Category Archives: U.S. News

How the Triduum can strengthen your love for the Eucharist

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By Christopher Carstens

(OSV News) — Is the Eucharist alive in your life? If not, would you like it to be?

The celebrations of the sacred Paschal Triduum are a great place to start.

Holy Thursday

The Paschal Triduum begins with the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday launches the Paschal Triduum. “Paschal” derives from the Hebrew word pascha, to “pass over” or “pass through.” “Triduum” means “three days,” or at least 72 hours — from the evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper to vespers on Easter Sunday. Together, the Paschal Triduum’s liturgies present the three days of Jesus’ salvific work of reconnecting — or bridging — heaven and earth so that we, the baptized, might pass over to heaven with him.

The work of bridge-building is pontifical. A “pontifex” is one who builds a bridge. A priest in ancient, pre-Christian Rome was called a pontifex since he stood in the breach that separated gods from men and attempted to effect a reconciliation between them. But these priests (like many other pre-Christian priests) were only shadows and anticipations of the Pontifex Maximus — Christ — that greatest of all bridge builders to come. Holy Thursday commences Jesus’ great bridge-building project.

Normally, the chrism Mass is celebrated in dioceses around the world on this day. In addition to blessing the holy oils and consecrating the sacred chrism, this Mass gathers priests — both ordained and baptized — around the high priest par excellence, the diocesan bishop. Following his homily, the bishop asks all of the faithful to pray for their priests, but not before these men renew their own priestly promises. His invitation to do so describes Holy Thursday as “the anniversary of that day when Christ our Lord conferred his priesthood on his apostles and on us.”

Holy Thursday, as his words indicate, is an anniversary of the priesthood, for on this day in the Upper Room, the priesthood of the New Covenant — that of Jesus and of his apostles — was actualized.

But, if the priesthood is born on Holy Thursday, so is its “twin” — the Eucharist. Also called the “natalis calicis” or “birthday of the chalice,” Holy Thursday supplies the material that priests need in order to build bridges: the offering, oblation or sacrifice. Priests need sacrifices — and sacrifices need priests: You can’t have one without the other.

The first reading from the Mass of the Lord’s Supper recounts God’s instructions to Moses and the Israelites about that first Passover offering: Unleavened bread is eaten along with a year-old, unblemished lamb whose blood, marking the houses, ransoms their firstborn sons. Each ancient detail finds fulfillment in Christ: the true bread from heaven, the Lamb of God, the Father’s only begotten Son. When the Church celebrates Mass today — when it obeys Christ’s command to “do this in memory of me” — that same Son, the Lamb, lives under the appearances of bread and wine.

The Church offers us another Eucharistic insight about the sacrifice during its preparation of the gifts and altar at this evening Mass. First, in one of the only occasions when the Missal names (and prints) a particular song for the offertory procession, the Church puts on our singing lips the “Ubi Caritas”: “Where charity and love prevail.” The verses of this eighth-century hymn sing of the unity in love that should characterize Christian believers: “let us strive to keep our minds free of division; may there be an end to malice, strife and quarrels, and let Christ our God be dwelling here among us.” Our offering, then, is not merely to supply material for the Eucharistic Body of Christ, but it is meant to unify “in charity and love” the mystical body of Christ.

To emphasize the connection between Eucharist and Church, the offertory procession on this night allows “gifts for the poor (to) be presented with the bread and wine.” What’s more, on this “birthday of the chalice,” the Church suggests that “during Communion, the priest entrusts the Eucharist from the table of the altar to deacons or acolytes or other extraordinary ministers, so that afterwards it may be brought to the sick who are to receive holy Communion at home.” In short, the body of Christ that is the sacrament gives life to the body of Christ, which is also the Church.

What, then, does Holy Thursday teach us — and form within us — about the Blessed Sacrament? That the Eucharistic mystery gives life and purpose not only to the priesthood but to the entire Church and its members.

Father Gerard Quirke, a priest of the Archdiocese of Tuam, raises the chalice during Easter Mass at Rock overlooking Keem Bay on Ireland’s Achill Island April 4, 2021. (OSV News photo/Seán Molloy, courtesy Irish Catholic)

Friday of the Passion of the Lord

Good Friday also teaches Eucharistic lessons, albeit in a different way than Holy Thursday’s Mass of the Lord’s Supper — or any other Mass. In fact, there is no Mass at all to be found on Good Friday but, rather, a liturgy commemorating Christ’s passion and cross.

When we consider Christ’s cross as a tree, as the tradition does, then Eucharistic truths will bear fruit in our souls. In some fashion, the entire history of salvation tells a story of trees. In the beginning, at the center of Eden’s garden, stood a “tree of life” from which our first parents were welcome to eat from at their pleasure and, by it, come into closer union with God’s own divine life. At the end of time, in heaven, the Lord promises that he will give “the victor” the “right to eat from the tree of life that is in the garden of God” (Rv 2:7). Standing between these two “trees of life” rises the adorable cross of Christ, arms extended back to the beginning and forward to the end, embracing all things beneath its boughs.

Part of the beauty of Good Friday’s Tree of Life is found in its fruit. Jesus himself says as much: Every tree is known by its fruit (cf. Lk 6:44). The saints found much food for thought in such an image.

The eighth-century monk St. Theodore the Studite observes, “The fruit of this tree is not death but life, not darkness but light. This tree does not cast us out of paradise, but opens the way for our return. … A tree once caused our death, but now a tree brings life. Once deceived by a tree, we have now repelled the cunning serpent by a tree. What an astonishing transformation!” The cross of Christ, the true Tree of Life, reverses the world’s downward spiral to death and redirects it to the heights of heaven.

St. Albert the Great would say much the same in the 13th century: Christ “could not have commanded anything more beneficial, for (the Eucharist) is the fruit of the tree of life. Anyone who receives this sacrament with the devotion of sincere faith will never taste death.”

Ever since he first tasted the forbidden fruit, man has had a kind of supernatural eating disorder. Part of his healing will be a spiritual diet of supernatural substance: the body and blood of Christ, served up for us on the cross. Good Friday makes this dimension of the Eucharistic mystery palatable for us.

The Easter Vigil

Surely, there is no more remarkable celebration throughout the entire Church year than the Easter Vigil. The blackness of night, the magnificent illumination of the Easter fire, the grand procession into the church are just a prelude to the poetry of the Exsultet and the long recounting of salvation history in the many readings. But these words, too, lead to the evening’s main event: the initiation of souls into the full communion of the Church.

For some, baptism will be the doorway through which they pass into the Church. For others, a profession of faith and being confirmed by sacred chrism will mark their entry. For both, the first reception of the Eucharist will make their initiation complete.

We saw how Holy Thursday’s Mass of the Lord’s Supper included gifts for the poor along with the bread and wine for the Mass. While the instructions for the offertory procession at the Easter Vigil don’t speak of unique gifts, they do enlist the service of the Church’s newly baptized priests. (Recall that through baptism, all the faithful share in Christ’s priesthood.)

“It is desirable,” the rubric says, “that the bread and wine be brought forward by the newly baptized or, if they are children, by their parents or godparents.” Part of the insight behind this ritual action was seen above: Priests — even among the baptized — offer sacrifices, and sacrifices are given to God through the consecrated hands of priests. But a potentially obscure figure mentioned in the First Eucharistic Prayer — “Abel the Just” — gives us even greater awareness of what’s happening at this moment.

Cain and Abel, the sons of Adam and Eve, both offered gifts to God — Cain, the yield of his harvest, and Abel, a firstling from the flock (cf. Gn 4:4) — but only Abel’s was found acceptable. Why was this the case? We’ve seen before how God’s design favored the firstborn son as well as fruits of the springtime harvest — both of which Cain could claim. Yet there was something more meaningful in Abel’s offering — namely, his best.

Abel is called “the just.” Justice is a virtue that renders another his due. When it comes to what we owe God, there is nothing we can offer to commensurate his greatness and for the good things he has given us — which is everything! “How can I repay the Lord for all the great good done for me?” the psalmist asks (116:12). Answer: We can’t. But we can give our best, because our best is what God deserves as a matter of justice.

St. Cyprian explains: “When Cain and Abel first offered their sacrifices, God considered not so much the gifts as the spirit of the giver: God was pleased with Abel’s offering because he was pleased with his spirit. Thus, Abel the just man, the peacemaker, in his blameless sacrifice taught men that when they offer their gift at the altar they should approach as he did, in the fear of God, simplicity of heart, ruled by justice and peaceful harmony. Since this was the character of Abel’s offering, it was only right that he himself should afterward become a sacrifice.”

Abel thus stands as a model for the neophyte’s first Mass as a Catholic receiving first Communion. Abel also lives on as a reminder to each of us who has been to Mass many times and already received our first Communion. At every Mass, we are called to give to God our best, in simplicity of heart, joining our entire selves to Christ in the Eucharistic sacrifice.

Jesus’ Paschal sacrifice is made really, truly present before our praying eyes on the altar at every Mass. And even after Mass, his body, blood, soul and divinity remain in our midst in the tabernacle. The Triduum attunes us to this reality each year.

(Christopher Carstens is director of the Office for Sacred Worship in the Diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin, and the author of “A Devotional Journey into the Easter Mystery.”)

What Palm Sunday means

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By D.D. Emmons , OSV News

(OSV News) — It is a time of despair, perplexity and contradiction. The very people who applaud Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem that morning, shouting out “Hosanna” and words of adoration will, within a week, be crying, “Crucify him.” They will go from acclaiming him as the new King of Israel to urging his life be traded in favor of a convicted criminal; they will first praise him and then mock him. Even friends entering Jerusalem at his side will desert Jesus.

All this discord will take place during one week beginning on what we call Palm Sunday.

Christians carry palm branches in 2017 while walking the traditional path that Jesus took on his last entry into Jerusalem during the Palm Sunday procession on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. (OSV News photo/Debbie Hill)

As we read in the Gospels, Jesus went to Jerusalem to join with throngs of other Jews to celebrate the Passover feast as had been prescribed in the Old Testament books of Exodus and Deuteronomy. According to the Gospel of St. John, Jesus and many of his followers journeyed the less than two miles from Bethany on that Sunday, arriving outside Jerusalem. As was the custom, pilgrims that had already arrived in the city went out to greet newly arriving groups; some had never seen Jesus but had heard about the miracles attributed to him and were caught up in the excitement.

Those arriving with and greeting Jesus were large in number as explained by John’s Gospel: “When the great crowd … heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took palm branches and went out to meet him, and cried out: ‘Hosanna! / Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, (even) the king of Israel'” (12:12-13).

This adulation was not lost on the Pharisees who were present. They said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” He said in reply, “I tell you, if they keep silent, the stones will cry out” (see Lk 19:39-40). The Pharisees reported the events back to the Jewish high council, the Sanhedrin, which regarded Jesus’ ever growing popularity as a threat to their cozy relationship with the Romans. They were, in fact, planning to murder him.

Previously, Our Lord had deliberately avoided popular acclaim, even fled, but this, upon entering Jerusalem, he accepts. Yet his actions are different than the people expected. He doesn’t present himself as a rival to Caesar; he is not the political messiah or the warrior king the multitude had clamored for. Instead of entering Jerusalem on a war horse or chariot, he enters on a donkey, a sign of peace; and not just any donkey, but one on which no one had ever sat, the prerogative of a king. Seeing him on the donkey, the Jews surging around him recalled the words of the Prophet Zechariah 500 years earlier:

“Exult greatly, O daughter Zion! / Shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem! / Behold: your king is coming to you; /a just savior is he, / Humble, and riding on a donkey, / on a colt, the foal of a donkey. / He shall banish the chariot from Ephraim / and the horse from Jerusalem” (Zec 9:9-10).

Pope Benedict XVI explained these Old Testament words as they related to Jesus: “He is a king who destroys the weapons of war, a king of peace and a king of simplicity, a king of the poor. … Jesus is not building on violence; he is not instigating a military revolt against Rome.”

Riding on the borrowed donkey, Jesus made his humble entrance into the city while the crowds were scattering their garments before him and waving their palm branches. This joyful scene belies the traitorous acts, sorrow and agony that will soon follow, belies that this triumphant hero will be crucified like a criminal.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) offered a homily about Christ’s entry into Jerusalem: “How different the cries, ‘Away with him, away with him, crucify him,’ and then, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, hosanna, in the highest!’ How different the cries are that now are calling him ‘King of Israel’ and then in a few days’ time will be saying, ‘We have no king but Caesar!’ What a contrast between the green branches and the cross, between the flowers and the thorns! Before they were offering their own clothes for him to walk upon, and so soon afterwards they are stripping him of his, and casting lots upon them.”

Palms were symbols of life among the nomadic tribes, who, when crossing the desert, rejoiced at seeing the palm tree as it indicated an oasis with life-giving water was near. Palms have long been a sign of victory, success and glory. Victorious armies or leaders returning from the battlefield or a long military campaign were welcomed by the populace jubilantly waving palm branches. Despite Jesus’ peaceful manner, when the Jews waved the palms at him and spread their clothing over which he rode, they were affording him the honors of a conquering hero and simultaneously defying the Roman occupiers.

On Palm Sunday, we still go out to meet him, carry the blessed palms, joyfully sing out our hosanna and join in his triumphant entrance into Jerusalem. But soon our joy turns to somberness as, clutching our palm, we hear the narrative of Christ’s passion. We realize, once again, that his triumph, his true victory, will come through the cross. We know, as Jesus did, how Holy Week will end. We know that joy will turn to sorrow and back to joy. We know that through the horror of his suffering, followed by the glory of his resurrection, good will trump evil and life will trump death.

The palms we take home and put in a special place serve to remind us that Palm Sunday is not lost to the ages but that by Christ’s victory we, too, can achieve everlasting life.

Soon after the Resurrection, Christians wanted to visit the sites of Christ’s passion and even reenact the incidents that had taken place, such as his entry into Jerusalem. But such activity would not be possible until the fourth century when Constantine became emperor of the Roman Empire and ended all religious persecution. Later in that century, a Spanish pilgrim named Eigera visited Jerusalem. In her diary, she recorded how Christians re-created the events of Holy Week. She wrote that they gathered outside the city on the Sunday before Easter and listened to one of the Gospels telling of Christ’s triumphant entrance into Jerusalem. Then they marched together through the city gates while carrying olive or palm branches. Our Palm Sunday processions are akin to what Eigera witnessed 17 centuries ago.

By the ninth century, the procession with blessed palms had expanded beyond Jerusalem, and during the Middle Ages they became widespread throughout Europe. In the 17th century, Christians were not only processing into church with palms but, during Mass, holding the palms while the Passion was being read.

Through the centuries, Palm Sunday and the procession of people holding palms would be celebrated in a variety of ways. In some locations the Blessed Sacrament was part of the procession, in other places the congregation started in the parish cemetery and then went into the church. Palms were sometimes blessed in one church and the people, carrying the palms, marched to another church for Mass. Most typical was the blessing of the people and the palms at a place outside the church and then processing in. For some time, even through the middle of the 20th century, the priest wore red vestments during the palm blessing and procession and then changed to a violet garment for Mass.

In 1955, the Church standardized and simplified the different entrances used on Palm Sunday: either an organized procession that begins somewhere outside the church, a solemn procession starting inside the church, or no procession at all. An entrance procession beginning at a location outside the church is used only once during the weekend Masses; it is not repeated at every Mass. The church calls this day Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord.

(D.D. Emmons writes from Pennsylvania.)

Sister Thea Bowman had a ‘loving heart,’ ‘ prophetic spirit’ and ‘boundless stamina,’ bishop says

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By Jennifer Brinker / St. Louis Review

JACKSON, Miss. (OSV News) — Servant of God Thea Bowman was a beacon for the Church to embrace more authentically the essence of what it means to be Catholic, Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz told Massgoers at the Cathedral of St. Peter the Apostle in Jackson.

“To love the Lord your God with your whole heart, mind, soul and strength, and your neighbor as yourself portrays her lifelong commitment,” he said in his homily at a Feb. 9 Mass of thanksgiving marking the conclusion of the diocesan phase of Sister Thea’s canonization cause. “Her loving heart, her prophetic spirit, her brilliant mind and boundless stamina, even in illness, inspired many.”

The Mass was attended by friends and acquaintances of Sister Thea, representatives from her religious order, the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, members of the historical commission who were part of the diocesan investigation and students from Sister Thea Bowman School in Jackson.

An official closing session of the diocesan phase of the canonization process followed the Mass, where the cause’s leaders ceremoniously sealed several boxes containing the diocesan phase’s documents and findings. In all, 10 boxes containing two sets of documents including more than 15,000 pages each, will be sent to the apostolic nunciature in Washington and then transferred to the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, which will further investigate the cause.

Jackson’s Bishop Kopacz, the main celebrant at the Mass, was among several bishops who witnessed the closing session. Concelebrants included Archbishop Mark S. Rivituso and retired Archbishop Thomas J. Rodi of Mobile, Alabama, and Bishop Steven J. Raica and retired Bishop Robert J. Baker of Birmingham, Alabama.

Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz places a seal on the boxes for the cause for Sister Thea Bowman, with the assistance of postulator, Emanuele Spedicato on Feb. 9 at the Cathedral of St. Peter the Apostle. (Photo by Tereza Ma/Mississippi Catholic)

Bishop Kopacz in 2018 opened the cause for Sister Thea, a native of Mississippi who was born in Yazoo City and raised in Canton. She was the only African American member of the Wisconsin-based Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. Before she died of cancer in 1990 at age 52, she was a widely known speaker, evangelizer and singer.

Nearly eight years after the cause was opened, Bishop Kopacz described the moment of closing the diocesan phase of the investigation as a blessing, especially for those who have been inspired by Sister Thea’s life.

“There’s considerable joy in the African American community,” he said. “It radiates throughout the whole diocese. Our Hispanic population is very proud of Sister Thea Bowman, too. They look to her as someone who had done a lot in her life and inspires them, in spite of obstacles, to continue forward. She had a great passion and love for God, and she saw the Church as the body of Christ as being for all. She taught people to be proud of their culture, and yet see the universality of the Church.”

Among the documents and findings related to Sister Thea are interviews with more than 40 witnesses as well as her writings, articles and other items pertaining to her life, said Emanuele Spedicato, the postulator for the cause who has been charged with sending the documents to Rome.

There are main components of a canonization investigation, which include a proven reputation for holiness, a rigorous examination of the candidate’s writings and life, the testimony of witnesses regarding heroic virtue and the investigation of at least one miracle attributed to their intercession.

Notary for the cause, Fabvienen Taylor witnesses Emanuele Spedicato place the final documents in the boxes for the cause for Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman.

Once the Vatican accepts the acts of the diocesan investigation, the sealed boxes will be opened and then begins the work of summarizing the information, said Spedicato, who will be tasked with writing the “positio,” which lays out the case for sainthood. From there, it is sent to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints and then ultimately to the pope.

“The most exciting part is being here today and showing the people the formalities (of the investigation) that are not only formalities but it’s for a purpose,” Spedicato said.

Sister Thea is among seven Black Catholics with active sainthood causes — dubbed the “Saintly Seven.”

Of the seven, four have been declared “Venerable”: Mother Mary Lange, who founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first Catholic order of African American women religious, in Baltimore; Father Augustus Tolton from Chicago, the first Catholic priest in the United States known to be Black; Pierre Toussaint from New York City, known for his works of charity; and Mother Henriette Delille, foundress of the Sisters of the Holy Family in New Orleans.

Two others, like Sister Thea, have the title “Servant of God”: Julia Greeley, who was born into slavery and after her emancipation later moved to Denver, where she was known for her works of charity; and Father Martin de Porres Maria Ward, a Conventual Franciscan and Boston native who served the poor and the sick on mission in Brazil well into the late 1990s.

Myrtle Otto

Among those who attended the Mass at the Jackson cathedral was Myrtle Otto, one of Sister Thea’s pupils at Holy Child Jesus School in Canton.

After joining the Francsican Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, Sister Thea returned to the school where she once was a student to teach music and English literature. She often stressed the importance of receiving a good education but also knew how to have fun, too, Otto said.

“We respected her in the utmost,” she said, adding that Sister Thea’s legacy should live on in how we treat others.

“Always learn to be kind,” Otto said. “Always learn to give people what’s due to them. She was a strong woman, and she taught us how to be strong. Regardless of what goes on, you pray and you go on and you’ll be successful. She’s now gone to glory with God.”

Several members of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration leadership were in attendance, including Sister Georgia Christensen, who knew Sister Thea from the time they were junior professed sisters.

Years ago during one of her assignments at a predominantly Black school in California, Sister Thea had come to help out for a brief period and was encouraging with the students, Sister Georgia recalled.

“She always had a spirit of joy about her,” she told the St. Louis Review, news outlet of the St. Louis Archdiocese, which Sister Thea visited on numerous occasions in the 1980s.

“She was able to break into song at any time, just praising God and making others happy. It touches the soul, and what it says is her life was a life worth living,” Sister Georgia recalled.

As part of their community’s perpetual adoration, the Franciscan sisters include a prayer at the end of every hour with the line: “All praise and all thanksgiving, be every moment thine.”

“I couldn’t help but think of that here today,” Sister Georgia said. “This is a moment of glory to God and Thea was the cause of it.”

Jennifer Brinker is a reporter at the St. Louis Review and Catholic St. Louis, the news outlets of the Archdiocese of St. Louis. This story was originally published by the St. Louis Review and distributed through a partnership with OSV News.

Click here to view photos from the Mass of Thanksgiving and Closing of the Diocesan Phase of the Cause for Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman, FSPA
Click here for Recording of the Mass of Thanksgiving and Closing of the Diocesan Phase of the Cause for Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman, FSPA on YouTube

Briefs

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People pray during a Mass at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis Feb. 1, 2026, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the church being named a minor basilica by Pope Pius XI. Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis was the main celebrant. (OSV News photo/Dave Hrbacek, The Catholic Spirit)

NATION
MINNEAPOLIS (OSV News) – A century ago, Pope Pius XI granted a grand Minneapolis church dedicated to the Immaculate Conception the title of “basilica.” It was the first church in the United States to receive the designation. To mark the anniversary, Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda celebrated a Feb. 1 Mass that included a reading of the 1926 proclamation, a centennial letter from Pope Leo XIV, and the introduction of a processional hymn commissioned for the event. In 1926, the Holy Father conferred on the Pro-Cathedral of St. Mary the title minor basilica “by reason of the piety of its worshippers as well as by the splendor of its ritual and the richness of its adornment,” according to the basilica’s website. Currently there are 94 minor basilicas in the United States and more than 1,700 worldwide, in addition to four major basilicas in Rome and the Vatican. Among the privileges of the basilica designation is an attachment to the papal household and the right to use the papal coat of arms. In 1966, St. Paul VI changed the name of the Archdiocese of St. Paul to the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and elevated the Basilica of St. Mary to the archdiocese’s co-cathedral.

VATICAN
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Leo XIV has added the feast day of St. John Henry Newman, who is “a radiant light for the Church on pilgrimage through history,” to the General Roman Calendar so that “his Optional Memorial be celebrated by all on 9 October.” Cardinal Arthur Roche and Archbishop Vittorio Francesco Viola, respectively prefect and secretary of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, announced the pope’s decision in a decree published by the Vatican Feb. 3. Cardinal Roche said the inclusion of St. Newman in the General Roman Calendar “is intended to present his figure as an outstanding example of the constant search for the truth that enlightens and saves” and to help the faithful contemplate him “as a man led by the ‘kindly light’ of God’s grace to find peace within the Catholic Church.” Bishops’ conferences around the world will need to translate from Latin the prayers issued by the dicastery for Mass on his feast day as well as those used in the Liturgy of the Hours and in the Roman Martyrology, and have the translations confirmed by the dicastery.

WORLD
MANAGUA, Nicaragua (OSV News) – Nicaragua’s Sandinista regime has blocked a Catholic diocese from carrying out door-to-door evangelization, ordering all pastoral activity to remain inside parish grounds. The restriction affected the Diocese of León, where parishioners planned missions on Jan. 24, according to exiled lawyer Martha Patricia Molina, who documents religious persecution in the country. The move is the latest in a sweeping crackdown on the Catholic Church that intensified after the bishops mediated – and later withdrew from – talks following anti-government protests in 2018. Since then, at least 305 clergy and religious, including four bishops, have been forced into exile, and more than 5,000 Catholic charities, schools, and religious groups have lost legal status. While some religious orders have quietly left the country, the government continues to detain clergy and restrict ministry. Church leaders and human rights monitors say recent prisoner releases are strategic gestures, not signs of real religious freedom. Exiled Auxiliary Bishop Silvio José Baez of Managua spoke of freedom and democracy “coming increasingly closer” in Latin America. He said in his Jan. 25 homily at St. Agatha’s parish in Miami that it’s “time to speak to illuminate the darkness of the moment, feed the hope of the people and denounce the oppressive structures that have prevailed until now, but that are about to disappear.”

Wisconsin man’s Catholic faith revived after finding bishop’s crosier in scrapyard

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By Joe Ruff / The Catholic Spirit

ST. PAUL, Minn. (OSV News) — A bishop’s golden crosier, or hooked staff symbolizing his office, found in a Minnesota scrapyard has drawn the man who discovered it into a journey back to the Catholic Church of his youth.

“If I’m the lost sheep, it literally took a shepherd’s staff put right in my path” to seriously pursue the faith, Jeff Helgeson, 62, of New Richmond, Wisconsin, told The Catholic Spirit, the newspaper for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda accepted the crosier when Helgeson told him about it May 30 at the Archdiocesan Catholic Center in St. Paul. The archbishop carried the crosier at the closing Mass June 7 of the Archdiocesan Synod Assembly 2025 at the Cathedral of St. Paul, and he told the story of its being found as part of his homily.

Jeff Helgeson poses with Bernard Hebda, who is holding the crosier Helgeson found in a scrapyard, during their May 30, 2025, meeting at the Archdiocesan Catholic Center in St. Paul. Finding the crosier has drawn Helgeson into a journey back to the Catholic Church of his youth. (OSV News photo/courtesy Paul Lovino)

“We don’t know whose crosier it was,” the archbishop said in his homily. “But how magnificent that in the midst of that scrapyard — maybe like that field of dry bones (in the biblical story found in Ezekiel) that there was that sign of hope, that glimmer of hope, that we can celebrate this evening.”

“We hope, my brothers and sisters, that we might be like that gentleman who found this crosier in the scrapyard,” the archbishop said. “That we might be able to recognize the treasure that God has in our midst.”

Asked recently to tell his story, Helgeson — who routinely drives scrap metal to St. Paul from the electric motor manufacturer he works for in Woodville, Wisconsin — said he found the crosier while dropping a load off in March and following his usual routine of looking around the yard.

“There’s quite a menagerie of scrap metal,” he said. “You’d be surprised at what people throw out. So, I was walking around and that’s when I spotted the crosier sticking out.”

The bright gold staff with its hook holding an ornately fashioned cross protruded from the flatter color of brass items that surrounded it, Helgeson said.

It also appeared to be something that should go back to the church, he said, as it reminded him of the crosier he saw while serving at Masses as a Catholic school youth in Fargo, North Dakota, when the late Bishop Justin A. Driscoll (1920-1984) presided.

“As soon as I saw it, I said, ‘This doesn’t belong here,'” Helgeson said. “There’s no way this was scrap metal.”

Helgeson asked workers in the yard if he could purchase the crosier, and they promised to ask their manager. About a month later, the manager was in the scrapyard and gave him the crosier free of charge, Helgeson said.

“He said, ‘Do the right thing,'” Helgeson said. “He said, ‘We’re not taking a thing for it.’ Businesses don’t usually do that. And I would have paid whatever they asked.”

Intent on finding the rightful owner, Helgeson scoured the internet for similarly fashioned crosiers and finally found one in the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois. Officials in that diocese weren’t aware of similar crosiers and suggested that Helgeson call closer to home, where the crosier was found: the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

That’s when Helgeson spoke with Paul Iovino, director of the archdiocese’s Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment, who checked with law enforcement agencies and could find no reports of the crosier having been stolen. Helgeson said he asked Iovino if the archdiocese might take the crosier. Iovino said he was glad to receive the offer, and Archbishop Hebda was interested in talking about that.

Meanwhile, Helgeson said his interest in the church and a desire for a deeper spiritual life had been renewed as he read about Pope Francis, who died April 21, and Pope Leo XIV, who was elected May 8. Finding the crosier seemed like another invitation to go deeper in his faith, Helgeson said. Meeting with Archbishop Hebda on May 30 was still another invitation, he said.

“It couldn’t have been a better meeting,” Helgeson said. “I think I was slotted to have like, 15 or 20 minutes with him. But he made it feel like I could be there all day if I wanted to be.”

First, the archbishop asked about him, Helgeson said, “before we even got to the crosier. You can tell when someone really is listening. The archbishop listened.”

Jeff Helgeson found this crosier in a scrapyard and presented it to Archbishop Bernard Hebda during their May 30, 2025, meeting at the Archdiocesan Catholic Center in St. Paul. Finding the crosier has drawn Helgeson into a journey back to the Catholic Church of his youth. (OSV News photo/courtesy Jeff Helgeson)

Helgeson said he explained that he had been away from the church for 40 years — but he knew what the crosier was when he saw it, and that it had to be returned to the church.

“I handed it to him,” Helgeson said of the crosier. “I was very relieved to do that.”

At the end of the conversation, the archbishop told him, “You can always come back” to the church, Helgeson said. “That, like a lightning bolt, hit me right then.”

Helgeson said he had disengaged from the church after a case of clergy sexual abuse that involved a friend who later committed suicide. “Anger kept me away, and eventually my pride and shame kept me away,” he said.

Helgeson served in the Army from 1982 to 1993, then worked for a railroad company and now is a partially retired truck driver who does long and short hauls for the electric motor manufacturer. Married with two children, he never lost his desire to be close to God.

“I’ve always had a certain spirituality,” Helgeson said, and finding the crosier “has kind of opened up a way back.”

The journey has continued with reading aloud to himself from a Bible he purchased, Helgeson said, to better comprehend it. He reads in the evenings after a long drive for work “or just kind of whenever the mood hits me,” Helgeson said.

In August, he returned to weekly Mass, but did not then receive Communion because he had yet to go to confession, Helgeson said.

“Sometimes you don’t know how hungry you are until you’ve had a little something to eat,” Helgeson said. “I really miss the church.”

At the archdiocese’s Dec. 28 celebration marking the close of the Jubilee Year of Hope, Archbishop Hebda told Catholics gathered at the Cathedral of St. Paul that the promise of the 2025 Jubilee of Hope did not disappoint, as the church focused on mercy and conversion.

He pointed to the crosier Helgeson recovered, and which he held, newly refurbished, calling it “an icon for all of us … of what it is that we hope to experience in the Jubilee Year, in that we find we have this opportunity to experience the treasures of the Catholic Church, and we’re given that opportunity for renewal.”

He said, “The hope, brothers and sisters, is that throughout this year we’ve had the opportunity to really engage in conversion, to come before the Lord, to recognize our sinfulness, to recognize our neediness, and to seek the Lord’s extraordinary mercy.”

(Joe Ruff is editor in chief of The Catholic Spirit, the newspaper serving the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. This story first ran in The Catholic Spirit and is distributed in partnership with OSV News with additional reporting from OSV News senior writer Maria Wiering.)

National Eucharistic Pilgrimage is back in 2026 with a patriotic twist

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By Maria Wiering
(OSV News) – The National Eucharistic Pilgrimage is back for 2026 with a special route that will travel the East Coast from St. Augustine, Florida, to Portland, Maine, ending in Philadelphia, organizers announced Jan. 8.

The pilgrimage – the third of its kind – will begin in May on Memorial Day weekend and end July 5. This year’s pilgrimage celebrates America’s 250th anniversary with the theme “One Nation Under God,” and its route incorporates key sites in the history of the country and its Catholics.

Organizers described the pilgrimage as “a nationwide call to renewal, unity and mission rooted in the Eucharist.”

In a Jan. 8 media release announcing the route, organizers noted that 2026 marked the 75th anniversary of the lobbying campaign, led by the Knights of Columbus, to add the phrase “One nation under God” to the nation’s Pledge of Allegiance.

A graphic depicts the 2026 route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, which begins in St. Augustine, Fla., and ends in Philadelphia. (OSV News graphic/National Eucharistic Congress)

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

“Our hope is that Catholics will come together on this significant anniversary to give thanks for our country and to pray for our future,” said Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens of Crookston, Minnesota, who serves as chairman of the National Eucharistic Congress, in the statement. “We want all Catholics to be inspired with missionary zeal to bring revival through the light and love of Jesus Christ.”

The pilgrimage has been placed under the patronage of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, an Italian-American immigrant and the first U.S. citizen to be canonized a saint. It will also take place in solidarity with the U.S. bishops’ call to consecrate the United States to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The pilgrimage will launch Memorial Day weekend with Mass at Our Lady of La Leche Shrine in St. Augustine, the site of the first Mass celebrated on American soil in 1565. It will also include commemorations of the Georgia Martyrs, five Franciscan missionaries who were killed for their faith in 1597, whose path for beatification Pope Francis cleared in January 2025; the celebration of the feast of Corpus Christi in the Archdiocese of Washington and the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia; and stops in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, the nation’s first Catholic diocese.

The pilgrimage will pass through most of the original 13 colonies, with stops in 18 dioceses and archdioceses.

Click here to learn more on the 2026 Pilgrimage

New Orleans archbishop apologizes to abuse survivors assettlement takes effect

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By Gina Christian
(OSV News) – Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond of New Orleans has issued a formal apology to abuse survivors in that archdiocese, following last month’s court approval of a $230 million settlement in the five-year-long bankruptcy case.

“With this letter, I express on behalf of the clergy, religious, and laity of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, my predecessors, and myself, profound regret over the tragic and inexcusable harm you have suffered at the hands of your abusers,” said Archbishop Aymond in a widely distributed Dec. 26 letter addressed “to all child abuse claimants” in the archdiocese.

The seventh amended plan for the archdiocese’s Chapter 11 filing – dating to 2020, and prompted by some 500 abuse claims – was approved by Judge Meredith S. Grabill on Dec. 8.

The archdiocese advised the court on Dec. 29 that “all conditions” required for the plan’s taking effect had been satisfied as of Dec. 26.

Archbishop Aymond’s apology letter was posted to the archdiocesan website and that of the Clarion Herald, the archdiocesan newspaper, the print edition of which will also include the message. Bayou Catholic, the official paper of the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, Louisiana, will include the text in its upcoming February edition.

In a Jan. 3 press release, the Archdiocese of New Orleans announced that Archbishop Aymond’s letter, posted to the archdiocesan website, would also be printed in full “throughout the upcoming days and weeks in the various media markets.”
The “extensive media outreach” – which includes some two dozen secular outlets in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas – is part of the archdiocese’s “commitment to the nonmonetary provisions laid out in its Chapter 11 settlement plan,” said the press release.
In his letter, Archbishop apologized to the victims “for the trauma caused to you and to those close to you as a survivor of sexual abuse perpetrated by a member of the clergy, a religious sister or brother, or a lay employee or volunteer working within the Catholic Church.

“Sexual abuse is an inexcusable evil, and I am ashamed that you or anyone should have been sexually abused by someone working within the Catholic Church,” he said. “Please know that you are not to blame for the abuse perpetrated on you. You were and are completely innocent and did nothing to deserve the pain you have suffered because of the hideous crime of sexual abuse of a minor.”

He said the archdiocese “takes responsibility for the abuse you have suffered and pledges to keep children and all vulnerable people safe in our ministry.” He added, “It is my fervent hope that as we bring these Chapter 11 proceedings to a close, you will achieve some sense of peace, justice, and healing.”
The closing hearings of the case in early December included testimony from 23 survivors, with Judge Grabill addressing them through tears ahead of her final ruling.

One survivor filed a handwritten letter to Judge Grabill, thanking her for her empathy and saying the court decision “will give children a voice … who have been silenced for so long.”

The survivor – noting a lifelong inability to “shake the stigma of the abuse” – said the decision to come forward “was very powerful for my own healing and to help move the Catholic Church to a safer environment.”

With the proceedings also involving 157 affiliated Catholic organizations – including parishes, schools, Catholic Charities organizations, and other ministries – the $230 million settlement will require parishes to contribute a total of some $60 million. A possible $75 million may be supplied by insurance funds.
According to Fox 8 New Orleans, Archbishop Aymond declined to specify how much each parish would be expected to pay toward the settlement.

OSV News previously confirmed with the archdiocese that its legal fees in the case totaled approximately $50 million as of November.

The arduous bankruptcy proceedings appeared to stall even in their final months, with one group of bond investors calling for further discussion of the archdiocese’s Chapter 11 reorganization plan, then in its fifth version, despite an overwhelming vote of approval of the plan by a committee of survivors and additional creditors.

Grabill appeared to lose patience with the case in April 2025, issuing an order on a potential dismissal of the “particularly contentious” suit, which had failed to reach a reorganization plan after five years of litigation.

Along with the wranglings over bankruptcy and survivor compensation, the archdiocese’s battle to resolve sex abuse claims has also included:

-The recusal of a previous judge in the Chapter 11 case.
-The guilty plea and life sentence of Msgr. Lawrence Hecker for rape and other crimes committed in 1975-1976.
-An investigation by the Louisiana State Police and the FBI – with a search warrant issued in May 2024 – to determine if archdiocesan officials covered up child sex trafficking by clergy over several decades, with some alleged victims reportedly taken out of state to be abused and marked for further exploitation among clergy.

OSV News has found that from 2004 to 2024, U.S. Catholic dioceses collectively paid a total of more than $5 billion to settle abuse claims.

In September, Pope Leo XIV appointed Bishop James F. Checchio of Metuchen, N.J., as coadjutor archbishop of New Orleans. Archbishop Checcio will assist Archbishop Aymond until the latter’s canonically required resignation, submitted upon reaching the age of 75, is accepted by the pope.

(Gina Christian is a multimedia reporter for OSV News. Follow her on X @GinaJesseReina.)

NOTES: A link to the letter can be found here at the Clarion Herald: https://clarionherald.org/documents/2026/1/2025.12.26%20-%20public%20apology%20letter.pdf

Briefs

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Indiana Hoosiers quarterback Fernando Mendoza (15) and running back Roman Hemby (1) celebrate on the podium after defeating the Alabama Crimson Tide in the 2026 Rose Bowl and quarterfinal game of the College Football Playoff on New Year’s Day at Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, Calif. The Hosiers defeated Alabama 38-3. (OSV News photo/Mandatory Credit: (OSV News photo/Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images via Reuters)

NATION
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (OSV News) – As he waited for the announcement of who would win the Heisman Trophy – awarded to the best college football player of the year – Dominican Father Patrick Hyde turned to one of his fellow friars and said, “I have never been so invested in the outcome of an award.” After all, Father Hyde has become a big fan of Fernando Mendoza, the star quarterback of the football team at Indiana University in Bloomington, where the priest serves as pastor of St. Paul Catholic Center on the school’s campus and where Mendoza has attended Mass. Father Hyde not only celebrates the football player that Mendoza is, he also appreciates the person Mendoza is and the way the quarterback embraces his faith in God. So, when Mendoza was announced as the winner of the Heisman on Dec. 13 in a ceremony in New York City, Father Hyde rejoiced with the other friars watching the event on television. His speech was also an all-inclusive thank-you to all the people who have made a difference in his life, starting with the way he has begun nearly every post-game interview this season. Mendoza thanked God, his family, team and community. “This moment is an honor. It’s bigger than me,” he said.

BEL AIR, Md. (OSV News) – Well before he was a University of Maryland transfer who used his final year of college football eligibility to become a major success story as a running back at Indiana University, Roman Hemby said he owed much credit to John Carroll School in Bel Air for instilling vital Catholic values that guide him today. Hemby, a Maryland graduate who grew up in Edgewood, is one of numerous transfers who have turned the 2025 Indiana Hoosiers into a No. 1-ranked, unbeaten (13-0) powerhouse. The Hoosiers entered the College Football Playoff as its No. 1 seed. “I had the utmost faith that things would work out. The atmosphere at John Carroll let me know that God had a plan for me,” said Hemby.

VATICAN
ROME (CNS) – Pope Leo used his first New Year’s address to the diplomatic corps Jan. 9 to strongly defend marriage, family life and the unborn, urging nations to prioritize the protection of life over policies he called harmful to human dignity. Speaking in English to diplomats accredited to the Holy See, the pope said abortion “cuts short a growing life” and fails to welcome life as a gift. He reaffirmed Catholic teaching on marriage as the exclusive and indissoluble union of a man and a woman, saying this bond grounds the vocation to love and to life. Pope Leo warned that families face growing marginalization and increasing fragility, brought about by various circumstances, including domestic violence and social pressures. He criticized the use of public funds for abortion, including cross-border efforts to access what he called the “so-called right to safe abortion,” and strongly rejected surrogacy and euthanasia. Instead, he said, society and governments “have a responsibility to respond concretely to situations of vulnerability” and offer solutions and “policies of authentic solidarity.” The pope said a society truly progresses only when it safeguards every human life, from conception to natural death.

WORLD
BETHANY BEYOND THE JORDAN, Jordan (OSV News) – Catholics from across Jordan and around the world gathered Jan. 9 at the site of Jesus’ baptism on the Jordan River to celebrate Epiphany, marking the place the Catholic Church recognizes as the beginning of Christ’s public ministry. Clergy from multiple Eastern and Western Catholic rites joined in the liturgy, renewing a global call for pilgrims to visit one of Christianity’s most sacred sites. The celebration included Mass at the newly consecrated Catholic Church of the Baptism of Jesus Christ, inaugurated by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, in January 2025. Despite cloudy skies, rain paused during the Mass – a moment the faith leaders called a sign of blessing in water-scarce Jordan. Church officials highlighted Jordan’s unique role in Christian history, noting it is the only country visited by four popes. Leaders also voiced hope for renewed peace in the region and invited pilgrims worldwide to encounter faith as a journey rooted in baptism, reconciliation and hope. Bishop Iyad Twal, patriarchal vicar of Jordan, told reporters that some calm and peace has returned to neighboring Palestine and Gaza. He said Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, was heartened during a recent visit to the coastal enclave to see “a genuine determination to begin new life with optimism.”

BOGOTÁ, Colombia (OSV News) – The Catholic bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean have expressed their pastoral closeness to the people of Venezuela, following a Jan. 3 U.S. military intervention that saw the capture of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and claims of a temporary takeover of the country before Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, was sworn in as Venezuela’s interim president. In a Jan. 5 letter, the bishops of the Latin American and Caribbean Episcopal Council, known as CELAM, shared what they called a “simple, fraternal and hopeful” message marking the Epiphany of the Lord – an event that reveals “a God who is close to his people, who walks with them, illuminates the darkness, and opens new paths even when everything seems uncertain.” In their letter, the bishops said they “share and embrace with a profound pastoral sense the words of Pope Leo XIV, who spoke about the situation in Venezuela and reminded us that the good of the people must always be above any other consideration.” The bishops stressed, “We want to reiterate that you are not alone. CELAM walks with you and with the Venezuelan people, encouraging every effort to build bridges, heal wounds, and advance reconciliation, without excluding anyone. The Church is called to be an open house, a space for encounter, and a serene voice that inspires hope, even in the midst of difficulties.”

Briefs

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The Nativity scene is unveiled and the Christmas tree is lighted in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican Dec. 15, 2025. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)

NATION
BURLINGTON, Wash. (OSV News) – Several parishes and schools across Western Washington have shut down operations due to historic flooding in the state. Gov. Bob Ferguson announced Dec. 12 that President Donald Trump signed the state’s request for an emergency declaration, permitting federal funds to be used as aid in 16 counties and several Tribal Nations affected by the floods. The Laudato Si’ Movement-Washington State Chapter released a statement Dec. 11, saying, “We are working together with Archdiocese of Seattle, Catholic Community Services, and additional collaborative agencies to prepare for and provide emergency assistance, as needed.” St. Charles Parish in Burlington, St. Catherine Mission in Concrete, Our Lady of Sorrows Parish in Snoqualmie, St. Joseph School in Issaquah and Immaculate Conception School in Mount Vernon are among the closures. The Tri-Parish Food Bank at St. Charles has also been shut down. In its statement, the Laudato Si’ Movement-Washington State Chapter said it “holds all those affected in prayer” and called the devastation “heartbreaking.” Early on Dec. 15, the National Weather Service said that “a period of very active weather will dominate the week ahead as a series of strong frontal systems produce cascading impacts across Western Washington.”

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – The Washington-based Black and Indian Mission Office is getting a boost from two new half-hour documentaries, “Trailblazers of Faith: The Legacy of African American Catholics” and “Walking the Sacred Path: The Story of the Black and Indian Mission Office.” Father Maurice Henry Sands, a Detroit archdiocesan priest that heads the office, hopes they’ll be an aid with fundraising. Trailers of the films can be viewed on the mission office’s website, https://blackandindianmission.org/films. “Trailblazers of Faith” tells the story of how African Americans have been able to embrace the Catholic faith without abandoning their own culture. A particular focus is on the Baltimore-based Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first Catholic order in the U.S. for Black women, as well as Venerable Mother Henriette Delille of New Orleans, Servant of God Julia Greeley, Venerable Father Augustus Tolton and Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman. They are among seven Black Catholics with active sainthood causes – dubbed the “Saintly Seven.” The Black and Indian Missions Office originated in 1874 as the Bureau of Catholic Missions, with wider goals added in subsequent years. The office is in a brick row house that once belonged to St. Katharine Drexel (1858-1955), the Philadelphia heiress who devoted her life and her wealth to ministering to Native Americans and African Americans.

VATICAN
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Nativity scene and the Christmas tree are signs of faith and hope, Pope Leo XIV said. “As we contemplate them in our homes, parishes and town squares, let us ask the Lord to renew in us the gift of peace and fraternity,” he said, calling for prayers for all those who suffer because of war and violence. “We must eliminate hatred from our hearts.” The pope was speaking Dec. 15 during a meeting with the government representatives, artisans and donors responsible for providing the Christmas decorations in the Paul VI Audience Hall and in St. Peter’s Square. Pope Leo thanked the Costa Rican artist who created the Nativity scene for the audience hall, titled “Nacimiento Gaudium.” Created by Paula Sáenz Soto, it features a pregnant Virgin Mary and 28,000 colored ribbons, each representing a life saved from abortion thanks to the prayers and support provided to many mothers in difficulty by Catholic organizations, according to a press release by the Vatican City State’s governing office. “I thank the Costa Rican artist who, together with the message of peace at Christmas, also wanted to launch an appeal for the protection of life from the moment of conception,” Pope Leo said. “The Nativity scene and the Christmas tree are signs of faith and hope,” he said to all those present. “Let the tenderness of the child Jesus illuminate our lives. Let God’s love, like the branches of an evergreen tree, remain fervent in us.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Leo XIV has accepted the resignation of Cardinal Timothy Dolan as archbishop of New York and named Archbishop Ronald A. Hicks of Joliet, Illinois, as his successor. The Vatican announced the decision Dec. 18. Cardinal Dolan, who turned 75 in February, submitted his resignation as required by canon law. Appointed archbishop of New York in 2009 by Pope Benedict XVI, he was made a cardinal three years later. Cardinal Dolan previously served as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and held several national leadership roles, including chair of pro-life and religious liberty committees. Archbishop Hicks, 58, has led the Diocese of Joliet since 2020. Born in Chicago and longtime priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago, he has served as vicar general, auxiliary bishop, seminary formator, and regional director of Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos in Central America. He currently serves on several USCCB committees and Catholic boards.

WORLD
PARIS (OSV News) – Fifty French Catholics killed under Nazism were beatified Dec. 13, 2025, during a Mass at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, recognizing their witness of faith during World War II. Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg presided at the liturgy, as they were declared blessed, with their liturgical memorial on May 5. The martyrs – priests, seminarians and laymen – died in Germany between 1944 and 1945 while serving fellow French workers deported under Nazi forced labor policies. Many belonged to the Young Christian Workers movement, with several also active as Catholic scouts. They volunteered to accompany workers sent to German factories, offering pastoral care through a clandestine mission known as the St. Paul Mission. For French Father Bernard Ardura, former president of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, and postulator of their causes in Rome since 2018, these men are “martyrs of the apostolate.” “They went to Germany voluntarily, as Christians, and it was as Christians that they were arrested and died,” he told OSV News. They died in concentration camps, death marches or executions, refusing to abandon their faith. In his homily, Cardinal Hollerich praised their courage, calling the witness given by their lives and deaths a faithful following of Christ to the very end.

SYDNEY (OSV News) – After two gunmen targeted Jewish beachgoers at an event celebrating the first day of Hanukkah in terror attack at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, Pope Leo XIV highlighted God’s closeness to humanity and called for prayers for those who suffer on account of war and violence, especially the victims from the Jewish community in Australia. “Enough with these forms of antisemitic violence!” Pope Leo said Dec. 15, speaking with the groups that donated this year’s Vatican Christmas Tree and Nativity Scene. “We must eliminate hatred from our hearts,” he highlighted. In a Dec. 15 statement, Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney called for an end to an “atmosphere of antisemitism” in Australia. He also shared that he personally has Jewish heritage from his great-grandmother, and that as Christians “an attack on the Jews is an attack on all of us.” Just hours after the shooting and an initial report of 12 dead, the death toll rose to 15. The Guardian reported a 10-year-old girl, a rabbi and two Holocaust survivors were among victims. The second gunman, police confirmed, was in custody and in critical condition. According to authorities, over 40 people were wounded and taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital. The attack occurred in the early evening as hundreds were gathered at Archer Park, a grassy area in Bondi Beach.

2025 spans life spectrum, from abortion and family programs to immigration and death penalty

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A woman holds up a pro-life sign ahead of the 52nd annual March for Life rally in Washington Jan. 24, 2025. (OSV News photo/Bob Roller)

By Kimberley Heatherington
(OSV News) – Life issues are perennially critical to the robust public witness of the Catholic Church, but 2025 nonetheless proved a particularly eventful year across a wide spectrum of related concerns.

The year opened with the annual National Prayer Vigil for Life, where worshippers praised and thanked God “for the gift of human life in all its forms and at every stage” and ended with a new coalition of more than 50 organizations pledging to end the death penalty in the United States once and for all.

Remarks by Pope Leo XIV in an impromptu Sept. 30 Castel Gandolfo press scrum demonstrated the expanse – and continuity – of the life issues of concern to the church.

The pope, who shortly after being elected the successor to Pope Francis reaffirmed the church’s teaching against abortion, responded to a media question concerning the Chicago Archdiocese’s plans to give an immigration advocacy award to U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., a Catholic who supports keeping abortion legal, over the objections of pro-lifers.

“Someone who says, ‘I’m against abortion but says I’m in favor of the death penalty’ is not really pro-life,” the pontiff remarked. “So someone who says that ‘I’m against abortion, but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants who are in the United States,’ I don’t know if that’s pro-life. … Church teaching on each one of those issues is very clear.”

On the same day as the pope’s remarks, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced approval of a new generic form of mifepristone – a pill commonly used for early abortion – marking the second time a Trump administration has permitted a generic form of the drug.

On Dec. 9, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America called for FDA Commissioner Marty Makary to be fired, arguing that he has “slow-walked a promised safety study of women’s real-world experiences taking abortion drugs.” The White House rejected that claim and the call for his firing.

Pro-life groups characterized the move as an abandonment of pro-life principles, concerns that were reinforced on Oct. 16 when President Trump announced a proposal to increase access to in vitro fertilization.

Trump made campaign trail promises to expand IVF, an action the Catholic Church and other experts warn will fuel large-scale destruction of embryonic human life while doing little to increase the nation’s overall birth rate. The U.S bishops expressed concern on Oct. 17, saying that while reproductive technologies such as IVF can be “well intended,” they nonetheless “strongly reject” efforts to promote IVF.
Other family life matters – such as health insurance, cash support for parents and food assistance benefits, also known as SNAP – also grabbed headlines in 2025.

Affordable Care Act subsidies – which would cost an estimated $350 billion over the next decade, if extended – cover some 22 million Americans. Set to expire Dec. 31, their absence will result in estimated average health insurance premium increases of 26%, with a congressionally approved extension far from certain.

As a result, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted 4.2 million more Americans will go without coverage, while critics point to enrollment fraud and the benefit to insurance companies instead of patients.

The complications of substituting direct subsidies for ACA exchange assistance are a point for current debate, but the U.S. Catholic bishops addressed the need for health care reform as early as 1993 in “A Framework for Comprehensive Health Reform,” insisting “every person has a right to adequate health care.”

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act – signed into law July 4 – is expected to challenge family finances in several ways. Estimated to cut $930 billion from Medicaid and $285 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, it also increases the national debt on paper by $3.4 trillion.

After the bill’s passage, Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services – then president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops – issued a statement citing what he described as “unconscionable cuts to health care and food assistance, tax cuts that increase inequality, immigration provisions that harm families and children, and cuts to programs that protect God’s creation.”

Twenty U.S. Catholic bishops signed onto an interfaith effort opposing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which would enact key provisions of President Trump’s legislative agenda on taxes and immigration, calling it a “moral failure.”

Families coast-to-coast are also being impacted by amplified immigration enforcement policies, including raids, arrests and deportations in multiple cities.

As OSV News reported in July, three Florida immigration detention sites were accused of denying timely medical care (potentially resulting in deaths), having freezing and overcrowded cells with no bedding or hygiene access, and of carrying out degrading treatment – including beatings, shackling and isolation, with detainees being forced to eat with their hands cuffed behind their backs.

“If the administration succeeds in deporting the numbers of people it says it wants to deport, it will not only change the church in America. It will change America,” Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski of Miami told OSV News on Nov. 4.

On July 20, Archbishop Wenski and some 25 Knights of Columbus rode their motorcycles to pray a rosary at the entrance of Alligator Alcatraz, the controversial migrant detention center in the Florida Everglades.
On Nov. 12, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted overwhelmingly to issue a rare group statement voicing “our concern here for immigrants” at their annual fall plenary assembly.

A day later, on the feast of the patron saint of immigrants St. Frances Xavier Cabrini – and a day after the U.S. bishops issued a special pastoral message on immigration – a coalition of Catholic organizations held a wave of prayer vigils across the country Nov. 13 for what organizers called “a national day of public witness for our immigrant brothers and sisters.”

Assisted suicide and the death penalty also continued to make their mark in 2025, with both the New York Assembly and Senate passing the Medical Aid in Dying Act, a controversial bill now awaiting Gov. Kathy Hochul ‘s signature.

On Dec. 12, Illinois became the 12th state, along with the District of Columbia, to legalize assisted suicide, amid outcry among the state’s Catholic bishops and other pro-life and disability advocates. Gov. JB Pritzker signed SB 1950 into law, allowing terminally ill adults who are Illinois residents to end their lives through self-administered lethal drugs prescribed by a physician.

As of Dec. 15, 46 prisoners have been executed in 11 U.S. states, a sharp increase over 25 executions in 2024. According to The Death Penalty Information Center, there are two more executions scheduled for 2025. The center notes, “For every 8.2 people executed in the United States in the modern era of the death penalty, one person on death row has been exonerated.”

On Dec. 3, a new coalition of more than 50 organizations launched the U.S. Campaign to End the Death Penalty. Laura Porter, the campaign’s director, said the coalition comes at “a critical juncture in our country’s history with the death penalty, with executions on the rise and new experimental execution methods being promoted in a handful of states despite growing opposition to the death penalty.”

“It is more important than ever,” said Porter in a statement, “that we shine a light on capital punishment’s failures, and come together to show growing bipartisan support for ending executions.”

(Kimberley Heatherington is an OSV News correspondent. She writes from Virginia.)