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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 11, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).

Archbishop Timothy Broglio's leadership of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) comes to an end Nov. 11 after a three-year term.

Broglio, the archbishop of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, was elected to the office of president in November 2022. In his time, the USCCB has defended religious freedom and the right to life, opposed gender ideology, defended migrants, and promoted international peace.

The USCCB voting guide continued to highlight abortion as its "preeminent priority" through the Broglio presidency. Because the conference represents the Church in Washington, D.C., this led to tension with the presidency of Joe Biden, which overlapped with Broglio's tenure.

When Biden told an EWTN reporter that "not all" of the Catholic bishops oppose tax funds for abortion, Broglio responded in 2023: "The Catholic bishops of the United States are united in our commitment to life and will continue to work as one body in Christ to make abortion unthinkable."

The USCCB declined to deny Biden Communion over his abortion support. It sued the administration when it passed regulations to force employers, including religious groups, to accommodate women who are procuring an abortion. Enforcement was blocked by a judge.

During his time, the bishops also fought against an anti-discrimination rule. As president of the USCCB, Broglio frequently criticized gender ideology, saying efforts to change one's gender are incompatible with Church teaching.

The USCCB issued annual religious freedom reports. Under Biden, the conference focused on issues related to abortion and gender. Under President Donald Trump, the bishops expressed more concerns over immigration policy jeopardizing religious freedom.

In this year's report, the USCCB referenced Annunciation House, an El Paso, Texas-based nonprofit that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton tried to shut down for "alien harboring" — an allegation they are contesting in the state Supreme Court.

The USCCB also sued the Trump administration over the decision to strip funding for refugee resettlements. The USCCB ultimately phased out its migration programs, which had been receiving more than $100 million annually under Biden.

Broglio said in June that "enforcement alone" is not the solution to immigration issues. He said: "The mass arrest and removal of our neighbors, friends, and family members on the basis of immigration status alone, particularly in ways that are arbitrary or without due process, represent a profound social crisis before which no person of goodwill can remain silent."

The USCCB issued immigration reform guidelines in January, which said "a country's rights to regulate its borders and enforce its immigration laws must be balanced with its responsibilities to uphold the sanctity of human life, respect the God-given dignity of all persons, and enact policies that further the common good."

Broglio repeatedly encouraged the U.S. government to promote peace internationally, such as in conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. The archbishop has also criticized the U.S. Army's decision to cancel certain religious contracts, which he said is straining the archdiocese's ability to minister to Catholics in the armed forces.

As Broglio's term comes to an end, the bishops are set to decide the next conference president from a slate of 10 candidates on Nov. 11. The election takes place at the Fall Plenary Assembly in Baltimore.

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Vatican City, Nov 11, 2025 / 09:30 am (CNA).

The Pontifical Swiss Guard this week opened an internal investigation to clarify an alleged act of antisemitism committed by one of its guards against two Jewish women in St. Peter's Square, the Vatican confirmed. 

"The Pontifical Swiss Guard received a complaint regarding an incident that occurred at one of the entrances to Vatican City State in which elements interpreted as antisemitic were allegedly detected," Holy See Press Office Director Matteo Bruni stated on Monday.

The reported incident took place during Pope Leo XIV's Oct. 29 general audience commemorating the 60th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, the 1965 declaration on the Church's relations with non-Christian religions.

According to a Nov. 7 report published in Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Israeli writer and theater director Michal Govrin said a Swiss Guard "hissed at" her and a female colleague, saying "les juifs, the Jews," before "making a gesture of spitting in our direction with obvious contempt."

The two women were part of an international Jewish delegation in Rome to participate in Nostra Aetate anniversary celebrations, which included the Oct. 29 audience with Pope Leo in St. Peter's Square.

During that audience dedicated to interreligious dialogue, Pope Leo XIV emphasized that "the Church does not tolerate acts of antisemitism in any form" and reiterated "the Holy See's commitment to friendship and respect towards our elder brothers in faith."

According to the Vatican's preliminary investigation, the complaint stems from "a dispute that arose regarding a request for a photograph while on duty." Members of the Pontifical Swiss Guard are strictly prohibited from taking photographs with tourists or pilgrims while on duty.

Bruni on Monday explained that "the case is currently the subject of an internal verification procedure" and that this process "is being carried out in accordance with the principles of discretion and impartiality, in compliance with current regulations."

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Swiss Guard, Eliah Cinotti, also confirmed that the alleged antisemitic incident involved "a photo taken at a duty station" in St. Peter's Square.

"The case remains under internal investigation," Cinotti explained to ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news partner. 

"There will be no further comments on the matter," as the proceedings must remain "confidential," he added.

In a Nov. 10 statement given to The Catholic Herald, Cinotti said: "The Pontifical Swiss Guard firmly distances itself from any expression or act of antisemitism."

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CNA Staff, Nov 11, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

On Nov. 11, the Catholic Church honors St. Martin of Tours, who left his post in the Roman army to become a "soldier of Christ."

Martin was born around the year 316 in modern-day Hungary. His family left that region for Italy when his father, a military official of the Roman Empire, was transferred there. Martin's parents were pagans, but he felt an attraction to the Catholic faith, which had become legal throughout the empire in 313. He received religious instruction at age 10 and even considered becoming a hermit in the desert.

Circumstances, however, forced Martin to join the Roman army at age 15, when he had not even received baptism. Martin strove to live a humble and upright life in the military, giving away much of his pay to the poor. His generosity led to a life-changing incident, when he encountered a man freezing without warm clothing near a gate at the city of Amiens in Gaul.

As his fellow soldiers passed by the man, Martin stopped and cut his own cloak into two halves with his sword, giving one half to the freezing beggar. That night, the unbaptized soldier saw Christ in a dream, wearing the half-cloak he had given to the poor man. Jesus declared: "Martin, a catechumen, has clothed me with this garment."

Martin knew that the time for him to join the Church had arrived. After his baptism, he remained in the army for two years but desired to give his life to God more fully than the profession would allow. But when he finally asked for permission to leave the Roman army, during an invasion by the Germans, Martin was accused of cowardice.

He responded by offering to stand before the enemy forces unarmed. "In the name of the Lord Jesus, and protected not by a helmet and buckler but by the sign of the cross, I will thrust myself into the thickest squadrons of the enemy without fear."

But this display of faith became unnecessary when the Germans sought peace instead, and Martin received his discharge.

After living as a Catholic for some time, Martin traveled to meet Bishop Hilary of Poitiers, a skilled theologian and later canonized saint. Martin's dedication to the faith impressed the bishop, who asked the former soldier to return to his diocese after he had undertaken a journey back to Hungary to visit his parents. While there, Martin persuaded his mother, though not his father, to join the Church.

In the meantime, however, Hilary had provoked the anger of the Arians, a group that denied Jesus was God. This resulted in the bishop's banishment, so Martin could not return to his diocese as intended. Instead he spent some time living a life of severe asceticism, which almost resulted in his death. The two met up again in 360, when Hilary's banishment from Poitiers ended.

After their reunion, Hilary granted Martin a piece of land to build what may have been the first monastery in the region of Gaul. During the resulting decade as a monk, Martin became renowned for raising two people from the dead through his prayers. This evidence of his holiness led to his appointment as the third bishop of Tours in the middle of present-day France.

Martin had not wanted to become a bishop and had actually been tricked into leaving his monastery in the first place by those who wanted him to the lead the local Church. Once appointed, he continued to live as a monk, dressing plainly and owning no personal possessions. In this same spirit of sacrifice, he traveled throughout his diocese, from which he is said to have driven out pagan practices.

Both the Church and the Roman Empire passed through a time of upheaval during Martin's tenure as bishop. Priscillianism, a heresy involving salvation through a system of secret knowledge, caused such serious problems in Spain and Gaul that civil authorities sentenced the heretics to death. But Martin, along with the pope and St. Ambrose of Milan, opposed this death sentence for the Priscillianists.

Even in old age, Martin continued to live an austere life focused on the care of souls. His disciple and biographer, St. Sulpicius Severus, noted that the bishop helped all people with their moral, intellectual, and spiritual problems. He also helped many discover their calling to the consecrated life.

Martin foresaw his own death and told his disciples of it. But when his last illness came upon him during a pastoral journey, he felt uncertain about leaving his people.

"Lord, if I am still necessary to thy people, I refuse no labor. Thy holy will be done," he prayed. He developed a fever but did not sleep, passing his last several nights in the presence of God in prayer.

"Allow me, my brethren, to look rather toward heaven than upon the earth, that my soul may be directed to take its flight to the Lord to whom it is going," he told his followers, shortly before he died in November 397.

St. Martin of Tours has historically been among the most beloved saints in the history of Europe. In a 2007 Angelus address, Pope Benedict XVI expressed his hope "that all Christians may be like St. Martin, generous witnesses of the Gospel of love and tireless builders of jointly responsible sharing."

This story was first published on Oct. 6, 2011, and has been updated.

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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 10, 2025 / 18:12 pm (CNA).

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined a request to overturn its 2015 decision to legalize same-sex marriage. 

Kim Davis, a Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk from 2015 through 2019, petitioned the Supreme Court in July to reconsider the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, which legalized same-sex civil marriages nationally.

Davis requested the court also hear her case 10 years later after she made headlines for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. She served multiple days in jail for contempt of court for violating a judicial order to issue the marriage licenses.

Davis was ordered to pay more than $360,000 in damages and legal fees for violating a same-sex couples' right to marry. After lower courts rejected her claim that the the Constitution's First Amendment right to free exercise of religion protected her in the case, she appealed to the Supreme Court.

The Trump administration did not weigh in on the case as the Supreme Court considered whether to take up the matter. The Supreme Court made the decision to reject the request on Nov. 10 and has made no comment on the matter. 

The issue with claiming violation to religious freedom is that Davis "was not acting as a private citizen, exercising her right to … religion, she was acting as a public official," said Thomas Jipping, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation. 

"The First Amendment applies differently with regard to the actions of public officials than private individuals," said Jipping in a Nov. 10 interview with "EWTN News Nightly." Davis "was acting in her official capacity as a county clerk, and that's a very different legal question." 

Jipping said Davis' situation was not the "right case" to reach the Supreme Court and reverse Obergefell v. Hodges because it was not a case in which someone challenged a state legislature's law in conflict with the precedent.

Mary Rice Hasson, Kate O'Beirne senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, told CNA she agreed the case was not the right vehicle to reconsider the Obergefell decision.

"As Catholics, our energies will be better spent explaining and promoting the truth about marriage and sexuality to our children and fellow Catholics rather than hoping for a reversal of Obergefell," Hasson said.

Many American Catholics support the legalization of same-sex civil marriages at about the same rate as the broader population. According to a 2024 Pew poll, about 70% of self-identified Catholics said they support same-sex marriage, which was slightly higher than the population as a whole.

Hasson said: "It's a scandal that 70% of self-described Catholics support so-called same-sex 'marriage.'"

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: "The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator."

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ACI Prensa Staff, Nov 10, 2025 / 18:32 pm (CNA).

The Vatican has revealed the names of Pope Leo XIV's favorite films, including "The Sound of Music" and "It's a Wonderful Life," upon announcing the Holy Father's upcoming meeting with the world of cinema on Saturday, Nov. 15.

In total, the Vatican shared four titles of the "most significant films" for Leo XIV:

'It's a Wonderful Life' (1946) by Frank Capra

The Christmas classic stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man who has sacrificed his dreams because of his sense of responsibility and generosity but feeling like a failure, he contemplates suicide on Christmas Eve. This prompts the intervention of his guardian angel (Henry Travers), who shows him all the good he has done for many people. 

'The Sound of Music' (1965) by Robert Wise

The film tells the story of a postulant at a convent in Austria in 1938.  After discerning out, the postulant (Julie Andrews) is sent to the home of Captain Von Trapp, a widowed retired naval officer (Christopher Plummer) to be the governess of his seven children. After bringing love and music to the Von Trapp family, she eventually marries the captain. As Von Tapp refuses to accept a commission in the Nazi navy, the family is forced to leave Austria in a dramatic escape. 

'Ordinary People' (1980) by Robert Redford

The film tells the story of the breakdown of a wealthy Illinois family after the death of one son in an accident and the suicide attempt of the other. It stars Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Judd Hirsch, and Timothy Hutton.

'Life Is Beautiful' (1997) by Roberto Benigni

In this film, Benigni — whose father spent two years in a prisoner-of-war camp — plays Guido Orefice, an Italian Jewish bookstore owner who uses his imagination to protect his young son from the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp during World War II.

Nov. 15 meeting with the world of cinema 

The meeting will take place on Saturday, Nov. 15, at 11 a.m. Rome time in the Apostolic Palace of Vatican City, according to a statement from the Dicastery for Culture and Education, in collaboration with the Vatican Museums.

The event follows previous meetings with the world of visual arts (June 2023), comedy (June 2024), and the Jubilee of Artists and the World of Culture in February of this year.

The Vatican statement highlights that Pope Leo XIV "has expressed his desire to deepen the dialogue with the world of cinema, and in particular with actors and directors, exploring the possibilities that artistic creativity offers to the mission of the Church and the promotion of human values."

Actors and directors the pope will meet

Among those who have already confirmed their participation are the Italian actresses Monica Bellucci, famous for her role as Mary Magdalene in Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," and Maria Grazia Cucinotta ("Il Postino" and "The World Is Not Enough.")

Also joining the Holy Father will be, among others, American actress Cate Blanchett ("The Lord of the Rings," "The Aviator"), the African-American director Spike Lee, the director Gus Van Sant ("Good Will Hunting," "Elephant"), the Australian director George Miller, creator of the Mad Max saga, and the Italian Giuseppe Tornatore, director of "Cinema Paradiso," for which he won the Oscar for best foreign film in 1989.

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

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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 10, 2025 / 13:25 pm (CNA).

Throughout the last two millennia, the Catholic Church has only granted the title "doctor of the Church" to 38 saints, one of whom we celebrate today on Nov. 10: St. Leo the Great, the 45th bishop of Rome. 

Pope Leo I, who was the first pope to be remembered posthumously as "the great," began his papacy in 440 and served until his death in 461. During his pontificate, he worked to clarify doctrines related to Christ's human and divine natures.

The pontiff was a "pope-theologian, but he's also known as a remarkable bishop," Thomas Clemmons, a professor of Church history at The Catholic University of America, told CNA, adding that "theologian popes are rare."

St. Leo's papacy began nine years after the Council of Ephesus, which condemned Nestorius and the heresy of Nestorianism, leading many of Nestorius' followers to schism. The heresy rejected the close union of Christ's human and divine natures and rejected the Marian title of "Theotokos," or God-bearer, claiming that Mary only gave birth to Christ's human nature.

Rising out of the Nestorian schism were more Christological conflicts over the relationship between Christ's humanity and divinity. Eutyches, an opponent of Nestorius, went too far in the opposite direction, claiming that Christ's human and divine natures were fused into one single nature. His human nature, Eutyches claimed, was "dissolved like a drop of honey in the sea."

This heretical understanding, according to Clemmons, turned Christ into a "third thing" or a "kind of monster" rather than the Catholic understanding of Christ as "one Person" with "complete and true humanity and complete and true divinity."

To combat Eutyches' error, Pope Leo wrote a letter to Flavian I, the archbishop of Constantinople, which clarified the hypostatic union of Christ's distinct human nature and distinct divine nature. The letter, which became known as "Leo's Tome," is the pontiff's most famous work and set the stage for defining Christological doctrines at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. 

"Both natures retain their own proper character without loss: and as the form of God did not do away with the form of a slave, so the form of a slave did not impair the form of God," Pope Leo wrote in the letter. 

"From the mother of the Lord was received nature, not faultiness: nor in the Lord Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin's womb, does the wonderfulness of his birth make his nature unlike ours," the letter continued. "For he who is true God is also true man: and in this union there is no lie, since the humility of manhood and the loftiness of the Godhead both meet there."

In emphasizing the fullness of Christ's human nature in the letter, Leo cites the genealogy of Christ listed in the Scripture, along with his human experiences, particularly suffering and death on the cross: "Let [Eutyches] not disbelieve [Christ is a] man with a body like ours, since he acknowledges [Christ] to have been able to suffer: seeing that the denial of his true flesh is also the denial of his bodily suffering."

Leo emphasized the words of the Creed when emphasizing the fullness of Christ's divine nature, stating: "Not only is God believed to be both Almighty and the Father, but the Son is shown to be co-eternal with him, differing in nothing from the Father because he is God from God, Almighty from Almighty, and being born from the Eternal One is co-eternal with him." 

The pontiff bolstered his argument with citations from Scripture that point to the fullness of Christ's divine nature and the fullness of his human nature. 

"To be hungry and thirsty, to be weary, and to sleep, is clearly human," Leo said. "But to satisfy 5,000 men with five loaves, and to bestow on the woman of Samaria living water, droughts of which can secure the drinker from thirsting any more, to walk upon the surface of the sea with feet that do not sink, and to quell the risings of the waves by rebuking the winds, is, without any doubt, divine."

Clemmons praised "Leo's Tome" as a "simple and clear text" that is "very readable and very instructional now," even more than 1,500 years later. 

At the time, however, the letter was met with hostility from supporters of Eutyches' position in Constantinople: "[It was] sent there, read aloud, and they rejected it," Clemmons said. Emperor Theodosius II convened the faux Second Council of Ephesus in 449, which rejected St. Leo's letter and defended Eutyches. The supporters of Eutyches brutally assaulted Archbishop Flavian I for defending St. Leo's position, deposed him, and sent him into exile. He died from his injuries.

St. Leo referred to the council as the "Latrocinium," the "robber council," and in 451 the Church convoked the Council of Chalcedon, which defined clearly the hypostatic union of Christ's human and divine natures and rejected the Second Council of Ephesus.

Chalcedon Council documents cite Leo's letter and affirm his teachings on the two natures of Christ, stating that Christ "must be confessed to be in two natures, unconfusedly, immutably, indivisibly, inseparably [united] … without the distinction of natures being taken away by such union."

When speaking to a general audience in 2008, Pope Benedict XVI referred to St. Leo the Great as one of the greatest popes in the history of the Church.

"As the nickname soon attributed to him by tradition suggests, he was truly one of the greatest pontiffs to have honored the Roman See and made a very important contribution to strengthening its authority and prestige," Benedict said.

This story was first published on Nov. 10, 2023, and has been updated.

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Vatican City, Nov 10, 2025 / 16:06 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV warned Monday that artificial intelligence could exacerbate "antihuman ideologies" in medicine as Catholic doctors and moral theologians raise alarms about the future of AI in health care.

In a message on Nov. 10 to an international congress on "Artificial Intelligence and Medicine: The Challenge of Human Dignity," hosted by the Pontifical Academy for Life, the pope said that ensuring "true progress" in medicine depends on keeping the dignity of every human at the forefront.

"It is easy to recognize the destructive potential of technology and even medical research when they are placed at the service of antihuman ideologies," Leo XIV said.

Leo added that those responsible for integrating AI into medicine must remember that "health care professionals have the vocation and responsibility to be guardians and servants of human life, especially in its most vulnerable stages."

"Indeed, the greater the fragility of human life, the greater the nobility required of those entrusted with its care," he said.

The pope's message came a day after another of his statements on the ethics of AI led to controversy on the social media platform X. Tech billionaire Marc Andreessen posted a mocking reference to Leo's call on the AI industry "to develop systems that reflect justice, solidarity, and a genuine reverence for life." After a pileup of critical replies, Andreessen apparently deleted his own post.

Pro-life concerns over AI billing in medical insurance  

The pope's remarks on Monday come amid growing concern among Catholic doctors about how artificial intelligence could shape access to care and respect for human dignity in health care systems worldwide.

Dr. Kathleen Berchelmann, a pediatrician and founder of My Catholic Doctor, a telehealth network that connects families seeking Catholic care with like-minded providers, told CNA she is alarmed by how insurance companies are deploying AI in the U.S.

She said AI-driven billing systems are "further pushing pro-life health care providers out of the insurance market to the self-pay market, reducing access to pro-life health care in America."

"What I see in AI and health care is a technology arms race," Berchelmann said. "And unfortunately, the people with the big money have higher tech, and … that's the insurance companies. That's United Health Care, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Elevance Health, Aetna, Cigna. … These are the companies that are putting billions into utilization management, which means denials."

On Oct. 1, Aetna and Cigna implemented AI-automated payments nationwide, a move that has led to what critics call "downcoding," where insurers automatically downgrade doctors' claims to lower reimbursement levels without reviewing visit details.

"In particular, in pro-life health care, we're seeing automatic downcoding because restorative reproductive medicine, which is health care that finds root cause of infertility and treats the root cause, takes more time than a brief workup and a referral to IVF," Berchelmann said.

"That extended time requires a higher coding. But if I do a real quick workup, I can build a lower code for that. So the predictive AI doesn't recognize that I'm doing a better job in finding root cause of disease," she added.

Berchelmann said she sees "tremendous potential for AI in terms of diagnostic capacity and clinical use" and hopes predictive models will demonstrate that "pro-life health care is so much cheaper than IVF." But for now, she said, "insurance companies, employers paying for health care, and pharmaceutical companies with insurance, are all heavily using AI to not pay for your care." 

In his message, Pope Leo acknowledged the influence of economic interests in health care and technology. 

"Given the vast economic interests often at stake in the fields of medicine and technology, and the subsequent fight for control, it is essential to promote a broad collaboration among all those working in health care and politics that extends well beyond national borders," the pope said.  

AI not a substitute for 'human encounter' in medicine 

Pope Leo underlined that "technological devices must never detract from the personal relationship between patients and health care providers."

"If AI is to serve human dignity and the effective provision of health care, we must ensure that it truly enhances both interpersonal relationships and the care provided," he said.

Leo described the new technological advancements brought by AI as "more pervasive" than those brought by the industrial revolution, noting their potential to alter "our understanding of situations and how we perceive ourselves and others."

"We currently interact with machines as if they were interlocutors, and thus become almost an extension of them," he said. "In this sense, we not only run the risk of losing sight of the faces of the people around us but of forgetting how to recognize and cherish all that is truly human." 

The three-day Vatican conference on AI and medicine, running Nov. 10–12, is one of several in recent months addressing the ethics of AI — an issue Pope Leo XIV has signaled will be a priority in his pontificate.

At the Builders AI Forum in Rome last week, which addressed the challenge of AI for Catholics and Catholic institutions in a variety of fields, medical school professors, health care company executives, insurance company directors, medical chaplains, and entrepreneurs in the field came together to discuss and debate the future of AI in Catholic health care. 

Louis Kim, the former vice president of personal systems and AI at HP, shared that the consensus among these professionals at the end of the forum was that "AI may assist but must never substitute for human encounter [in Catholic health care] and must remain clearly identifiable as non-human so that the pastoral and sacramental integrity of care is preserved." 

Daniel J. Daly, executive director of the Center for Theology and Ethics in Catholic Health and an associate professor of moral theology at Boston College, told CNA he is concerned that if AI models used in Catholic hospitals are only trained to maximize "efficiency and profit" it could lead to "a massive failure for Catholic health care." 

"What I worry about is that what could happen in health care is that AI replaces that embodied witness to the kingdom of God," Daly said. "That can never happen in Catholic health care, because Catholic health care is not just about medicine. It's also about Jesus Christ and witnessing to his healing ministry that we see in the Scripture." 

"I think the most important thing is that whatever the AI does, that it frees us to do the works of mercy, it doesn't free us from the works of mercy," he added. "That is, it doesn't replace the embodied care and ministerial care that we provide through medicine." 

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Vatican City, Nov 9, 2025 / 07:15 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV invited the faithful to contemplate "the mystery of unity and communion with the Church of Rome" and to recognize that "the true sanctuary of God is Christ who died and rose again," during his Sunday Angelus on the feast of the Dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran.

Speaking to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square, the pope said in his catechesis that the Lateran, the cathedral of the Diocese of Rome and the seat of Peter's successor, "is not only a work of extraordinary historical, artistic and religious value, but it also represents the driving force of the faith entrusted to and preserved by the Apostles, and its transmission throughout history."

He noted that this mystery "shines forth in the artistic splendor of the building," which contains "the twelve large statues of the Apostles, the first followers of Christ and witnesses of the Gospel."

The pope urged Christians to look beyond appearances and to see the Church's deeper reality. "This points to a spiritual perspective, which helps us to go beyond the external appearance, to understand that the mystery of the Church is much more than a simple place, a physical space, a building made of stones," he said.

Recalling the Gospel account of Jesus cleansing the Temple, Leo XIV said, "In reality, the true sanctuary of God is Christ who died and rose again. He is the only mediator of salvation, the only Redeemer, the One who, by uniting himself with our humanity and transforming us with his love, represents the door that opens wide for us and leads us to the Father."

"United with him," he continued, "we too are living stones of this spiritual edifice. We are the Church of Christ, his body, his members called to spread his Gospel of mercy, consolation and peace throughout the world, through that spiritual worship that must shine forth above all in our witness of life."

The pope cautioned that the sins and weaknesses of believers, together with "many clichés and prejudices," often obscure the mystery of the Church. "Her holiness, in fact, is not dependent upon our merits," he said, "but in the 'gift of the Lord, never retracted,' that continues to choose 'as the vessel of its presence, with a paradoxical love, the dirty hands of men.'"

"Let us walk then in the joy of being the holy People that God has chosen," Leo XIV concluded, inviting the faithful to pray, "Let us invoke Mary, Mother of the Church, to help us welcome Christ and accompany us with her intercession."

After praying the Angelus, the pope expressed his closeness to the people of the Philippines, where a massive typhoon has caused widespread destruction.

"I express my closeness to the people of the Philippines who have been hit by a violent typhoon: I pray for the deceased and their families, as well as for the injured and displaced," he said.

He also noted that the Church in Italy was observing its annual Thanksgiving Day and joined the Italian bishops in encouraging "responsible care for the land, combating food waste, and adopting sustainable agricultural practices."

Finally, Leo XIV made a heartfelt appeal for peace amid ongoing conflicts. "If we truly want to honor their memory," he said of recent war victims, "we must stop the wars and put all of our efforts into negotiations."

The pope concluded by greeting groups of pilgrims from around the world and wishing everyone "a blessed Sunday."

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

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Vatican City, Nov 8, 2025 / 15:00 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV met on Saturday with 15 survivors of clergy sexual abuse in a meeting marked by dialogue, listening, and prayer, according to the Holy See Press Office.

The encounter, described as one of "closeness with the victims, of deep and painful listening and dialogue," lasted nearly three hours. The meeting concluded with "an intense moment of prayer" shared between the pope and the survivors.

This was the second time in less than three weeks that Leo has met at the Vatican with victims of clerical abuse. On Oct. 20, he received four survivors and two representatives of the international coalition Ending Clergy Abuse, which brings together victims and advocates from more than 30 countries.

That earlier meeting lasted about an hour and was described by participants as a "deeply meaningful conversation."

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

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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 7, 2025 / 18:10 pm (CNA).

A Catholic diocese in New Jersey has dropped a lawsuit against the U.S. government over a rule change to the religious worker visa used by foreign-born priests. 

Attorneys for the Diocese of Paterson dropped a lawsuit they filed last year against the Biden administration's State Department, Department of Homeland Security, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, along with their respective heads, after reportedly coming to an agreement regarding a solution with national implications, according to local reports. 

The lawsuit was filed Aug. 8, 2024, in the U.S. District Court in Newark, New Jersey.

Raymond Lahoud, the lawyer representing the diocese, said in an Oct. 31 email that the diocese and its five foreign-born priests listed as plaintiffs moved to dismiss the case "to allow for agency action and/or rulemaking that will render moot the relief plaintiffs sought from the court." 

The priests named in the suit include Filipino citizens Father Regin Nico Dela Cruz Quintos, Father Joemin Kharlo Chong Parinas, Father Armando Diaz Vizcara Jr., and Father Joseph Anthony Aguila Mactal, and Colombian national Father Manuel Alejandro Cuellar Ceballos.

Lahoud also said in the email that his team had "reached a deal that impacts the entire country" and that he would provide more details "as soon as I am permitted." 

Lahoud did not respond to multiple requests by CNA for comment. 

The lawyer later said the diocese "was hoping proposed legislation regarding religious worker visas would resolve their lawsuit," citing legislation introduced in both the U.S. House and Senate that would allow religious workers to remain in the country amid the unprecedented backlog in the EB-4 visa category. 

Neither piece of legislation has moved forward amid the government shutdown. 

Religious workers such as foreign-born priests come to the U.S. on R-1 visas, which allow them to remain in the country for up to five years. During this time, religious workers seeking to apply for a green card must do so in the EB-4 visa category. However, due to an unprecedented backlog, the former 12- to 24-month process has stalled significantly enough that religious workers are faced with the possibility of having to return to their home countries before completing their green card application. 

The EB-4 "special immigrant" category can distribute up to 7.1% of all available immigration visas, the second-lowest of any category, and contains not only programs for religious workers but also individuals such as former employees of the U.S. government overseas, broadcasters, and, recently under the Biden administration, unaccompanied minors.

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