Holy Family and All Saints Catholic Church Witham

Catholic News Agency

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.

Chile’s president-elect on the decision that changed his life forever
Sat, 27 Dec 2025 08:00:00 -0500

Dec 27, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

In an exclusive 2024 interview with Goya Producciones for the documentary “ Valientes” (Brave Ones), the now president-elect of Chile, José Antonio Kast, addressed topics such as defending life, his family history, and the problem of leftist ideological imposition on society.

Discussing both his personal background and political career, Kast asserted that young people “have the power to bring about change” and put an end to individualistic societies that lead to loneliness.

The decision that allowed him to be born

A staunch defender of life from conception, Kast — the youngest of 10 siblings — shared a “very important” personal story that shaped his family’s future: “When my mother had her second child, she suffered from eclampsia [a serious pregnancy complication], and they raised the possibility that she wouldn’t be able to have any more children,” he recounted.

His father believed that wasn’t right, and despite the risk to his wife’s life, he told her: “I believe God doesn’t want that for us.” That determination allowed them to have eight more children, including Kast. Without that decision, “I wouldn’t have been born,” he noted.

“My parents are German immigrants, and we have an extended family of almost 200 people. My mother’s first two children passed away. Therefore, none of this would have been possible, and that leaves a lasting impression on you from a young age,” he emphasized.

“Thanks to that decision, I’m here; thanks to that decision, I met my wife. Thanks to that decision, we were able to have nine children. Thanks to that, today we are expecting our third grandchild,” he commented.

“It’s amazing how one decision can affect the lives of so many,” he reflected.

With his wife, María Pía Adriasola, he has nine children, born from the conviction of “being open to life.”

“God accompanied us in that decision, and today we are happy parents of nine children,” he said, “and we couldn’t imagine life without any of them.”

Political trajectory

In his early days in politics, he recalled, he wasn’t “a great communicator,” but through hard work he became a congressman, a party leader, and a presidential candidate, “always being very clear about things, never deceiving people, never falsifying my position,” and with the purpose of “winning people’s hearts, whatever the result may be.”

His continued involvement in politics was a family decision that he discussed with his wife and children, based on the premise that “he who has a mission must fulfill it.”

Analyzing Chile’s sociopolitical landscape at the time (prior to the 2025 elections) Kast pointed out that “leftist ideology has been gaining increasing influence in governments, promoting laws that go against life and against the family as constituted by a man and a woman.”

He warned about the imposition of an agenda that, in the case of Chile, legalized abortion on three grounds and “seeks to change the constitution” by decriminalizing abortion up to the ninth month, based on a misinterpretation of the concept of a woman’s autonomy over her own body. “She is not the owner of the body of another being that is inside her,” Kast explained.

“Generally, I don’t use religious arguments to defend the pro-life stance, because there is ample evidence from the nature of human beings, from science, and from the fact that life begins at conception,” he stated, expressing hope that “the future depends on us” because “the nature of human beings is on our side.”

In this context, Kast has faced violence, intolerance, and the cancellation by those who think differently. “As a politician in my early years, it was mostly verbal violence from those who thought differently,” he recalled.

“Some people mixed things up because they would say, ‘No, you’re speaking from a religious perspective.’ And I would tell them, ‘I’m not speaking from a religious perspective; I’m speaking from a scientific perspective, from the nature of the human being, because the moment you were conceived, at that very moment, the characteristics you exhibit to society today were already present.’” That, he recalled, “was met with verbal violence in Parliament.”

“Later, they began influencing other environments. And on some occasions, I have experienced severe physical violence,” he recounted, detailing situations in which he suffered fractures and needed police protection. “You always feel fear, but I have never had the intention of backing down.”

Kast lamented that the young people who commit these acts of aggression “are instruments in the hands of an ideologue.” Therefore, he said, “I don’t feel resentment, I don’t feel hatred; I sometimes feel frustration at not being able to be with these people individually to explain to them the joy one feels when giving of oneself to save another, and they would feel the same way if they had the opportunity to experience the richness that exists in human nature.“

Recognizing the struggle between good and evil

Kast then proceeded to speak out against “a kind of empire that is beginning to dominate the actions of society,” coordinated with vast financial resources, so that “violence is being used to create a new kind of human being.”

Although he has seen “an ideological totalitarianism” that aims at canceling the individual, Kast noted that ideology “will never be able to overcome the nature of the human being, which seeks freedom, transcendence, the preservation of life, and love between people.”

“We don’t have the resources, but we do have a voice, we do have heart ... and that strength is more powerful than money,” he emphasized, really wishing that people would wake up and “realize that we must occupy all the spaces we have to act in, that with the power of the Spirit one can defeat the spirit of evil, because ultimately this is a struggle between good and evil.”

Evidence much stronger than ideology

“There is no good value that seeks the death of another. There is no good value that seeks the disintegration of the family, which is the fundamental nucleus of society,” Kast emphasized. “Two women can love each other. Two women can live together. Two women can work together. But two women by themselves cannot procreate. The same is true for two men,” he explained.

“What I always propose and try to promote is that people consider the evidence. And that evidence is much stronger than ideology,” he indicated.

Left has been ‘very clever’ at appropriating causes

Kast acknowledged that the left has been “very clever” because it has appropriated causes such as the environment, women’s rights, and health, and used them to its advantage. However, he asked: “Who cares more about the environment? The leftist ideology or those of us who believe in life? We do.”

“Who defends people with disabilities more? Who truly cares about them? Those of us who believe in life. The others use their suffering to say, ‘They are discriminated against,’” he stated.

“The Indigenous cause is used by the ideological left to claim that they have been oppressed and repressed, which may have been true 100, 200, or 300 years ago, but today we are all part of the same nation. We have equal value. Today, there are more slaves in the world than when slavery was legal. Who is fighting against this slavery of children whose rights are violated? Who is fighting against the slavery of women who are victims of human trafficking? We are, because we believe in life and in freedom.”

‘Don’t wait for someone else to do what you can do’

To those who from the comfort of their homes declare “Someone has to do something,” the Chilean leader responded: “Don’t wait for someone else to do what you can do. What are you doing with your children? Do you dedicate time to them, or are you always busy? Because the root of this problem lies in the family,” he pointed out, urging people to set aside time exclusively for their spouses and children.

In this context, he highlighted a Chilean tradition called “dating Tuesdays,” which he himself practices with his wife every week, and which consists of “two hours a week of direct, face-to-face conversation, looking each other in the eyes, with no one else around.”

In this way, “a solid foundation is built for what is the core of the family, the union of the couple. If the couple is doing well, it’s more likely that the children and their environment will also be doing well,” he summarized. “And then it’s easier to go out and motivate others, because I can’t give what I don’t have,” he added.

‘Abortion is murdering an innocent person’

“You can see in Chile that what I was saying 20 years ago was the same as today,” Kast said. “I still say the same thing. And that’s why I'm closer to convincing people today.”

“In the coming years, how many people will realize that abortion is murdering an innocent person? How many people in 20 years will say, ‘What did we do to these children, giving them up for adoption to same-sex couples?’ Those children have the right to know their identity.”

“Just as the radical left, through its ideology, often captures the hearts and minds of young people, we, without trying to control them, but appealing to their freedom, are certain that they will be the force for change. Because these individualistic societies lead to loneliness. And man is a social being who seeks connection, who seeks joy,” Kast pointed out.

“It is young people who are the first to rebel against state totalitarianism. It is young people who are the first to realize that modern welfare systems, those governments that are gradually seizing complete power, turn their citizens into slaves of the welfare state,” he maintained. Therefore, he expressed his hope “that it will be young people who reverse the situation we are experiencing today.”

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

Should Catholics use AI to re-create deceased loved ones? Experts weigh in
Sat, 27 Dec 2025 07:00:00 -0500

CNA Staff, Dec 27, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Apps that promise to help re-create digital versions of deceased family members using AI pose a “spiritual danger” to Catholics and others who may use the technology in place of healthy grief, experts say.

The AI company 2wai ignited a controversy on social media in November after it revealed its eponymous app, which will allow users to fabricate digital versions of their loved ones using video and audio footage.

App co-founder Calum Worthy said in a viral X post that the tech could permit “loved ones we’ve lost [to] be part of our future.” The accompanying video shows a family continuously interacting with the digital projection of a deceased mother and grandmother even years after she died.

The reveal of the app brought praise from some tech commentators, though there was also considerable negative reaction. Many critics denounced it as “vile,” “demonic,” and “terrifying,” with others predicting that the app would be used to ghoulish ends such as using dead relatives to promote internet advertisements.

Tech ‘could disrupt the grieving process’

2wai did not respond to requests for comment on the controversy, though company CEO Mason Geyser told the Independent that the ad was deliberately meant to be “controversial” in order to “spark this kind of online debate.”

Geyser himself said he views the app as a tool to be used with his children to help preserve the memories of earlier generations rather than as a means to having a relationship with an AI avatar. “I see it … as a way to just kind of pass on some of those really good memories that I had with my grandparents,” he said.

Whether or not such an app is compatible with the Catholic understanding of death — and of more diffuse, esoteric topics like grief — is unclear. Father Michael Baggot, LC, an associate professor of bioethics at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum, acknowledged that AI avatars “could potentially remind us of certain aspects of our loved ones and help us learn from their examples.”

But such digital replicas “cannot capture the full richness of the embodied human being,” he said, and they risk “distorting the dead’s legacy” by fabricating conversations and interactions beyond the dead’s control.

Catholic leaders have regularly remarked on both the heavy burden of grief and its redemptive power. Pope Francis in 2020 acknowledged that grief is ”a bitter path,” but it can “serve to open our eyes to life and the sacred and irreplaceable value of each person,” while helping one realize “how short time is.”

In October, meanwhile, Pope Leo XIV told a grieving father that those mourning the death of a loved one must “remain connected to the Lord, going through the greatest pain with the help of his grace.”

The Resurrection, he said, “knows no discouragement or pain that imprisons us in the extreme difficulty of not finding meaning in our existence.”

Brett Robinson, the associate director of the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame, warned that there is “spiritual danger” in technology that outwardly appears to bring loved ones back from the dead.

Technology is not a neutral product, he said, but one that “has a profound ability to shape our perception of reality, regardless of the content being displayed.”

“In the case of re-presenting dead loved ones we meet one such case where prior conceptions about identity, vitality, and presence are being reshaped along technological lines,” he said.

“If someone who no longer exists in human form, body and soul, can be ‘resurrected’ from an archive of the digital traces of their life, who or what are we actually engaging with?” he said.

Robinson argued that present modes of technology have echoes of earlier centuries “when the cosmos was filled with presence — the presence of God, of angels, of demons, and of magic.”

The problem at hand, he said, is that the “new magic” of modern technology “is divorced from the hierarchical, ordered cosmos of creation and the spiritual realm.”

Donna MacLeod has worked in grief ministry for decades. She first became involved in Catholic grief counseling after the death of her youngest daughter in 1988. The funeral ministry evolved into Seasons of Hope, a grief support program for Catholics that “focuses on the spiritual side of grieving the death of a loved one.”

MacLeod said the program is one of “hospitality and spirituality” that arises in an intensive community of individuals suffering from grief.

“It builds parish communities,” she said. “People discover they’re not alone. That’s a big deal to grieving people — a lot of people feel very alone in their loss.”

“And society expects everybody to move on,” she continued. “But grief has its own timetable. Those who are grieving start to understand that the Lord is with them and that he really cares about them. There’s hope and healing at the end of it.”

“It’s doing what Christ asks us to do — walking with each other in hard times,” she said.

Regarding the AI avatar technology, MacLeod acknowledged that those who have lost a loved one make it a “very high priority” to “seek connection” with the deceased.

“People will say, ‘I’m not taking my loved one’s voice off of my answering machine,’” she said. “Or we have people taking out videos of family gatherings so they can see their loved ones again.”

“Everyone seeks to still be connected with their loved ones,” she said. “It’s related to our Catholic faith and the communion of saints — people feel this spiritual connection with their loved ones.”

MacLeod described herself as “on the fence” about how people could be affected by AI avatar apps. There could be “emotional and psychological risks interacting with AI versions of loved ones,” she admitted, though she said that many users “might look at it, but not get hung up on it,” unless they have underlying mental health issues.

But “where the difficulty arises is that some people get stuck in the denial stage,” she said. Those suffering from grief can get desperate in such circumstances, she said, and sometimes resort to means such as mediums or psychics, which MacLeod pointed out the Church explicitly forbids.

Whether or not AI avatars fall under that forbidden category is unclear. The Catechism of the Catholic Church expressly outlaws any efforts at “conjuring up the dead.” The use of mediums or clairvoyants “all conceal[s] a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings,” the Church says.

Baggot said apps like 2wai’s “assemble data about the deceased without preserving the person.”

He further argued that AI avatars “could also disrupt the grieving process by sending ambiguous signals about the survival of the departed person.”

Robinson, meanwhile, acknowledged that it is “good to want to connect to deceased loved ones,” which he pointed out we do “liturgically through prayer and memorials that honor those souls that are dear to us.”

He warned, however, against “technocratic creators of complex computational machines that are becoming indistinguishable from magic.”

Such technology, he said, alters “the spiritual order” in ways “that are disordered and disembodied from the ritual forms that sustain religion and our belief that our eternal destiny rests with God in heaven and not in a database.”

‘From despair to serenity’: The Italian nun saving women from human trafficking
Sat, 27 Dec 2025 06:00:00 -0500

CNA Staff, Dec 27, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Some women, forced into prostitution by violence, desperation, or false promises, line the streets of Rome and Abruzzo at night — until they see a nun, dressed in a habit, offering them a way out.

“Ten years ago, I felt a calling within a calling,” Sister Carla Venditti told CNA. “I felt that God was calling me to something beautiful. I had to go out onto the streets because he was waiting for me there in the faces of the least among us.”

Venditti, of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, lives in Avezzano, Italy, and is known as the “anti-trafficking nun.” She goes out into the streets, ministering to women and girls who are being trafficked. Along with her fellow sisters and other volunteers, Venditti helps victims rebuild their lives.

Starting anew with love

“I look forward to Friday evenings so I can enter the world of nightlife,” said Sister Lucia Soccio, another Italian nun from the same order who has worked with Venditti on the streets for about 10 years.

“Bringing light, love, and hope to places where it is difficult to talk about these things is a very profound mission that changes you from within,” Soccio said.

Together, along with other nuns and volunteers, Venditti and Soccio offer a home for women in need.

Wearing a habit helps, they said, but it takes time to build trust — and escaping human trafficking is difficult as exploiters manipulate, threaten, blackmail, and harm victims, even taking away their passports and documents.

The women who are ready to accept support are brought to a shelter in Abruzzo, the “Oasi Madre Clelia,” or the Oasis of Mother Clelia.

“The invitation to change one’s life comes only after many encounters where friendship and trust are formed,” Soccio said.

The sisters commit to taking care of victims throughout their day-to-day lives as they heal and rehabilitate.

“We have chosen to be a family to the people who come to us, and so everything is more demanding,” Venditti said. “Let’s start anew with love — this is the driving force behind our mission.”

We give our simple lives

“What drives me to do everything is the awareness that human beings need to feel God’s mercy in their lives through our humanity and sensitivity and, above all, the need to not be judged,” Venditti said.

By night Venditti reaches out to trafficked women; by day, she helps those in the oasis readjust. Somehow, she still finds the time to sell handmade items at marketplaces to help fund their work.

“We have formed an association: Friends of the Oasis of Mother Clelia. We have a bank account where we receive donations,” Venditti said. “We entrust ourselves to providence and, with our work — markets, linens, and calendars — we strive to make a living out of it.”

Venditti has even written a book — “The Rebellious Narcissus” (“Il narciso ribelle” in Italian) — for young people.

“What gives meaning to our mission is knowing that we do it for God,” Venditti said. “Every day we give our simple lives to give strength to those who do not have it.”

Since her calling 10 years ago, Venditti’s work has grown. The sisters have expanded their reach, working with many different kinds of people in need.

“Ten years have passed, and today we welcome anyone who wants to be welcomed and accompanied: from abused young women to trans people to the poor,” Venditti said.

“On the street we have met several people who are transgender and have become friends with them,” Soccio added.

The sisters help people in a variety of ways.

“Often they have asked me for practical help, such as taking them to the hospital, the police station, etc., because they have no one else to help them,” Soccio said.

“We help them in whatever way we can, but above all we have formed a relationship of friendship and trust that brings us joy and inspiration every time we meet,” Soccio continued.

God does not forsake his children

The violence, humiliation, and suffering that the people they work with have experienced “breaks my heart,” Soccio said.

“It is very painful to hear about these experiences and realize how we human beings can become evil and malicious if we have not experienced God’s mercy,” Soccio said.

To women who are suffering, Venditti says: “God does not forsake his children.”

“We must have the strength and courage to trust and to know that the sky is not always cloudy, but that there is sunshine for everyone,” Venditti said. “Life is wonderful, and we must embrace the new possibilities that God gives us.”

“There are many stories that accompany our mission, but what strikes me most about these girls is the transformation of their faces, of their lives: from despair to serenity,” Venditti continued.

Working with the women has helped strengthen Venditti’s faith.

“My faith has grown stronger ever since I have been close to them,” Venditti said. “They help me to live it because, after all, how can we live the Gospel if we do not confront ourselves with others — with the weaknesses and fragility of our brothers and sisters?”

St. John the Evangelist — apostle, Son of Thunder, beloved disciple, caretaker of Mary
Sat, 27 Dec 2025 04:00:00 -0500

National Catholic Register, Dec 27, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

St. John, both an apostle and an evangelist, played a very prominent role in many of the New Testament narratives. He was part of an inner-circle trio with his brother James (the Greater) and Peter, partaking in privileged incidents with Jesus: the raising of Jairus’ daughter, the Transfiguration, and the agony at Gethsemane.

John and his brother James were nicknamed “Sons of Thunder” by Jesus. Exactly why they were given this title is not explained. However, the two brothers did exhibit at least two instances of audacious behavior: wanting to bring fire from heaven down upon some Samaritans who refused to listen to the message of Christ and asking Jesus for special places of honor in heaven.

Within the Gospel of John, there are five different references to “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (13:23, 19:26, 20:2, 21:7, 21:20). Over the centuries, the vast majority of biblical scholars have deemed this beloved disciple to be John himself. These mysterious references actually point to a less thunderous personality; for example, the beloved disciple resting his head on Jesus’ chest at the Last Supper and Jesus requesting the beloved disciple to take care of his mother, Mary.

Tradition places John in Ephesus (in modern Turkey) after Pentecost, where he cared for Mary and perhaps wrote the fourth Gospel. John’s Gospel stands out from the other three, offering a unique portrayal of Christ and his message. This Gospel is symbolized with an eagle; its opening words urge the thoughts of readers to soar upward — sort of like an eagle — toward God (John 1:1).

It is probable that either John himself or a disciple of his wrote the three Epistles of John. Many claim that he also wrote the Book of Revelation, a work chock full of mystical imagery, during an exile on the island of Patmos (Greece).

John is believed to have lived to an old age and died of natural causes. A basilica in Ephesus reportedly held his remains for a time, but that church is now in ruins.

The feast of St. John the Evangelist is Dec. 27. He is the patron of many things including writers, booksellers, and friendships.

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

First Holy Door closed: ‘Special time for the Church is closed, but not God’s grace’
Fri, 26 Dec 2025 16:20:06 -0500

Dec 26, 2025 / 16:20 pm (CNA).

With the closing of the Holy Door of St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome, the Vatican began on Dec. 25 the gradual conclusion of the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope convened by the Church.

The rite was presided over by Cardinal Rolandas Makrickas, archpriest of the Marian basilica, who emphasized that “it is not divine grace that is being closed but a special time for the Church, and what remains open forever is the merciful heart of God.”

St. Mary Major is the first of the four papal basilicas in Rome to close its Holy Door. This Saturday, Dec. 27, the Holy Door of St. John Lateran will be closed by Cardinal Baldassare Reina; on Sunday, Dec. 28, that of St. Paul Outside the Walls by Cardinal James Michael Harvey; and finally, on Tuesday, Jan. 6, the solemnity of the Epiphany, Pope Leo XIV will close the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica, officially concluding the jubilee.

During his homily, Makrickas noted that the 2025 Jubilee has been a unique event in the recent history of the Church, having unfolded under two pontificates.

“It has been a true testament to the life of the Church, which is never interrupted. The Lord does not abandon his Church, and today he firmly guides her through Pope Leo XIV,” he said.

Referring to the liturgy of the day, the cardinal explained that the readings proclaimed are “three great doors that always remain open”: the call of the prophet Isaiah to be messengers of peace, the invitation from the Letter to the Hebrews to listen to the Son, and the testimony of the Gospel of St. John about the light that shines in the midst of the darkness.

‘The door that truly matters is the door of the heart’

“Today we have seen the Holy Door close, but the door that truly matters is the door of the heart,” Makrickas pointed out, encouraging the faithful to open it by listening to the word of God, welcoming their neighbor, and offering forgiveness.

“Having crossed the Holy Door was a gift; now becoming doors open to others is our mission,” he added.

In the final part of his message, the archpriest of St. Mary Major recalled a central teaching of Pope Leo XIV during this holy year: that Christian hope “is not evasion but decision,” a hope that translates into concrete love, even in the midst of difficulties, and that inspires believers to give their lives for others.

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

Sudanese bishop delivers Christmas message in midst of war
Fri, 26 Dec 2025 15:37:02 -0500

ACI Africa, Dec 26, 2025 / 15:37 pm (CNA).

In a country battered by violence, displacement, and fear, the 2025 Christmas message of Bishop Yunan Tombe Trille Kuku Andali of Sudan’s Catholic Diocese of El-Obeid addressed the people of God in the midst of their suffering and the fragile hope still carried by the celebration of Christmas.

For Trille, the Christmas proclamation is rooted in God’s fidelity, since “the birth of Christ is the manifestation of the glory of our God,” revealing his promise of salvation and peace for the whole of creation.

Through Christ’s birth, he explained, “the gate of heaven is opened for us” and reconciliation becomes possible because “the birth of Christ opens the way for our reconciliation with our Creator.”

He drew a parallel between the manger and Sudan’s humanitarian crisis, saying: “Seeing the baby Jesus in the manger describes the situation of all those of us in our country who remain without shelter and in fear.”

“Our diocese in Kordofan has become the battleground after Darfur,” he said, adding that a ”number of its parishes are deserted and desecrated.” The impact on pastoral life is severe, he lamented, noting: “There are no priests to celebrate sacred sacraments for the faithful.”

Sudan’s civil war broke out on April 15, 2023. The violent conflict is between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary force under Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, and army units of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) that are loyal to the head of Sudan’s transitional governing Sovereign Council, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

It started in Sudan’s capital city, Khartoum, before becoming a full-fledged civil war in the entire northeastern African nation. It has reportedly resulted in the death of “as many as 150,000 people”; well over 14 million people have been displaced, including to unstable countries such as Chad, Ethiopia, and South Sudan, where they have reportedly overrun refugee camps.

With some 30.4 million people in need of humanitarian aid in Sudan, reportedly more than half of country’s population, Sudan quite possibly has the highest number of people in need ever recorded and the highest number of internally displaced globally, more than 12 million having fled violence in the country in the last two years.

Sudan also has the highest number of people in emergency or catastrophic levels of hunger, “with over 600,000 people living in famine and 8 million others on the cliff edge,” according to an April report.

As Sudan approaches the 70th anniversary of independence in 2026, Trille made a pastoral appeal rooted in compassion and faith. He called the people of God to see themselves as “brothers and sisters in solidarity, weeping with parents and relatives of those who mourn the killed,” and to remember the words of Jesus: “Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.”

Gathering testimony, prayer, and hope together, he exhorted, “let us make our hearts the manger where the baby Jesus can live to help us renew our lives and live peace.”

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

Trump vows more strikes on Nigerian militants due to Christian persecution
Fri, 26 Dec 2025 13:22:00 -0500

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 26, 2025 / 13:22 pm (CNA).

After launching an attack on ISIS militants in Nigeria, President Donald Trump vowed that the United States would wage more military strikes if the ongoing persecution of Christians persists in the country.

The U.S. military coordinated with the Nigerian government in the joint operation, which targeted camps in the Sokoto state, where military officials said ISIS militants were based. The state is a predominantly Sunni Muslim region in the northwestern corner of Nigeria, bordering Niger.

Gen. Dagvin Anderson of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) said in a statement that U.S. forces are “working with Nigerian and regional partners to increase counterterrorism cooperation efforts related to ongoing violence and threats against innocent lives.”

“Our goal is to protect Americans and to disrupt violent extremist organizations wherever they are,” he said.

The Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that Nigerian authorities cooperated with U.S. military, adding: “Terrorist violence in any form whether directed at Christians, Muslims, or other communities remains an affront to Nigeria’s values and to international peace and security.”

Trump began to publicly express concern about the persecution of Nigerian Christians in October and redesignated the country as a country of particular concern, which is reserved for countries with “particularly severe violations of religious freedom.” The president threatened military action in November.

Following the Dec. 25 strike, Trump said in a statement that he “warned these terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was.”

“May God bless our military, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues,” the president said.

Nigeria is the most dangerous country in the world to be Christian, according to International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law reporting that more than 7,000 Christians were killed and another 7,800 were abducted for their religious faith in the first seven months of 2025 alone.

The Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa reported that from October 2019 to September 2023, nearly 56,000 people died from broader ethnic and religious violence, with the violence disproportionately affecting Christians.

AFRICOM reported that, based on its initial assessment, “multiple ISIS terrorists” were killed in the attack. However, local Nigerian officials, according to the Nigeria-based Vanguard News, did not find any evidence of injuries or deaths caused by the attack.

Douglas Burton, managing editor of Truth Nigeria, expressed doubt there were any casualties, based on the local reporting, and told CNA the military should “show us the photographs [and] show us the bodies” if anyone was injured or killed.

He said the attack may be “a warning shot” to demonstrate the ability of the United States to launch attacks inside Nigeria “if the Nigerian military establishment doesn’t start protecting … Christians.”

He noted the Nigerian government faces several Islamic insurgencies, which include affiliates of al-Qaeda and ISIS that desire to “usurp or replace the existing elected government with caliphates.” However, he accused the Nigerian military of turning a blind eye to Fulani militias — a separate force in Nigeria — which he said is responsible for “two-thirds of all the Christians that get killed every year.”

“The U.S. government — if it is serious about ending the genocidal attacks — it must target the Fulani ethnic militia that are concentrated in the north-central states,” Burton said.

He said the Fulani attacks are primarily in three states: Plateau, Benue, and Taraba, and said the militias are “wiping out Christian villages and forcing tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of people into [internally displaced persons] camps.”

According to the 2024 report from the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa, about 81% of civilians killed in Nigeria’s ethnic and religious violence died in land-based community attacks. At least 42% of those attacks were carried out by Fulani herdsmen, but another 41% of those attacks fell into the “other terrorist groups” category, which mostly comprise Fulani bandits.

Nina Shea, the director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, told CNA that Fulani militias “pose the greatest threat to Nigerian Christians” but that “they are no doubt influenced, emboldened, and maybe armed in their jihad by their Muslim brothers who’ve joined Islamic State, JNIM, Boko Haram, and other Islamist terrorists operating in Nigeria’s north.”

“This Islamist ideology is the biggest root cause for their murderous acts, not climate change as we’ve long been told,” she added. “Hopefully, the Nigerian government is feeling the pressure and will be spurred to do the necessary police work to curb the anti-Christian violence. It must disarm and prosecute the Fulani jihadis.”

In interview with Bishop Barron, Justice Barrett opens up about her faith 
Fri, 26 Dec 2025 10:00:00 -0500

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 26, 2025 / 10:00 am (CNA).

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett says her Catholic faith “grounds her” and gives her “perspective.”

During an interview with Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, Barrett tackled a number of topics including free speech, the reversal of Roe v. Wade, and her law career. The U.S. Supreme Court justice also opened up about her Catholic faith, including how she prays and her relationship with the saints.

A ‘love for the saints’

When asked which spiritual figures have influenced her, Barrett shared about her relationships with the saints, specifically her love for St. Catherine of Siena and St. Thérèse of Lisieux.

“My favorite was Thérèse of Lisieux. We have a daughter named Thérèse,” Barrett said. “I was captivated when I was young by how young she was when she just completely gave her life over to the Lord.”

“Her Little Way is so accessible to so many,” she said. “I minored in French and I studied in France. It was actually Lisieux, where I was … that’s where I decided to go that summer. So I spent a lot of time in the gardens of the Martin home. I think those examples of faith were important to me.”

“One thing that we’ve tried to do with our children is really cultivate in them a love for the saints, because I do think they are great examples that can inspire our love of the faith.”

Barrett said she has “prayed in different ways at different phases” of her life. As a law professor, she often prayed a “ lectio divina.” Now as a judge, she said she tends “to do more reading reflections” and will “read the daily ‘ Magnificat.’”

A “personal struggle in these last couple of years has been an ability to quiet my mind so that I can pray in a very deep and focused way,” she said. Listening to reflections “helps me, if my mind is wandering, to be able to focus on reading something and the task at hand.”

The Constitution and the common good

Despite her faith, Barrett also discussed how it is not what can influence her decisions as a judge. “The Constitution distributes authority in a particular way,” she said. “The authority that I have is circumscribed.”

“I believe in natural law, and I certainly believe in the common good,” Barrett said. “I think legislators have the duty to pursue the common good within the confines of the Constitution and respect for religious freedom.”

“You have to imagine, ‘What if I didn’t like the composition of the court I was in front of, the court that was making these decisions, and they view the common good quite differently than I do?’ That’s the reason why we have a document like the Constitution, because it’s a point of consensus and common ground.”

“And if we start veering away from that and reading into it our own individual ideas of the common good, it’s going to go nowhere good fast.”

Roe v. Wade

Barrett said both people who agreed with the Dobbs decision and those who did not “may well assume” she cast her vote based on her “faith” and “personal views about abortion.”

“But especially given the framework with which I view the Constitution, there are plenty of people who support abortion rights but who recognize that Roe was ill-reasoned and inconsistent with the Constitution itself,” she said.

Barrett further discussed “the trouble with Roe.”

“There’s nothing in the Constitution … that speaks to abortion, that speaks to medical procedures,” she said. “The best defense of Roe, the commonly thought defense of Roe, was that it was grounded in the word ‘liberty’ and the due process clause, that we protect life, liberty, and property and it can’t be taken away without due process of law.”

The “word ‘liberty’ can’t be an open vessel or an empty vessel in which judges can just read into it whatever rights they want, because otherwise, we lose the democracy in our democratic society,” Barrett said.

The problem with Roe “is that it was a free-floating, free-wheeling decision that read into the Constitution.”

The reason why it’s difficult to amend the Constitution is because “it reflects a super-majority consensus,” she said. “The rights that are protected in the Constitution, as well as the structural guarantees that are made in that Constitution, are not of my making. They are ones that Americans have agreed to.”

“Roe told Americans what they should agree to rather than what they have already agreed to in the Constitution.”

Free speech and freedom of religion

“I think the First Amendment protects, guarantees, forces us to respect one another and to respect disagreement,” Barrett said. “There’s a tolerance of different faiths, a tolerance of different ideas … we can see what would happen if you didn’t have the guarantee to hold that in place.”

“Think about what’s happening with respect to free speech rights in the U.K.,” Barrett said. “Contrary opinions or opinions that are not in the mainstream are not being tolerated, and they’re even being criminalized. Because of the First Amendment, that can’t happen here.”

If the United States were to have “an established religion, then it would be very difficult to simultaneously guarantee freedom of religion because there would be one voice with which the government was speaking,” Barrett explained.

An established religion would “sacrifice the religious liberty,” she said. “But by the same token, the religious liberty, it would become self-defeating if the logical end to it was to force everyone to see things your way.”

Discernment

At the end of the conversation, Barron asked Barrett what advice she would give young Catholics who want to be involved in public life, law, or the government.

“Discern first,” Barrett said. Ask: “What are you called to do?”

“If you do feel like this is a vocation and something you’re called to do, I think it can never be the most important thing,” Barrett said. “I think being grounded in your faith and who you are and being right in the Lord, so that you’re not tossed like a ship everywhere because there are enormous pressures.”

Faith “grounds me as a person,” Barrett said. “Not because my faith informs the substance of the decisions that I make, it emphatically does not, but I think it grounds me as a person. It’s who I am as a person.”

“So it’s what enables me to keep my job in public life in perspective and remain the person who I am and continue to try to be the person I hope to be despite the pressures of public life,” she said.

Pope Leo XIV: Christians have no enemies, only brothers and sisters
Fri, 26 Dec 2025 02:17:00 -0500

Vatican City, Dec 26, 2025 / 02:17 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Friday urged Christians to resist the temptation to treat others as enemies, saying the mystery of Christmas calls believers to recognize the God-given dignity of every person, even in their adversaries.

“Christians, however, have no enemies, but brothers and sisters, who remain so even when they do not understand each other,” the pope said Dec. 26 during his Angelus address from the Apostolic Palace on the feast of St. Stephen, the Church’s first martyr.

Leo acknowledged that “those who believe in peace and have chosen the unarmed path of Jesus and the martyrs are often ridiculed, excluded from public discourse,” and sometimes even “accused of favoring adversaries and enemies.” Yet, he said Christian joy is sustained by “the tenacity of those who already live in fraternity.”

Reflecting on St. Stephen’s martyrdom, the pope noted that early Christians spoke of the saint’s “birthday,” convinced “that we are not born just once” and that “martyrdom is a birth into heaven.”

Citing the Acts of the Apostles, Leo recalled that those who witnessed Stephen’s trial and death “saw that his face was like the face of an angel” (Acts 6:15), calling it “the face of one who does not leave history indifferently but responds to it with love.”

The pope linked Stephen’s witness to the meaning of Christmas, saying “the birth of the Son of God among us calls us to live as children of God,” drawing believers through the humility of Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds of Bethlehem.

At the same time, he said, the beauty of Christ and of those who imitate him can be rejected because it exposes injustice and threatens those “who struggle for power.”

“To this day, however, no power can prevail over the work of God,” Leo said, pointing to people around the world who choose justice “even at great cost,” who “put peace before their fears,” and who serve the poor.

“In the current conditions of uncertainty and suffering in the world, joy might seem impossible,” he added, but insisted hope still “sprouts” and “it makes sense to celebrate despite everything.”

The pope said Stephen’s final act of forgiveness mirrors Jesus’ own, flowing from “a force more real than that of weapons,” a “gratuitous force” rekindled when people learn to look at their neighbor with “attention and recognition.”

“Yes, this is what it means to be reborn, to come once more into the light, this is our ‘Christmas!’” he said.

After the Angelus, Leo renewed his Christmas wishes “for peace and serenity,” greeted pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square, and asked St. Stephen’s intercession for persecuted Christians and communities suffering for their faith. He also encouraged those working amid conflict to pursue “dialogue, reconciliation, and peace.”

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

CNA explains: How does ‘Mass dispensation’ work, and when is it used?
Fri, 26 Dec 2025 01:00:00 -0500

CNA Staff, Dec 26, 2025 / 01:00 am (CNA).

Amid heavy immigration enforcement by the Trump administration, several bishops in the U.S. have recently issued broad dispensations to Catholics in their dioceses, allowing them to refrain from attending Mass on Sundays if they fear arrest or deportation from federal officials.

Bishops in North Carolina, California, and elsewhere have issued such dispensations, stating that those with legitimate concerns of being detained by immigration agents are free from the usual Sunday obligation.

The Church’s canon law dictates that Sunday is considered the “primordial holy day of obligation,” one on which all Catholics are “obliged to participate in the Mass.” Several other holy days of obligation exist throughout the liturgical year, though Sunday (or the Saturday evening prior) is always considered obligatory for Mass attendance.

The numerous dispensations issued recently in dioceses around the country have underscored, however, that bishops have some discretion in allowing Catholics to stay home from Mass for legitimate reasons.

Dispensation must be ‘just,’ ‘reasonable’

David Long, an assistant professor in the school of canon law at The Catholic University of America as well as the director of the school’s Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies, told CNA that bishops have the authority to dispense the faithful in their diocese with, as the Code of Canon Law puts it, a “just and reasonable cause.”

“This generally applies when a holy day of obligation falls on a Saturday or Monday, during severe weather events (snowstorms, hurricanes, floods, etc.), when there is no reasonable access to Mass, or during public emergencies such as pandemics or plagues,” he said. Once such circumstances end, he noted, the dispensation itself would cease.

By virtue of their office, diocesan administrators, vicars general, and episcopal vicars also have the power to issue dispensations, Long said.

Priests, however, normally do not have that authority “unless expressly granted by a higher authority, such as their diocesan bishop,” he said.

Canon law, he said, dictates that a dispensation can only be granted when a bishop “judges that it contributes to [the] spiritual good” of his flock, for a just cause, and “after taking into account the circumstances of the case and the gravity of the law from which dispensation is given.”

The lay faithful themselves can determine, in some cases, when they can refrain from going to Mass, though Long stressed that such instances do not constitute “dispensation,” as the laity “does not have the power to dispense at any time” that authority being tied to “executive power in the Church” via ordination.

Canon law dictates, however, that Catholics are not bound to attend Mass when “participation in the Eucharistic celebration becomes impossible.”

Long said such scenarios include “when [the faithful] are sick, contagious, or housebound, when they are the primary caregiver for someone else and cannot arrange coverage for that person, when traveling to Mass is dangerous, when there is no realistic access to Mass, or for some other grave cause.”

“This is not a dispensation,” he said, “but instead is a legal recognition of moral and physical impossibility at times.”

The recent immigration-related controversy isn’t the only large-scale dispensation in recent memory. Virtually every Catholic in the world was dispensed from Mass in the earliest days of the COVID-19 crisis, when government authorities sharply limited public gatherings, including religious gatherings, all over the world.

In 2024, on the other hand, the Vatican said that Catholics in the United States must still attend Mass on holy days of obligation even when they are transferred to Mondays or Saturdays, correcting a long-standing practice in the U.S. Church and ending a dispensation with which many Catholics were familiar.

‘The most incredible privilege we could possibly imagine’

Though the obligation to attend Mass is a major aspect of Church canon law, Father Daniel Brandenburg, LC, cautioned against interpreting it uncharitably.

“This ‘obligation’ is sort of like the obligation of eating,” he said. “If you don’t eat, you’ll die. Similarly, the Church simply recognizes that if we don’t nourish our soul, it withers away and dies. The bare minimum to survive is Mass once a week on Sundays.”

“Most people find the ‘obligation’ of eating to be quite pleasurable,” he continued, “and I think anyone with a modicum of spiritual awareness finds deep joy in attending Mass and receiving the Creator of the universe into their soul. At least I do.”

Like Long, Brandenburg stressed that the lay faithful lack the authority to “dispense” themselves from Mass. Instead, they are directed to follow their consciences when determining if they are incapable of attending Mass, particularly by applying the principle of moral theology “ad impossibilia, nemo tenetur” “(no one is obliged to do what is impossible”).

Being too sick, facing dangerous inclement weather, or lacking the ability to transport themselves are among the reasons the faithful might determine they are unable to attend Mass, he said.

“Here, beware the lax conscience which gives easy excuses,” Brandenburg warned, “and remember that the saints became holy not through excuses, but through heroic love.”

In effort to stem violence against Christians, U.S. conducts airstrikes on ISIS in Nigeria
Thu, 25 Dec 2025 17:08:00 -0500

CNA Staff, Dec 25, 2025 / 17:08 pm (CNA).

With the support of the Nigerian government, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. military has carried out strikes against elements of ISIS in Nigeria that “have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians.”

“I have previously warned these terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was,” Trump said of the Dec. 25 action.

Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that “precision hits on terrorist targets” in the country’s northwestern Sokoto state were carried out in cooperation with the United States.

U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said he was “grateful for Nigerian government support and cooperation” in the counterterrorism effort.

Upon announcing the action, Trump emphasized that “under my leadership, our country will not allow radical Islamic terrorism to prosper” and that further strikes will be carried out if the “slaughter of Christians” continues in Africa’s most populous country.

Applauding the action, Rep. Riley Moore, R-West Virginia, a Catholic who has championed the cause of persecuted Nigerian Christians in the U.S. House of Representatives, said that “tonight’s strike in coordination with the Nigerian government is just the first step to ending the slaughter of Christians and the security crisis affecting all Nigerians.”

This is a developing story.

Latin patriarch of Jerusalem: ‘God does not wait for history to improve before entering into it’
Thu, 25 Dec 2025 11:07:00 -0500

ACI Prensa Staff, Dec 25, 2025 / 11:07 am (CNA).

At the Christmas Eve Mass celebrated in Bethlehem, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, affirmed that “one of the great messages of Christmas” is that God “does not wait for history to improve before entering into it” but rather embraces human reality.

During his homily, the cardinal explained that the birth of Jesus does not occur outside of time or apart from political events but within concrete history. “God does not create a parallel history. He does not enter the world when everything is finally ordered and peaceful” but rather “enters into real, concrete, sometimes harsh history.”

Commenting on the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, which places the birth of Christ in the context of a decree by Emperor Augustus, the patriarch indicated that this detail has profound theological significance. “The very history that claims to be self-sufficient becomes the place where God fulfills his promise,” he affirmed, adding that “no time is ever truly lost, and no situation is too dark for God to dwell in it.”

Pizzaballa emphasized that, although the emperor’s decree seems to dominate the scene, “unbeknownst to him, it becomes an instrument of a greater plan.” Faced with the logic of power that “counts, registers, and governs,” God responds with the logic of the gift, giving his Son in the fragility of “a child born without power.”

In this context, he recalled that Christmas is not an escape from the world’s problems. “Christmas is not a refuge that removes us from the tension of the present time,” he warned, but rather “a school of responsibility,” because Christ “does not wait for circumstances to be favorable: He inhabits them and transforms them.”

The patriarch also referred to the announcement of peace on the night of Jesus Christ’s birth in Bethlehem, clarifying that it is not a superficial peace. “It is not a mere balance of power nor the result of fragile agreements,” he explained, but rather “the fruit of God’s presence in history.” However, he added that this peace “is given, but also entrusted,” and only becomes real when it finds “hearts willing to receive it and hands ready to protect it.”

Speaking from the Holy Land, Pizzaballa acknowledged that the current reality remains marked by deep wounds. “We come from years of great suffering, in which war, violence, hunger, and destruction have marked the lives of many, especially children,” he stated. Nevertheless, he emphasized that it is precisely in this context that the Christmas message resonates most powerfully.

Finally, the patriarch urged people not to remain neutral in the face of the complexities of history. “The darkness of the world may be profound, but it is not definitive,” he said, reminding everyone that “the light of Bethlehem does not blind, but illuminates the path,” and is transmitted “from heart to heart, through humble gestures, words of reconciliation, and daily decisions for peace.”

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 highlights Gaza, Yemen, migrants in first Christmas urbi et orbi message
Thu, 25 Dec 2025 02:00:00 -0500

Vatican City, Dec 25, 2025 / 02:00 am (CNA).

In his first Christmas “urbi et orbi” message as pope, Leo XIV urged the world to embrace “responsibility” as the sure way to peace while pointing in particular to the suffering of people in Gaza, Yemen, and those fleeing war and poverty as refugees and migrants.

Before an estimated 26,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square on Dec. 25, the pope appeared at the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to deliver the traditional Christmas blessing “to the city and to the world,” eight months after his May 8 election.

In one of the most evocative passages of the message, the pope cited at length from “Wildpeace,” a poem by Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, contrasting “the peace of a ceasefire” with a deeper peace that arrives unexpectedly — “like wildflowers” — after exhaustion and conflict.

“Responsibility is the sure way to peace,” Leo said. “If all of us, at every level, would stop accusing others and instead acknowledge our own faults, asking God for forgiveness, and if we would truly enter into the suffering of others and stand in solidarity with the weak and the oppressed, then the world would change.”

The pope framed his appeal around the Christian proclamation that Christ “is our peace,” adding: “Without a heart freed from sin, a heart that has been forgiven, we cannot be men and women of peace or builders of peace.”

Turning to concrete “faces” of contemporary pain, Leo said that in becoming man, Jesus “took upon himself our fragility, identifying with each one of us: with those who have nothing left and have lost everything, like the inhabitants of Gaza; with those who are prey to hunger and poverty, like the Yemeni people; with those who are fleeing their homeland to seek a future elsewhere, like the many refugees and migrants who cross the Mediterranean or traverse the American continent.”

He also named those who have lost jobs, underpaid workers who are exploited, and prisoners “who often live in inhumane conditions.”

Leo offered “a warm and fatherly greeting” to Christians, “especially those living in the Middle East,” recalling his recent trip to Turkey and Lebanon. “I listened to them as they expressed their fears and know well their sense of powerlessness before the power dynamics that overwhelm them,” he said.

“From God let us ask for justice, peace, and stability for Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, and Syria,” the pope continued as he invoked Scripture on righteousness and peace.

He also prayed “in a particular way for the tormented people of Ukraine,” asking that “the clamor of weapons cease” and that the parties involved — “with the support and commitment of the international community” — find “the courage to engage in sincere, direct, and respectful dialogue.”

In a wider survey of global crises, the pope said: “From the Child of Bethlehem, we implore peace and consolation for the victims of all current wars in the world, especially those that are forgotten, and for those who suffer due to injustice, political instability, religious persecution, and terrorism,” naming Sudan, South Sudan, Mali, Burkina Faso, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He prayed as well for Haiti, asking that “all forms of violence in the country will cease,” and called for a future of reconciliation for Myanmar.

Leo also included a specific appeal for Latin America, asking that “the child Jesus inspire those in Latin America who hold political responsibilities” so that amid the region’s challenges, “space may be given to dialogue for the common good rather than to ideological and partisan prejudices.”

He concluded by urging the faithful to open their hearts to those in need: “On this holy day, let us open our hearts to our brothers and sisters who are in need or in pain,” before offering “heartfelt good wishes for a peaceful and holy Christmas!”

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

PHOTOS: Pope Leo meets the tiniest members of the flock — babies
Thu, 25 Dec 2025 02:00:00 -0500

Vatican City, Dec 25, 2025 / 02:00 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV has welcomed and greeted a plethora of babies at the Vatican since his election on May 8. As Christians everywhere celebrate the birth of Jesus, who came into this world as a baby, it’s a perfect time to highlight many of these sweet “pontiff meets babies” moments.

Pope at Christmas Day Mass says wars fed by falsehoods send young people to their deaths
Thu, 25 Dec 2025 01:35:00 -0500

Vatican City, Dec 25, 2025 / 01:35 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Christmas Day deplored the “falsehoods” used to justify wars that leave young people “forced to take up arms” and “sent to their deaths,” while also drawing attention to the humanitarian suffering of displaced people, including families living in tents in Gaza.

In his first Christmas as pope, Leo celebrated Christmas Day Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, reviving a practice not seen since 1994 during the pontificate of St. John Paul II. Reflecting on the prologue of St. John’s Gospel, the pope said in his homily that the Christmas liturgy highlights a striking contrast: God’s Word, which acts with power, comes into the world in utter weakness.

“The ‘Word’ is a word that acts,” Leo said. Yet, he added, “the Word of God appears but cannot speak. He comes to us as a newborn baby who can only cry and babble.”

Leo said the mystery Christians celebrate at Christmas cannot be separated from the vulnerability of those whose dignity is assaulted by war, displacement, and poverty. He urged Catholics to let Christ’s birth pierce complacency and move them toward tenderness and solidarity.

“‘Flesh’ is the radical nakedness that, in Bethlehem as on Calvary, remains even without words — just as so many brothers and sisters, stripped of their dignity and reduced to silence, have no words today,” he said.

In one of the homily’s most striking passages, Leo connected the Gospel image of the Word “pitching” his tent among humanity with the reality faced by families living in makeshift shelters amid conflict.

“Dear brothers and sisters, since the Word was made flesh, humanity now speaks, crying out with God’s own desire to encounter us. The Word has pitched his fragile tent among us,” he said, before asking: “How, then, can we not think of the tents in Gaza, exposed for weeks to rain, wind, and cold; and of those of so many other refugees and displaced persons on every continent; or of the makeshift shelters of thousands of homeless people in our own cities?”

The pope also described the toll of war in terms of both shattered communities and wounded consciences.

“Fragile is the flesh of defenseless populations, tried by so many wars, ongoing or concluded, leaving behind rubble and open wounds,” he said. “Fragile are the minds and lives of young people forced to take up arms, who on the front lines feel the senselessness of what is asked of them and the falsehoods that fill the pompous speeches of those who send them to their deaths.”

Leo framed Christmas as a proclamation that peace is not merely a hope for the future but a gift already present in Christ, even when few recognize it. Quoting Jesus’ words to the disciples, he said: “‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you’ (Jn 14:27).”

That peace, he said, begins not in rhetoric but in concrete compassion that listens, stays close, and responds to suffering.

“When the fragility of others penetrates our hearts, when their pain shatters our rigid certainties, then peace has already begun,” he said. “The peace of God is born from a newborn’s cry that is welcomed, from weeping that is heard. It is born amidst ruins that call out for new forms of solidarity.”

The pope warned that believers can bury what the Gospel calls “the power to become children of God” by keeping their distance from the vulnerable.

“Becoming children of God is a true power — one that remains buried so long as we keep our distance from the cry of children and the frailty of the elderly, from the helpless silence of victims and the resigned melancholy of those who do the evil they do not want,” he said.

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

The story behind Italy’s favorite Christmas carol
Thu, 25 Dec 2025 01:00:00 -0500

Rome Newsroom, Dec 25, 2025 / 01:00 am (CNA).

If you spend any part of Christmas in Italy, you are sure to hear one of the country’s most beloved carols, “Tu Scendi Dalle Stelle” (“From Starry Skies Descending”).

The Christmas song, written and composed by St. Alphonsus Liguori in the mid-18th century, describes Christ, King and Creator, coming into the world as a poor baby.

The song was “born from the heart and pen of Alphonsus Maria Liguori — in love with Jesus, but passionate about humanity — and very close to ordinary people,” Father Luca Preziosi told Valentina Di Donato of EWTN News.

The saint, from Naples, “wanted to share a little of this beauty, of his knowledge of Jesus,” especially with the peasants of the time, who could not read or write, said Preziosi, the rector of the Shrine of Santa Maria della Consolazione in Deliceto, Italy.

St. Alphonsus Liguori was a Neapolitan lawyer who became a priest and later a bishop. He is founder of the Redemptorists, a religious congregation dedicated to missionary work. He was declared a doctor of the Church for his contribution to moral theology.

In December 1744, Alphonsus was asked by his bishop to serve for a period near the town of Deliceto, in southern Italy, at the Convent of the Consolation, where he would eventually found the third Redemptorist house.

According to popular tradition, the priest was inspired by a grotto near the convent — hidden inside a small church — which recalled the humble birthplace of Jesus in Bethlehem. He began penning what would become “Tu Scendi Dalle Stelle.”

Alphonsus also borrowed heavily from the melody and lyrics of an earlier Christmas song he had written in Neapolitan dialect, “Quanno Nascette Ninno” (“When the Child Was Born”).

The Italian saint’s original title for the song, which has seven stanzas, was “Canzoncina a Gesù Bambino” (“Little Song to the Baby Jesus”).

The popular carol is part of the Italian “pastorale” musical style, and though several different arrangements exist, it is traditionally accompanied by an Italian bagpipe.

Italian singer Luciano Lamonarca has been working to popularize the song beyond Italy’s borders with a version of the carol in Italian, English, and Spanish.

“As a tenor, I of course wanted to promote the legacy of this song,” he told EWTN News. “So like Sergio Franchi and Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Boccelli, who have recorded the song mostly in Italy, in Italian, I supported a project that would allow me to sing the song in all three languages and tell the story to the public at large, especially in America, where the song is not well known.”

Lamonarca presented his project to share “Tu Scendi Dalle Stelle” around the world with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican on Dec. 18.

An English translation of the first two stanzas is:

From starry skies descending Thou comest, the glorious King A manger low Thy bed In winter’s icy sting A manger low Thy bed In winter’s icy sting O my dearest Child most holy Shudd’ring, trembling in the cold! Great God, Thou lovest me! What suff’ring Thou didst bear That I near Thee might be! What suff’ring Thou didst bear That I near Thee might be!

Thou art the world’s Creator God’s own and true Word Yet here no robe, no fire For Thee, Divine Lord Yet here no robe, no fire For Thee, Divine Lord Dearest, fairest, sweetest Infant Dire this state of poverty The more I care for Thee Since Thou, O Love Divine Will’st now so poor to be Since Thou, O Love Divine Will’st now so poor to be

There was an error serializing the image

file_get_contents(https://iframe.ly/api/iframely/oembed?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2FevkoxNseLKk%3Ffeature%3Doembed&api_key=): Failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found

Pope Leo XIV on Christmas night: Make room for others
Wed, 24 Dec 2025 17:30:00 -0500

Vatican City, Dec 24, 2025 / 17:30 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV, at Christmas Mass during the Night, said Christ’s birth brings light into the world’s darkness — and where the human person is welcomed, God is welcomed too.

“To enlighten our blindness, the Lord chose to reveal himself as a man to man, his true image, according to a plan of love that began with the creation of the world,” the pope said in his homily in St. Peter’s Basilica on Dec. 24.

“As long as the night of error obscures this providential truth, then ‘there is no room for others either, for children, for the poor, for the stranger,’” he added, quoting Pope Benedict XVI’s homily at Christmas Mass on Dec. 24, 2012.

“These words of Pope Benedict XVI remain a timely reminder that on earth, there is no room for God if there is no room for the human person,” the pontiff said.

Leo celebrated the Christmas Mass, also known as midnight Mass, for a packed Vatican basilica at 10 p.m. The Vatican said an estimated 6,000 people were inside the basilica for the Mass, while another 5,000 people followed the papal Mass via jumbo screens in St. Peter’s Square.

In a surprise before the Mass, the pope stepped outside St. Peter’s Basilica to greet those who were forced to stay in the rainy square because there was no more room inside.

“The basilica of St. Peter’s is very large, but unfortunately it is not large enough to receive all of you,” Leo said, thanking everyone for their presence, wishing them a merry Christmas, and bestowing his apostolic blessing.

The preparatory readings and the sung Proclamation of the Birth of Christ — also called the Kalenda Proclamation — preceded the Mass. The pontiff removed a cloth to reveal a wooden sculpture of the Christ Child, placed in front of the main altar of the basilica, after the chanting of the Kalenda Proclamation. A group of 10 children dressed in traditional clothing from different parts of the world brought flowers to the figure of baby Jesus.

In his homily, the pope recalled that, “for millennia, across the earth, peoples have gazed up at the sky” attempting to read the future in the stars.

Yet, they remained lost and in the dark, he said. “On this night, however, ‘the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light’ (Is 9:2).”

“Born in the night is the One who redeems us from the night,” Leo said. “The hint of the dawning day is no longer to be sought in the distant reaches of the cosmos, but by bending low, in the stable nearby.

Pope Leo invited Christians to marvel at the wisdom of Christmas, through which “God gives the world a new life: his own, offered for all.”

“He does not give us a clever solution to every problem but a love story that draws us in. In response to the expectations of peoples, he sends a child to be a word of hope. In the face of the suffering of the poor, he sends one who is defenseless to be the strength to rise again. Before violence and oppression, he kindles a gentle light that illumines with salvation all the children of this world,” he said.

The pontiff quoted a sermon of St. Augustine, who said “human pride weighed you down so heavily that only divine humility could raise you up again.”

“While a distorted economy leads us to treat human beings as mere merchandise, God becomes like us, revealing the infinite dignity of every person,” Leo said. “While humanity seeks to become ‘god’ in order to dominate others, God chooses to become man in order to free us from every form of slavery. Will this love be enough to change our history?”

Christmas reversed in Slovakia: Why the homeless gave this archbishop a gift
Wed, 24 Dec 2025 17:00:00 -0500

EWTN News, Dec 24, 2025 / 17:00 pm (CNA).

Archbishop Bernard Bober of Košice, Slovakia, found a special gift under the Christmas tree. It was a new “cathedra,” a wooden bench prepared by homeless people in a charity workshop. Benches are also associated with people living on the margins of society.

The traditional Christmas gathering began with a Mass inside one of the buildings of the Archdiocesan Charity in Košice, the second-largest city in Slovakia. After the Mass, the prelate, who also serves as president of the Slovak Bishops’ Conference, joined those in need for goulash and other seasonal meals.

“Christmas is not just about the Nativity scene,” Bober said, but mainly about people — getting together, acceptance, and mutual closeness.

“It is precisely people who have a difficult fate… who need to feel at this time that they are not alone, that they are accepted, and that they have their place among us,” he said.

Such gatherings have a strong human dimension and help release tension, build trust, and enter the new year with hope, according to a press release the Archdiocesan Charity sent to CNA.

The bench was made in a charity workshop where those in need gain and improve manual skills, helping them enter the job market. Besides the bench, they gave the archbishop flowers, handmade decorations, ikebana, and soap. The gifts were also given to mark his recent 75th birthday on Nov. 3.

“We do not want these holidays to be just a nice tradition, but a call to responsibility, too,” the Archdiocesan Charity of Košice said. The organization invites public officials to such events so they can see the reality facing the homeless and “feel greater sensitivity when deciding on solutions that can ensure a more dignified life for them.”

The birthday celebration was another gift for Bober, who reached canonical retirement age. In early November, his birthday coincided with a local Jubilee of Young People in Košice. In front of the Cathedral of St. Elizabeth, approximately 25,000 people greeted the prelate and enjoyed a concert by the Godzone evangelization band and a party led by Portuguese priest and DJ Father Guilherme Peixoto.

Pope Leo XIV sent a video message to the participants, calling them to be “witnesses of communion, builders of bridges, and sowers of trust in a world often marked by division and suspicion.”

“Jesus calls you... to live the Gospel with enthusiasm and to share the joy that springs from encountering the Lord,” the pope said. “Bring the light of Christ into your families, schools, universities, workplaces, and communities.”

Catholic Church responds to deadly Indonesia floods as leaders warn of environmental crisis
Wed, 24 Dec 2025 14:00:00 -0500

EWTN News, Dec 24, 2025 / 14:00 pm (CNA).

After deadly floods and landslides left millions affected across Sumatra, the Catholic Church in Indonesia is mounting an emergency relief effort while Church leaders warn that decades of deforestation have turned the island into an environmental catastrophe.

Following a powerful cyclone in November, disaster struck three provinces in particular — Aceh, North Sumatra, and West Sumatra. Floods and landslides affected communities across the Archdiocese of Medan and its suffragan dioceses.

Amid the widespread destruction, Caritas Indonesia has emerged as a central pillar of the Church’s humanitarian response. According to its executive director, Father Fredy Rante Taruk, the organization is prioritizing lifesaving assistance for communities impacted by flooding and landslides caused by Cyclone Senyar.

Speaking to CNA, he said the immediate focus is on “ensuring access to food, temporary shelter, clean water, sanitation, hygiene services, and essential health care,” especially for displaced families and vulnerable groups in the Diocese of Sibolga, North Sumatra.

As of Dec. 21, official figures indicate that more than 3.3 million people across Sumatra have been affected, with roughly 1 million forced to flee their homes. Authorities report 1,090 deaths, 186 people missing, and approximately 7,000 injured. More than 147,000 houses have been damaged or destroyed, and economic losses are estimated at around $19.8 billion.

Relief efforts have been hampered by severe infrastructure damage. Collapsed bridges and washed‑out roads have made access to many towns and villages difficult, delaying the movement of humanitarian teams and essential supplies. Despite these challenges, Caritas Indonesia has continued to mobilize parish‑based shelters, operate communal kitchens, and deploy mobile health services in affected areas.

The response has been further complicated by the absence of a comprehensive national disaster emergency declaration. This has slowed the mobilization of large‑scale resources and reduced the prioritization of remote diocesan areas within the national response framework. As a result, much of the immediate relief work has relied heavily on local Church structures.

Local parishes, religious communities, and volunteers have taken on a central role. Parishes have opened temporary shelters, managed communal kitchens, and served as coordination and distribution hubs. Volunteers from parish and religious groups are assisting in relief distribution and health outreaches, including in hard‑to‑reach locations.

So far, Caritas Indonesia and its diocesan partners have provided food assistance to 22,251 people, including via five communal kitchens. Hygiene kits have reached 5,722 people, health services have been delivered to 3,751 individuals, and psychosocial support has been provided to 1,588 people. In total, Caritas Indonesia has dispatched 60 tons of humanitarian aid, including food, medicines, and blankets, from its national logistics hub in Jakarta to affected areas across Sumatra.

On the importance of international help, Taruk said “solidarity from Catholics abroad, channeled through Caritas member organizations, dioceses, and parish networks, remains essential,” stressing that such support is key to reaching isolated communities, closing funding gaps, and ensuring continuity from emergency response to early recovery.

Other Catholic organizations have also stepped in. Father Martinus Dam Febrianto, SJ, director of Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) Indonesia, told CNA that the group launched an emergency response due to both the scale of the disaster and gaps in the official response. The organization’s work in Indonesia is part of Jesuit Refugee Service.

JRS was able to act quickly because of its long-standing presence on the island through its refugee protection programs. Since early December, the organization has distributed food, drinking water, hygiene kits, and other necessities.

Febrianto noted that damaged roads have forced many residents to walk long distances to access assistance. He said the heart of JRS’ response is pastoral accompaniment, “walking alongside” survivors who risk being left in prolonged and undignified living conditions due to limited access to housing, electricity, clean water, and sanitation.

Although JRS operates largely in predominantly Muslim areas, Febrianto explained that its engagement is humanitarian in nature. At the same time, he said, staff continue to witness resilience and inner strength among affected communities.

Public protests for accountability

Church leaders have also warned that the impact of the floods and landslides has been intensified by decades of deforestation across Sumatra. Large‑scale forest loss driven by illegal logging as well as industrial activity in the pulp, palm oil, and mining sectors has left communities more vulnerable to extreme weather events, they said.

Members of the Capuchin Franciscan order have joined other faith leaders in public protests calling for greater accountability.

CNA spoke with Father Supriyadi Pardosi, OFM Cap, of the Franciscan Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation (JPIC) Office in the Archdiocese of Medan, who said Capuchin friars have been leading demonstrations against the pulp company PT Toba Pulp Lestari (TPL).

Large public demonstrations have been held since Nov. 10 and directed at Indonesia’s People’s Representative Council, several government ministries, the National Commission on Human Rights, and the governor of North Sumatra.

“Our demand remains consistent: the closure of the pulp firm PT Toba Pulp Lestari,” Pardosi said. He pointed to a pattern of flooding near TPL’s operations, noting flash floods in Harian–Samosir in November 2023, Simallopuk in December 2023, and Parapat in March 2025, all before Cyclone Senyar struck.

Beyond environmental damage, Pardosi said the company’s presence has fueled deep social divisions. He is advocating for a return of the land to public use.

Drawing on the teaching of the late Pope Francis, Pardosi said that care for creation is inseparable from care for human life. “The degradation of nature is, in essence, the degradation of human life itself.”

The priest called for an urgent paradigm shift in Indonesia’s environmental stewardship, warning that the country, often described as one of the world’s “lungs,” cannot remain passive as forests are cleared for short-term financial gain. Human progress, he concluded, depends on learning from creation rather than exploiting it. Environmental destruction, he said, represents “a low point in our humanity,” with consequences that can burden generations yet to come.

Full text: Pope Leo XIV’s Christmas night homily
Wed, 24 Dec 2025 12:31:00 -0500

Vatican City, Dec 24, 2025 / 12:31 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV celebrated Christmas Mass during the Night in St. Peter’s Basilica on Wednesday. The Mass was attended by an estimated 6,000 people inside the basilica, while around 5,000 people gathered outside in St. Peter's Square, according to the Vatican.

Below is the full text of the pope’s Christmas night homily:

Dear brothers and sisters,

For millennia, across the earth, peoples have gazed up at the sky, giving names to the silent stars, and seeing images therein. In their imaginative yearning, they tried to read the future in the heavens, seeking on high for a truth that was absent below amidst their homes. Yet, as if grasping in the dark, they remained lost, confounded by their own oracles. On this night, however, “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined” (Is 9:2).

Behold the star that astonishes the world, a spark newly lit and blazing with life: “To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord” (Lk 2:11). Into time and space — in our midst — comes the One without whom we would not exist. He who gives his life for us lives among us, illuminating the night with his light of salvation. There is no darkness that this star does not illumine, for by its light all humanity beholds the dawn of a new and eternal life.

It is the birth of Jesus, Emmanuel. In the Son made man, God gives us nothing less than his very self, in order to “redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own” (Titus 2:14). Born in the night is the One who redeems us from the night. The hint of the dawning day is no longer to be sought in the distant reaches of the cosmos, but by bending low, in the stable nearby.

The clear sign given to a darkened world is indeed “a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger” (Lk 2:12). To find the Savior, one must not gaze upward, but look below: The omnipotence of God shines forth in the powerlessness of a newborn; the eloquence of the eternal Word resounds in an infant’s first cry; the holiness of the Spirit gleams in that small body, freshly washed and wrapped in swaddling clothes. The need for care and warmth becomes divine since the Son of the Father shares in history with all his brothers and sisters. The divine light radiating from this Child helps us to recognize humanity in every new life.

To heal our blindness, the Lord chooses to reveal himself in each human being, who reflect his true image, according to a plan of love begun at the creation of the world. As long as the night of error obscures this providential truth, then “there is no room for others either, for children, for the poor, for the stranger” (Benedict XVI, Homily, Christmas Mass during the Night, 24 December 2012).

These words of Pope Benedict XVI remain a timely reminder that on earth, there is no room for God if there is no room for the human person. To refuse one is to refuse the other. Yet, where there is room for the human person, there is room for God; even a stable can become more sacred than a temple, and the womb of the Virgin Mary become the Ark of the New Covenant.

Let us marvel, dear brothers and sisters, at the wisdom of Christmas. In the Child Jesus, God gives the world a new life: his own, offered for all. He does not give us a clever solution to every problem, but a love story that draws us in. In response to the expectations of peoples, he sends a child to be a word of hope. In the face of the suffering of the poor, he sends one who is defenseless to be the strength to rise again. Before violence and oppression, he kindles a gentle light that illumines with salvation all the children of this world. As St. Augustine observed, “human pride weighed you down so heavily that only divine humility could raise you up again” (St. Augustine, Sermon 188, III, 3). While a distorted economy leads us to treat human beings as mere merchandise, God becomes like us, revealing the infinite dignity of every person. While humanity seeks to become “god” in order to dominate others, God chooses to become man in order to free us from every form of slavery. Will this love be enough to change our history?

The answer will come as soon as we wake up from a deadly night into the light of new life, and, like the shepherds, contemplate the child Jesus. Above the stable of Bethlehem, where Mary and Joseph watch over the newborn Child with hearts full of wonder, the starry sky is transformed into “a multitude of the heavenly host” (Lk 2:13). These are unarmed and disarming hosts, for they sing of the glory of God, of which peace on earth is the true manifestation (cf. v. 14). Indeed, in the heart of Christ beats the bond of love that unites heaven and earth, Creator and creatures.

For this reason, exactly one year ago, Pope Francis affirmed that the Nativity of Jesus rekindles in us the “gift and task of bringing hope wherever hope has been lost,” because “with him, joy flourishes; with him, life changes; with him, hope does not disappoint” (Homily, Christmas Mass during the Night, 24 December 2024). With these words, the holy year began. Now, as the jubilee draws to a close, Christmas becomes for us a time of gratitude and mission; gratitude for the gift received, and mission to bear witness to it before the world. As the Psalmist sings: “Tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all the peoples” (Ps 96:2–3).

Brothers and sisters, contemplation of the Word made flesh awakens in the whole Church a new and true proclamation. Let us therefore announce the joy of Christmas, which is a feast of faith, charity, and hope. It is a feast of faith, because God becomes man, born of the Virgin. It is a feast of charity, because the gift of the redeeming Son is realized in fraternal self-giving. It is a feast of hope, because the child Jesus kindles it within us, making us messengers of peace. With these virtues in our hearts, unafraid of the night, we can go forth to meet the dawn of a new day.

Christmas recital in Lebanon aims for Guinness World Record
Wed, 24 Dec 2025 12:00:00 -0500

ACI MENA, Dec 24, 2025 / 12:00 pm (CNA).

With a rhythm of hymns carrying prayer and hopes for the nation, a group in Lebanon has launched an exceptional event aspiring to make history: a continuous Christmas hymn recital lasting 170 uninterrupted hours in an attempt to break a world record and inscribe the name of the Land of the Cedars in the Guinness World Records.

The endeavor is not merely about numbers or long hours of singing but a collective act of faith and a cultural and spiritual message declaring that the country, despite its wounds, is still capable of raising its voice in joy.

The Christmas recital is being held at Sacred Hearts School in Kfardebian and is organized by Sandra Akiki under the patronage of Béchara Boutros Raï, Maronite patriarch of Antioch and all the East.

Ahead of the launch of the big event, Akiki spoke to ACI MENA, CNA’s Arabic-news partner, about the background of the initiative and its spiritual and cultural motivations.

Akiki, who teaches theater and music at the school, described the idea for the recital as a “divine inspiration.” She emphasized that students formed the backbone of the initiative and stressed that the Church provided strong support, both pastorally and at the diocesan level, all the way to Bkerké.

Given that Guinness rules require the presence of at least 12 people in the hall at all times, Akiki explained that the dioceses helped organize attendance schedules to ensure the venue would never be empty throughout the seven consecutive days.

Akiki added that the idea for the recital was born three years ago and that, while challenges were many, they were ultimately overcome.

Akiki also pointed to the strict requirements imposed by Guinness World Records, particularly the rule that each hymn must last no less than two minutes and that the interval between hymns must not exceed 20 seconds.

At its core, she said, the message of the recital is the message of Lebanon itself: Lebanon of culture and Lebanon of art. She referenced a statement by Pope Leo XIV, who said that Lebanon is not only a country of divisions but also a country of joy, and she also cited St. Augustine’s well-known words: “He who sings prays twice.”

Akiki told ACI MENA that by affirming that while hardships in Lebanon continue, peace ultimately prevails, stressing that Lebanese dreams do not fade no matter how severe the challenges.

This story was first published by ACI MENA, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner, and has been translated for and adapted by CNA.

Syria celebrates Christmas with hope amid lingering security fears
Wed, 24 Dec 2025 10:00:00 -0500

ACI MENA, Dec 24, 2025 / 10:00 am (CNA).

In a scene reflecting Syrians’ deep longing for life and joy after long years of suffering, Christmas celebrations continue across various regions of Syria, carrying messages of hope that transcend divisions and wounds.

These festive atmospheres coincided with the official repeal of the Caesar Act, U.S.-imposed sanctions on Syria, which propels the country into a time of rebuilding its economy and securing the basic requirements for a dignified life for its citizens.

Among the most prominent Christmas events this week was the organization of a Christmas carnival by the Roman Melkite Olive Scout Troop in Old Damascus.

A majestic procession toured the ancient streets with the participation of hundreds of people accompanied by handcrafted Christmas figures, decorated vehicles, brass band performances, and the display of both church and national flags. Archimandrite Michel Deirani told ACI MENA, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner, that the aim of these initiatives is to “plant joy in the hearts of children and help them live in peace, overcoming the effects of wars and upheavals that have burdened the world.”

The celebrations were not limited to the capital. The village of Qinniyeh in the Idlib countryside witnessed the lighting of its Christmas tree and Nativity scene for the first time in 14 years. A Christmas market was also inaugurated in Tartous through a non-ecclesial initiative.

In the same context, the Joy Choir, with its various age groups, continued presenting its customary hymn evenings in Damascus and Yabroud, leaving a positive impression on attendees including the acting head of the European Union delegation to Syria, Michael Ohnmacht, who remarked that the choir is “true to its name” and succeeded in embodying Syria’s true image.

Despite widespread praise for the heightened security measures accompanying the celebrations, troubling incidents emerged, including the burning of a Christmas tree in the Al-Adawiya district of Homs and another attempted arson in Al-Qusayr, in addition to the theft of a bronze statue of St. Paul in Bab Kisan.

Controversy also arose over a social media post by Wael Hamza, director general of the Syrian General Organization for Books, who asked via Facebook not to be congratulated on the holidays — an unusual stance for a government official.

In the lead-up to Christmas, the Church did not forget its martyrs. John X Yazigi, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, visited Mar Elias Church, which had previously been targeted by a bombing, to review the rehabilitation work underway.

Though the Caesar Act has been repealed, Syria remains subject to U.S. oversight related to counterterrorism efforts, the removal of foreign fighters, and the protection of minorities. In this context, 134 Republican members of the U.S. Congress signed a statement affirming their commitment to monitoring the new Syrian administration, stressing that violations against Christians and other minorities must become a thing of the past.

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

Religious sisters offer abortion clinic workers Christmas cards with resources and prayers
Wed, 24 Dec 2025 08:00:00 -0500

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 24, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

Abortion clinic workers across the country are once again receiving Christmas cards from religious sisters offering prayers, compassion, and an invitation to seek a career outside the abortion industry.

And Then There Were None (ATTWN), a pro-life organization dedicated to assisting abortion clinic workers leave their jobs and find life-affirming careers, carries out this ministry each Christmas season with help from convents around the country. The Christmas card project is a part of a larger mission of handwritten cards sent throughout the year.

This year, Dominican, Maronite, Benedictine, Carmelite, Capuchin, and Franciscan sisters, as well as Apostolic Sisters of St. John and Trinitarians of Mary, sent at least 1,030 handwritten Christmas cards to abortion clinic workers with loving messages and an image of the Holy Family.

Reaching ‘quitters’

ATTWN has sent nearly 23,000 handwritten cards to abortion facilities in the last decade, encouraging workers to leave their jobs with ATTWN’s support.

“The clinics are hearing from us about once every four to five business days in some way, whether it’s through some gift, a little trinket, a handwritten card, a postcard, or something we send in,” Abby Johnson, ATTWN CEO and founder, told CNA.

Johnson herself once worked in the industry, serving as a clinic director of an abortion facility in Bryan, Texas, for eight years before leaving and starting ATTWN to help other “quitters” leave, find new employment, and heal from their experiences.

“Our handwritten card ministry is one of the most effective ministries we have in reaching abortion clinic workers and having them leave,” she said. “There’s just something very personal about a handwritten note. Somebody took the time to sit down and write to you.”

ATTWN has “dozens and dozens” of volunteers who send the messages regularly, Johnson said. “We have a really accurate database of abortion clinics and abortion referral facilities. I think there’s about 850 facilities on there, and this group of women are constantly writing notes.”

When workers receive the notes, “they leave,” Johnson said. “Workers will say, ‘I got this letter. I folded it up, I kept it in my purse, I put it in my scrub pocket, and I went home and I called you guys.’ So it is very powerful. We see that it does truly make a difference.”

“I received a handwritten note from one of my sidewalk counselors when I worked at the clinic, and I still have it in my wallet,” Johnson said. “It’s just a Bible verse on it, but it says, ‘The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.’ And I still have that little card in my wallet from 18 years ago.”

The note “meant enough at that time to keep it,” Johnson said. “I pull it out and remind myself why I’m doing [pro-life work] and how God has blessed me so much. It’s just a powerful reminder that someone out there took the time to think about you, specifically.”

Christmas card ministry

The letters create “by far the most overwhelming response … and we have the highest response from them at Christmastime, which is when they are receiving the notes from the sisters,” Johnson said.

Five years ago, Johnson decided to incorporate the Christmas season into the ministry, specifically with the help of religious sisters.

“The idea came to me because I was very moved by a Franciscan sister who used to pray in front of the facility where I used to work in Bryan, Texas. It was the first time that I had ever seen a nun in public in my life.”

“I was so struck by her being out there and her presence,” she said. “It was so hot outside, and she was in her full habit, and her little face was so red. It was over 100 degrees. I remember I just watched her all day outside my window.”

“I remember the first patient that left that day after having an abortion, she fell to her knees and was just weeping. I thought: ‘Wow, this has really impacted her in a way that I just can’t understand. She has a sorrow that I just don’t understand.’”

“That’s always stayed with me ever since I was working there … So when we started the ministry, we started thinking: ‘How could we incorporate nuns in some way?’”

If workers started speaking with religious sisters, it could “make an impact on their heart,” Johnson thought. “We started reaching out to convents across the country, asking them if they would partner with us.”

Several reached back out to ATTWN and eagerly wanted to be a part of the project.

A ‘perfect partnership’

ATTWN shares its database of clinics with the sisters, “then they just start writing,” Johnson said. “It’s just been really beautiful to see the fruit of that.”

Some of the participating sisters live in cloistered convents. “They don’t go out. They spend their lives in contemplative prayer,” Johnson said. “So their only real correspondence is through mail, through writing. So it’s beautiful work for them.”

“This is what they do. They write notes, they send letters, they pray. That’s what they do all day long. So it’s a perfect ministry for them. It’s a perfect partnership.”

ATTWN will send the sister some ideas of what they can write so they know the proper resources to share with the workers, but then they can add any additional messages.

“They fill in other things that they would like to say, different spiritual things that they feel led to say,” Johnson said. Their messages are “from their hearts and are just so prayerful and beautiful.”

After the sisters write the Christmas cards, they are “put on the altar, they’re blessed, they’re prayed over, and they’re sent in.”

“We always make sure that we send them a card that has the image of the Holy Family on it. We just want to remind them that that’s what God wants for them, and this is what Christmas is about — it’s about the Lord.”

The image is a reminder that “this is what we’re designed for,” Johnson said. “We’re designed for families, and God wants families for them as well. He wants families for the women who are walking into those clinics.”

“He created us for good, for family, for love, and for creation, not for destruction. We make sure that the cards that we send in have an image that really defines that.”

Johnson plans for ATTWN to continue to send the annual cards from the sisters. “For so many of these convents, being pro-life is a part of who they are. It’s part of their charism,” she said. “So we would love to have as many as we can participate.

Pope Leo XIV revives tradition during first Christmas of his pontificate
Wed, 24 Dec 2025 06:00:00 -0500

Vatican City, Dec 24, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV will celebrate his first Christmas at the Vatican by reviving the tradition of offering Christmas Mass on Dec. 25 in St. Peter’s Basilica, something no pope has done since 1994.

The Christmas celebrations — which will be marked by the closing of the Holy Doors — will begin on the evening of Dec. 24, when the pontiff will celebrate Christmas Eve Mass at 10 p.m. local time in St. Peter’s Basilica.

The schedule represents a change from recent years, when during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Christmas vigil Mass was moved to 7 p.m. Before 2009, it took place at midnight, until Benedict XVI decided to move it to an earlier time.

Tradition of Christmas Mass restored

On Dec. 25 at 10 a.m., Leo XIV will also celebrate the Christmas Day Mass in the Vatican basilica, a custom that has not been observed since the pontificate of St. John Paul II. Afterward, at noon, he will impart the traditional “urbi et orbi” (“to the city and the world”) blessing from the central balcony.

On Dec. 31, the pope will preside at 5 p.m. in St. Peter’s Basilica over first vespers and the Te Deum in thanksgiving for the year that is ending. On Jan. 1, 2026, the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, and the 59th World Day of Peace, he will celebrate Mass at 10 a.m.

The message for this World Day of Peace, titled “Peace Be with You All: Towards an Unarmed and Disarming Peace,” proposes a vision that rejects fear, threats, violence, and weapons, and advocates for a peace capable of generating trust, empathy, and hope.

One of the most significant moments of the Christmas season will take place on Jan. 6, the solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord. At 9:30 a.m., Pope Leo XIV will close the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica and celebrate the closing Mass of the Ordinary Jubilee of 2025. In the preceding days, the Holy Doors of the other papal basilicas — St. Mary Major, St. John Lateran, and St. Paul Outside the Walls — will also have been closed.

This will be the second time in history that a jubilee year is closed by a different pope than the one who inaugurated it, as happened in 1700, when Innocent XII opened the holy year and Clement XI closed it.

The Christmas celebrations will conclude liturgically on Jan. 11, the feast of the Baptism of the Lord. On that day, the pope will celebrate Mass and the baptism of several children of Vatican employees in the Sistine Chapel at 9:30 a.m., following a tradition established by St. John Paul II.

A pro-life Nativity scene

The Christmas spirit is already palpable in the Vatican after the Dec. 15 lighting of the Christmas tree and the inauguration of the Nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square, events presided over by Sister Raffaella Petrini, president of the Governorate of Vatican City State. That same day, Leo received the donors of the tree and the Nativity scenes that were also set up in the Paul VI Audience Hall.

The Nativity scene in that space, called “Nacimiento Gaudium,” (“The birth that brings joy”) from Costa Rica, has attracted particular attention. Until Dec. 25, it depicts the Virgin Mary as pregnant, symbolizing anticipation and hope.

The figures rest on 28,000 white ribbons bearing the names or pseudonyms of children saved from abortion, while in the manger, 420 yellow ribbons display messages from hospitalized sick children.

Taking a break at Castel Gandolfo

After Christmas, the pope is scheduled to travel to Castel Gandolfo on Dec. 26 for a few days of rest, without, however, giving up presiding over the main liturgical events or meeting with the faithful on major feast days. In addition, on Jan. 7–8, he will gather all the cardinals of the world in Rome for his first ordinary consistory since the conclave that elected him.

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

Where does the ‘Feast of the 7 Fishes’ Christmas Eve tradition come from?
Wed, 24 Dec 2025 04:00:00 -0500

CNA Staff, Dec 24, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

There are numerous Christmas Eve traditions families around the world take part in, whether it’s watching a certain movie together, baking cookies for Santa, opening one present before going to bed, or eating a specific meal for dinner. The Feast of the Seven Fishes — in Italian “La Vigilia,” which means “The Eve” — is one of these Christmas Eve traditions.

So, where does this tradition come from?

This feast stems from the southern part of Italy and spans generations. Before 1861, Italy was made up of different regions. Each had its own government, however, and the southern regions were the poorest. This remained true before and after the unification of the country. The new unified government allocated many of its resources to northern Italy, which caused poverty and organized crime in the south. The area, however, though poor, was plentiful in fish since it was so close to the ocean.

The Feast of the Seven Fishes tradition is also tied to the Catholic Church’s practice of not eating meat during certain times of the year — for example, on Fridays during Lent and on the eve of some holidays.

The number seven is also symbolic in that it is repeated more than 700 times in the Bible, and in Catholicism there are seven sacraments, seven days of creation, and seven deadly sins.

Although it is not an actual feast day on the Catholic liturgical calendar, it is definitely a feast in terms of the amount of food on the table!

Put all these things together and that is how the Feast of the Seven Fishes began in the 1900s.

Additionally, many Italians who fled the country due to poverty and immigrated to the United States brought this tradition with them, so the feast continued among many Italian Americans.

So what is eaten during this seven-course meal?

While there is no specific menu, there are some guidelines that are followed. The first being, of course, having seven different fish dishes. These dishes can include any type of seafood including shellfish. Based on the fish you plan to prepare, you can then determine the different courses that typically include appetizers, a soup, pasta, a side salad, and the main entrees.

Many families may also include a palette cleanser, or a small fruit dish, before bringing out the highly-anticipated desserts!

Some dishes include “insalata di mare” (“ocean salad”), which typically has shrimp and mussels; “insalata di polipo” (“salad with octopus”); “capestante,” which are clam shells filled with salmon, shrimp, and bechamel sauce; “linguine con frutti di mare,” which is a pasta with several different kinds of fish; and other dishes that include fried fish, eel, crab, and lobster.

And we can’t forget dessert! “Struffoli” are little balls of fried dough covered in honey and sprinkles and are considered a Neapolitan dessert. Others include “mostaccioli” and “roccocò,” which are types of cookies, and “pandoro” and “panettone” are sweet breads.

This is just a glimpse into the variety of dishes southern Italian families will spend hours preparing ahead of Christmas Eve dinner. Each family has its own fish dishes and ways of cooking them; however, one thing is for sure: You can expect to be filled to the brim with delicious food before heading off to bed.

This story was first published Dec. 23, 2022, and has been updated.

‘Everybody’s had it’: Backlash to Charlotte bishop’s ban of altar rails, kneelers
Tue, 23 Dec 2025 16:55:00 -0500

CNA Staff, Dec 23, 2025 / 16:55 pm (CNA).

Priests as well as the lay faithful are voicing criticisms after Bishop Michael Martin of the Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina, issued a pastoral letter last week prohibiting the use of altar rails and kneelers in the reception of Communion in the diocese.

In the Dec. 17 letter, Martin said that by Jan. 16, 2026, the use of altar rails, kneelers, and prie-dieus (movable kneelers) will no longer be permitted in the diocese, and any “temporary or movable fixtures used for kneeling for the reception of Communion” must be removed.

In the letter, Martin said while an “individual member of the faithful” is free to kneel to receive and should not be denied Communion, the “normative posture for all the faithful in the United States is standing,” per guidelines from the U.S. bishops.

In May, a leaked draft of a letter detailed Martin’s intended reforms of traditional practices in the diocese. In the letter, the bishop said that because “there is no mention in the conciliar documents, the reform of the liturgy, or current liturgical documents concerning the use of altar rails or kneelers for the distribution of holy Communion, they are not to be employed in the Diocese of Charlotte.”

Also in the May letter, Martin said it was “simply absurd” to suggest that “kneeling is more reverent than standing.”

Martin said in his Dec.17 letter that it is his “intention to continue to facilitate ‘peace and unity’ in our liturgies.”

A Charlotte priest who spoke to CNA on the condition of anonymity said of Martin’s “heavy-handed” approach to reform: “Everybody’s had it.”

“If the priests of the diocese were asked for a vote of no confidence, a vast majority would vote that way,” he said.

“Unfortunately, Bishop Martin’s style of leadership has been a source of division for the diocese since his arrival and there does not seem to be any course correction after many appeals. It has been painful for many across the diocese,” he continued.

“Why is kneeling a problem? Why go to such lengths to force these changes?” he asked. Receiving communion is “the most intimate moment of the week for people, who are receiving their God. Why go through all this bad PR? I don’t understand it.”

“It’s going to be a train wreck,” he continued, speaking of the continued opposition to the bishop’s reforms.

He told CNA he is hopeful the matter will be addressed at the upcoming consistory of cardinals in Rome.

A letter by an anonymous canon lawyer also began circulating last week throughout the Charlotte Diocese in response to Martin’s Dec. 17 letter.

In the anonymous letter, Martin is accused of ignoring the role of synodality in his decision-making. He is also accused of ignoring the feedback of his presbyteral council.

Writing to Martin, the letter-writer told him that the “decision to prohibit altar rails and aids to kneeling relies on your own preference rather than the law or the tradition of the Church.”

Matthew Hazell, a British liturgy scholar, told the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, in May that Martin’s perspective was consistent with what Pope Benedict XVI famously described as a “hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture.”

“Rather than allow the novus ordo to be celebrated in a manner in keeping with its own rubrics and with the Church’s tradition, Bishop Martin seems to see it as an entirely new creation that cannot even be seen to have anything in common with what came before,” Hazell told the Register.

Parishes that kneel reportedly provide lion’s share of vocations

According to Brian Williams, an advocate for Charlotte’s Traditional Latin Mass community, of the diocese’s 44 seminarians, “at least 75% are from parishes where kneeling has been the practice to receive holy Communion.”

Williams said his small parish, where kneeling is the norm, has produced seven seminarians recently.

He told CNA that the ”mega parishes that have embraced these liturgical changes” have provided “maybe two of the 44 seminarians even though they account for tens of thousands of families.”

One of the largest Catholic parishes in the country, St. Matthew Catholic Church, does not have altar rails. Willliams said there is “one seminarian from there right now, and not more than six men ordained from there in its entire history.”

“They do a lot of great things, but they’re not providing vocations,” Williams said.

In September, despite a great deal of pushback, Martin canceled the Traditional Latin Mass in all but one small chapel that is not large enough to house the diocese’s burgeoning Latin Mass community.

He initially tried to cancel the Mass several months earlier than the timeline set by his predecessor, Bishop Peter Jugis, but decided in the summer to allow the Mass to continue.

“It falls to every member of the body of Christ to facilitate unity in our celebrations. These norms for our diocese move us together toward the Church’s vision for the fuller and more active participation of the faithful, especially emphasized by our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, at the beginning of his Petrine ministry,” Martin wrote in the December letter.

In the May letter, Martin described how priestly vestments with too much lace or decoration would be prohibited in the diocese. That letter also decried the use of Latin in any Masses other than ones in which most of the attendees understand Latin, such as “a specific gathering of scholars, clergy, or those trained in classical music.”

Martin said pastors who incorporate Latin into their Masses are not being “pastorally sensitive,” writing that “the faithful’s full, conscious, and active participation is hindered wherever Latin is employed.”

“Most of our faithful do not understand and will never comprehend the Latin language, especially those on the periphery. It is fallacious to think that if we employ Latin more frequently, the faithful will get used to it and finally understand it,” he claimed.

When Martin concelebrated the Mass with several other bishops this summer at a parish that traditionally kneels at an altar rail to receive, per his direction, Communion was distributed in front of the altar rail to discourage parishioners from kneeling.

Nevertheless, a video showed parishioners kneeling anyway, many of them elderly women who needed assistance standing up after receiving.

The Diocese of Charlotte declined multiple requests for comment.

Catholic federation denounces withdrawal of EU funds due to ideological bias
Tue, 23 Dec 2025 16:25:00 -0500

ACI Prensa Staff, Dec 23, 2025 / 16:25 pm (CNA).

The European Commission has decided to withdraw funding from the Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe (FAFCE), an organization founded in 1997 to promote and defend the family, based on marriage between a man and a woman, before European institutions.

The decision comes at a time when the European Union has recently given the green light to initiatives that promote so-called abortion tourism financed by European funds and the imposition of the recognition of homosexual unions on all member states.

In contrast, funding is being denied to this Brussels-based Catholic federation, which brings together 33 associations from 20 European countries and is currently active with EU institutions, the Council of Europe, and the U.N.

At the end of November, the EU froze the funds allocated to projects submitted by FAFCE without providing an explanation, even though several of them were aimed at protecting minors from pornography or promoting digital security, areas that the union itself considers priorities.

The president of FAFCE, Vincenzo Bassi, said the European Union’s rejection is based on the federation’s alleged shortcomings related to its approach to gender and equality, criteria promoted by the EU itself.

In a statement to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, Bassi noted that his organization is subject to systematic discrimination, since it seems that “the family experience is not compatible with the values ​​of the European Union.”

This rejection, Bassi emphasized, “is not due to technical issues but to an explicit ideological prejudice,” because the European Union does not conceive of the family “as a relevant social actor.”

Furthermore, he warned of a broader process of ideological imposition and encroachment on sovereign nations’ own laws in areas such as abortion, family, and identity. The EU’s objective, he explained, is to “transform policy decisions into legal decisions in order to impose them on member states.”

As the FAFCE president explained, through so-called soft law — nonbinding resolutions that create legal consensus — the EU is encroaching on sovereign nations’ own laws that the treaties reserve exclusively for the states, especially in matters such as family or abortion. This would allow, for example, pressure to be exerted on countries with more restrictive legislation, alleging violations of the “rule of law.”

Bassi said this shift represents an abandonment of the original spirit of the EU’s founding fathers, who “envisioned European integration based on social cohesion and the strengthening of families.”

Instead, the Italian leader criticized that today a “bureaucratic model” prevails, one that “wants to teach my grandmother how to cook pasta” instead of providing the means for a better life.

Despite the seriousness of the financial situation — since, as he pointed out “without the Catholic community, we run the risk of not being able to continue” — Bassi remains optimistic. He said he believes that Europe’s demographic winter and internal contradictions are creating a favorable environment “for a serious debate about the family.” His goal, he noted, is not to confront the European Union but to propose an alternative truly emerging from the people, faithful to Europe’s roots and vocation.

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

Trafficking victims rise worldwide as experts, survivors call for stronger action
Tue, 23 Dec 2025 15:55:00 -0500

Rome Newsroom, Dec 23, 2025 / 15:55 pm (CNA).

Fifty million people are currently being trafficked around the world, according to the 2023 Global Slavery Index, driving over $236 billion into the hands of criminals, with numbers continuing to rise.

The 2024 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report documented that between 2019 and 2022 the number of identified trafficking victims increased by 25%, forced labor rose by 47%, and the number of child victims rose by 31%, with a dominating 38% increase in girls.

Earlier this month, the Sovereign Order of Malta, Praeveni Global, the Santa Marta Group, and the Institute of Anthropology of the Pontifical Gregorian University organized an international conference in Rome to discuss prevention efforts, strengthen collaboration, and promote comprehensive action plans.

Conference panelists included law enforcement, activists, United Nations rapporteurs, and human rights experts as well as appearances from Cardinal Fabio Baggio, the undersecretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, and Pam Bondi, attorney general for the U.S. Department of Justice.

Survivor testimony

Among those participating in the conference was Karla De la Cuesta, who was rescued alongside other girls from the hands of her traffickers in Mexico.

“We were victims of human trafficking in different ways,” De la Cuesta told EWTN News, explaining that their forms of exploitation included “abuse, sexual exploitation, labor slavery, torture, unlawful deprivation of liberty, forced marriages, forced abortions — multiple crimes committed against us.”

It was thanks to the intervention of Interpol (International Criminal Police Organization) that De la Cuesta’s alleged perpetrators were caught and the girls were able to return home.

After becoming a lawyer and an activist, De la Cuesta studied her own case file in great depth. More than 10 victims had testified before authorities in her case, but those authorities did not act in accordance with the law or open proper investigations into their cases. This led De la Cuesta to write a book: “All in the Light: The Criminal Case that Mexico Left in the Darkness.”

“I [wrote] about all of this analysis I carried out as a lawyer and activist, hand-in-hand with other experts, where I specifically laid out all of these … omissions on the part of the authorities.”

The publications of De la Cuesta’s findings didn’t come without repercussions. “The Mexican state brought against me great retaliation, brutal attacks,” she said. “Which is why in less than six months after the publication of my book, I had to leave my country and now I live in Spain seeking international protection.”

De la Cuesta highlighted that the existence of safeguarding laws is not enough — the laws need to be enforced.

“In my country, we have a wonderful law, but in reality, it does not end up addressing the actual needs,” she stated. “There is no proper prevention, no proper prosecution, and no proper protection for the victims.”

De la Cuesta said no one should ever have to endure what survivors of human trafficking have lived through. While the harm cannot be undone, she emphasized that resilience is still possible, even in the face of pain that often lasts a lifetime.

“We can indeed make flowers grow from these wounds,” she said.

Trafficking and pornography go together

The trafficking of children is increasing globally. Not only is it an issue across borders but also in places where children should feel their safest — at home.

A member of the conference panel, Reem Alsalem, U.N. special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, spoke about how human trafficking and pornography are often interconnected.

“Pornography is a system of online prostitution,” Alsalem said. “So by definition it is exploitative, abusive, and preys on women and girls. Some of the violence and abuse that they’re exposed to happens also through trafficking. They are trafficked for the purpose of being sexually exploited in pornography.”

Alsalem refuted the widely used argument that consuming consensual pornography is the better option.

“Many digital platforms and businesses involved in pornography, first of all, use nonconsensual material; second, many of the women and children that appear in these images and material have been coerced, have been forced, have been threatened and again, as we said, especially the adults have not consented to this, even after they have requested that this material be removed many of these platforms have refused to do so,” she said.

‘Written into the Gospel’

Another panelist at the conference was pyschologist and theologian Father Hans Zollner, director of the Institute of Anthropology at the Pontifical Gregorian University. The Jesuit priest is known for his work in the field of safeguarding against sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

“What we need to do … is to understand that child protection or the safeguarding of all people is something that is written into the Gospel,” he told conference participants. He said he believes the Church has made a lot of progress in the last 12 years in terms of supporting victims, especially those who have been subject to clergy abuse.

“If we understood it better and if it was integrated better and more wholeheartedly, that would also come with an openness to listening to stories of victims who want to share with us their life experience,” he said.

Zollner continued to say that evil has been in the world since the beginning of humanity and that there is no salvation from crime and sins except in the perspective of our future in heaven.

“Jesus Christ himself has been a victim of violence,” Zollner said. “And he suffered death because he was unjustly treated.”

“So we believe that he has risen, and that gives us hope that with all the evil that is happening today we still have some hope, some perspective — that this is not the end of it, that the violence and harm we do to each other as human beings is not the last word.”

130 students and teachers kidnapped from Catholic school in Nigeria released
Tue, 23 Dec 2025 15:25:00 -0500

ACI Prensa Staff, Dec 23, 2025 / 15:25 pm (CNA).

Nigerian authorities have confirmed that 130 students and teachers kidnapped in November from a Catholic school in Nigeria have been released.

According to the Associated Press (AP), Wasiu Abiodun, a police spokesperson for Nigeria’s Niger state, said “the remaining batch of the abducted students” were released, in addition to the first 50 who managed to escape shortly after the abduction and another 100 who were freed in early December.

At least 303 students and 12 teachers were kidnapped on Nov. 21 at St. Mary’s Catholic Primary and Secondary Schools.

Sunday Dare, spokesperson for Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, stated on X that with the 130 released, there are “none left in captivity.”

However, Abiodun said there are still 35 students and teachers unaccounted for and “further details will be communicated” concerning them.

According to Bayo Onanuga, another figure close to the Nigerian president, the release was the result of “a military intelligence-driven operation.”

The AP reported that no organization has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, which is attributed by local residents to armed groups that profit from this practice.

The Church’s gratitude

The Nigerian Diocese of Kontagora, to which the attacked school belongs, issued a statement on Dec. 21 announcing that “the release of the second batch of those abducted from St. Mary’s Catholic Primary and Secondary Schools, Papiri, has been confirmed as of Sunday, Dec. 21.”

“We are profoundly grateful to the federal government of Nigeria, the Niger state government, the security agencies, and all other partners whose efforts and interventions contributed to the safe release of the victims,” ​​the diocese said.

“We also extend our sincere appreciation to the parents, guardians, clergy, religious communities, humanitarian organizations, and the wider public for their prayers, support, and solidarity throughout this challenging period,” the diocese added.

The diocese explained that “further updates and additional information, as may be necessary, will be communicated to the public in a timely manner, through the appropriate and authorized channels to ensure accuracy, transparency, and clarity in all official statements.”

“The diocese remains committed to keeping all stakeholders fully informed as the situation develops and verification processes are completed,” it stated.

“May the Lord grant the swift release of those still in captivity and continue to protect his people from all dangers,” the diocesan statement concludes.

On Dec. 22, the diocese shared on its Facebook page photographs showing the meeting of the released children and teachers with “Gov. Umar Bago of Niger state, the vicar general [Father Musa John Gado], traditional leaders, and some government officials.”

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

UPDATED: Pope asked Illinois governor to veto assisted suicide bill
Tue, 23 Dec 2025 14:55:00 -0500

Castel Gandolfo, Italy, Dec 23, 2025 / 14:55 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV appealed to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker to veto a bill legalizing assisted suicide during a Vatican meeting last month, the pope told reporters Tuesday.

The pope, responding to a question from Rudolf Gehrig of EWTN News, said he made his opposition to the bill clear in the November conversation with the governor.

Leo told Pritzker it was important to defend the value of life and that every life is sacred, the pope told reporters outside the papal villa of Castel Gandolfo before his return to Rome.

The Vatican had not earlier provided details of the meeting.

Pritzker signed the assisted suicide measure, ardently opposed by Catholic leaders, into law Dec. 12.

“I spoke very explicitly with Gov. Pritzker about that,” the pope said, and he said Cardinal Blase Cupich also expressed his views. “But we were very clear about the necessity to respect the sacredness of life from the very beginning to the very end. And unfortunately, for different reasons, he decided to sign that bill. Very disappointed about that.”

People should use Christmastime to think about the value of life, the pope added.

“I would invite all people, especially in this Christmas feast days, to reflect upon the nature of human life, the goodness of human life. God became human like us to show us what it means really to live human life. And I hope and pray that the respect for life will once again grow in all moments of human existence, from conception to natural death,” the pope said.

Catholic bishops had objected to the Illinois law.

“This law ignores the very real failures in access to quality care that drive vulnerable people to despair,” according to the Catholic Conference of Illinois. “It does nothing to ensure patients are offered services, protected from coercion, or surrounded by loved ones when they kill themselves.”

Several states and countries also have advanced legislation to expand access to physician-assisted suicide besides Illinois.

Other U.S. jurisdictions with assisted suicide laws include California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia.

British lawmakers in the House of Commons passed a bill in June to legalize assisted suicide for terminally ill patients in England and Wales. Legislators in Uruguay passed a bill in August to legalize euthanasia in the country.

A Canadian law allowing medical assistance in dying led to disproportionately high rates of premature deaths among vulnerable groups, a report showed.

Rudolf Gehrig contributed to this story.

This story was updated at 3:15 p.m. ET on Dec. 23, 2025, with the quotations from the pope.

Vice President Vance presents a Christian vision of politics
Tue, 23 Dec 2025 14:27:00 -0500

CNA Staff, Dec 23, 2025 / 14:27 pm (CNA).

U.S. Vice President JD Vance, America’s second Catholic vice president, laid out a distinctly Christian vision for American politics in a speech this week, declaring that “the only thing that has truly served as an anchor of the United States of America is that we have been and, by the grace of God, we always will be a Christian nation.”

Speaking to more than 30,000 young conservatives at Turning Point USA’s AmFest 2025 some three months after the death of its founder Charlie Kirk, Vance called for a politics rooted in a Christian faith that honors the family, protects the weak, and rejects what he described as a decades-long “war” on Christianity in public life.

The Christian faith has provided a “shared moral language” since the nation’s founding, the Yale-trained lawyer argued, which led to “our understanding of natural law and rights, our sense of duty to one’s neighbor, the conviction that the strong must protect the weak, and the belief in individual conscience.”

“Christianity is America’s creed,” the vice president said to loud cheers, while acknowledging that not everyone needs to be a Christian and “we must respect each individual’s pathway” to God. Even so, he said, “even our famously American idea of religious liberty is a Christian concept.”

Vance described how, over the past several decades, “freedom of religion transformed into freedom from religion” as a result of the cultural assault on Christian faith from those on “the left” who have “labored to push Christianity out of national life. They’ve kicked it out of the schools, out of the workplace, out of the fundamental parts of the public square.”

He continued: “And in a public square devoid of God, we got a vacuum. And the ideas that filled that void preyed on the very worst of human nature rather than uplifting it.”

Vance said cultural voices opposed to Christian faith “told us not that we were children of God, but children of this or that identity group. They replaced God’s beautiful design for the family that men and women could rely on … with the idea that men could turn into women so long as they bought the right bunch of pills from Big Pharma.”

The former U.S. senator and Catholic convert credited President Donald Trump for ending the cultural “war that has been waged on Christians and Christianity in the United States of America,” touting the administration’s policy priorities as the fruit of Christian motivation.

“We help older Americans in retirement, including by ending taxes on Social Security, because we believe in honoring your father and mother rather than shipping all of their money off to Ukraine,” he said. “We believe in taking care of the poor, which is why we have Medicaid, so that the least among us can afford their prescriptions or to take their kids to see a doctor.”

Speaking of the despair he felt after the assassination of his friend Kirk, he said: “What saved me was realizing that the story of the Christian faith … is one of immense loss followed by even bigger victory. It’s a story of very dark nights followed by very bright dawns. What saved me was remembering the inherent goodness of God and that his grace overflows when we least expect it.”

Of masculinity, Vance said: “The fruits of true Christianity are good husbands, patient fathers, builders of great things, and slayers of dragons. And yes, men who are willing to die for a principle if that’s what God asked them to do.”

He described how he saw the fruits of Christian men living out their faith during a recent visit to a men’s ministry that aids those who struggle with addiction and homelessness: “They feed them. They clothe them. They give them shelter and financial advice. They live out the very best part of Christ’s commission.”

After eating lunch with some of the men who were “all back on their feet” after receiving help, Vance said he saw that the answer to “What saved them?” was not “racial commonality or grievance … a DEI prep course” or “a welfare check.”

“It was the fact that a carpenter died 2,000 years ago and changed the world in the process.”

“A true Christian politics,” he said, “cannot just be about the protection of the unborn or the promotion of the family. As important as those things absolutely are, it must be at the heart of our full understanding of government.”

On immigration policy, Vance has challenged U.S. bishops, popes

The vice president has publicly disagreed with the U.S. bishops on their reaction to the Trump administration’s immigration policies, as well as with Pope Leo XIV and the late Pope Francis, who seemed to criticize Vance in a letter the pontiff penned to the U.S. bishops last winter.

In defense of the administration’s approach to immigration, Vance had in a late January interview invoked an “old school … Christian concept” he later identified as the “ordo amoris,” or “rightly ordered love.”

He said that according to the concept, one’s “compassion belongs first” to one’s family and fellow citizens, “and then after that” to the rest of the world.

After Pope Leo on Nov. 18 asked Americans to listen to U.S. bishops’ message opposing “the indiscriminate mass deportation of people” and urging the humane treatment of migrants, Vance countered: “Border security is not just good for American citizens. It is the humanitarian thing to do for the entire world.”

Vance continued: “Open borders” do not promote “[human] dignity, even of the illegal migrants themselves,” citing drug and sex trafficking.

“When you empower the cartels and when you empower the human traffickers, whether in the United States or anywhere else, you’re empowering the very worst people in the world,” Vance said.

In this week’s AmFest speech, he touted the administration’s successes regarding immigration: “December marks seven months straight of zero releases at the southern border. More than 2.5 million illegal immigrants have left the United States. The first time in over 50 years that we have had negative net migration.”

At the end of the speech, Vance told the thousands of young people that while “only God can promise you salvation in heaven” if they have faith in God, “I promise you closed borders and safe communities. I promise you good jobs and a dignified life … together, we can fulfill the promise of the greatest nation in the history of the earth.”

Nigerians must stop ‘trading future for crumbs’: Catholic official on security crisis
Tue, 23 Dec 2025 11:37:00 -0500

ACI Africa, Dec 23, 2025 / 11:37 am (CNA).

The secretary-general of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) has urged Nigerians to safeguard their future by making informed choices especially during elections and amid the country’s security crisis.

In his message for Christmas delivered during the festival of Lessons and Carols at the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, Father Michael Banjo highlighted vices such as dishonesty, corruption, and exploitation as major obstacles to peace, warning of the dangers of ungodliness.

“If we want peace in Nigeria, we must stop trading our future for crumbs and begin to give glory to God by voting for leaders of integrity, compassion, and proven character, leaders who fear God and truly serve the common good,” Banjo said during the Dec. 14 event.

He added: “When leaders govern without fear of God, conscience gives way to selfishness, injustice grows unchecked, and violence finds room to thrive.”

Banjo said peace is impossible where power is exercised without accountability, wealth is pursued without conscience, and authority is claimed without service. He faulted Nigerians who compromise their civic duty for short-term gain.

“There can be no peace when we sell our votes for a bag of rice or a few naira, or choose leaders based on tribe, religion, or region rather than character, competence, and commitment to the common good,” he said.

“When elections are traded for personal benefit, conscience is sacrificed for convenience, and truth is exchanged for loyalty to narrow interests, we deny God the glory he deserves,” he added. “Where God is not honored in our civic responsibility, peace cannot endure.”

Banjo attributed the ongoing security challenges in Africa’s most populous nation to widespread ungodliness, noting that many Nigerians have sidelined the glory of God in their actions and prioritized vices that threaten the country’s future.

“For too long, persistent killings, abductions, and targeted violence affecting many communities, particularly Christian communities, have been met with silence, denial, or half-measures,” he said.

Reflecting on the U.S. intervention to the security challenge in the country, Banjo said it is unfortunate that Nigeria had to wait for external voices before treating the problem of insecurity with the seriousness it deserves.

“Protecting life is not a favor prompted by foreign pressure; it is the primary duty of the government,” he said. “Every Nigerian life matters regardless of whether he or she is a Christian or Muslim.”

Banjo warned that true peace cannot exist when personal gain comes at the expense of honesty and integrity. He warned that engaging in fraudulent or exploitative practices may bring temporary benefits, but they fail to glorify God and cannot provide lasting peace.

“There can be no peace within us when money is made through fraud, corruption, or exploitation,” Banjo said.

“If you sell tomatoes in the market and hide rotten ones under fresh ones, or tamper with fuel meters so customers pay for more than they receive, you may gain temporarily, but you do not honor God,” he explained. “And what does not give glory to God cannot give peace.”

He also highlighted the importance of forgiveness and respect in families, noting that peace disappears where resentment, violence, or disrespect prevail.

“There can be no peace in our homes when couples and family members refuse to forgive. When past wrongs are constantly recalled, or when a husband is violent or a wife openly disrespects her husband, love is destroyed, trust is broken, and the home becomes a place of fear,” he explained.

In a situation where forgiveness, love, and mutual respect prevail, the priest said, God is honored and peace is enshrined.

The secretary-general of the Catholic bishops in Nigeria emphasized that a nation that honors God by protecting every human life is a nation where peace can take root.

“It is precisely in the face of the painful realities confronting our nation that the message of Christmas must be clearly heard,” he said. “The mystery of the Incarnation assures us that we are not alone. God is Emmanuel. He is truly with us.”

He added: “It is no coincidence that we chose to celebrate our Christmas carols on this Third Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday, when the Church calls us to rejoice even in the midst of hardship. To rejoice is to refuse despair.”

“It is to carry hope within us and to become a sign of hope for others. We rejoice when we choose gratitude over bitterness, when families still pray together despite empty pockets, when we share the little we have with those who do not have, and when we remain warm and compassionate to one another,” he said.

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

Amid security concerns, Vatican sister meets Bangladesh religious
Tue, 23 Dec 2025 10:52:00 -0500

EWTN News, Dec 23, 2025 / 10:52 am (CNA).

Sister Tiziana Merletti, SFP, secretary of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, visited Bangladesh Dec. 16–21, meeting with religious men and women across the country during a five-day program on consecrated life.

Merletti told CNA she was impressed by the vitality of Bangladesh’s small Catholic community but also heard concerns about the security situation, including reports of three recent explosions near Catholic facilities.

“We feel a sense of concern in the air for the future of society,” she said, adding that upcoming national elections will be important for the Church’s ability to continue its work freely and peacefully.

The program was organized by the apostolic nunciature, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Bangladesh, and the Bangladesh Conference of Religious (BCR). The Vatican delegation, led by Archbishop Kevin S. Randall, took part in cultural events, talks, and visits to religious houses in Dhaka. A highlight of the visit was the Jubilee of Hope celebration at Holy Cross College, which focused on the mission and unity of consecrated life.

Small Catholic minority, wide reach

Bangladesh’s Catholic population makes up about 0.03% of the country’s total population, but Merletti said she was struck by the strong sense of communion among religious.

“We see how religious men and women mingle together, support each other,” she said, describing this cooperation as a concrete expression of synodality.

The Church in Bangladesh operates schools, hospitals, and social programs that serve people of all religions. Father Apu Rozario, secretary of the Episcopal Commission for Clergy and Religious, said Catholic institutions are active in education, health care, addiction treatment, prison outreach, and interreligious dialogue.

“We were very inspired by her visit,” he said.

Father George Kamal Rozario, CSC, president of the Bangladesh Conference of Religious and provincial superior of the Holy Cross Fathers, said representatives of 37 of the country’s 38 religious congregations met with Merletti during the week.

“They understood how important their role is in the Catholic Church and were inspired to walk a new path,” he said.

Religious leaders encouraged

Sister Mary Shubhra, SMRA, superior general of the Associates of Mary Queen of the Apostles, said the Vatican official’s presence brought renewed focus to formation and mission.

“Her arrival has awakened us,” she said. “She appreciated our ministries and guided us on improving formation in our houses.”

Her congregation, which has 211 sisters, works in health care, education, and women’s empowerment.

Sister Pierina of the Catechist Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Queen of the Angels, said the time spent with Merletti was particularly meaningful.

“She gave us time, listened to us, and inspired us to maintain good relations with all congregations,” she said.

Future mission despite challenges

Despite the security concerns, Merletti said she was encouraged by the local Church’s long-term planning, including projects for Catholic schools and universities — especially for women — and continued care for vulnerable people.

What most inspired her during the visit, she said, was “the vision for future mission.”

“I can see everywhere good hearts, open minds, faith, and courage to make sure every day a chance is offered to grow and to become good citizens,” she said.

She also reflected on challenges facing consecrated life worldwide, including increasing polarization in society.

“We see this urge to be different, to be higher, richer, more powerful. The others are not brothers and sisters but enemies,” she said. “Consecrated life plays a big role in shaping real humanity because we believe in communion and see the face of God in the most vulnerable.”

Walking together

Merletti emphasized the importance of synodality and encouraged religious in Bangladesh to maintain close cooperation among congregations and with the wider Church, describing this as “walking together, knowing each other, sharing gifts, appreciating and supporting each other.”

“If we remain faithful to this call of Jesus, I think we will be the yeast for a better future,” she said.

Before departing, she assured religious communities of the dicastery’s continued interest in their situation.

“We don’t do miracles, but we can assure our advice and prayers. We leave Bangladesh with hearts filled with joy and appreciation,” she said.

Federal judge strikes down rules allowing schools to hide gender ‘transitions’ from parents
Tue, 23 Dec 2025 10:07:00 -0500

CNA Staff, Dec 23, 2025 / 10:07 am (CNA).

A federal judge in California this week issued a permanent block against the state’s “gender secrecy policies” that have allowed schools to hide children’s so-called “gender transitions” from their parents.

U.S. District Court Judge Roger Benitez issued the ruling in the class action lawsuit on Dec. 22, holding that parents “have a right” to the “gender information” of their children, while teachers themselves also possess the right to provide parents with that information.

The order strikes down secretive policies in school districts across California that allowed schools to conceal when a child began identifying as the opposite sex or another LGBT-related identity.

Benitez had allowed the legal dispute to proceed as a class action lawsuit in October. School districts in California “are ultimately state agents under state control,” the judge said at the time, and the issue of settling “statewide policy” meant the class action structure would be “superior to numerous individual actions by individual parents and teachers.”

The case, Benitez said on Dec. 22, concerns “a parent’s rights to information … against a public school’s policy of secrecy when it comes to a student’s gender identification.”

Parents, he said, have a right to such information on grounds of the 14th and First Amendments, he said, while teachers can assert similar First Amendment rights in sharing that information with parents.

Teachers have historically informed parents of “physical injuries or questions about a student’s health and well-being,” the judge pointed out, yet lawmakers in California have enacted policies “prohibiting public school teachers from informing parents” when their child claims to have an LGBT identity.

“Even if [the government] could demonstrate that excluding parents was good policy on some level, such a policy cannot be implemented at the expense of parents’ constitutional rights,” Benitez wrote.

The Thomas More Society, a religious liberty legal group, said in a press release that the decision “protects all California parents, students, and teachers” and “restores sanity and common sense.”

School officials in California who work to conceal “gender identity” decisions from parents “should cease all enforcement or face severe legal consequences,” attorney Paul Jonna said in the release.

Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori Ann West, the Christian teachers who originally brought the suit, said they were “profoundly grateful” for the decision.

“This victory is not just ours. It is a win for honesty, transparency, and the fundamental rights of teachers and parents,” they said.

The Thomas More Society said on Dec. 22 that California officials had gone to “extreme lengths” to “evade responsibility” for their policies, up to and including claiming that the gender secrecy rules were no longer enforced even as they were allegedly continuing to require them.

Gender- and LGBT-related school policies have come under fire over the past year from the White House. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in August directed U.S. states to remove gender ideology material from their curricula or else face the loss of federal funding.

In February 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.

In December, meanwhile, a Catholic school student in Virginia forced a school district to concede a lawsuit she brought alleging that her constitutional rights had been violated when the school subjected her to “extreme social pressure” to affirm transgender ideology.

Caritas says new UK asylum rules are ‘incompatible with Gospel values’
Tue, 23 Dec 2025 09:37:00 -0500

London, England, Dec 23, 2025 / 09:37 am (CNA).

The domestic agency of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales has strongly criticized recent announcements by the U.K. government concerning asylum seekers’ rights to remain in the country.

Following the publication of the government’s new proposals last month, Caritas Social Action Network (CSAN) released a statement on Dec. 17 saying that new rules surrounding those seeking asylum were “incompatible with the Gospel and the teaching of the Catholic Church.”

Under current U.K. law, people who are facing persecution in their own country are entitled to five years of refugee status. At the end of this period, they may apply for indefinite leave to remain in the U.K.

However, to control the amount of people settling in the U.K., the Labour Party government has announced that this protection period will be reduced to 2.5 years and individuals might be sent back to their home country if it is later judged to be “safe.” They will also have to reapply every 2.5 years to retain their protected status.

Refugees will also have to wait up to 20 years, rather than five, to secure an indefinite right to remain in the U.K. if new proposals are ratified. The list of jobs that entitle people to a skilled worker visa have already been reduced, the policy for which took effect in July.

The statement from CSAN recorded its “grave concern” about the plans surrounding asylum seekers.

“The proposed policies would quadruple the wait before those with refugee status can access permanent settlement from five to 20 years, exacerbating the stress and uncertainty faced by people trying to rebuild their lives in the U.K. Only some who work or study may be permitted a faster pathway to settlement, but one fraught with uncertainty and heavy penalties for any challenges they face,” the statement said.

“By ending the right to family reunion — one of the few safe routes available — the government will separate loved ones from one another and force people to take riskier journeys to be reunited, putting more lives at risk.”

The statement by CSAN went on to say: “By increasing the forced removal of adults and families, the government will further displace people from their communities and reverse a decade of work to reduce the numbers of people subjected to the harmful practice of immigration detention, including children. As we saw in the ‘Windrush’ scandal, where British citizens from commonwealth countries were detained and removed, focusing on increasing numbers of people removed places access to justice at risk, with devastating consequences for human lives.

“And by removing the right to safety nets against destitution, the government will drive people and families on the move into homelessness, leave them vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, and strip them of their dignity.”

Priest expert in new evangelization on today’s Catholic moment
Tue, 23 Dec 2025 07:00:00 -0500

Madrid, Spain, Dec 23, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Father Manuel Chouciño, an expert in new evangelization who has surprised many by organizing an escape room in a Spanish monastery, is convinced that Catholics “are in vogue” because people “are tired of feeling so empty.”

Having arrived just three months ago at the parish-monastery of the Divine Savior of Lérez, which belongs to the Archdiocese of Santiago de Compostela, Chouciño saw in the place, an old Benedictine monastery, great possibilities for evangelization.

The monastery had been empty since 1835 due to the forced expropriation of Catholic Church property known as “the ecclesiastical confiscations,” but in the eyes of a priest with more than 40 years of experience in youth ministry and recreational activities it was full of possibilities. And the parishioners were ready to follow him.

“When you see that there’s been a rather long period where people are somewhat discouraged pastorally, and then you see that they’re willing to work, that there’s interest and enthusiasm, then you just take the plunge and say: Let’s move forward with whatever it takes,” he explained in a conversation with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner.

About 700 people were able to enjoy the experience, which immersed them in the world of medieval monastic life through various challenges that entire families completed: discovering the monks’ prayer times by listening to bells, identifying and combining herbs used in Benedictine medicine, and finding a hidden message with the help of a mirror.

This activity is the spearhead of a plan as ambitious as it is creative that seeks to respond to society’s spiritual thirst.

“It seems to me that the trend is that we Catholics are going to be in vogue for a while,” Chouciño said, convinced that “people are tired of feeling so empty. So they need to return; it’s something that’s ingrained within us, we can’t avoid it.”

Society is “exhausted by all the woke ideology and all the boring talk. And what they want is something a little deeper, something that will answer the important questions of existence. That’s where they return, at least those of a Christian background, to reconsider their faith,” he explained.

Welcoming, not judgmental, communities

The escape room project is part of the response to this spiritual thirst, because, “for them to feel comfortable returning or starting their journey, we have to make it a little easier for them with our language, but also with our personal attitude.”

In this regard, he emphasized that priests and communities must be “welcoming, not judgmental,” and willing to “love them, cherish them, and welcome them into their home, not our home,” like the prodigal son.

The priest is part of a new pastoral unit along with four other priests who are in charge of 10 parishes and feel very supported in these new initiatives by the archbishop of Santiago de Compostela, Francisco Prieto, who was responsible for the new evangelization in the Diocese of Orense, where he is originally from.

“We’ve taken the hard road. We’re going after the people who would burst into flames if they stepped inside a church,” he explained, which is why it’s necessary “to propose initiatives that appeal to them,” such as guided tours of the monastery, where he even shows them his room.

In these events, he takes the opportunity to explain to them the project for the monastery-parish to become a large pastoral center for the territorial vicariate of Pontevedra, open to all Catholic initiatives and also to civil society.

Upcoming big event: ‘Barbecue and prayer’

The program of new evangelization activities they are developing during this end of Advent and until Epiphany already includes other interesting events. A Christmas party after midnight Mass; a festive family gathering on the feast of the Holy Innocents, as a prelude to the secular New Year’s Eve celebration; and “a combination of the two best things in the world,” which the priest has dubbed “barbecue and prayer.”

The event will take place on Sunday, Jan. 4. “We’re going to have a fantastic barbecue,” commented Chouciño, who has cooked for groups of up to 400 people in the past and is convinced that “it’s a very powerful tool for evangelization.”

The statement has a theological basis. The parish priest has been in the Archdiocese of Santiago for eight years, but before that he was in the Diocese of Orihuela-Alicante, where he attended a series of lectures titled “The Meals of Jesus.”

“The Lord’s not stupid, and if he used gatherings around a table to convey the Gospel, it’s because during a meal we all let down our guard, we relax, we talk about everything and ask about everything,” he noted.

Chouciño seems like a bottomless well of ideas for evangelization, and only his determination surpasses his enthusiasm: “I keep threatening that I’m going to keep giving it my all here for as long as I can.”

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

UPDATED: Florida bishops call for immigration enforcement moratorium over Christmas
Mon, 22 Dec 2025 16:52:00 -0500

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 22, 2025 / 16:52 pm (CNA).

The bishops of the Catholic Church in Florida have asked President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis “to pause immigration enforcement activities during the Christmas holidays.”

“We request that the government pause apprehension and roundup activities during the Christmas season. Such a pause would show a decent regard for the humanity of these families,” the bishops said in a Dec. 22 statement.

“Don’t be the Grinch that stole Christmas,” Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami said in a news conference. “Give people these two weeks to be with their families without fear of being arrested or taken into custody and ending up at Alligator Alcatraz or at Krome or other places to await deportation.”

Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, said, "President Trump was elected based on his promise to the American people to deport criminal illegal aliens. And he’s keeping that promise.”

Along with Wenski, other prelates including Bishop Gerald Barbarito of Palm Beach, Bishop Frank Dewane of Venice, Bishop John Noonan of Orlando, Bishop Gregory Parkes of St. Petersburg, Bishop William Wack of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Bishop Erik Pohlmeier of St. Augustine, and Auxiliary Bishop Enrique Delgado of Miami joined in issuing the statement.

Pausing enforcement during the holy season “can lower the temperature within our partisan divisions, ease the fear and anxiety present in many of our immigrant and even nonimmigrant families and allow all of us to celebrate with greater joy the advent of the Prince of Peace,” they wrote.

“Now is not the time to be callous toward the suffering caused by immigration enforcement. Our nation is richly blessed. Despite challenges confronting our nation, we Americans enjoy a peace and prosperity that is the envy of the world, made possible by our special constitutional order which protects our liberties.”

‘Removing dangerous criminals has been accomplished to a great degree’

“The border has been secured” and “the initial work of identifying and removing dangerous criminals has been accomplished to a great degree,” the bishops said. “Over half a million people have been deported this year, and nearly 2 million more have voluntarily self-deported.”

The arrest operations “inevitably sweep up numbers of people who are not criminals but just here to work,” and some have “legal authorization to be here,” the bishops wrote. “Eventually these cases may be resolved, but this takes many months causing great sorrow for their families. A growing majority of Americans say the harsh enforcement policies are going too far.”

The call follows a December report released by human rights organization Amnesty International that detailed “cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment” at Florida detention centers Alligator Alcatraz and the Krome North Service Processing Center.

According to the organization, the report reveals human rights violations that, “in some cases amount to torture … within an increasingly hostile anti-immigrant climate in Florida under Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose administration has intensified criminalization and mass detention of migrants.”

“While enforcement will always be part of any immigration policy, such enforcement can be carried out in a way that recognizes due process as well as the humanity and dignity of all affected including those carrying out those policies,” the bishops wrote.

The office of DeSantis did not reply to a request for comment.

This story was updated at 10:20 a.m. on Dec. 23, 2025, with a comment from The White House.

Archbishop Coakley anticipates meeting with Trump, Vance
Mon, 22 Dec 2025 13:07:00 -0500

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 22, 2025 / 13:07 pm (CNA).

Archbishop Paul Coakley said this week he is looking forward to speaking with President Donald Trump in “the near future.”

Coakley, who was elected president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in November, said he has “not had any personal conversations” with Trump or Vice President JD Vance but anticipates “engaging with them over matters of mutual concern.”

When Coakley meets with the administration, “undoubtedly, the question of immigration is going to come up,” he said in an interview on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Dec. 21. “I think we have opportunities to work together. We have opportunities to speak frankly with one another.”

In regard to immigration, Coakley said there is a lot of “anxiety” among migrants, but the situation “varies from place to place.” He said: “In communities with a more dense migrant population, there’s a great deal of fear and uncertainty … because of the level of rhetoric that is often employed when addressing issues around migration and the threats of deportation.”

While some bishops have formally granted Mass dispensation for immigrants who fear being targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at Mass, Coakley said there has not been substantial declines in Mass attendance.

Coakley, who serves as archbishop of Oklahoma City, said he has not seen declines in the area and has not “heard it reported widely” from his brother bishops.

“I know that that is the case in some places, but I don’t think it’s as common at least here locally or in places that I have personal contact with. There’s an anxiety, there’s a fear, but I don’t think it’s kept people away in great numbers,” Coakley said.

‘No conflict’

In the USCCB’s special message on immigration released in November, bishops said: “We oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people. We pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement.”

The bishops’ message also said: “Human dignity and national security are not in conflict.”

Coakley reaffirmed the bishops’ message and said treating all people with respect and dignity is a “foundational bedrock” for Christians.

“There’s no conflict necessarily between advocating for safe and secure borders and treating people with respect and dignity. We always have to treat people with dignity, God-given dignity. The state doesn’t award it and the state can’t take it away. It’s from the Creator,” Coakley said.

Whether people “are documented or undocumented, whether they are here legally or illegally, they don’t forfeit their human dignity,” he said.

“I don’t think we can ever say that the end justifies the means,” he said. “We have to treat everyone with respect, respect of the human dignity of every person.”

As Americans we must remember “we are a nation of immigrants ourselves,” and “we are founded upon the immigrant experience,” Coakley said.

“We have a right and a duty to respect sovereign borders of a state, but we also have a responsibility to welcome migrants,” he said. “This is a fundamental principle in Catholic social teaching regarding immigration and migration.”

Pope Leo XIV tells Vatican employees doing work well gives glory to God
Mon, 22 Dec 2025 12:37:00 -0500

Vatican City, Dec 22, 2025 / 12:37 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV told Vatican and Holy See employees to see their daily work as part of the Church’s mission, saying that doing one’s job well “gives glory to the Lord.”

Meeting the workers for a Christmas greeting on Dec. 22, the pope said he is still getting to know the Vatican and experiences it as “a great mosaic” made up of many offices and services. He said he hopes, with God’s help, to meet employees as he visits different workplaces.

Reflecting on the Nativity scene, Pope Leo pointed to the many figures shown at work — each carrying out a task — as a reminder that everyday activities find their full meaning in God’s plan centered on Jesus Christ. He said it is as if the Christ Child blesses everyone from the manger, giving purpose and unity to the work of each person.

Even when some figures in the Nativity seem distant from the central event, he said, they participate precisely by being themselves, staying in their place and doing what they are called to do. The pope applied that image to Vatican life, saying each person can praise God by carrying out his or her responsibilities with commitment and care.

The pope also linked professional dedication to family life, telling lay employees that striving to do one’s best at work — and loving one’s family and children — honors God.

He urged Vatican workers to make that spirit a hallmark of the Church “in every expression,” and he asked them to convey his greetings to their relatives at home, telling them that the pope is praying for them.

After giving his blessing, Pope Leo greeted some of those present individually.

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

Pope Leo in apostolic letter calls for renewed priestly formation, fraternity, and mission
Mon, 22 Dec 2025 12:07:00 -0500

ACI Prensa Staff, Dec 22, 2025 / 12:07 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV calls for renewed priestly formation, stronger priestly fraternity, and a more missionary focus in pastoral ministry in an apostolic letter released by the Vatican on Monday.

The document, “A Fidelity That Generates the Future,” reflects on two decrees of the Second Vatican Council: Optatam Totius — on priestly formation — and Presbyterorum Ordinis — on the ministry and life of priests — both promulgated in 1965. Leo urges Catholics to keep reading the two conciliar texts in Christian communities and to study them “particularly in seminaries and in all places of preparation and formation for ordained ministry.”

An apostolic letter is a formal papal document, typically addressed to the Church, meant to teach, encourage, or direct pastoral priorities on a specific theme.

In his new letter, Leo says the Church is not simply marking an anniversary. He writes that the council’s “desired renewal” remains closely tied to priestly ministry, quoting the council’s assessment that “the desired renewal of the whole Church depends to a great extent on a priestly ministry animated by the spirit of Christ.”

The pope presents fidelity as both a grace and “a constant journey of conversion,” and he thanks priests worldwide for their ministry — from celebrating the Eucharist and proclaiming the Word to caring for those who suffer.

Formation and the abuse crisis

Leo writes that every vocation begins with an encounter with Christ and recalls the Lord’s call, “Follow me” (Mk 1:17). He says fidelity in “times of trial and temptation” is strengthened by remembering “the sound of the voice of the Lord who loves, chooses, and calls us,” and by seeking the accompaniment of those experienced in the spiritual life.

Addressing what he calls “the crisis of trust in the Church caused by abuses committed by members of the clergy,” the pope says the scandal “has filled us with shame and called us to humility” and underscores “the urgent need for a comprehensive formation” that fosters human maturity alongside “a rich and solid spiritual life.”

He urges seminarians to examine their motivations and includes a pointed line on formation of the heart: “The seminary is meant to be a training ground to help a seminarian attend to his own heart… we need to learn how to love and how to do so as Jesus did.”

Priestly fraternity and loneliness

Leo describes priestly fraternity as a gift rooted in ordination itself and warns against individualism. He encourages practical steps to strengthen bonds among priests, including support for those who are isolated, sick, or elderly.

The pope also flags disparities that can undermine communion, saying more remains to be done — including “economic equalization between those who serve poor parishes and those who carry out their ministry in wealthy communities.”

Synodality and shared leadership

Leo calls synodality “particularly close to my heart,” arguing that the Church still has work to do in fostering healthy relationships between priests and bishops, among priests themselves, and with the lay faithful.

He encourages priests to engage the Synod on Synodality’s final document and says priestly ministry should move away from “exclusive leadership” that centralizes parish life and places every responsibility on the priest alone. Instead, he points to more collegial leadership and cooperation among priests, deacons, and the whole people of God.

Mission and the temptations of activism and withdrawal

The pope links priestly identity to mission and warns against two temptations: an efficiency-driven mindset that measures worth by performance, and a “quietism” that retreats from evangelization. He writes that media exposure and social networks require discernment and recalls St. Paul’s warning: “‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are beneficial” (1 Cor 6:12).

The letter closes with a focus on vocations and the need for both prayer and renewed pastoral creativity. Leo entrusts seminarians, deacons, and priests to the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin, Mother of Good Counsel, and St. John Mary Vianney.

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 appoints Monsignor James Misko as bishop of Tucson
Mon, 22 Dec 2025 09:58:00 -0500

Vatican City, Dec 22, 2025 / 09:58 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV has appointed Monsignor James A. Misko, a priest of the Diocese of Austin, Texas, as the next bishop of Tucson, Arizona.

The Holy See Press Office publicized the appointment at the Vatican, and it was also publicized in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 22 by Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States. Misko has been serving as vicar general and moderator of the curia for the Diocese of Austin.

Misko, 55, was born June 18, 1970, in Los Angeles. He earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from St. Edward’s University in Austin and later completed priestly formation and graduate theological studies in Houston, including a master of divinity degree at St. Mary’s Seminary. He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Austin on June 9, 2007.

Before entering seminary, Misko worked in the restaurant industry from 1991 to 2000, according to biographical information shared by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

His priestly assignments have included service as parochial vicar at St. Elizabeth of Hungary Parish in Pflugerville (2007–2010) followed by leadership at Christ the King Parish in Belton — first as administrator (2010–2011) and then as pastor (2011–2014). He later served as pastor of St. Louis King of France Parish in Austin (2014–2019).

In 2019, Misko was named vicar general and moderator of the curia for the Diocese of Austin. In 2025, he also served as diocesan administrator of the diocese, a role he held from March to September.

Misko is a native English speaker and is also proficient in Spanish.

He succeeds Bishop Edward Joseph Weisenburger, who served as bishop of Tucson beginning in 2017 and was appointed archbishop of Detroit in February.

Pope Leo XIV urges a ‘more missionary’ Roman Curia and warns against internal divisions
Mon, 22 Dec 2025 06:25:00 -0500

Vatican City, Dec 22, 2025 / 06:25 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Monday called on officials of the Roman Curia to deepen both mission and communion, urging Vatican offices to be “more mission-oriented” and cautioning against the “forces of division” that can take root even “beneath an apparent calm.”

Speaking during his annual Christmas greetings with personnel of the Church’s central administration, the pope also paid tribute to Pope Francis, whom he described as his “beloved predecessor” who “this year concluded his earthly life.”

Leo said Francis’ “prophetic voice, pastoral style, and rich magisterium” encouraged the Church “to place God’s mercy at the center, to give renewed impetus to evangelization, and to be a joyful Church, welcoming to all and attentive to the poorest.”

Drawing on Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, Leo focused his address on what he called “two fundamental aspects of the Church’s life: mission and communion.”

“By her very nature, the Church is outward-looking, turned toward the world, missionary,” the pope said, adding that the Church exists to invite people into “the good news of God’s love.”

He insisted that ecclesial structures should serve evangelization rather than slow it down. “Structures must not weigh down or slow the progress of the Gospel or hinder the dynamism of evangelization; instead, we must ‘make them more mission-oriented,’” he said.

Applying that principle directly to Vatican governance, the pope said: “We need an ever more missionary Roman Curia in which institutions, offices, and tasks are conceived in light of today’s major ecclesial, pastoral, and social challenges, and not merely to ensure ordinary administration.”

Leo said the mystery of Christmas highlights not only the mission of the Son of God but also the purpose of that mission: reconciliation and a new kind of fraternity. “Christmas reminds us that Jesus came to reveal the true face of God as Father, so that we might all become his children and therefore brothers and sisters to one another,” he said.

The pope warned that communion within the Church requires ongoing conversion, especially when tensions arise in workplaces and debates about doctrine and practice.

“At times, beneath an apparent calm, forces of division may be at play,” he said. He cautioned against “swinging between two opposite extremes: uniformity that fails to value differences, or the exacerbation of differences and viewpoints instead of seeking communion.”

Such patterns, he said, can lead to “rigidity or ideology” and the conflicts that follow.

Yet, he continued, Christians are united in Christ even amid real diversity. “And in Christ, though many and diverse, we are one: ‘In Illo uno unum,’” he said.

Leo called Curia officials in particular to be “builders of Christ’s communion,” emphasizing a synodal Church in which “all cooperate in the same mission, each according to his or her charism and role.”

The pope acknowledged that long years of service can leave some Vatican employees disheartened by workplace dynamics, including “the exercise of power,” “the desire to prevail,” or “the pursuit of personal interests.”

He posed the question directly: “Is it possible to be friends in the Roman Curia? To have relationships of genuine fraternal friendship?” He said it is “a grace to find trustworthy friends, where masks fall away,” where “no one is used or sidelined,” and where each person’s “worth and competence are respected.”

Such relationships, he said, require personal conversion so that “Christ’s love” can be visible.

The pope also linked internal communion to the Church’s public witness in a world marked by violence and polarization. He said this conversion becomes a sign “ad extra” in “a world wounded by discord, violence, and conflict,” where there is “a growth in aggression and anger,” often “exploited by both the digital sphere and politics.”

“Dear brothers and sisters, mission and communion are possible if we place Christ at the center,” Leo said.

He also pointed to the significance of the Church’s current jubilee year, saying it underscores that Christ “alone is the hope that does not disappoint.”

The pope referenced two major anniversaries marked this year: the Council of Nicaea, which he said returns the Church “to the roots of our faith,” and the Second Vatican Council, which “strengthened the Church and sent her forth to engage the modern world.”

Leo closed by recalling the 50th anniversary of St. Paul VI’s apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, highlighting its emphasis that evangelization belongs to the whole Church and that the first means of evangelization is the witness of an authentically Christian life.

“Let us remember this also in our curial service: The work of each is important for the whole, and the witness of a Christian life, expressed in communion, is the first and greatest service we can offer,” he said.

Quoting Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the humility of God revealed at Christmas, Leo prayed that the Lord would grant the Curia “his own humility, his compassion, and his love,” and he concluded by wishing all present “a holy Christmas” and asking God to “grant peace to the world.”

At the close of the exchange of greetings, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, offered Christmas wishes on behalf of Curia offices, the Vatican City State Governorate, and the Diocese of Rome, and the pope presented curial personnel with a copy of “The Practice of the Presence of God,” the spiritual classic he has recently recommended.

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

These are Pope Leo XIV’s prayer intentions for 2026
Mon, 22 Dec 2025 06:00:00 -0500

CNA Staff, Dec 22, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

The pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network has released Pope Leo XIV’s list of prayer intentions for the year 2026.

Every month, Pope Leo asks Catholics around the world to pray for a particular intention. This initiative is accompanied by a video in which the pontiff expresses the reasons why he has chosen that particular intention.

Below is the complete list of Pope Leo’s prayer intentions for 2026.

January: For prayer with the word of God

Let us pray that praying with the word of God be nourishment for our lives and a source of hope in our communities, helping us to build a more fraternal and missionary Church.

February: For children with incurable diseases

Let us pray that children suffering from incurable diseases and their families receive the necessary medical care and support, never losing strength and hope.

March: For disarmament and peace

Let us pray that nations move toward effective disarmament, particularly nuclear disarmament, and that world leaders choose the path of dialogue and diplomacy instead of violence.

April: For priests in crisis

Let us pray for priests going through moments of crisis in their vocation, that they may find the accompaniment they need and that communities may support them with understanding and prayer.

May: That everyone might have food

Let us pray that everyone, from large producers to small consumers, be committed to avoid wasting food and to ensure that everyone has access to quality food.

June: For the values of sports

Let us pray that sports be an instrument of peace, encounter, and dialogue among cultures and nations, and that they promote values such as respect, solidarity, and personal growth.

July: For respect for human life

Let us pray for the respect and protection of human life in all its stages, recognizing it as a gift from God.

August: For evangelization in the city

Let us pray that in large cities often marked by anonymity and loneliness we find new ways to proclaim the Gospel, discovering creative paths to build community.

September: For the care of water

Let us pray for a just and sustainable management of water, a vital resource, so that everyone may have equal access to it.

October: For mental health ministry

Let us pray that mental health ministry be established throughout the Church, helping to overcome the stigma and discrimination of persons with mental illnesses.

November: For the proper use of wealth

Let us pray for the proper use of wealth, that not succumbing to the temptation of selfishness, it may always be put at the service of the common good and solidarity of those who have less.

December: For single-parent families

Let us pray for families experiencing the absence of a mother or father, that they may find support and accompaniment in the Church, and help and strength in the faith during difficult times.

Pope Leo XIV highlights key virtues for final days of Advent
Sun, 21 Dec 2025 09:15:00 -0500

ACI Prensa Staff, Dec 21, 2025 / 09:15 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Sunday highlighted four virtues of St. Joseph — “piety and charity, mercy and trust” — as guides for Catholics in the final days of Advent leading up to Christmas.

Speaking during his Angelus address from the window of the Apostolic Palace on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, the pope said the day’s liturgy invited the faithful to reflect on St. Joseph, especially “at the moment when God reveals his mission to him in a dream.”

Calling the Gospel episode “a very beautiful page in salvation history,” Leo described Joseph as a man who is “fragile and fallible — like us — and at the same time courageous and strong in faith.”

Referring to the Gospel of Matthew, the pontiff recalled that Joseph of Nazareth was a “just man,” a devout Israelite who observed the law and frequented the synagogue, while also being “extremely sensitive and human.”

In the face of Mary’s mysterious pregnancy — a situation that was difficult to understand and accept — the pope noted that Joseph did not choose “the way of scandal” or public condemnation. Instead, he opted for the discreet and benevolent path of planning to divorce her quietly.

In doing so, Leo said, Joseph demonstrated he had grasped the deepest meaning of religious observance: mercy.

The pope added that Joseph’s purity and nobility became even clearer when the Lord revealed his plan of salvation in a dream, showing Joseph the unexpected role he would assume as the husband of the Virgin Mother of the Messiah.

Leo pointed to Joseph’s “great act of faith,” saying the saint left behind the last of his certainties and set out into a future fully in God’s hands.

Referring to St. Augustine, the pope said that from Joseph’s piety and charity, “a son was born of the Virgin Mary — Son at the same time of God.”

“Piety and charity, mercy and trust,” Leo said, are the virtues the liturgy proposes for the faithful today so that they may accompany Christians through these final Advent days toward “holy Christmas.”

The pope emphasized that these attitudes “educate the heart” for encountering Christ and one another and can help believers become for each other “a welcoming manger, a comfortable home, a sign of God’s presence.”

He urged Catholics not to miss opportunities during this season of grace to put the virtues into practice — forgiving, encouraging, offering hope to those they live with and meet — and renewing in prayer a childlike trust in the Lord and in his providence.

Leo concluded by entrusting the faithful to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph, who were the first to welcome Jesus, the Savior of the world, “with great faith and love.”

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

Catholic Church needs to share ‘beautiful truth’ of humanity amid AI concerns, experts say
Sun, 21 Dec 2025 08:00:00 -0500

London, England, Dec 21, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

The Catholic Church must be bolder in sharing its vision of human anthropology, expert voices in the Church have warned in response to reports about poor mental health among teenagers in England and Wales.

On Dec. 9 the Guardian U.K. reported that 40% of 13- to 17-year-olds in England and Wales affected by violence are turning to AI companions for support because the waiting lists for counseling are so long, with youth leaders emphasizing that vulnerable young people need human connection.

Edwin Fawcett, a Catholic psychotherapist based in England and Wales, told CNA in an interview: “Young people would benefit from more readily available resources which boldly and clearly share the beautiful truth of the Church’s anthropology, so lacking in secular mental health care.”

“And yet it could be tempting to simply fuel the machinery of our strong structures (e.g. dioceses, parishes, faith schools) with brilliant podcasts and videos — arguably still no match for an AI companion,” he said.

“If what’s really lacking is healthy human connection and its modeling, then to better support young people in the long run, I believe we must go upstream, to problems such as inadequate seminary formation and marriage prep, poor support and accountability in Church leadership, and few opportunities for professional training in Catholic psychology,” he continued.

“And we also have to remember that as cells in Christ’s body, none of us gets a pass on discerning how we’re each called to take some ownership of the difficult work of individual and corporate integration and growth — which includes caring for the young people right around us, today.”

Father Michael Baggot, a professor in bioethics at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum, has written extensively on AI companionship. He told CNA that the “best insights from contemporary psychological sciences” could be integrated with “a broad and rich traditional Catholic anthropology.”

“Youth need flesh-and-blood mentors who embody the messiness and joy of living the Gospel,” he argued. “Mentors can accompany young people in engaging in the embodied community activities (worship, dance, sports, hiking, music, etc.) that AI companions cannot provide. … The entire Catholic moral life is directed to flourishing, that is, happiness in the fullest sense.”

“‘The Catholic Christian Meta-Model of the Person’ shows how to integrate the best insights from contemporary psychological sciences within a broad and rich traditional Catholic anthropology,” he argued.

“Formation programs for youth, whether conducted in classrooms, churches, on playing fields, lakes, or mountains, should communicate the adventure of the faith. Formators can help youth discover their talents and unique vocation.”

Baggot also suggested that those individuals who have been hurt by AI could share their stories.

“Church institutions should foster a welcoming, inclusive community that challenges members and promotes growth in virtue,” he said. “Parishes, schools, orphanages, hospitals, and every family should create space for youth to share their hopes, dreams, and struggles. This daily effort to build healthy communities is central to the Lord’s call to live in communion with him and with our neighbors.”

In a statement to CNA, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales said there is “little doubt that AI will, increasingly, be a technology that will help people in practical ways. This will include people who need medical and social care and who could be monitored remotely or reminded to undertake certain tasks.”

“However, AI companions can never replace real human relationships and, in our parishes as well as in our personal lives, we must reinvigorate the personal relationships — and a relationship with God — that are at the heart of real human fulfillment,” the bishops said.

“The interest of so many in the Catholic Church in AI is heartening as it is only through careful discernment that we can ensure that this technology promotes the common good and human dignity.”

Church in Jordan reopens as a rare window into pre-Constantinian Christianity
Sun, 21 Dec 2025 07:00:00 -0500

ACI MENA, Dec 21, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

In Aqaba, a port city on the Red Sea in Jordan, an archaeological church site dating to the late third or early fourth century is being highlighted as one of the world’s oldest purpose-built Christian worship spaces, constructed before Christianity received official recognition in the Roman Empire.

Discovered in 1998 during excavations led by a team under American archaeologist Thomas Parker, the structure is being considered a significant milestone in early Christian history.

The team of researchers described a basilica-style layout, central nave, side aisles, and an eastern apse, suggesting an already organized local Christian community.

Artifacts reported at the site include preserved walls, glass lamps, pottery, and Roman coins, which helped date the building to roughly A.D. 293–303.

Nearby, archaeologists also uncovered a cemetery thought to be tied to the same community, with small metal pieces interpreted as parts of a bronze cross.

With the site now officially reopened to visitors, Jordanian authorities are framing it as both a cultural landmark and a symbol of the country’s long-standing religious plurality, underscoring Aqaba’s place (ancient “Aila”) in the broader Christian landscape of the region.

This story was first published by ACI MENA, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner, and has been translated for and adapted by CNA.

St. Francis and the story of the first Nativity scene
Sun, 21 Dec 2025 06:00:00 -0500

Rome Newsroom, Dec 21, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

It’s a well-known origin story: how the young and wealthy Francis of Assisi freely abandoned his noble patrimony to serve Christ’s Church as a poor, itinerant preacher.

One of the world’s most beloved saints, the founder of the Franciscan order cared deeply for God’s creation. He also loved Christmas, the solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord.

St. Francis’ meditations on the life of Christ led him to create the first-ever Nativity scene in Greccio, Italy, in 1223.

From the Holy Land to Italy

It is believed Francis’ inspiration to do a live representation of the birth of Jesus came from his time in the Holy Land in the years 1219 and 1220.

Seeing the holy sites of Christ’s birth, life, death, and resurrection made them feel all the more real — and he wanted to recreate that experience.

In November 1223, three years before his death, St. Francis was in Rome to await the pope’s approval of the final rule of his friars.

The friar and deacon was already very familiar with the hill town of Greccio, about 50 miles north of Rome. He had first arrived there over a decade prior and would frequently return to preach to the people of the surrounding countryside.

Eventually, a hermitage was built for St. Francis a short distance outside the town.

Ahead of his return to the hermitage, two weeks before Christmas, Francis asked his friend, Lord of Greccio Giovanni Velita, to prepare a cave with live animals and a hay-filled manger.

The friar had, during his audience with the pope, already received permission to stage the scene of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem.

According to the first biographer of St. Francis, Brother Thomas of Celano, the friar desired to “re-present the birth of that Child in Bethlehem in such a way that with our bodily eyes we may see what he suffered for lack of the necessities of a newborn babe and how he lay in a manger between the ox and ass.”

That was how, in December 1223, in the rocky crags a short distance outside Greccio, people flocked to see the simple scene during Christmas Mass.

St. Francis, who was a deacon, proclaimed the Gospel and preached the homily.

According to accounts of the moment, fires lit the dark scene while crowds arrived at the spot carrying candles and torches.

An eyewitness says a miracle happened at Mass that night.

Giovanni Veleti asserted that he saw a real infant appear in the empty manger and that St. Francis took the beautiful child into his arms, holding him to his chest in an embrace.

In the period that followed, other miracles were reported, brought about by touching the straw of the manger where the Child Jesus had appeared.

Miraculous healings took place after pieces of hay were placed on sick animals or laboring women in difficulty.

Greccio today

The place where the first Nativity was staged can still be seen today in the Franciscan hermitage and sanctuary outside the main town. The rock is topped by an altar for celebrating Mass and adorned with frescoes depicting Jesus’ birth.

Pope Francis visited the spot two times: once in 2016 and again on Dec. 1, 2019, when he signed an apostolic letter on the meaning and importance of Nativity scenes.

“All those present” at St. Francis’ Christmas Mass, Pope Francis wrote in Admirabile Signum, “experienced a new and indescribable joy in the presence of the Christmas scene. The priest then solemnly celebrated the Eucharist over the manger, showing the bond between the incarnation of the Son of God and the Eucharist. At Greccio there were no statues; the Nativity scene was enacted and experienced by all who were present.”

Every year at Christmas, the people of Greccio stage a live, historical reenactment of St. Francis and the first Nativity scene. The performance is now in its 50th year.

This story was first published on Dec. 23, 2022, and has been updated.

Multiple Kansas Catholic schools targeted by apparent bomb hoax
Sat, 20 Dec 2025 09:00:00 -0500

CNA Staff, Dec 20, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).

Multiple Catholic schools in Kansas were targeted by what were apparently hoax bomb threats this week, according to authorities.

Law enforcement agencies in the Kansas City area reported investigating threats at numerous Catholic schools on Dec. 19. The Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas confirmed in a press statement that “several” Catholic schools in the archdiocese had “received bomb threats” on both Dec. 18 and Dec. 19.

“At this time, students and staff are safe,” Archdiocesan Superintendent Vince Cascone said in the statement. “Law enforcement continues to investigate, and we are following their guidance closely.”

The archdiocese did not post a list of the schools affected by the bomb threats, though local media reported at least 13 schools targeted, 12 of which were Catholic.

The Olathe, Kansas, Police Department posted on Facebook that it had investigated a threat at the city’s Prince of Peace Catholic School. “The threat was unfounded, and it was determined that other cities in the metro were receiving similar hoax calls,” the police department said, adding that it was investigating the origin of the call.

Roeland Park Mayor Michael Poppa similarly wrote on Facebook that the threats were “unfounded.” The mayor described the hoaxes as “cowardly and deplorable attempts to spread fear and disrupt our community.”

Poppa praised authorities as well as staff at St. Agnes Catholic School “for jumping into action immediately to prioritize student safety.”

Multiple local outlets, meanwhile, reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is participating in the investigation.

The ‘most valuable’ gift to give this Christmas, according to Pope Leo XIV
Sat, 20 Dec 2025 08:00:00 -0500

ACI Prensa Staff, Dec 20, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV told the young people of Italian Catholic Action that they can perform a simple gesture that would be the best gift this Christmas: make peace.

“Before the holy night of Christmas, think of someone with whom you can make peace,” the pontiff urged members of the organization, founded in 1868, which has established itself as one of the main lay organizations of the Church in Italy.

‘A gift more valuable than those you can buy in stores’

“It will be a gift more valuable than those you can buy in stores, because peace is a gift that is truly found only in the heart,” he added.

He said peace is the “Catholic action par excellence,” because it is “the gesture that transforms us as witnesses of Jesus, the redeemer of the world.”

In this way, Leo made it clear that peace “is not only the absence of war” but above all “a friendship between peoples founded on justice.”

“We all desire this peace for the nations wounded by conflict, but let us remember that harmony and respect begin in our daily relationships, in the gestures and words we exchange at home, in the parish, with our schoolmates and teammates,” he explained.

Christians, called ‘to be better every day’

The pontiff also asked them that when they pray before the Nativity scene, they “ask to be able to be like those angels who announce the glory of God and peace to men.” This peace, he continued, is the “commitment of every person of goodwill, and especially of us Christians, who are called not only to be good but to be better every day.”

Leo thus invited his listeners to “become saints” and gave the example of the two young Italians: Pier Giorgio Frassati — who was part of Catholic Action — and Carlo Acutis, whom he canonized together on Sept. 7.

“I encourage you to imitate their passion for the Gospel and their works, always inspired by charity. By acting like them, your proclamation of peace will be radiant, because in the company of Jesus you will be truly free and happy, ready to reach out to your neighbor, especially those in difficulty,” he emphasized.

Italian Catholic Action has more than 229,000 members and is present in approximately 5,000 parishes in almost all the dioceses 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.

CNA explains: What is natural family planning?
Sat, 20 Dec 2025 07:00:00 -0500

CNA Staff, Dec 20, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

In an era when artificial contraception often dominates public discussions on family planning, the Catholic Church continues to champion natural family planning (NFP).

Far from merely another birth control technique, NFP invites couples to cooperate with God’s plan for married love, which “is a ‘great mystery,’ a sign of the love between Christ and his Church (Eph 5:32),” according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

NFP — also known as a fertility awareness-based method (FABM) — relies on observing and measuring a woman’s natural signs of fertility, such as basal body temperature, cervical mucus, and hormone levels, in order to identify fertile and infertile phases of her menstrual cycle.

Unlike chemical or mechanical contraceptives, which suppress or block fertility, NFP respects the woman’s body and its natural rhythms and allows spouses to achieve or postpone pregnancy, after mutual discernment, through informed abstinence during fertile windows.

Most importantly, NFP honors the sacredness of the unitive and procreative aspects of the conjugal act, which the Church teaches must always be a total gift of self between the spouses and open to the gift of new human life.

“Suppressing fertility by using contraception denies part of the inherent meaning of married sexuality and does harm to the couple’s unity,” according to the USCCB. “The total giving of oneself, body and soul, to one’s beloved is no time to say: ‘I give you everything I am — except…’ The Church’s teaching is not only about observing a rule but about preserving that total, mutual gift of two persons in its integrity.”

In his 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, St. Paul VI affirmed that couples may space births for serious reasons, using natural methods that honor the “inseparable connection between the unitive and procreative meanings” of the marital act.

The USCCB explains that “NFP is not a contraceptive, it does nothing to suppress or block conception.”

“On the surface, there may seem to be little difference (between NFP and contraception),” according to the bishops. “But the end result is not the only thing that matters, and the way we get to that result may make an enormous moral difference. Some ways respect God’s gifts to us while others do not.”

The bishops continue: “When couples use contraception, either physical or chemical, they suppress their fertility, asserting that they alone have ultimate control over this power to create a new human life. With NFP, spouses respect God’s design for life and love. They may choose to refrain from sexual union during the woman’s fertile time, doing nothing to destroy the love-giving or life-giving meaning that is present. This is the difference between choosing to falsify the full marital language of the body and choosing at certain times not to speak that language.”

The practice of NFP traces its modern roots to the mid-20th century, evolving from early, relatively unreliable calendar-based methods in the 1930s to the smartphone app-based approaches of today.

Common methods include the Billings Ovulation Method, which tracks cervical mucus changes, and sympto-thermal methods, which combine the charting of mucus observations, temperature shifts, and cervical changes. The Marquette Model uses “several different biomarker devices to detect urinary biomarkers (estrogen, LH, and progesterone),” according to its website.

Per USCCB data, NFP, with perfect use, yields 88% to 100% effectiveness in avoiding pregnancy, with imperfect use at 70% to 98%. For couples trying to achieve pregnancy, it typically occurs in about one year for approximately 85% of couples not using NFP, and within three to six months for those who are.

Pope Francis praised the Billings method in 2023 as “a valuable tool” for “responsible management of procreative choices,” urging a “new revolution in our way of thinking” to value the body’s “great book of nature.” He noted its simplicity amid a “contraceptive culture,” promoting tenderness between the spouses and an authentic freedom.

Beyond efficacy at planning, preventing, or postponing pregnancy in a morally licit way, couples who use NFP acknowledge that it can be difficult but say it improves communication as well as self-mastery, transforming what can be otherwise difficult times of periodic abstinence into opportunities for deeper intimacy.

Jessica Vanderhyde, a nurse and mother of seven who is using the Marquette method because she and her husband do not feel ready to welcome another child, told CNA that while NFP can be frustrating because of the periods of abstinence it requires, it also “leads to a lot more closeness in the marriage.”

“If it’s been a long period of abstinence, we try to come up with other ways to be close. I need to make sure I’m more affectionate with him because sexual intimacy is one of the primary ways he feels I love him. If that can’t happen, I have to be conscious of that,” she said.

“We have become good at taking each other’s feelings and needs into consideration. I work at providing what he needs as much as I can.”

Vanderhyde also noted how charting symptoms can bring the couple closer as it allows the husband to really appreciate his wife’s body as well as her needs.

“The husband should be involved in the tracking of it,” she continued, “so that he fully participates in the process and doesn’t feel like he’s at the whims of his wife’s moods.”

She said it can also reveal underlying health issues like infertility or hormonal imbalances, which artificial forms of birth control can mask.