasized.

The Holy Father went on to indicate that in the consistory, “we are a very diverse group, enriched by a wide range of backgrounds, cultures, ecclesial and social traditions, formative and academic paths, pastoral experiences, not to mention personal characteristics and traits.”

“We are called first to get to know one another and to dialogue, so that we may work together in serving the Church. I hope that we can grow in communion and thus offer a model of collegiality,” he said.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Federal appeals court affirms religious organizations can choose to hire only fellow believers
Wed, 07 Jan 2026 15:04:00 -0500

Jan 7, 2026 / 15:04 pm (CNA).

A federal appeals court this week upheld a years-old principle of U.S. law that allows religious organizations to hire only like-minded believers as staff members.

Union Gospel Mission of Yakima, Washington, will be permitted to hire only those employees who share the group’s religious beliefs about marriage and sexuality, according to a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

The court’s Jan. 6 ruling said the state of Washington would be forbidden from enforcing the Washington Law Against Discrimination against the Christian group.

The mission group originally brought suit against the state in 2023, arguing that the nondiscrimination law hindered its ability to hire solely workers who agree with the group’s Christian worldview.

The “ministerial exception” generally allows religious groups to be exempt from U.S. discrimination laws when hiring for ministry roles. But in its lawsuit Union Gospel Mission sought broader relief from the state discrimination law, arguing that it wanted to ensure even “non-ministerial” employees were adhering to the Christian faith.

In its ruling, the 9th Circuit said that the principle of church autonomy, as recognized by U.S. courts, “forbids interference” with “an internal church decision that affects the faith and mission of the church itself.”

“[I]n cases involving the hiring of non-ministerial employees, a religious institution may enjoy [church autonomy] when a challenged hiring decision is rooted in a sincerely held religious belief,” the court said.

Union Gospel’s hiring policy qualifies as an “internal management decision” protected by U.S. law, the court held. Allowing the state to enforce the discrimination policy “could interfere with a religious mission and drive it from the public sphere.”

The decision was hailed by the legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, which has represented the Christian group for nearly three years. Attorney Jeremiah Galus said the court “correctly ruled that the First Amendment protects the mission’s freedom to hire fellow believers who share that calling.”

“Religious organizations shouldn’t be punished for exercising their constitutionally protected freedom to hire employees who are aligned with and live out their shared religious beliefs,” Galus said.

In a phone interview with CNA on Jan. 7, Galus said the decision represents a “pretty significant victory.”

The ministerial exception is a “somewhat unremarkable principle,” he pointed out. Yet the Washington Supreme Court had earlier ruled for a narrower interpretation of that exception, creating uncertainty around the scope of the principle there.

The 9th Circuit ruling is the “first appeals decision of its kind that holds the First Amendment allows religious orgs to operate in this way,” Galus said.

The appeals court ruling upheld a lower court’s block of the state law.

It is unclear if Washington state will appeal the decision. The Supreme Court has previously ruled broadly in favor of ministerial exceptions, including in the 2012 decision of Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC, in which the high court unanimously ruled that the First Amendment “prevents the government from appointing ministers” and “prevents it from interfering with the freedom of religious groups to select their own.”

The court expanded that principle in the 2020 decision Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru when it held that religious schools are permitted to hire and fire teachers as they please under the ministerial exception.

Galus, meanwhile, pointed out that the appeals ruling extends beyond Washington state to encompass the entirety of the 9th Circuit.

The decision “affirms what we have been saying all along, which is that the First Amendment protects this right regardless of a statutory exemption,” he said.

Arizona bill would hit priests with felony if they fail to break confessional seal to report abuse
Wed, 07 Jan 2026 14:34:09 -0500

Jan 7, 2026 / 14:34 pm (CNA).

A proposed law in Arizona could see priests facing felony charges if they fail to break the seal of confession after learning of child abuse during the sacrament.

The measure, HB 2039, was introduced in December 2025 by state Rep. Anastasia Travers. It is awaiting action in the state House after Travers prefiled it on Dec. 4.

The bill would amend the state code to require priests to report abuse learned during confession if they have “reasonable suspicion to believe that the abuse is ongoing, will continue, or may be a threat to other minors.”

Failure to report a “reportable offense” could lead to class 6 felony charges under the bill. Those charges in Arizona can lead to up to $150,000 in fines and up to two years of imprisonment.

Travers did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the bill and why she proposed it. She previously filed a similar bill in 2023.

Lawmakers in multiple U.S. states in recent years have moved to require priests to violate the seal of confession as part of mandatory reporting laws.

One such law in Washington state suffered a dramatic defeat in July 2025 after a federal court blocked the measure on First Amendment grounds. The rule had drawn rebuke from the U.S. bishops, the White House, Orthodox church leaders, and other advocates. The state backed off the law in October 2025.

Similar measures in Delaware, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Montana have been proposed over the past few years, though none have come to pass. One such law was also proposed in Hungary in October 2025. In 2019, California lawmakers proposed and then backed off of a similar bill.

Priests are bound to never divulge what they hear in confession on pain of excommunication. Multiple priests in Church history have been martyred after they were executed for refusing to break that seal.

Church canon law dictates that it is “absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason.”

Scottish bishops denounce ‘buffer zone’ law
Wed, 07 Jan 2026 13:40:02 -0500

Jan 7, 2026 / 13:40 pm (CNA).

Scottish bishops have denounced a law establishing so-called “buffer zones” around abortion facilities, saying it “restricts free speech, free expression, and freedom of religion in ways that should concern us all.”

The Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act 2024 establishes “buffer zones” up to 200 meters (656 feet) around 30 locations across Scotland. The Bishops’ Conference of Scotland said: “Within those zones, any conduct deemed to ‘influence’ a decision about abortion may be criminalized.”

“We oppose this law because it is disproportionate and undemocratic,” the bishops said in a Jan. 6 statement. “The Catholic Church does not condone harassment or intimidation, but that was not the intention of this law.”

The Scottish government lists several activities that might violate the law, including “silent vigils,” “handing out leaflets,” “religious preaching,” and “approaching someone to try and persuade them not to access abortion services.”

It is “unsettling” that this Christmas season “saw the first person in Scotland charged under the … law in Scotland,” the bishops said. A law “the Church believes curtails Scotland’s commitment to freedom of expression and conscience, and restricts critical voices from democratic debate in the public square.”

In December 2025, 74-year-old Rose Docherty was charged under the law, following her original arrest in February 2025 in Glasgow. She was arrested when she was silently standing outside Queen Elizabeth University Hospital holding a sign that said: “Coercion is a crime; here to talk, only if you want.”

Risks of the law

The bishops highlighted the “troubling” implications and concerns of the legislation.

The law potentially “criminalizes a person standing alone in a buffer zone without any visible expression of protest but who is deemed by others to be offering a silent pro-life inspired prayer,” the bishops said.

It “extends to private homes within designated zones,” they said. “A pro-life poster displayed in a window, a conversation overheard, a prayer said by a window; all could, in principle, fall within the scope of criminal sanction.”

When asked if praying by a window in your own home could constitute an offense, Gillian Mackay, the Scottish Green Party member of Parliament who spearheaded the legislation, replied: “That depends on who’s passing the window.”

Scotland’s police have also “expressed unease,” the bishops said. Superintendent Gerry Corrigan told Parliament that policing thought is an area they “would stay clear of.” He added: “I do not think we could go down the road of asking people what they are thinking or what their thoughts are.”

The bishops said the law could also affect women experiencing crisis pregnancies who may be denied the opportunity to freely speak to people and organizations that can help them. They said: “A law supposedly designed to protect choice risks doing the opposite — eliminating one side of a conversation and one set of choices altogether.”

Some parliamentarians attempted to mitigate the effects of the law by proposing a “reasonableness defense” or “exemptions for chaplains who might be criminalized for pastoral conversations,” but “all amendments were rejected or withdrawn,” the bishops said.

“We support all those who, motivated by conscience and compassion, stand up for the right to life. It cannot be a crime to give our voice and our prayers to the unborn,” they said.

“As we look to the child in the manger this Christmas and Epiphany, we are reminded that babies do not have a voice of their own. It is a shame that the state has now also curtailed the voices of ordinary citizens who advocate for them within its borders,” they said.

Ahead of consistory, priest urges new canonical structure to resolve Latin Mass standoff
Wed, 07 Jan 2026 10:37:00 -0500

Jan 7, 2026 / 10:37 am (CNA).

As cardinals gather this week in an extraordinary consistory convened by Pope Leo XIV on Jan. 7–8, a French traditionalist priest has sent a memorandum to members of the Sacred College of Cardinals proposing the creation of an ecclesiastical jurisdiction specifically structured to oversee the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass in an effort to resolve the liturgical crisis that has marked the Church in recent years.

The letter, dated Dec. 24, 2025, and made public by U.S. journalist Diane Montagna, was written by Father Louis-Marie de Blignières, founder of the Fraternity of St. Vincent Ferrier in 1979 and a senior figure of the post-1988 Ecclesia Dei movement who took part in dialogue with St. John Paul II following Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s illicit episcopal consecrations.

“Before the consistory, where liturgy will be on the agenda, I take the filial liberty of addressing this short memorandum to you,” de Blignières, 76, wrote at the outset, explaining that his purpose is to suggest “an ecclesial solution that could provide a stable framework for these faithful who are in full communion with the Catholic hierarchy and attached to the ancient Latin rite.”

In practical terms, de Blignières proposes the creation of a new Church structure — such as a personal apostolic administration or an ordinariate — similar to a diocese but not tied to a specific territory. Instead of being organized by geography, it would bring together priests and faithful attached to the traditional Latin liturgy under a single authority wherever they are located.

De Blignières pointed to existing canonical models, particularly military ordinariates, which exercise what canon law calls “cumulative jurisdiction.” Under this arrangement, priests and faithful attached to the traditional rite would belong to the new jurisdiction while remaining members of their local dioceses. Diocesan bishops would therefore not be bypassed but would share pastoral responsibility with bishops appointed to oversee the proposed structure.

According to the letter, this would allow bishops familiar with the 1962 liturgical books to oversee ordinations, confirmations, and other rites specific to the traditional liturgy while relieving diocesan ordinaries who may feel unprepared or reluctant to manage these matters. For the faithful, it would offer clarity and continuity in a context that has often been marked by uncertainty and conflict.

“For more than 60 years, this group has continued to exist and to grow, but it lacks the support of a juridical framework adapted to its legitimate needs,” de Blignières wrote. “The creation of dedicated ecclesiastical jurisdictions would move matters forward toward stability, peace, and unity.”

The proposal comes amid renewed tensions following Pope Francis’ 2021 motu proprio Traditionis Custodes, which significantly restricted the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass and reversed the more permissive regime established under Benedict XVI’s 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum.

Implementation of Traditionis Custodes has varied widely across dioceses. In some places, bishops have sought pragmatic arrangements to preserve coexistence. In others, traditional communities and liturgical celebrations have been heavily reduced or suppressed. Critics of the current situation argue that this uneven application has contributed to pastoral instability and deepened divisions within the Church, particularly in France and the U.S.

De Blignières framed his proposal not as a challenge to papal authority but as an attempt to offer a constructive way forward. In his view, the absence of a stable juridical solution since the end of the postconciliar liturgical reform has left communities attached to the older rite in a recurring state of vulnerability.

Following the illicit episcopal consecrations carried out by Lefebvre in 1988, the Holy See created the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei to facilitate the reconciliation of communities attached to the liturgy in use prior to the postconciliar reform.

Over the decades that followed, various proposals were already advanced to provide a more stable canonical framework for these communities. One such solution was adopted in 2002 with the establishment of the Personal Apostolic Administration Saint John Mary Vianney in Campos, Brazil, which was granted the faculty to celebrate the sacraments according to the 1962 Roman rite. Other initiatives, including petitions from lay associations such as Una Voce in the United States, did not result in comparable structures elsewhere.

Father Matthieu Raffray, superior of the European District of the Institute of the Good Shepherd and a popular public figure among the youth, commented on the proposal in an interview with Montagna, describing it as a constructive contribution rather than a demand. In his view, the proposal seeks to move beyond what he calls a “sterile” opposition by offering an institutional solution capable of preserving ecclesial communion while recognizing the distinct pastoral reality of communities attached to the vetus ordo.

Other Church figures, however, have already expressed reservations.

Father Pierre Amar, a priest of the Diocese of Versailles near Paris who is also well known on social media, claimed that while a dedicated jurisdiction is “one solution,” it is “not the best one” in his view, warning that it could “isolate traditionalists within a structure, where contact and interaction are a source of enrichment for everyone.”

The letter was sent to a number of cardinals known for their interest in liturgical questions — 15 by post and approximately 100 by email — but not directly to Pope Leo XIV. Its author presented it explicitly as a contribution to reflection ahead of the consistory rather than as a formal request.

Michael Reagan, Catholic son of U.S. President Ronald Reagan, dies at 80
Wed, 07 Jan 2026 10:07:00 -0500

Jan 7, 2026 / 10:07 am (CNA).

Michael Reagan, the adopted son of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and a longtime conservative activist who spoke publicly about his Catholic faith, died on Jan. 4 at 80 years old.

Reagan’s family announced his death on Jan. 6 via Young America’s Foundation, which operates out of the “Reagan Ranch” near Santa Barbara, California. The announcement said Reagan died in Los Angeles “surrounded by his entire family.”

“Michael was and will always remain a beloved husband, father, and grandpa,” the statement said, with the family expressing grief over “the loss of a man who meant so much to all who knew and loved him.”

He is survived by his wife, Colleen, his son Cameron and his daughter Ashley.

Born March 18, 1945, Reagan was adopted by Ronald Reagan and his then-wife Jane Wyman shortly thereafter. He was known throughout the 2000s as the host of “The Michael Reagan Show,” a nationwide radio program.

Reagan was a Catholic through Wyman, a legendary movie star who herself was a third order Dominican. In a 2024 interview with EWTN News’ ChurchPOP, he pointed out that “a lot of people don’t know” of Wyman’s Catholic background.

Joking when comparing his father’s Protestant beliefs with his mother’s Catholic faith, Reagan said: “When you get [to heaven], if you see my dad, look three floors above him [to see my mother].”

Reagan told ChurchPOP Editor Jacqueline Burkepile that a large part of his family is Catholic.

“My whole family is [Catholic],” he said. “My wife, Colleen, converted to Catholicism a few years ago. My son Cameron, his wife, Susanna, my daughter Ashley [are all Catholic].” His grandchildren have been baptized in the Church as well, he said.

“So we got everybody on the planet,” he joked.

In a Jan. 6 reflection, Reagan Ranch Director Andrew Coffin said Reagan “worked alongside Young America’s Foundation to share his father’s legacy and ideas with new generations.”

In a separate statement, Young America’s Foundation President Scott Walker said that Reagan “was such a wonderful inspiration to so many of us.”

Walker said that though Reagan had been optimistic about overcoming his recent health challenges, “unfortunately for all of us, the Good Lord decided to call him home sooner.”

“That said, he and I also discussed his faith and devotion to Jesus,” Walker said. “That should give us all comfort during this difficult time as he is with the Lord.”

Pope Leo XIV emphasizes relevance of Second Vatican Council before meeting with cardinals
Wed, 07 Jan 2026 09:37:00 -0500

Jan 7, 2026 / 09:37 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV began a series of reflections on the Second Vatican Council at his first general audience of 2026 on Wednesday.

The public audience, held indoors in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall due to low temperatures, took place shortly before the start of Leo’s first consultation with cardinals, called a consistory, convened for Jan. 7–8.

The pope noted that though the Second Vatican Council took place just over 60 years ago, its generation of bishops, theologians, and lay Catholics is no longer alive — necessitating a renewed study of its teachings.

“While we hear the call not to let [the council’s] prophecy fade, and to continue to seek ways and means to implement its insights, it will be important to get to know it again closely, and to do so not through ‘hearsay’ or interpretations that have been given, but by rereading its documents and reflecting on their content,” the pope said on the morning of Jan. 7.

He affirmed that the magisterium of Vatican II “still constitutes the guiding star of the Church’s journey today.”

“As the years have passed, the conciliar documents have lost none of their timeliness; indeed, their teachings are proving particularly relevant to the new situation of the Church and the current globalized society,” he said, quoting Pope Benedict XVI.

The Holy Father also recalled the original impulse of this great ecclesial event, convened by St. John XXIII, which paved “the way for a new ecclesial season” following a “rich biblical, theological, and liturgical reflection spanning the 20th century.”

Leo reviewed some of the council’s principal fruits, including that it “rediscovered the face of God as the Father who, in Christ, calls us to be his children.”

It also led, he said, to a renewed understanding of the Church “as a mystery of communion and sacrament of unity between God and his people,” and it initiated an important “liturgical reform” by placing the mystery of salvation and the active and conscious participation of the entire people of God at its center.

“It helped us to open up to the world and to embrace the changes and challenges of the modern age in dialogue and co-responsibility, as a Church that wishes to open her arms to humanity,” he explained.

Quoting St. Paul VI, he stated that the Church embarked on a new path in order “to seek the truth by way of ecumenism, interreligious dialogue, and dialogue with people of goodwill.”

That same spirit, he added, “must characterize our spiritual life and the pastoral action of the Church, because we have yet to achieve ecclesial reform more fully in a ministerial sense and, in the face of today’s challenges, we are called to continue to be vigilant interpreters of the signs of the times, joyful proclaimers of the Gospel, courageous witnesses of justice and peace.”

“As we approach the documents of Vatican Council II and rediscover their prophetic and contemporary relevance, we welcome the rich tradition of the life of the Church and, at the same time, we question ourselves about the present and renew our joy in running towards the world to bring it the Gospel of the kingdom of God, a kingdom of love, justice, and peace,” he said.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Pope Leo names New York auxiliary bishop to lead Diocese of Rochester
Wed, 07 Jan 2026 09:07:41 -0500

Jan 7, 2026 / 09:07 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday named New York Auxiliary Bishop John S. Bonnici to lead the Diocese of Rochester, New York.

Bonnici, 60, was made an auxiliary bishop for New York in March 2022 after 30 years as a priest of the archdiocese. In Rochester, he succeeds Bishop Salvatore R. Matano, who is 79.

Bonnici holds a doctorate from the Pontifical John Paul II Institute in Washington (1995) and a licentiate degree from the Pontifical John Paul II Institute (1992) in Rome, where he also studied at the Pontifical North American College and the Gregorian University (1987–1990) before his ordination.

He was born in New York on Feb. 17, 1965, and earned bachelor of science degrees in biology and philosophy from St. John’s University in Queens, New York, in 1987.

The Diocese of Rochester serves approximately 306,000 Catholics in the upstate region of the state of New York.

Cardinal Dolan reflects on recovering the essentials of the Catholic faith
Wed, 07 Jan 2026 07:00:00 -0500

Jan 7, 2026 / 07:00 am (CNA).

As the new year gets underway, Cardinal Timothy Dolan has issued a simple yet profound invitation to the faithful: to “recover” things that are worthwhile in order to nourish one’s daily life of faith.

In a Jan. 5 X post, the now archbishop emeritus of New York kicked off a series of reflections about what he called “things worth recovering. In other words, devotions, practices, the essentials, some of the essentials of Catholic life, that maybe we’ve lost track of over the last decades.”

“Let’s start with what I think is one of the basics: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. The sign of the cross. Almost a hallmark of being a Catholic. The identifying feature,” the cardinal continued.

“When we make the sign of the cross reverently, never in some superstitious breezy way, when we make that sign of the cross with faith, you’re expressing faith in the Most Blessed Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit,” the cardinal emphasized.

Dolan added that the sign of the cross expresses one’s faith “in the power of the most holy cross of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, as we trace his cross on our body.”

“To say that before meals, to say that when we get up in the morning, to do that before we go to bed, to make the sign of the cross before and after our prayers during the day. Hallelujah! Worth recovering,” he concluded.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

SEEK 2026: 7 ways to discern your vocation
Wed, 07 Jan 2026 06:00:00 -0500

Jan 7, 2026 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Hundreds of young women filled a ballroom on Jan. 4 at the 2026 SEEK Conference in Denver to hear Sister Virginia Joy Cotter, SV, discuss how to follow God’s call and determine one’s vocation.

“When we think about vocation, it’s ultimately a call to love and be loved,” Sister Virginia Joy said during her talk, titled “The Adventure of the Yes: Following God’s Call.”

“Growing up, or even now, you’re probably asked, ‘What are you going to do when you grow up? What’s your major? What do you want to do with your life?’” she said. “I would guess no one has probably asked you, ‘What are you going to do with your love? How do you plan to make a gift of yourself?’ But these are the questions that sit behind a vocation.”

“For some, the word vocation might be completely foreign to you. For others, maybe it provokes a stream of emotions from wonder to anticipation to anxiety. Whatever it means to you, it’s good to take stock of where it sits with you right now and open your heart to whatever God wants to give you this morning.”

Sister Virginia Joy shared that “ultimately, our vocation is not a problem to be fixed or a riddle to be solved … Vocation is deeply relational, personal, and distinct. It comes from the Latin ‘vocare,’ meaning to call, to name, to summon. There’s one who calls and there’s one who responds. It’s a relationship between each individual and God.”

Here are seven ways a person can discern his or her vocation based on Sister Virginia Joy’s talk:

Pay attention to where and how you are called to love

Sister Virginia Joy shared that the questions behind one’s vocation are fundamentally about “what are you going to do with your love” and how you are called to “make a gift of yourself,” not merely what career or role you will have.

Receive God’s love first

She emphasized that the prerequisite for hearing God’s call is first receiving his love, since vocation flows from a relationship.

“When I think about a vocational call, I think of two things: First, God is the one who calls, and it is always a call of love. Second, we are the ones to respond to that call and to love in return. So first, the prerequisite to hearing God’s call is receiving his love,” Sister Virginia Joy said.

Develop a real prayer life and speak honestly to God

God makes himself known in prayer, especially when a person speaks from the heart — expressing longing, confusion, loneliness, or desire for meaning.

Sister Virginia Joy highlighted that “God is looking for a place to break in and make himself known. I trust you’ve experienced it here at SEEK. It’s real. He’s real. And he is in pursuit of your heart. He knows you and he desires that you come to know him. This happens in prayer.”

“But prayer can be challenging because we’re used to instant gratification. We want to see results. And yet relationships, they’re not about results,” she added. “Relationships take time, patience, and trust. Sometimes I think we settle or we allow ourselves to get distracted because real love means facing our weakness and searching for the Lord in times of loneliness, doubt, and even pain.”

Stay close to the sacraments, especially confession and the Eucharist

Sister Virginia Joy emphasized that living in grace and regularly receiving the sacraments helps ensure that a person does not miss God’s call and gains the strength to respond in his time.

She shared with those gathered that she has always found herself making life decisions after “a good confession — decisions to move across the country, decisions to become a missionary, decisions to accept a particular job or begin or end a dating relationship.”

“I know there can be a lot of fear about somehow missing what God is calling me to,” Sister Virginia Joy said. “And I just want to crush that fear because the truth is if you’re staying close to the sacraments, if you’re living in grace, you will not miss what God is calling you to. And because of the grace of the sacraments, you will have the strength to respond in God’s time.”

Live your call to love daily, even before knowing your definitive vocation

Sister Virginia Joy stressed that holiness and vocation are lived now, through everyday acts of love, even before one enters marriage, religious life, or another permanent state.

She asked those gathered: “Where are we called to love?”

“It’s not a complicated question. All the love happens right where God has you — with family, friends, roommates. We are each given so many opportunities to love every day. You might not be in your definitive vocation right now or five years from now, but your call to love is now. Your call to make a gift of yourself is now,” she said.

Recognize your unique gifts

Especially for women, discerning vocation involves recognizing the “uniquely feminine” capacity for receptivity, generosity, spiritual maternity, and leading others to God, Sister Virginia Joy explained.

“As women, we possess a unique capacity for love … Written into our very makeup by design, we as women have space for another, room for another. And the physical capacity — we’ve heard this over the days — the physical capacity to receive and carry life sheds a much deeper reality within the heart of each woman,” she said. “Our bodies and souls are intimately connected and together they tell us something — that our love is receptive, sensitive, generous, maternal.”

Observe where your heart becomes undivided and free

A key sign of vocation is interior freedom and unity of heart, where fear gives way to peace and clarity about where, as Sister Virginia Joy said, one is called “to make a gift of oneself in a total way.”

She shared that while discerning her own vocation her heart was divided — seeing the beauty in both married life and religious life. It wasn’t until she asked in prayer, “What do you want, Lord?” while on retreat with the Sisters of Life that she heard him say, “You. You. All of you for myself.”

“And in an instant, my heart was undivided,” she recalled. “I knew where I was being called to give my love and my life, and I felt more free than I ever had.”

“Your love story is going to be perfectly unique to you,” Sister Virginia Joy added. “God has been preparing something far beyond your expectations and he desires your freedom to respond with an undivided heart. Whether it be marriage, religious life, lay life, there is no doubt he wants you and your unique love. God loves you.”

U.S., Vatican diplomatic counterparts discuss situation in Venezuela
Tue, 06 Jan 2026 18:30:00 -0500

Jan 6, 2026 / 18:30 pm (CNA).

The U.S. State Department announced that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has spoken with Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin about the situation in Venezuela.

During the Jan. 6 call, the State Department indicated that “the two leaders discussed pressing challenges, including efforts to improve the humanitarian situation, particularly in Venezuela, as well as the promotion of peace and religious freedom globally.”

Both leaders “reaffirmed their commitment to deepening cooperation between the United States and the Holy See in addressing shared priorities around the world,” the State Department added.

At the time of this publication, the Vatican had not provided details about the call. Parolin served as apostolic nuncio to Venezuela from 2009 to 2013.

On Sunday, Jan. 4, during the Angelus prayer, Pope Leo XIV expressed his concern about the situation in the country and called for full respect for Venezuela’s national sovereignty following the Jan. 3 U.S. military operation that resulted in the capture of Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores.

“With a heart full of concern, I am following the evolution of the situation in Venezuela,” the pope stated, emphasizing that “the good of the beloved Venezuelan people must prevail above any other consideration.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Trump urges Republican ‘flexibility’ on taxpayer-funded abortions
Tue, 06 Jan 2026 18:10:00 -0500

Jan 6, 2026 / 18:10 pm (CNA).

President Donald Trump is asking congressional Republicans to be more flexible on taxpayer funding for abortions as lawmakers continue to negotiate an extension to health care subsidies related to the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

Some federal subsidies that lowered premiums for those enrolled in the Affordable Care Act expired in December.

The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that the average increase to premiums for people who lost the subsidies will be about 114%, from $888 in 2025 to $1,904 in 2026. The exact costs will be different, depending on specific plans.

Trump has encouraged his party to work on extending those subsidies and is asking them to be “flexible” on a provision that could affect tax-funded abortion. Democrats have proposed ending the restrictions of the Hyde Amendment, which bans direct federal funding for abortions in most cases.

“Let the money go directly to the people,” Trump said at the House Republican Conference retreat at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Jan. 6.

“Now you have to be a little flexible on Hyde,” the president said. “You know that you got to be a little flexible. You got to work something [out]. You got to use ingenuity. You got to work. We’re all big fans of everything, but you got to be flexible. You have to have flexibility.”

The Hyde Amendment began as a bipartisan provision in funding bills that prohibited the use of federal funds for more than 45 years. Lawmakers have reauthorized the prohibition every year since it was first introduced in 1976.

A study from the Charlotte Lozier Institute estimates that the Hyde Amendment has saved more than 2.6 million lives. According to a poll conducted by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, which was commissioned by the Knights of Columbus, nearly 6 in 10 Americans oppose tax funding for abortions.

However, in recent years, many Democratic politicians have tried to keep the rule out of spending bills. Former President Joe Biden abandoned the Hyde Amendment in budget proposals, but it was ultimately included in the final compromise versions that became law.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, criticized Trump for urging flexibility on the provision, calling its support “an unshakeable bedrock principle and a minimum standard in the Republican Party.”

Dannenfelser said Republicans “are sure to lose this November” if they abandon Hyde: “The voters sent a [Republican] trifecta to Washington and they expect it to govern like one.”

“Giving in to Democrat demands that our tax dollars are used to fund plans that cover abortion on demand until birth would be a massive betrayal,” she said.

Dannenfelser also noted that, before these comments, Trump has consistently supported the Hyde Amendment. The president issued an executive order in January on enforcing the Hyde Amendment that accused Biden’s administration of disregarding this “commonsense policy.”

“For nearly five decades, the Congress has annually enacted the Hyde Amendment and similar laws that prevent federal funding of elective abortion, reflecting a long-standing consensus that American taxpayers should not be forced to pay for that practice,” the executive order reads.

“It is the policy of the United States, consistent with the Hyde Amendment, to end the forced use of federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion,” it adds.

Facing impending death, renowned cartoonist announces intent to convert
Tue, 06 Jan 2026 17:38:23 -0500

Jan 6, 2026 / 17:38 pm (CNA).

Scott Adams, the 68-year-old cartoonist who created the decades-long “Dilbert” comic strip, announced he is converting to Christianity amid his deteriorating health caused by terminal cancer.

Adams, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer in May 2025, had previously been critical of organized religion and expressed skepticism about traditional faiths in blog posts and two fiction books titled “God’s Debris” and its sequel, “The Religion War.”

On the Jan. 1 episode of his podcast “Real Coffee with Scott Adams,” the cartoonist expressed a change of heart following numerous conversations with Christian friends.

“I’ve not been a believer, but I also have respect for any Christian who goes another way to try to convert me,” Adams said. “Because how would I believe [that] you believe your own religion if you’re not trying to convert me? So I have great respect for people who care enough that they want me to convert and then go out of their way to try to convince me.”

Adams then informed his viewers “it is my plan to convert,” adding: “I still have time, but my understanding is, you’re never too late.”

“And on top of that, any skepticism I have about reality would certainly be instantly answered if I wake up in heaven,” he said.

Speaking to “my Christian friends,” Adams said: “It’s coming, so you don’t need to talk me into it.”

Adams appeared to invoke “ Pascal’s Wager,” which is an argument about the risks and rewards of following Jesus Christ, which was articulated by the 17th-century French Catholic philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal.

The argument was not meant to be a “proof” for God or even an argument about whether God exists. Rather, Pascal argued that accepting God can lead one to eternal life if he exists and it carries little risk even if he did not exist, but rejecting God will lead to eternal consequences if he exists and does not yield significant benefits even if he did not exist.

As Adams summarized his view: “If it turns out that there’’s nothing there, I've lost nothing, but I’ve respected your wishes, and I like doing that. If it turns out there is something there and the Christian model is the closest to it, I win.”

Adams’ cancer has spread through his bones and he is paralyzed below his waist. He is also suffering from heart failure.

Father Thomas Petri, a Dominican theologian, said this announcement is “very good news” and that he will continue to pray for Adams.

Petri said he has seen some Christians online try to suggest the conversion is not genuine because “he seems to be doing it merely as a wager in case God exists.” Yet, Petri said, “I’m fine with that wager.”

“Few people come to God with a perfectly formed faith,” he said. “Yet, because we believe God is love, it’s hard to think that Scott Adams’ gesture would not be received and blessed by him.”

“Naturally, as we approach death we become more focused on ultimate things and questions,” Petri added. “Trusting in God opens us to the possibility that death is not an end but an avenue to something greater. I pray that even the most hardened sinners have some desire for God even in their last moments. I think that’s enough for God to work with.”

Jimmy Akin, a senior apologist at Catholic Answers who debated Adams on assisted suicide in 2015, said he is “very glad that [Adams] has decided to seek out God in this difficult time.”

“God has many ways of drawing people to himself,” Akin said.

“On the human level, we’re built to think about events and challenges that we will soon be facing, so as we see that death is drawing near, it’s only natural for people to begin thinking about what may come after death and to try to make plans for it,” he said. “This can create an openness to the idea of God and to Christianity, even if a person was not religious previously.”

In other cases, Akin said some people “have become hardened by years of living without God” but that “God can still reach out by his grace … and being the person to him.”

“As Jesus taught us, it is never too late in this life for a person to turn to God,” he said. “That’s one of the major points of the parable of the workers in the vineyard.”

A bomb fell meters from their homes in Caracas, but they survived: ‘It’s a miracle’
Tue, 06 Jan 2026 16:20:43 -0500

Jan 6, 2026 / 16:20 pm (CNA).

What does large-scale bombing sound like? What does it feel like to be in the middle of a series of explosions? After Jan. 3, everyone in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, is able to answer these questions.

Around 2 a.m. local time on Jan. 3, as the U.S. military carried out Operation Absolute Resolve to capture President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, terrifying explosions interrupted the sleep of millions. A family from east Caracas, the Bertis, along with their neighbors experienced the chaos firsthand.

Survival was ‘a miracle’

It’s one thing to be awakened by the relatively distant sound of planes and bombs, and quite another to be jolted awake by the devastating roar of a projectile landing less than 20 meters (65 feet) from your room.

Elena Berti, 78, was sleeping alone in her house when a projectile landed in her yard during the bombings. Berti lives in a small neighborhood near an area known as El Volcán, where there are antennas that were among the U.S. military’s targets.

The force of the explosion was devastating. “My house is destroyed, my house is destroyed!” was all Berti could manage to say on the phone to her daughter, Patricia Salazar, who was only able to help her mother hours later, when it was already daylight and the danger had passed.

“She always sleeps with a rosary behind her pillow and always has a number of statues of saints on her nightstand; some of them, unfortunately, lost their heads. I say a miracle was worked for her, as well as for my aunt and uncle who live upstairs,” Salazar said in an interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner.

Two large windows, located above Berti’s head as she slept, were blown to pieces. A large piece of the headboard of her bed, made of heavy wood, also broke. Several doors and walls were destroyed. The kitchen was almost unrecognizable. There is such significant damage to the structure of the house that a large portion needs to be demolished.

But Berti was completely unharmed.

“In the morning, she started sending me the photos,” Salazar said, “very graphic ones, of the destroyed house, and the only thing I wrote back was a phrase from the Novena of Abandonment, which I’ve been reading: ‘Oh Jesus, I give myself totally to you, I abandon myself to you, you take care of everything,’” she recalled, visibly moved.

“Our dear God will help us; he’s the one who saved my mom and my aunt and uncle, who could have easily died because, well, what are the odds that a missile ... with all that power, comes falling in your garden and destroys, to say the least, half of your house? The windows shattered completely; they could have been cut in two. I can’t tell you what happened, but a miracle definitely occurred,” she said.

20 feet less and ‘it would have been a disaster’

Windows and doors of houses more than 660 feet from the point of impact were destroyed. Almost the entire neighborhood was affected, not only in terms of material damage but also psychologically.

On the second floor of Berti’s house, in a separate apartment, lives her brother Arturo. That night he stayed up very late: He had been reading in his living room until just a few minutes before the projectile hit. The living room ended up being the area most affected by the explosion.

“A little while later [after he had left the room] I heard a long whistling sound and then an impact, a phenomenal explosion, something incredible. Everything shook, the bed shook. I felt the building shake, all the windows shattered, the bed was covered in glass,” Arturo Berti recounted.

He immediately tried to take cover with his wife, not knowing exactly what had happened. Arturo said that those who have heard his story and seen the videos of the explosion have no explanation how they managed to come out alive.

“It has to be a miracle, it’s something incredible. If it had been six meters [20 feet] less, it would have fallen into the house, and I don’t know what would have happened; it would have been a disaster. Of course, I believe strongly in God, I have always believed in God, in the Virgin Mary, and in [St.] José Gregorio. That’s how it is, it was the hand of God,” he said, on the verge of tears.

Right next to the Berti residence live Gracia Mónaco and her daughter, Ana María Campos. The damage to their house was concentrated in their two bedrooms.

Amid the smoke and rubble, Campos went to her mother’s room, which no longer had windows. The frames were severely bent, and the walls were violently cracked.

Mónaco’s faith had clung to a small statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which she had just placed on her nightstand a few hours before the bombings.

“This Virgin Mary statue that’s here wasn’t here two days ago. I found it in the closet where I had stored it and I said: I’m going to put it out again,” she recounted.

“My window exploded here, debris came in, I suffered through the moment, but this Virgin Mary statue remained here without moving, without falling over, and for me that means something. You have to believe in that, that God exists, that he is with us,” she added.

Campos said her shock and nerves were eased by her mother’s faith.

“My mom tells me: Look, Ana María, I had this Virgin Mary statue put away, and I took it out. You should have seen how that statue was: Intact, it didn’t even fall. Everything else had fallen, and the Virgin Mary remained standing. She held it in her hand and placed it next to where it had been and said to me: Don’t you believe in God, don’t you have faith? That truth moved me,” she said.

Mónaco, her daughter, the Berti family, and all their neighbors are proof of the unwavering faith of Venezuelans, even in the most adverse conditions, which have been many in the last 25 years.

“This is important to me, it’s vital because I have faith, and faith is with me all the time. That’s why I tell her that we must always believe, not just occasionally. God is with us always, at all times and in all circumstances,” Mónaco said.

The Berti family has started a fundraising campaign where anyone can contribute to the reconstruction of their house. Those who wish to do so can also donate building materials for Mónaco’s house and those of the other neighbors.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

‘A great man who loved Jesus’: Catholic writer Russell Shaw dies at 90
Tue, 06 Jan 2026 14:10:00 -0500

Jan 6, 2026 / 14:10 pm (CNA).

Russell Shaw, a Catholic writer and journalist whose prolific career spanned decades including years of work for the U.S. bishops, died Jan. 6 at the age of 90.

Catholic writer Mike Aquilina announced Shaw’s death on Facebook, describing him as a “pundit, journalist, novelist, virtuoso of friendship,” and a “mentor” to those in Catholic media.

Born May 19, 1935, in Washington, D.C., Shaw attended Gonzaga High School and then Georgetown University, at which he eventually obtained a master of arts degree in English literature in 1960.

He would subsequently go on to write for the Catholic Standard, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., after which he joined the staff of the National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC) News Service.

Shaw’s work at NCWC began what would become years of association with the U.S. bishops — first at the welfare conference and eventually as the director of the National Catholic Office for Information at the National Conference of Catholic Bishops/United States Catholic Conference.

He served a variety of roles there including as associate secretary for communication and secretary for public affairs. He served as press secretary of the U.S. delegations to the world Synods of Bishops held in Rome between 1971 and 1987 and was the national coordinator of media relations during Pope John Paul II’s pastoral visits to the U.S. in 1979 and 1987.

Later in his career, Shaw worked as a freelance writer, including years of columns written for CNA as well as for CNA’s sister news partner the National Catholic Register.

The author of more than 20 books, including works on ethics and moral theology, he also contributed to the New Catholic Encyclopedia and the Catholic Social Sciences Encyclopedia.

Shaw was predeceased by his wife, Carmen, to whom he was married for more than 50 years. The Shaws leave behind five children and numerous grandchildren.

Aquilina in announcing his passing said Shaw “wrote thousands of articles and dozens of books” and described him as a “wise man.”

Catholic writer and National Review Institute Senior Fellow Kathryn Jean Lopez, meanwhile, called the news of Shaw’s death “heartbreaking” and described him as “a good/great man who loved Jesus.”

She told CNA on Jan. 6 that Shaw “loved God, his family, and was wise about the realities of the Church in the world.”

“He knew that the Church is not just the clergy, but all of us, working toward heaven together,” Lopez said.

She said he possessed a “unique gift for being able both to work for the institutions of the Church and retain the freedom of Christ at the same time.”

“God surely blessed us with the life of Russell Shaw,” she continued. “May we be worthy of the gift by answering the call to holiness he dedicated his life to.”

Shaw’s work, meanwhile, provides Catholics in media “a great example and legacy to learn from,” she said.

Bishops invite faithful to pray novena for the unborn
Tue, 06 Jan 2026 14:00:01 -0500

Jan 6, 2026 / 14:00 pm (CNA).

The United States bishops have invited Catholics to pray an annual Respect Life novena for the protection of the unborn.

The Committee on Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is sponsoring the “9 Days for Life” prayer that will begin on Friday, Jan. 16, and end on Jan. 24. The novena is to be prayed in observance of the annual Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children on Jan. 22.

The 2026 “9 Days for Life” marks the 14th time the novena has taken place. Since it began, the prayer has reached hundreds of thousands of people in over 100 countries spanning six continents, according to the USCCB.

The overarching intention of the novena is to end abortion, and it also offers prayers for mothers and fathers, those suffering from participation in abortions, civic leaders, and pro-life activists.

Those who sign up to participate can access a resource kit with information in both English and Spanish. Participants will be offered daily prayer intentions accompanied by short reflections and suggested actions to help build a culture of life.

There are also resources available to help leaders guide the novena at parishes, schools, and ministries.

Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children

The USCCB first started sponsoring the novena in 2013 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision on Jan. 22, 1973. Following the legalization of abortion, “millions of children have lost their lives, and millions of women and families have been wounded by abortion,” the USCCB said.

While the Supreme Court overturned Roe. v Wade in 2022, continuing efforts are still “needed to protect children and their mothers from the tragedy of abortion,” the bishops said.

The General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM), designated Jan. 22 as “a particular day of prayer and penance.” In all the dioceses of the U.S., the day “shall be observed as a particular day of prayer for the full restoration of the legal guarantee of the right to life and of penance for violations to the dignity of the human person committed through acts of abortion,” according to the GIRM.

On the Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children, the bishops suggest the faithful observe the day by attending Mass, abstaining from meat, praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet, fasting, praying a decade of the rosary, or offering a prayer for life to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

Bandits kill 42, kidnap women and children in attacks on villages in Nigeria diocese
Tue, 06 Jan 2026 12:59:00 -0500

Jan 6, 2026 / 12:59 pm (CNA).

At least 42 people have been killed and an unknown number of women and children abducted following a series of coordinated attacks on villages located in Nigeria’s Kontagora Catholic Diocese.

In a statement issued Jan. 5, the director of social communications of the diocese, Father Matthew Stephen Kabirat, provided details about the attacks.

“A devastating attack occurred in Kasuwan Daji, a village in Agwara local government, Niger state, as bandits invaded early Sunday morning. The attack has left over 40 people killed and several others kidnapped,” Kabirat said. “Reports indicate the bandits operated for hours with no security presence.”

According to Kabirat, the attacks were part of a wave of violence that began on Dec. 28, 2025, when heavily armed bandits riding about 30 motorcycles emerged from their hideout in the Kainji Game Reserve.

“They crossed into Kebbi state, north of Shafaci, and proceeded to the village of Kaiwa, where they killed five people and set fire to houses and grain stores. They then moved on to Gebe, where they killed two more people,” the priest said.

Kabirat explained that on the evening of Jan. 1, the bandits passed through Shafaci again and burned documents at the police station before spending the night in the bush.

On the morning of Jan. 2, they passed near Bako-Mission and the Tungan Kure junction near Pissa Village, where they gave some individuals a telephone number to be delivered to the district head of Pissa and the village head of Sokonbora.

At about 10 a.m. that same day, the bandits entered the Catholic church compound in Sokonbora and destroyed a crucifix, pictures of the Stations of the Cross, and musical instruments, Kabirat said, adding that the attackers also stole two motorcycles, mobile phones, and cash from the Catholic church in Sakonbora.

“After leaving Sokonbora, they occupied some Kambari compound nearby, where they spent the rest of that day until the afternoon of the next day [Jan. 3], eating the chickens and goats of the people,” Kabirat further recounted.

“Towards the evening of [Jan. 3], they left the Kambari compound near Sokonbora and entered the village of Kasuwan Daji, about eight kilometers [about five miles] from Sokonbora,” he said.

Kasuwan Daji is a small village with a large Wednesday market. The attackers, the priest said, “set fire to the market and surrounding houses, slaughtering 42 men after tying their arms behind their backs.”

“These victims were both Christians and Muslims; they also kidnapped an unknown number of women and children,” Kabirat said.

The priest explained that this particular group of criminals has been roaming freely across the northern part of Borgu local government area in Niger state and the southern part of Shanga local government area in Kebbi state between Dec. 28 and Jan. 3 without being challenged by security forces.

As a result, Kabirat said, the Papiri schoolchildren who were recently released from captivity have been further traumatized.

The children, he said, “are forced to hide in the bush with their families whenever reports indicate that the bandits are nearby, both day and night.”

“Panic is now widespread around the villages, where rumors abound,” the priest said, adding: “In this entire area, there are many villages. However, there is not a single large town where people can run to for safety. Nevertheless, people are evacuating the area in large numbers, abandoning their homes and properties.”

He added: “In view of the above, it is clear that pending the elimination of the bandits and their hideouts in Kanji Game Reserve, there is an immediate need for a large and well-equipped military task force in the area capable of and empowered to pursue, engage, and eliminate the bandits whenever they come out of the game reserve again for further attacks,” Kabirat said.

“Without such a task force, there will be a massive and ongoing loss of life and permanent displacement of large numbers of people.”

This story was first published by ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa, and has been adapted by CNA.

Arthur Brooks at SEEK26: ‘Your job isn’t to win arguments, it’s to win a soul’
Tue, 06 Jan 2026 12:29:09 -0500

Jan 6, 2026 / 12:29 pm (CNA).

New York Times bestselling author and Harvard professor Arthur Brooks encouraged attendees at SEEK 2026 to resist the temptation as missionaries to “fight fire with fire.”

In his Jan. 4 keynote speech in Columbus, Ohio, Brooks said the world “is not just a cold world” but “a world that attacks you.” In this context, he said, it can be challenging not to fight back.

However, he said, “your job isn’t to win arguments, it’s to win a soul.”

Brooks teaches at the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School and has written multiple books on finding happiness and meaning in life, including “From Strength to Strength” and “Build the Life You Want,” which he coauthored with Oprah Winfrey. He also writes a column for The Free Press.

Some 26,000 attendees have gathered through Jan. 5 in Columbus, Denver, and Fort Worth, Texas, for the SEEK 2026 conference organized by FOCUS.

“The spirit of the missionary will take you into the heart of a culture war,” Brooks said. “And in that culture war, you won’t win with violence … as you can win with love.” Brooks recounted his experience giving a talk in Manchester, New Hampshire, in 2014 for an audience he said was “a very ideologically oriented group.”

According to Brooks, he was the only speaker out of the 15 present who was not a presidential candidate. He said that during his address, he told his audience: “You’ve been hearing from political candidates who want your vote. And what they’re telling you is that you’re right and the people who disagree with you are stupid people and hate America, but I want you to remember something. Those people, they’re your neighbors, and they’re your family … It’s not that they hate America, it’s that they disagree with you.”

When acting as a missionary, he said, the goal is to persuade people. “If you want to persuade them, you can’t do that with hatred, because nobody has ever been insulted into agreement,” Brooks said.

‘Entering mission territory’

Brooks concluded by telling about a retreat center that he and his wife, Ester, visit when they give marriage preparation. Inside the chapel of the retreat center, he said, there is a sign over the door to exit the chapel that reads: “You are now entering mission territory.”

“So as you leave this beautiful, beautiful gathering tomorrow, the signs on the door of your hotel or this conference facility, any place that you find yourself as you leave this city, and effectively for the last time tomorrow, is that you’re entering mission territory,” Brooks said. “Let’s set the world on fire together.”

Katie Tangeman, a sophomore at Northwest Missouri State University, said she came away from Brooks’ talk motivated to “just take a step back whenever I’m feeling frustrated or annoyed with somebody, or if they’re attacking me, to just see them as a beloved son or daughter of God and approach them with love instead of the contempt and hate that [Brooks] was talking about.”

“Because that’s not being a good Christian,” she added.

“I want to say the biggest thing I took away from Arthur Brooks’ talk tonight, his keynote speech, [is] that you can change the trajectory of how a conversation goes by battling it with kindness in a way,” said Andrew Stuart, an agricultural business major, also at Northwest Missouri State.

‘As men, you’re called to act!’ speaker says to a packed room of young men at SEEK 2026
Tue, 06 Jan 2026 07:00:00 -0500

Jan 6, 2026 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Hundreds of young men at the SEEK 2026 conference in the Fort Worth, Texas, Diocese this weekend filled a cavernous room to learn about what it means to be a man formed by “Jesus Christ and his Church.”

John Bishop, founder and executive director of Forge, an organization that supports the family with an emphasis on masculinity, told the young men that “you are much more than your animalistic desires. Live something higher for someone higher.”

In his talk titled “God Made Men,” Bishop spoke about how when Adam, the first man, “opened his eyes, he had never seen a woman before. She was completely naked.”

“It was a great day for Adam,” Bishop said to waves of laughter. “Adam was the Elon Musk of the garden.”

Taking a more serious tone, Bishop asked: “How would Adam see Eve? In his theology of the body, Pope John Paul II said Eve’s body was a manifestation of her soul. Eve had a perfect body, but when Adam saw her naked body, he didn’t lust over her.”

“He realized who she was and who he was: made to make a gift of himself to her,” he said.

Bishop then turned to what happened next: “What did Adam do as the snake came into the garden?” he asked.

“Nothing! The most common, toxic, nauseating sin that runs rampant throughout men in the world is that we don’t do a damn thing.”

“When we see our brothers walking into sin, we twiddle our thumbs. When we see our daughters walking out wearing next to nothing, we say nothing. When we’re grandfathers seeing the culture going in a bad way, we watch football,” he said.

‘The image of God lives in a man fully alive’

“You’re called to act!” Bishop admonished the group. “You might be filled with doubt … but it might be time for you to take the first step.”

“The image of God lives in a man fully alive … Study after study shows that when a good man acts and doesn’t hold anything back, when he follows Christ with all [he is], … when he gives himself over [to Christ], the effect of that one man’s life multiplies beyond anything that we can understand,” he said.

Patricio Parra, a sophomore at Texas A&M University, told CNA that he enjoyed Bishop’s talk because he and his friends have noticed how “society says it’s toxic to be masculine.”

Parra said a New York Times journalist asked him and his friends after the talk why his generation of men was so invested in the faith.

“There’s a striving for men to want to be men again,” he told her. “As a society, we see male role models on YouTube, but they are deformed. Recently, there aren’t a lot of good masculine models to follow.”

Parra said what stood out to him the most after Bishop’s talk was the idea that Adam saw Eve’s physical beauty as the same as her internal beauty and recognized her dignity.

“We have to strive to be as masculine as that,” Parra said.

He said he took to heart three pieces of advice Bishop gave the men in the audience.

First: “There’s no glory without the cross, no sainthood without suffering; so suffer a little bit. Make your body go through hard things,” Parra recalled. “Everything we suffer now will bring fruit for others, including our children someday, who will want to emulate us.”

Next, Parra said Bishop advised that young men invest in solid, masculine friendships where they encourage one another toward sainthood.

Last, Bishop told his listeners to be like St. Joseph, who, after Adam, was “one of the most manly men in Scripture.”

“Joseph never said a word. We just know what he did,” Parra said. “We should do the same: just be quiet and act.”

Parra demonstrated a hand motion he and his other friends from Texas A&M invented to go with the words “Zip it and act!” He made a zipper motion across his mouth and then the letter “A” with his fingers.

“Don’t just talk about asking a girl out; do it!” he said enthusiastically. “Don’t just think about seminary; go do it!”

Holy Door closes as faithful prepare for special 2033 jubilee marking Jesus’ death and resurrection
Tue, 06 Jan 2026 06:00:00 -0500

Jan 6, 2026 / 06:00 am (CNA).

As Pope Leo XIV closes the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica on Jan. 6, the feast of the Epiphany, and the 2025 Jubilee Year comes to an end, the Catholic Church begins to anticipate another jubilee — one that will mark 2,000 years since Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection.

Although traditionally a jubilee only happens every 25 years, the Holy Door is slated to reopen for a special 2033 Jubilee when the Church will celebrate the Holy Year of the Redemption. To mark the occasion, Pope Leo has called on people to travel to the Holy Land, where Jesus once lived and died.

The pope spoke about the special celebration at a meeting with Christian leaders in Istanbul on Nov. 29 during his visit to Turkey. His address, marking the anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, discussed the importance of the historic council as well as evangelization and a call for prayers for future meetings, according to the Holy See Press Office.

The Holy Father concluded his talk by inviting listeners “to travel together on the spiritual journey that leads to the Jubilee of the Redemption in 2033, with the prospect of a return to Jerusalem,” the press office said.

Pope Leo said it is in the Holy Land where the faithful can celebrate “in the Cenacle, place of the Last Supper of Jesus with his disciples, where he washed their feet, and the place of Pentecost.” He called for a journey that leads to full unity, quoting his episcopal motto: “In illo uno unum.”

The 2025 Jubilee officially began on Dec. 24, 2024, with the Rite of Opening of the Holy Door of the Papal Basilica of St. Peter by Pope Francis, and centered on the theme “Pilgrims of Hope.”

Rome welcomed nearly 30 million pilgrims from across the globe to celebrate. Many traveled to the Eternal City for packed events including the Jubilee of the Sick; the Jubilee of Consolation; the Jubilee of Families, Children, Grandparents, and the Elderly; and the Jubilee of Youth.

Pope Leo XIV says God is found in humble places, not in prestige
Tue, 06 Jan 2026 03:45:00 -0500

Vatican City, Jan 6, 2026 / 03:45 am (CNA).

Celebrating the solemnity of the Epiphany in St. Peter’s Basilica on Tuesday, Pope Leo XIV said God’s saving presence is revealed not “in a prestigious location” but “in a humble place” and urged Catholics to protect what is holy and newly born — “small, vulnerable, fragile” — in a world that often seeks to profit from everything.

“The child whom the Magi adore is a priceless and immeasurable good. It is the Epiphany of a gift. It does not occur in a prestigious location but in a humble place,” the pope said in his homily, delivered during a Mass that also included the closing of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica, the last Holy Door to be shut at the end of the jubilee year.

Reflecting on the Gospel account of the Magi’s journey (Matthew 2:1-12), Leo contrasted the joy of those who seek Christ with the fear of Herod, who “tries to take advantage of the wishes of the Magi by manipulating their quest.”

“Fear does indeed blind us,” he said. “Conversely, the joy of the Gospel liberates us. It makes us prudent, yes, but also bold, attentive, and creative; it beckons us along ways that are different to those already traveled.”

In one of the final major liturgies of his first Christmas season as pope, Leo also warned against the spiritual dangers of a distorted economy that turns even humanity’s deepest longings into a commodity.

“Loving and seeking peace means protecting what is holy and, consequently, that which is newly born like a small, vulnerable, fragile baby. Around us, a distorted economy tries to profit from everything. We see how the marketplace can turn human yearnings of seeking, traveling, and beginning again into a mere business,” he said.

The pope pointed to the “stream of innumerable men and women, pilgrims of hope” who crossed the Holy Door during the jubilee and asked what the Church offered them — and what she must offer going forward.

“Millions of them crossed the threshold of the Church. What did they find?” he asked, adding that “the spiritual searching of our contemporaries, much richer than perhaps we can comprehend, invites us to earnest reflection.”

After the jubilee year, he continued, Catholics should examine whether they have learned to recognize God’s presence in those they encounter: “After this year, will we be better able to recognize a pilgrim in the visitor, a seeker in the stranger, a neighbor in the foreigner, and fellow travelers in those who are different?”

Leo also urged Catholics not to reduce churches to museums but to ensure they are places where faith is alive and hope is born anew.

“If we do not reduce our churches to monuments, if our communities are homes, if we stand united and resist the flattery and seduction of those in power, then we will be the generation of a new dawn,” he said.

Angelus: Replace the industry of war with the craft of peace

Following the Mass, Pope Leo XIV appeared at the central loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica to pray the Angelus and again linked the Epiphany to the end of the jubilee year, emphasizing that Christian hope must be lived concretely in the world.

“Dear friends, the hope that we proclaim must be grounded in reality, for Jesus came down from heaven in order to create a new story here below,” he said.

In a pointed appeal for peace, he prayed: “May strangers and enemies become brothers and sisters. In the place of inequality, may there be fairness, and may the industry of war be replaced by the craft of peace. As weavers of hope, let us journey together towards the future by another road.”

After the Marian prayer, the pope greeted children and young people around the world on Missionary Childhood Day and thanked them for praying for missionaries and helping those in need. He also offered good wishes for serenity and peace to Eastern Christian communities preparing to celebrate Christmas according to the Julian calendar.

This story was first published in twoparts by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, and has been adapted by CNA.

Pope Leo XIV closes St. Peter’s Holy Door, concluding Jubilee of Hope
Tue, 06 Jan 2026 02:00:00 -0500

Vatican City, Jan 6, 2026 / 02:00 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Tuesday closed the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica, bringing the ordinary holy year to an end — a time of grace that invited Catholics to conversion, reconciliation, and hope.

The pontiff processed toward the Holy Door as the antiphon “O clavis David” was sung. Reaching the threshold, he knelt before the door and remained for a few minutes in silent prayer. He then rose and, at 9:41 a.m., pushed shut the two large bronze doors — a gesture that visibly marked the end of the jubilee season.

“With thankful hearts we now prepare to close this Holy Door, crossed by a multitude of faithful, certain that the Good Shepherd always keeps the door of his heart open to welcome us whenever we feel weary and oppressed,” Leo XIV said in an address before the concluding gesture that ended the ecclesial event, ordinarily held every 25 years to offer the faithful the possibility of obtaining a plenary indulgence.

With these words, Leo XIV emphasized that even though the jubilee has ended, God’s mercy remains ever open to believers.

Before closing the doors, the Holy Father pronounced in Latin the formula prescribed by the rite, following a practice established in 1975 and later simplified by St. John Paul II during the Jubilee of the Year 2000.

In keeping with the simplified celebration, the public rite did not include the portion involving the construction of a brick wall and was limited to the closing of the bronze doors. The masonry work itself will be carried out later, privately, about 10 days after this public rite.

The act will be overseen by the Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff. The so-called “sampietrini” — personnel of the Fabric of St. Peter, including carpenters, cabinetmakers, and electricians who normally handle basilica maintenance — will build the brick wall inside the basilica to definitively seal the Holy Door.

During this private rite — without cameras or journalists — the traditional metal capsule (“capsis”) will be inserted into the wall. It will contain the official act of closure, coins minted during the jubilee year, and the keys of the Holy Door as a material and symbolic testimony of the holy year that, as the pope noted, has ended on the calendar but not in the spiritual life of the Church.

Leo XIV then recited the prayer of thanksgiving for the ordinary holy year, proclaiming: “This Holy Door is closed, but the door of your mercy is not closed.”

The formula concluded with an invocation that the “treasures” of divine grace would remain open “so that, at the end of our earthly pilgrimage, we may confidently knock at the door of your house and enjoy the fruits of the tree of life.”

The Jubilee of Hope was instituted on Dec. 24, 2024, by Pope Francis but, after his death in April 2025, was concluded by his successor, Leo XIV — a situation not seen since the year 1700. The last ordinary jubilee (celebrated every 25 years) took place in 2000.

Jubilees may also be celebrated at “extraordinary” moments, such as the Jubilee of Mercy celebrated by Francis in 2015 or the one to be convoked in 2033 to commemorate the two millennia of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

After closing the Holy Door, Leo XIV presided over Mass for the solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord inside St. Peter’s Basilica, bringing the day’s liturgical celebration to its conclusion.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Catholic mom spreads ‘IC2KG’ message to youth, attends first SEEK conference
Mon, 05 Jan 2026 18:52:00 -0500

Jan 5, 2026 / 18:52 pm (CNA).

Twenty years ago, Lauri Hauser, a Catholic mom of two and high school math teacher from Madison, Wisconsin, started a chant with her children — something simple and fun that would keep God and their faith at the forefront of their minds.

“I would chant ‘IC’ and they would respond, ‘2KG,’” Hauser told CNA in an interview.

“IC2KG,” which stands for “I choose to know God,” would be chanted around the Hauser household as chores would be done, while the kids played, and after flag football games in the backyard.

Fast forward 20 years and the family chant is now being shared with children in Catholic schools and, most recently, at the SEEK 2026 conference in Denver, which took place Jan. 1–5.

Hauser explained that it was her youngest son, Joe, who inspired his mother to start her IC2KG ministry. While in college, Joe was a part of an Athletes in Action group and asked his mom if she could make IC2KG shirts for the young men in the group.

“I said, ‘No. We don’t do T-shirts and this is just kind of a family thing and I’m kind of private with my faith,’” she recalled.

After breaking his arm before his senior year of college, Joe took it upon himself to create a T-shirt design with the “IC2KG” phrase printed on the front. One hundred shirts were made and they were a huge hit among the athletes. It was after this that Hauser thought this could become a ministry.

Despite attending a Catholic grade school and college, Hauser never felt completely comfortable sharing her faith publicly. After the success of the T-shirts, she began to think that “maybe these are the words, or the saying, that somebody needs to be bold and be brave and stand up and be strong and be courageous to share our faith.”

“I thought maybe this could be something that kids could catch on to or kids could keep in their heart — I choose to know God. We need to make that choice every day that we get up,” she added.

Using her background in education, Hauser created a program that she now takes to Catholic schools in Wisconsin and neighboring states, as well as through Zoom, in order to speak with schools that are further away.

The program aims to teach kids how to know, love, serve, and share God with others. Some of the elements of the program include testimonies from older kids to young children, teaching kids the IC2KG chant, pairing younger kids with an older IC2KG buddy, and playing games such as IC2KG bingo. Many elements of the program vary from school to school.

The program also includes a powerful demonstration where a child is asked to stand on a ball. The other kids observe and then share what they see, such as the child on the ball is wobbly, unsure of himself, or is shaky. That child then goes and stands on a prop Bible.

“Then the kids will observe and say, ‘Oh yeah, when you’re standing on the Bible, you are steadfast, you’re strong, you’re solid. This is the foundation,’” Hauser said.

Hauser has also designed more apparel with the IC2KG message. Her website includes T-shirts, hats, stickers, and wristbands with the hope that people will join her movement to inspire the faithful everywhere to know, love, serve, and share God with others.

During the SEEK 2026 conference, Hauser greeted college students from all over the country at the IC2KG booth. She called her first experience at SEEK “beautiful” and that her heart was “booming.”

“The response has been amazing. They’re all excited,” she added. “I’ve had conversations with kids and they’re like, ‘Yeah, I'm not really great at sharing.’ I said, ‘You know, neither am I, but it’s kind of time to take the duct tape off the word share — just take it off like a Band-Aid and let’s just do it because now is the time ... It’s just going to be a more beautiful world if we all share our faith.’”

She said that as she folds each piece of clothing, she recites a prayer over it: “Bless the person who wears this shirt and help them spread your message.”

Hauser said she hopes her ministry will “help people to just take that little step forward” and act as a “little life raft to help us go to the public square and share our faith.”

Archdiocese of New Orleans issues public apology to abuse victims
Mon, 05 Jan 2026 18:32:00 -0500

Jan 5, 2026 / 18:32 pm (CNA).

The Archdiocese of New Orleans released a letter written to child sexual abuse claimants apologizing for the “inexcusable harm” they suffered.

“On behalf of the clergy, religious, and laity of the Archdiocese of New Orleans,” Archbishop Gregory Aymond of New Orleans expressed in the Dec. 26, 2025, letter his “profound regret over the tragic and inexcusable harm” child abuse survivors suffered.

The letter was made public on Jan. 4 and emphasized that the Archdiocese of New Orleans “takes responsibility for the abuse.” Aymond said the archdiocese “pledges to keep children and all vulnerable people safe in our ministry.”

“I sincerely apologize to you for the trauma caused to you and to those close to you as a survivor of sexual abuse perpetrated by a member of the clergy, a religious sister or brother, or a lay employee or volunteer working within the Catholic Church,” Aymond said.

“I am ashamed that you or anyone should have been sexually abused by someone working within the Catholic Church. Sexual abuse is an inexcusable evil, and I am ashamed that you or anyone should have been sexually abused by someone working within the Catholic Church.”

“Please know that you are not to blame for the abuse perpetrated on you,” Aymond said. “You were and are completely innocent and did nothing to deserve the pain you have suffered because of the hideous crime of sexual abuse of a minor.”

‘Recognition’ provisions

The public release of the letter is a part of an “extensive media outreach” to express the Archdiocese of New Orleans’ “commitment to the nonmonetary provisions laid out in its Chapter 11 settlement plan,” according to the Clarion Herald, the official newspaper of the archdiocese.

The letter follows the October 2025 approval for a $230 million bankruptcy settlement to pay out over 650 victims after five years of litigation.

The Chapter 11 case filed in 2020 highlights a number of procedures in its nonmonetary provisions “to foster child protection and prevent child sexual abuse.” Within its “recognition” section, the document calls for individual apology letters and a public apology letter.

“It is my fervent hope that as we bring these Chapter 11 proceedings to a close, you will achieve some sense of peace, justice, and healing,” Aymond wrote in the letter. “I hold you and all survivors of abuse in prayer daily and encourage all to join me in prayer for you.”

The letter will be shared through multiple media outlets over the upcoming days and weeks.

Cardinal encourages Mexicans to demand authorities bring criminals to justice
Mon, 05 Jan 2026 18:02:00 -0500

Jan 5, 2026 / 18:02 pm (CNA).

Cardinal José Francisco Robles Ortega, archbishop of Guadalajara, Mexico, said that authorities have a “mandate to protect us” from violence and therefore encouraged the population to “demand” that they fulfill their duty.

“Bringing to justice those who commit violence, those who commit homicides or injustices, that is the responsibility of the authorities,” he said at a Jan. 1 press conference, according to the Archdiocese of Guadalajara’s press office.

The cardinal also denounced the fact that small-business owners are being extorted, pointing out that they “now don’t earn” enough “even to pay the protection money” demanded by criminals, which is why “many are closing their small businesses.”

Furthermore, to confront the violence, the cardinal reminded everyone that “peace is born and nurtured in the heart of each and every person,” since all forms of violence have the same point of origin, “from those who commit violence with an offensive word to those who commit violence by firing a weapon at a brother.”

In this way, each citizen’s contribution to ending violence begins with “being at peace in our own hearts, in harmony with God and his loving and merciful plan.”

It is also important “that families pay attention to what their children are doing, who they are associating with, and what opportunities they are being offered,” said the archbishop, who considered it “distressing that organized crime is recruiting teenagers who often do not find acceptance, support, or protection within their families.”

Despite a significant decrease in homicides in 2025, reaching the lowest figure in a decade, Mexico remains a country heavily affected by violence, especially from organized crime.

Impunity is one of the most serious factors in the fight against crime in Mexico. According to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), in 2024, “93.2% of the 33.5 million crimes that occurred were not reported, or the authorities did not open an investigation file. This underreporting is known as the dark figure of crime.”

In the list of the 50 most violent cities in the world in 2024, 20 cities were in Mexico.

Cristero centennial

Robles also spoke about the activities planned to commemorate on July 31 the 100th anniversary of the entry into force of the so-called “Calles Law,” the legislation that severely restricted Catholic worship in Mexico and triggered the spontaneous armed uprising of believers in various parts of the country, known as the Cristero War.

Jalisco was one of the regions where Catholics offered the most resistance to the violence and anticlerical measures of the Mexican federal government.

The centennial was noted by the Mexican Bishops’ Conference in its Nov. 13, 2025, message to the people of God titled “The Church in Mexico: Memory and Prophecy — Pilgrims of Hope Towards the Centenary of Our Martyrs.”

On that occasion, the conference expressed its desire to honor “the memory of the more than 200,000 martyrs who gave their lives defending their faith: children, young people, and the elderly; farmers, laborers, and professionals; priests, religious, and laypeople.”

The archbishop of Guadalajara recalled that failing to respect the “fundamental right” to religious freedom “was the cause of the uprising of the Cristero War.”

Referring again to organized crime, the cardinal pointed out that “violence does not solve anything, violence makes things worse, violence opens wounds that do not heal even with the passage of time.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Bishop Barron critiques New York Mayor Mamdani’s embrace of ‘collectivism’
Mon, 05 Jan 2026 17:32:00 -0500

Jan 5, 2026 / 17:32 pm (CNA).

Bishop Robert Barron, founder of the Word on Fire ministry, criticized New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani for promising constituents “the warmth of collectivism” in his Jan. 1 inaugural address.

Mamdani, who defeated two candidates with nearly 51% of the vote in the November election, won on a democratic socialist platform. His plans include free buses, city-owned grocery stores, no-cost child care, raising the minimum wage to $30 per hour, and freezing the rent for people in rent-stabilized apartments.

“We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism,” Mamdani said in his inaugural address.

“If our campaign demonstrated that the people of New York yearn for solidarity, then let this government foster it,” he said. “Because no matter what you eat, what language you speak, how you pray, or where you come from — the words that most define us are the two we all share: New Yorkers.”

Barron, bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, said in a post on X that this line “took my breath away.”

“Collectivism in its various forms is responsible for the deaths of at least 100 million people in the last century,” Barron said.

“Socialist and communist forms of government around the world today — Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, etc. — are disastrous,” he added. “Catholic social teaching has consistently condemned socialism and has embraced the market economy, which people like Mayor Mamdani caricature as ‘rugged individualism.’ In fact, it is the economic system that is based upon the rights, freedom, and dignity of the human person.”

“For God’s sake, spare me the ‘warmth of collectivism,’” Barron concluded.

Catholic teaching on socialism

Both socialism and communism have been condemned by many popes, first by Pope Pius IX in his 1849 encyclical Nostis et Nobiscum, just one year after Karl Marx published “ The Communist Manifesto.”

The foundation of Catholic social teaching rests on Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum.

In the encyclical, Leo denounced socialism and communism, and also condemned poor labor conditions for the working class and employers “who use human beings as mere instruments for moneymaking.”

“Each needs the other: Capital cannot do without labor, nor labor without capital,” the 19th century pontiff wrote. “Mutual agreement results in the beauty of good order, while perpetual conflict necessarily produces confusion and savage barbarity.”

Pope Pius XI, in his 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, wrote of the importance of private property, that man must be able to “fully cultivate and develop all his faculties unto the praise and glory of his Creator; and that by faithfully fulfilling the duties of his craft or other calling he may obtain for himself temporal and at the same time eternal happiness.”

Socialism, he said, is “wholly ignoring and indifferent to this sublime end of both man and society, affirms that human association has been instituted for the sake of material advantage alone.”

“Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist,” Pius XI wrote.

Pope Benedict XVI differentiated socialism and democratic socialism. In 2006, he wrote: “In many respects, democratic socialism was and is close to Catholic social doctrine and has in any case made a remarkable contribution to the formation of a social consciousness.”

Though, in his 2005 encyclical Deus Caritas Est, Benedict XVI wrote that government should not control everything but that society needs a state that, “in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need.”

Pope Francis has criticized Marxist ideology but also “radical individualism,” which he said in his 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti “makes us believe that everything consists in giving free rein to our own ambitions, as if by pursuing ever greater ambitions and creating safety nets we would somehow be serving the common good.”

In 2024, Francis encouraged cooperation and dialogue between Marxists and Christians.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated in modem times with ‘communism’ or ‘socialism.’ She has likewise refused to accept, in the practice of ‘capitalism,’ individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the marketplace over human labor.”

Bishop Ricken announces formal inquiry into life of Servant of God Adele Brice
Mon, 05 Jan 2026 17:02:25 -0500

Jan 5, 2026 / 17:02 pm (CNA).

Bishop David L. Ricken of Green Bay, Wisconsin, has issued an edict formally announcing a diocesan inquiry into the life of Servant of God Adele Brice, the 19th-century Belgian immigrant who received the only Church-approved Marian apparitions in the United States.

The edict, made on Dec. 28, 2025, during Mass on the feast of the Holy Family at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral in Green Bay, Wisconsin, invites the faithful to submit testimonies that could support her cause for beatification and canonization, including personal experiences, documents, or accounts of intercessions attributed to Brice.

The edict stems from a formal petition, or Supplex libellus, submitted on May 24, 2024, by Valentina Culurgioni, the appointed postulator for the cause, on behalf of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion, the actor of the cause.

The apparitions of Our Lady

Adele Brice, born in Belgium in 1831, immigrated to Wisconsin with her family in 1855 and reported three apparitions of a lady dressed in white in 1859 near what is now Champion, Wisconsin.

Brice spoke about the apparitions to her parish priest, who instructed her to ask the lady if she saw her again: “In God’s name, who are you and what do you want of me?”

Brice fell on her knees and asked the lady the question the third time she appeared, and the lady identified herself as the “Queen of Heaven who prays for the conversion of sinners” and told Brice to do the same.

The lady, who wore a flowing white garment with a yellow sash and whose head was surrounded with stars, told the young Belgian immigrant to “make a general confession and offer Communion for the conversion of sinners. If they do not convert and do penance, my Son will be obliged to punish them.”

She also instructed Brice to “gather the children in this wild country and teach them what they should know for salvation.”

In response to Brice’s question: “But how shall I teach them who know so little myself?” the lady responded: “Teach them their catechism, how to sign themselves with the sign of the cross, and how to approach the sacraments; that is what I wish you to do. Go and fear nothing, I will help you.”

Brice went on to dedicate her life to the mission, gathering other women to help her and establishing a schoolhouse and convent. The women endured hardship, traveling great distances in all types of weather and often facing uncertainty about how they would afford the food for their next meal.

Brice’s father built a chapel at the site of the apparitions, which eventually became a shrine to Our Lady of Good Help. The name was taken from the words the Blessed Mother said to Brice: “I will help you.”

In Oct. 8, 1871, the day before the 12-year anniversary of Our Lady’s final appearance to Brice on Oct. 9, 1859, the Great Peshtigo Fire, known as the most devastating fire in U.S. history, killed between 1,200 and 2,400 people and burned 1.2 million acres.

Brice and people from the countryside took shelter in the chapel, where they lifted a statue of Mary and processed through the sanctuary. In the morning, the area surrounding the shrine was devastated, yet the shrine’s grounds remained untouched.

Thousands of people still celebrate this miracle today on Oct. 8, where they participate in an all-night prayer through Oct. 9, the day of Our Lady’s final appearance to Brice.

In 2022, the Vatican gave its formal stamp of approval to the apparitions Brice witnessed, recognizing the newly named National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion in Champion, Wisconsin, as an approved apparition site.

The cause for Brice’s canonization gained momentum in June 2024 when the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops unanimously voted to advance it at the diocesan level during its spring assembly in Louisville, Kentucky.

Ricken, who has long championed the shrine, which attracts over 200,000 pilgrims annually, told CNA in 2024 that “the Blessed Mother is calling people to come to the shrine to experience the peace there, the simplicity; the basics of the Gospel, the catechism are exposed there.”

“She’s really current for now because we’re facing the same problems — people not knowing the faith, people having fallen away from the Church. She’s a model for us of what it means to be an evangelizing catechist. She’s very pertinent for today as well,” Ricken said in June 2024.

Testimonies must be either handwritten or digitally composed and printed, include a declaration of truthfulness, and bear a signature. The diocese stresses that unsigned or typed-only submissions will not be accepted as formal evidence.

This inquiry marks the first phase of the canonization process, potentially leading to Brice being declared “venerable” if her heroic virtues are confirmed.

Candidates for beatification and canonization normally require two miracles attributed to their intercession as well as evidence that they were holy and virtuous.

In 2024, Ricken told CNA about two possible miracles being investigated: a woman named Sharon said that while hospitalized for depression, she saw a vision of a woman she believed to be Brice, who gave her the will to live a joyful life of faith.

The second person to testify, a man named John, was diagnosed in 2018 with colorectal cancer, which had metastasized to his lungs. He received what he believes to be a miraculous cure after he prayed for Brice’s intercession.

“As of January 2022, I was declared with no evidence of disease, and I have been without cancer detected through my last scans all the way through April 2024,” Ricken quoted the man’s testimony.

Our Lady of Champion was the patroness of the Northern Marian Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage. The pilgrimage stopped at the shrine on June 16, 2024, on its way to the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis.

Zelda Caldwell and Zoe Romanowsky contributed to this report.

Catholic singles seek faithful connections at huge SEEK 2026 speed dating event
Mon, 05 Jan 2026 16:41:38 -0500

Jan 5, 2026 / 16:41 pm (CNA).

“Do you believe in miracles, or should we start with coffee?”

Young Catholics gathered for a possibly record-breaking large speed dating event in Columbus, Ohio, on Jan. 4. 

About 2,500 students participated in speed dating at SEEK 2026, reflecting both a thirst for genuine connection and a willingness to step outside of comfort zones in pursuit of meaningful relationships. At a time when dating culture often seems dominated by casual hookups, social media pressures, and uncertainty, SEEK 2026 participants explored a wide range of topics, from personal faith to vocational discernment. 

The event broke the world record for the largest speed dating event based on earlier entries in Guinness World Records.

About 26,000 people attended the SEEK 2026 conference held simultaneously in Columbus, Denver, and Fort Worth, Texas, organized by  FOCUS, a Catholic group that sends missionaries to college campuses and parishes.

In Columbus, which drew about 16,000 attendees, Emily Wilson, a Catholic author and YouTuber, offered students a framework for approaching dating with clarity and purpose ahead of the speed dating event on Jan. 4. 

6 principles for intentional Catholic dating

Wilson emphasized six key points for navigating dating with freedom, dignity, and an ultimate focus on God.

1. Go on one date — and let others do the same.

“Dating is the process of discernment,” Wilson said. “You do not need to know if you’re going to marry someone before saying yes to a second date. Jesus wants you to be calm.” The idea is simple: Allow yourself and others to explore relationships without pressure, gossip, or unrealistic expectations. 

2. Use the word “date” and be clear and intentional.

Clarity matters, especially in an age where sending a “WYD” (what are you doing?) text has become common. “If you want to stand out, be clear. Use the word ‘date,’” Wilson told the audience. “Call her. Say, ‘I’d love to take you on a date.’ Yes, it’s a risk, but many marriages begin with that courage.”

3. If God calls you to marriage, college is not the only place to meet your spouse.

Wilson encouraged young people to resist the “ring by spring” pressures. “Focus on becoming the most beautiful version of yourself — the person God is calling you to be right now,” she said. God’s timing, she emphasized, is unique for everyone.

4. Let go of the idea that your future spouse will perfectly match your type.

While attraction is important, deeper qualities matter most. “When life gets hard,” Wilson noted, one will not be so fixated on physical appearance but rather be thanking God that their spouse is so “selfless, giving, kind, loving, virtuous, and holy.”

5. Guard your heart.

“Peace in dating comes from making hard choices to protect your heart,” she said, quoting Philippians 4:7: “The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” Making intentional decisions is a form of self-respect, not aggression.

6. Do not apologize for your standards.

Wilson urged students to stand firm in their faith and virtues: “Say it with confidence. ‘I’m looking for a virtuous Catholic who loves the Eucharist, desires the sacraments, and wants a faithful marriage.’ There is nothing to apologize for.”

Breaking records, building connections

The “Catholic Speed Dating Event with Candid” drew lines stretching across several exhibit halls down the Greater Columbus Convention Center. Students repeatedly noted that such spaces provide rare, faith-aligned opportunities to meet new people without immediate expectation.

Participants described the speed dating event as both countercultural and reassuring — a response to frustrations many feel with modern dating. For Clemson University student Jonathan Brinker, the shared Catholic identity immediately changed the tone of conversations. “It was nice to meet people who have similar values,” he said. “That makes the conversation deeper and more meaningful.”

That sense of ease stood out for Shippensburg University student Joseph Striggle as well. “Events like this help you realize dating isn’t as intimidating as it’s made out to be,” he said. “It’s just having a normal conversation with another person.”

His classmate, Tom Gehman, said the event addressed deeper concerns about today’s dating culture. “A lot of people don’t share the same worldview or end goals, especially when it comes to faith and relationships,” he noted. “People want reassurance that there are other people who share their values.”

Expressing a strong dislike of social media, Gehman added that he desires “to meet someone face-to-face and ask them out directly,” calling the event “good practice” for doing so.

Students from Western Kentucky University echoed this sentiment as well as an emphasis on lowering pressure while remaining intentional. “Going on a first date doesn’t mean you have to marry that person,” Mary Pikar said. “It’s just about getting to know each other.”

Karley Solorzano added that high expectations can sometimes lead to inaction. “We overthink dating, especially as Catholics,” she said. “Events like this can give us a way to take chances and trust that God can surprise us.”

For some students, simply being surrounded by others who take faith seriously was encouraging. Seton Hall University student Emily Castillo said observing faithful behavior — even in her male friendships — gave her hope. “Seeing that makes me think what it could be like with someone who genuinely loves and cares for me,” she said.

Maria Notario added: “A shared faith allows relationships to go deeper than surface-level connections. Everyone [at the event] is single and Catholic; there’s at least some foundation there.”

Short conversations also proved meaningful. Kylee Jackels from Winona State University said having a designated space to meet people — even for a few minutes at a time — mattered. “It’s valuable to have a low-pressure environment where people can actually talk,” she said.

“There aren’t many single Christians where I’m from,” Lindsay Moen added. “It was nice to be in this space with similar people without crazy expectations.” The two students did see immediate results, however, as their friend was asked out on a date while waiting in line for the event to begin.

Others said the event helped them step outside their comfort zones. Anna Whittenburg of Bowling Green State University referenced Emily Wilson’s earlier point of maintaining standards, sharing that this was something she kept in mind before going into the speed dating event.

“Hearing that reaffirmed by someone like Emily Wilson made a difference. I don’t have to apologize for wanting a good, healthy Catholic relationship,” she said. Her twin sister, Elaina, added that the experience was practical as well as affirming: “It was a good way to practice talking to new people.”

For University of Alabama student Jay Zito, this event challenged initial hesitation. “We were kind of dragged into it by a friend,” he admitted. “But I’m glad we were. In an age where men can be fearful of approaching women for several reasons, this space gave people permission to try and make meaningful connections.”

His friend Landon McClellan added that the in-person nature of the event was crucial. “Hookup culture is everywhere today, and things like social media, filters, and AI mess with expectations and confidence,” he said. “Dating doesn’t have to be scary; it can be a really good thing that will lead to sacramental marriages.”

Candid Dating, a platform co-founded by Taylor O’Brien, led the speed dating event. Candid hosts weekly virtual speed dating for Catholic singles, and SEEK provided a chance to create real connections in person. 

“Success can look different for everyone. For some, it’s gaining experience and confidence in talking to others — men or women,” O’Brien said. “For others, it might be building the courage to ask for someone’s number or feeling secure and confident present themselves as a whole person.”

She added that another goal for some could be marriage, reflecting the previous year’s several couples who have since become engaged. 

Hope for the future

Wilson said the weekend confirmed what she has seen in her work with Catholic singles: a deep desire for holy, intentional relationships. 

“There has been a real breakdown in communication, and a lot of fear has crept in,” she said. That fear, she described, is not from the Lord but rather the enemy who “wants us stuck in panic or overwhelm” so that we don’t “step into what the Lord desires for us.”

Drawing on her experience with Sacred Spark, a Catholic dating platform she co-founded, Wilson expressed optimism. “We now have tens of thousands of Catholic singles on the app who are intentionally seeking meaningful relationships, even if it starts digitally — just making that initial connection.”

She added that in the coming years, “we’re going to see a revival of beautiful sacramental marriages, with Catholic singles who are intentional, communicative, open, honest, and clear.”

“After things have become as complicated as they have, there’s really nowhere to go but up,” she said. “For these young Catholics desiring relationships, I really stand on hope.”

SEEK 2026: Students inspired to bring faith home
Mon, 05 Jan 2026 16:28:16 -0500

Jan 5, 2026 / 16:28 pm (CNA).

For thousands of college students, SEEK 2026 was more than a conference; it was a call to bring faith, courage, and joy back to their campuses and communities. 

More than 16,100 students attended the Columbus, Ohio, event alone, part of a nationwide gathering by FOCUS that drew over 26,000 participants across Columbus, Denver, and Fort Worth, Texas. Over five days of Masses, adoration, talks, and fellowship, students were encouraged to reflect on how God is calling them to live their faith boldly in daily life.

The final day in Columbus featured keynotes from Catholic speaker and host of the Hallow app’s “Hallowed Be Thy Day” Lisa Cotter and Pete Burak, vice president of Renewal Ministries and co-director of Pine Hills Boy Camp. Their talks, like those of many presenters throughout the conference, focused on discipleship, evangelization, and a courageous response to God’s call.

Answering the call to evangelization

Cotter reflected on her first 250-person SEEK experience as a student over two decades ago, remembering: “I looked around thinking, ‘There are a lot of people here.’ Look at SEEK now with over 26,000 people! That’s ‘Jesus math.’”

Though she said she initially resisted a full-time mission with FOCUS out of fear, she eventually embraced the call to evangelize, sharing the faith with college students across the country. At SEEK, she encouraged participants to build relationships, live in truth, and invite others to encounter Jesus through the Holy Spirit. “Go home and do the same,” she said. “Tell them there’s a God who loves them, who sees them, who knows them, and who wants peace, joy, and hope for their lives.”

Burak, blending humor and personal reflection, echoed this call to action by using his experience on the University of Michigan basketball team to illustrate the importance of action. “I loved being on that team. I loved what we practiced — but when it came time to play, I hesitated,” he told students.

He drew a powerful lesson from St. Peter, whom he described as “brilliant, impulsive, chaotic. One moment he’s bold enough to walk on water, the next he sinks. He sees the Transfiguration and wants to build tents. He denies Jesus and then boldly proclaims him as Lord.”

Burak emphasized that Peter’s flaws did not disqualify him: “God can use our messy, impulsive, and broken parts to accomplish great things. Your mistakes, your doubts, your moments of fear — they don’t stop God from working through you. Look at Peter: impulsive, emotional, bold, scared. God said, ‘That’s exactly who I want.’”

He encouraged students to bring that courage home and to grow in faith while stepping into mission. “Growth fuels mission, and mission fuels growth. The Church and the world need you to say ‘yes,’ even when it feels messy or scary,” he said.

Students reflect on SEEK

For many attendees, this message as well as the conference as a whole left a lasting impression. Sydney Cushen, a student from Florida Atlantic University, described a radical conversion last year that led her to commit to attending SEEK. “I feel so at home here — like this is exactly where God wants me to be,” she said.

Her classmate Coreen Germinal, a returning attendee from last year’s Salt Lake City conference, reflected on the importance of community and personal encounters with God. “Adoration with 16,000 people was incredible. The priest with the monstrance walked directly in front of me — Jesus was right there, only a step away,” she said. She also noted the inspiration she found in unexpected reunions with friends and former mentors now living out their vocations.

Students from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Emmett McMorrow and Isaac Tremmel, highlighted the power of prayer and fellowship. “From the whole conference, I’ve learned that we’re not meant to do this alone. We need each other, and we need to all lean on the Lord together,” McMorrow said.

Tremmel added: “There’s a greater appreciation for peace and silence. Even in the busyness, we were encouraged to take time in our lives to pray.”

Gabriel Wiechart from Michigan State University said the conference’s joy and respect among attendees stood out. “All the religious sisters and priests seem very joyful, and the students seem very happy and grateful to be here,” he said. “I hope my fellow MSU students and I can bring that back with us. That Christ-like joy naturally draws people in.”

‘Do not be afraid’

In the closing Mass, Bishop Thomas Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, urged students to continue seeking Christ in daily life. Drawing on the feast of St. John Neumann, he encouraged them to trust God’s call, saying: “Do not be afraid. When Jesus calls you to follow him, he will give you the strength to persevere in whatever path he calls you to follow.”

The bishop also referenced Servant of God Michelle Duppong, a former FOCUS missionary whose cause for canonization is open, noting: “God continues to raise up saints for his Church today. Your life, your witness, can be part of that story.”

He reminded students that their faith was not merely for themselves but for the communities they would return to: their campuses, workplaces, and families. “Will people notice a difference in the way we live our lives?” he asked. “Will they see the joy of God’s love in our hearts, manifested in the fervent practice of our faith and in the way we treat each other with compassion and love?”

Bringing SEEK home

As students prepared to leave Columbus, the challenge of SEEK remained clear: Faith is not meant to stay at the conference. Cotter and Burak, along with Paprocki and the other speakers and religious leaders throughout the week, emphasized a life of discipleship grounded in courage, prayer, and relationships. 

For young people, the takeaways were already taking root. 

“No matter where you go, there is space for faithful young adults. I also realized ways I can be bolder in sharing my faith,” Cushen said. 

Germinal added: “The Church is not dead — it’s very much alive, and the next generation is being actively formed.”

UPDATE: Puerto Rico enacts law recognizing legal personhood of the unborn child
Mon, 05 Jan 2026 13:06:50 -0500

Jan 5, 2026 / 13:06 pm (CNA).

With the signing of the law that recognizes that “the human being in gestation or the unborn child is a natural person,” Puerto Rico concluded 2025 with historic achievements in the defense of life. For Puerto Rican Sen. Joanne Rodríguez-Veve, it was a year “in which unprecedented progress was made.”

On Dec. 22, 2025, the governor of Puerto Rico, Jenniffer González, a Republican, signed Law 183-2025 — formerly Senate Bill 504 — which recognizes that the conceived child, “at any stage of gestation within the mother’s womb,” is a “natural person.”

A “natural person” is simply a human person as distinguished from a juridical person such as a corporation.

Three days earlier, on Dec. 20, Gov. González had signed Law 166-2025 — formerly Senate Bill 3 — which stipulates that it will be considered “first-degree murder when a crime is committed against a pregnant woman, resulting in the death of the unborn child at any stage of gestation within the mother’s womb.”

It will also be considered first-degree murder when the unborn child dies as a result of “the use of force or violence against the pregnant woman.”

These laws are in addition to the signing on Oct. 30, 2025, of Law 122-2025 — Senate Bill 297 — which establishes guidelines for abortion cases involving minors under 15 years of age, stipulating that at least one of the girl’s parents or legal guardians must sign an informed consent form and that authorities must be notified in cases of suspected rape.

Laws 166 and 183 were authored by the president of the Senate of Puerto Rico, Thomas Rivera-Schatz, and Rodríguez-Veve is listed as a co-author, among other legislators.

Sen. Rodríguez-Veve is also the author of the bill passed as Law 122.

‘Unprecedented progress’ after more than 4 decades

In a Jan. 1, 2026, interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, Rodríguez-Veve noted that “despite the fact that the majority of the population had consistently expressed itself in favor of protecting the lives of unborn children, the political class, dominated primarily by progressive factions, refused to pass any legislation that represented even the slightest step in defense of the human right to life.”

“Multiple legislative efforts were defeated for more than four decades, until 2025, when unprecedented progress was achieved. In just the first year of the new government, the Legislative Assembly approved three bills that address the issue of abortion,” she said.

Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States; its constitution governs internally, but it is subordinate to the U.S. Constitution. Therefore, decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, such as the now-overturned Roe v. Wade — which at the time opened the door to abortion throughout the United States — also apply in Puerto Rico and directly affect its legal system.

Rodríguez-Veve emphasized that the constitution of Puerto Rico “expressly recognizes the right to life, a recognition that, according to the legislative record during the drafting of the constitution, was included with the clear purpose of protecting the lives of human beings in the womb.”

“However, our constitutional intent was overridden by the now-obsolete U.S. Supreme Court precedent established in Roe v. Wade. Since then, Puerto Rico became one of the most permissive jurisdictions regarding abortion, allowing abortions at any stage of pregnancy, at any age, and for any reason.”

For the Puerto Rican senator, “the fundamental change” brought about by the laws signed in recent months “lies in the explicit recognition of the dignity of human life from conception, thus restoring the moral foundation that, as a people, we established in the drafting of our constitution in 1952.”

A ‘powerful message’

Rodríguez-Veve pointed out that “by recognizing the unborn child as a natural and legal person, and by classifying as first-degree murder an attack against a pregnant woman in which the baby dies, we are not only recognizing the human nature of the child in the womb, but also the dignity of its humanity.”

“In other words, it is not only about the importance of the new legal implications and the practical consequences in the application of the law, but about an even more profound change due to its ontological dimension,” she said. “The message is clear: In the womb of a pregnant woman there is not an indecipherable object without dignity but a subject, a developing human being, who has dignity and whose value is intrinsic to his or her human nature,” she added.

In response to the criticism that has circulated following the signing of the law that recognizes the unborn child as a person, the senator clarified that “no article of the new law alters the Medical Practice Act, the Medical Emergencies Act, or the standards of treatment in life-threatening situations.”

“Clinical decisions in emergency scenarios continue to be based exclusively on the risk to the patient’s life or health. The bill does not introduce anything that could prevent or delay such treatment,” she emphasized.

“It is the legal opinion of the current secretary of justice of Puerto Rico that, after the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the United States, abortion in Puerto Rico is governed by the Puerto Rican Penal Code. This interpretation means that abortion is only legal when performed to protect the life or health of the woman,” she said.

Surgery ban

Rodríguez-Veve said “the passage of Law 63-2025 constituted another colossal achievement in defense of the dignity of human life, specifically of minors at risk from the currents of woke ideology that have reached our shores.”

Law 63-2025 — which bears the signatures of Rivera-Schatz, Rodríguez-Veve, and Sen. Jeison Rosa as authors — prohibits “surgical interventions or drug treatments that alter the biological sex of a minor under the pretext of a gender transition or as part of a treatment for gender dysphoria.”

“This law represents an absolute halt to the use of minors to promote unscientific and unnatural ideas that cause them irreversible physical harm,” Rodríguez-Veve emphasized.

“With the signing of this law, no minor under 21 years of age in Puerto Rico can be subjected to chemical or surgical mutilation treatments as part of a progressive trend that, through the denaturalization of the human being, uses the most vulnerable to advance its agendas,” she emphasized.

With the achievements accomplished in 2025 and with an eye on the future, Sen. Rodríguez-Vve sees her work as “continuing to contribute to the reconstruction of the moral and human fabric that has characterized us as a people since the dawn of our national identity.”

“Puerto Rico was forged in the crucible of Christianity, and it is from our cultural and spiritual heritage that I seek to continue upholding the values ​​that were the cradle and foundation of Puerto Rican identity,” she affirmed.

‘A turning point’

In a Spanish-language article titled “The Courage to Legislate with Conviction,” published on the Puerto Rico Senate’s website, Rivera-Schatz emphasized that “this 2025 legislative year marked a turning point in the legal and moral history of Puerto Rico,” highlighting that these and other laws passed stem from “the commitment I made to the people to protect fundamental rights, the traditional family, and the reaffirmation of the principles and values ​​that distinguish us as a society.”

“These laws reflect a vision of the state that recognizes that religious freedom is not an administrative concession but a fundamental right; that the family is not an abstract concept but the institution and backbone of a society; that childhood requires special protection from public authorities; and that human life, from its most vulnerable stage, deserves legal and moral respect.”

“From a Christian perspective, these laws are rooted in principles of conscience, responsibility, stewardship, and justice,” he affirmed.

After warning that “Puerto Rico faces the challenge of preserving its freedom without losing its legal and moral soul,” the Senate president said that “from the perspective of the Christian faith, it is proclaimed that the law must serve life, the family, and social peace. From a legal perspective, it is maintained that all legislation will be evaluated in the courts, as is appropriate in a democracy, but also in the court of history.”

The Puerto Rico Senate leader concluded his article by quoting St. John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio: “The future of humanity passes by way of the family.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

‘Do not be afraid’: Ethiopia’s bishops speak of courage in synodality message
Mon, 05 Jan 2026 12:34:06 -0500

Jan 5, 2026 / 12:34 pm (CNA).

Catholic bishops in Ethiopia have issued a far-reaching synodality message that speaks to the fear, suffering, and fragmentation gripping the Horn of Africa nation, repeatedly urging the people of God to “not be afraid.”

Dated Dec. 10, 2025, and obtained on Jan. 4 by ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa, the message was released at the conclusion of the 59th Plenary Assembly of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Ethiopia (CBCE) members, held in Emdibir Dec. 8–10. The gathering marked both the close of the jubilee year and the formal beginning of the implementation of the final document of the Synod on Synodality in Ethiopia.

A Catholic missionary source familiar with the Church in Ethiopia told ACI Africa that the CBCE members’ decision to circulate the message widely — and to request that it be read out at parish Masses — represents a significant shift.

“The fact that the Catholic bishops are circulating the statement and asking to have it read at parish Masses is something new,” the source said, adding that Catholic bishops in Ethiopia “were very fearful in the past. Maybe this ‘don’t be afraid’ is a new start for a marginal Church.”

A message rooted in Advent hope

The bishops’ message was addressed to clergy, women and men religious, and the laity — including Catholics in the diaspora and “all people of goodwill, ”and was inspired by the words of the angel to the shepherds: “Do not be afraid; I bring you good news of great joy for all people” (Lk 2:10).

Written during Advent to culminate in Christmas, which is celebrated on Jan. 7 in Ethiopia, the Catholic bishops situated their pastoral exhortation firmly within the concrete realities of Ethiopian life.

“In a nation burdened by many hardships — poverty, conflict, climate change, cultural confusion, and division — these words remind us that even amid darkness, the divine light of Christ shines forth, guiding us toward renewed hope and unity,” CBCE members said.

The bishops said their call to courage is not denial of suffering but rather a proclamation of faith. “We proclaim it not as a denial of the profound suffering and fear that grips our nation but as a faith-filled affirmation that God is with us,” they wrote.

Naming the wounds of the nation

The bishops described the “heavy burdens” afflicting the nation, beginning with the crushing cost of living.

“For so many families, daily life has become unbearable,” they said, adding that “soaring prices render basic provisions a luxury. Parents watch helplessly as children go to bed hungry.”

The Church leaders framed this reality as a violation of Catholic social teaching, emphasizing the preferential option for the poor and vulnerable and insisting that economic structures must serve human dignity.

They also drew attention to the devastating impact of climate change, particularly drought and environmental degradation.

“Imagine those who are dying of hunger in a country of plenty,” they wrote, calling for “ecological conversion” and quoting the May 2015 encyclical letter on care for our common home, Laudato Si’, on the need for “an overall personal conversion… which leads to heartfelt repentance and desire to change.”

Cultural fragmentation and the loss of the common good

The bishops warned that Ethiopia’s social fabric is fraying under the weight of tribal conflicts, ethnic hatred, and ideologies of division, compounded by uncritical adoption of modern digital culture.

“The new culture shaped by digitization is doing away with our long-standing values,” they observed, warning that an “us vs. them mentality” amplified by social media is eroding the sense of the common good.

“We risk losing the sense of common good — that the well-being of each is bound to the well-being of all,” they caution.

‘Our land is soaked in pain’

The CBCE members also addressed war and insecurity. “Our land is soaked in pain,” they said, pointing to civil war, ongoing local violence, and conflicts rooted in religion, ethnicity, and politics.

They insisted that peace is not simply the absence of war. “The Catholic Church teaches us that peace is not merely the absence of war but the presence of justice and the flourishing of human dignity.”

In their message, the bishops ask: “When will we have enough? When will we turn away from the cycle of violence and work towards healing and rebuilding?”

They described the social consequences of conflict — economic collapse, cultural erosion, and widespread displacement — highlighting the plight of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and Ethiopians forced into precarious lives abroad.

“As a Church, we cannot remain silent in the face of such suffering,” they declared. “We are called to be instruments of peace, to advocate for the voiceless, and to work tirelessly for reconciliation.”

The failure to dialogue

Another wound CBCE members identified in their statement was the breakdown of communication at every level of society. “Our greatest failure may be our inability to dialogue,” they said, lamenting a “Babylon of confusion” where people no longer listen to one another.”

They cited Pope Francis’ encyclical on human fraternity and social friendship, Fratelli Tutti, stressing that authentic dialogue requires “the ability to respect the other’s point of view and to admit that it may include legitimate convictions and concerns.”

Synodality as an act of resistance

Against this backdrop of fear, division, and violence, the bishops presented synodality not as an abstract ecclesial process but as a prophetic response. “Walking together is an act of resistance against every force that divides and destroys,” they asserted.

Quoting the Synod Vademecum, they reminded the people of God that synodality is “the path along which the Church is called to walk … making everyone participate in a journey of common listening and discernment.”

They emphasized that this is “not merely a Church exercise; it is a prophetic witness and a concrete answer to the deep crises we face as a nation.”

‘Do not be afraid’

In one of the most pastorally detailed sections of the CBCE members’ message, the Catholic bishops repeatedly exhort the people of God: “Do not be afraid.”

They urged Catholics to walk as “companions in the journey,” to listen deeply — especially to those on the peripheries — and to speak the truth “with courage and prudence.”

They insisted that liturgical life and prayer remain central, encouraging Catholics not to fear “to keep intact your identity as Catholics as expressed in your liturgical life.”

CBCE members also call for co-responsibility in mission, urging the baptized to participate actively in evangelization and integral human development “to benefit all humanity regardless of their creed, tribe, religion, or any background.”

Dialogue, ecumenism, renewed forms of authority as service, communal discernment, and formation in synodality are all framed by the same refrain: Do not be afraid.

Mary as the model of a synodal Church

The message culminates in a Marian vision of the Church.

“We see the features of a synodal, missionary, and merciful Church shining in full light in the Virgin Mary,” they write, describing her as the one who “listens, prays, meditates, dialogues, accompanies, discerns, decides, and acts.”

Invoking St. Paul VI, they recall that “the action of the Church in the world can be likened to an extension of Mary’s concern.”

A new public voice for a marginal Church

By asking that their message be read aloud at Catholic Masses across the country, the bishops’ message of courage can reach even the smallest communities.

As the missionary source told ACI Africa: “Maybe this ‘don’t be afraid’ is a new start for a marginal Church.”

This story was first published by ACI Africa, CNA's news partner in Africa, and has been adapted by CNA.

A look ahead: 2026 U.S. midterms hinge on key races in Maine, North Carolina
Mon, 05 Jan 2026 06:00:00 -0500

Jan 5, 2026 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Key elections in November 2026 could reshape the balance of power in the U.S. government, potentially upending the current Republican trifecta in Washington and offering a referendum on President Donald Trump’s second term in office.

Thirty-three seats in the U.S. Senate are up for election, while two states will hold special elections. All 435 districts of the U.S. House of Representatives, meanwhile, are holding elections.

Republicans presently control the White House and both chambers of Congress, but their majorities in both legislative chambers are narrow; Democrats need only a net gain of four seats to flip the Senate and a net of three districts to take control of the House.

As is often the case, many of the races are seen as foregone conclusions, with Republican and Democratic candidates in most states and districts comfortably assured of victory. Yet key toss-up races could end up shifting some control of the national government to Democrats.

Chief among them is the Senate race in Maine, where GOP Sen. Susan Collins is facing reelection in a state Trump lost by about 7 points in 2024.

Maine has voted strongly in favor of Democratic presidential candidates for many years — the last time a Republican president took the state was 1988 — and while Collins has easily won election or reelection five times there since 1996, this year’s race could present a more significant challenge for the Republican, due in part to Trump’s declining favorability ratings.

Collins, who identifies as Catholic, next year may find herself racing against state Gov. Janet Mills, who is currently vying for the state’s Democratic nomination. The University of Virginia’s Center for Politics switched Maine to a “toss-up” election in October, citing Collins’ middling approval numbers and Mills’ potential challenge.

The Center for Politics points to three other “toss-up” Senate elections in 2026, those of Georgia, North Carolina, and Michigan.

In North Carolina, Republican Sen. Thom Tillis will not seek reelection, presenting an opportunity for Democrats to pick up another seat. Former state Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has declared his candidacy there, as has former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley.

A Democratic stronghold for years, the North Carolina state government has overall leaned more Republican since around 2010, though GOP presidential candidates have done well there for longer. Yet the state has overwhelmingly voted for Democratic governors for decades with few exceptions, and Trump’s vulnerability — polls show high levels of disapproval of the president there — could give Democrats a boost in a state they likely need to win to obtain control of the Senate.

House considered a toss-up; some states consider life, religion proposals

In Georgia, Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff is expected to defend the seat he won in 2021, though he could be ousted in the primary election in May, when Republicans will also choose their candidate.

In Michigan, meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Gary Peters is retiring, leaving Democrats scrambling to elect a new candidate; no clear challenger has yet emerged in either party there, with a primary election set for Aug. 4.

Though Michigan hasn’t elected a Republican senator in about 25 years, the state’s critical role in national elections will likely render it a competitive race into November. Trump beat Kamala Harris for the state’s electors by just over 1% in 2024; he lost that state to Joe Biden in 2020 by about 3%.

Analysts, meanwhile, say the U.S. House is a potential flip for Democrats. The Center for Politics projects a tentative 211-208 Democratic majority there.

Outgoing Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi, meanwhile, predicted last week that Democrats would “win the House back” in November, declaring that Republican control of Congress will be “over” in 2027.

Amid the candidate elections, voters in some states will consider numerous ballot issues that could also offer referendums on Republican governance and Trump’s second term.

Some states are considering ballot initiatives related to abortion. Missouri voters will decide whether or not to enact sweeping restrictions on abortion in the state, while Nevada voters may amend the state’s constitution to create a right to an abortion there.

The Missouri measure, if passed, would also prohibit doctors from performing “gender transition” procedures on underage children. Abortion-related proposals may also appear on the ballots in Virginia, Idaho, and Oregon.

Some states may also consider religion-related ballot proposals. In West Virginia, voters in 2026 may consider a measure that would amend the state constitution to allow churches and religious denominations to incorporate under state law.

A potential proposal in Wisconsin, meanwhile, would prohibit the government from closing churches in response to public health emergencies and other crises.

Ahead of the midterms, Milwaukee Archbishop Jeffrey Grob last week lamented that politics in the United States has become “so polarized” and warned Catholics not to “get caught in camps” that amplify political differences.

“Bishops, priests, deacons, church leaders that are not Catholic, other leaders — it’s easy to get drawn into one camp or another camp, whatever the case may be,” the prelate told WISN-TV.

“We have to remain true to ourselves,” he said, “and it’s not to a particular party, but it is to our Catholic faith.”

St. Carlo Acutis’ parents helped develop new Vatican City State app
Mon, 05 Jan 2026 05:20:00 -0500

Vatican City, Jan 5, 2026 / 05:20 am (CNA).

The parents of St. Carlo Acutis contributed to the development of a new official news application connected to the institutional website of the Vatican City State, www.vaticanstate.va, an initiative presented as part of an ongoing digital renewal and as a tribute to the young saint, often held up as a model for evangelizing through new technologies.

After downloading the app, users can read a message of thanks from the Governorate of Vatican City State to Andrea and Antonia Acutis, Carlo’s parents.

“The Governorate of Vatican City State thanks Andrea and Antonia Acutis who, on the occasion of the canonization of their son Carlo, generously contributed to the creation and development of the News App of the official website www.vaticanstate.va,” the message reads.

The new application, officially launched over the weekend, is dedicated to the Italian saint, who died of leukemia in 2006 at age 15 and is frequently remembered for his computer prowess.

The platform is designed to provide fast, intuitive access to news, notices, and official communications from the Vatican Governorate, aiming to improve navigation and accessibility to institutional information.

The app includes several sections, including “saint of the day,” news, interviews, videos, and direct links to other institutions of the Governorate, such as the Gendarmerie Corps, the Vatican Museums, the Vatican Pharmacy, Poste Vaticane, the Pontifical Villas, and the Vatican Observatory.

According to the report, additional features will be implemented progressively.

The app’s launch comes after the institutional website of the Holy See received a graphic overhaul following the May 8 election of Pope Leo XIV. That portal now features a more modern design, including a sky-blue background and an image of the pope greeting the faithful, updating a site that has been online since December 1995.

The Vatican City State app is available as a free download for iOS and Android devices.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.