Chicago artist creates Marian icon for Pope Leo XIV, who will keep the image in his bedroom
A Chicago iconographer had just one week to create an icon of Our Lady of Good Counsel for Pope Leo XIV. The finished work made its way to the Vatican, where the Holy Father received it during a private audience and plans to keep it close and use in his personal prayer.
Joseph Malham is a Chicago-based iconographer who was commissioned to do the piece by Michael Airdo, an attorney from Chicago who had a planned trip to visit the pope and wanted to give him a special gift. Given the Holy Father’s Augustinian roots, Airdo decided to give him an image of Our Lady of Good Counsel, which holds a special place in the Augustinian tradition.
The devotion is rooted in a centuries-old image of the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child venerated at the Basilica Sanctuary of Our Mother of Good Counsel in Genazzano, Italy, entrusted to the Augustinians. The order has promoted devotion to Mary under this title for centuries.
After Pope Leo was elected, he traveled to Genazzano — which is about 40 miles southeast of Rome — to pray before the image located in the basilica.
Airdo sent Malham an email inquiring if the icon could be completed, but there was a catch — he only had one week to do it.
“I said, ‘It can be done,’” Malham told “EWTN News Nightly” anchor Veronica Dudo on Oct. 21. “I’m single so who cares if I don’t sleep and don’t eat for a week. The question is, can I do it? And I did it.”
He added: “A week later, when Michael [Airdo] was in Rome, he sent me a photo of the Holy Father holding the icon presented to him in a personal, private audience in his library.”
Airdo shared with Malham that Pope Leo was moved when he saw the image and said he would be keeping it on a shelf in his bedroom.
Malham also wrote the Holy Father a letter because he “felt very connected with him.”
“I wrote him and I said how difficult it is — please keep me in your prayers — because it is difficult, it’s a long journey being a self-published artist and an iconographer,” he shared. “But I said, so is being any vocation. So was being married and being a priest and in religious life and being the successor of St. Peter. We’re all together. Itʼs the communion of saints. And I felt that kind of closed the distance and bonded us together.”
In the popeʼs response, he mentioned praying for Malham and his vocation and asked the iconographer to keep him in his prayers as well.
As for how this experience has made him feel, Malham said: “It’s almost too overwhelming to know that the successor of St. Peter not only has my icon, but is going to personally journey with it in his prayer life and he’s going to keep it close to him.”
“No words suffice. I could rest in the silence of the beauty of that moment and that connectivity is the sacred connection.”
U.S. bishops urge continued immigration protections for Ukrainians, Salvadorans
Catholic bishops warned that uncertainty over immigration protections for Ukrainians and Salvadorans could result in deportations and family disruption if temporary protected status (TPS) lapses.
On Oct. 19, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) posted an alert saying Ukrainian TPS beneficiaries would continue to retain protections, including employment authorization, pending an announcement “made at the appropriate time.” The agency posted a similar announcement about El Salvador TPS as a Sept. 9 expiration deadline passed.
TPS is an immigration status granted to eligible foreign nationals from designated countries that are deemed unsafe to return to due to ongoing conflict, environmental disasters, or other extraordinary conditions.
U.S. bishops said with more than 170,000 Salvadorans and about 100,000 Ukrainians estimated to hold TPS, the administration should “carefully consider conditions in countries of origin and the threats to human life that could come with forcibly repatriating people.” The bishops urged the government to provide meaningful notice about the future of the designations so that families, employers, and communities can plan accordingly, a U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) statement said.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which determines whether to extend or end TPS, said in a statement to EWTN News on Oct. 22 that Ukrainians and Salvadorans with TPS will “retain protection” under the program until the agency announces a final decision on the future of the designations.
El Salvador first received TPS in 2001 after devastating earthquakes, and the designation has been repeatedly renewed since then. The U.S. first granted TPS to Ukrainians in April 2022, after Russiaʼs full-scale invasion starting Feb. 24, 2022, made conditions unsafe for many Ukrainians to return home. The United Nations has verified more than 13,000 civilian deaths in Ukraine, while warning the actual toll is likely much higher.
Archbishop Borys Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, chair-elect of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace, said many Ukrainians relying on TPS in the United States have no home to go back to, according to the USCCB update.
“In recent months, DHS terminated TPS designations for various countries, often while existing conditions in those countries make return of large numbers of people unsafe or impractical,” according to a USCCB statement on Sept. 24.
The Trump administration has moved to end TPS for people from more than a dozen countries since 2025, and Lebanon TPS is set to end Nov. 27. TPS for Haiti ended July 27.
Pathway to legal status
U.S. bishops have continued to support legislative efforts “to provide a pathway to permanent legal status for longtime residents of the United States.” Bishops have supported legislation such as H.R. 1589 that would provide a pathway to permanent residency for certain “dreamers” (those brought to the U.S. illegally as children by family) and other immigrants with temporary protections while expanding access to green cards for some TPS and Deferred Enforced Departure recipients.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas, “would create a long-term solution for those in this situation who have contributed positively to the fabric of American life and have established equities in the country, such as having U.S.-citizen spouses and children, owning businesses, and more,” the USCCB statement said.
Another bill (H.R. 10740) introduced in the U.S. House on Oct. 5 would extend temporary protected status for eligible Ukrainians by redesignating protections until July 1, 2029.
In April, the House passed legislation, H.R. 1689, that would extend TPS for Haitians for three more years. No legislative efforts have gained traction in the Senate.
‘In limbo’
Without any formal notice from DHS about the status of El Salvador’s TPS, it has left communities “in limbo,” said Lizbeth Iniguez, immigration attorney at Alba Law in Long Beach, California.
“At the moment, we hear a lot of fear, especially in the Salvadoran community … we can only tell them how to prepare,” Iniguez said.
David Spicer, USCCB’s policy and engagement director, said Catholic Charities and other Church ministries are seeing growing demand as families lose legal protections and work authorization.
“They’re seeing people having to grapple with the loss of the legal protection, their work authorization, families struggling to make ends meet. Then more people turn to Catholic services for things like food and housing assistance,” Spicer said.
Uncertainty about TPS status could expose longtime U.S. residents to deportation, family separation, and the loss of work authorization, according to U.S. bishops.
“I think Haiti is probably the most serious example of this. It is objectively unsafe for large numbers of people to be forcibly repatriated to Haiti at this time,” Spicer said. “When you consider that this is also a factor in several other countries where they are no longer TPS designations … it really does set up the opportunity, if not the loss of human life, then the harm that could be inflicted on the people.”
Spicer said the TPS uncertainty also was “going to hurt employers … they’re having an even harder time because they’ve lost workers who were relying on employment authorization that they had through TPS.”
Archbishop Coakley receives award for anti-death penalty advocacy
Catholic Mobilizing Network (CMN) honored Archbishop Paul Coakley with an award for his public opposition to the death penalty during its Justice Reimagined Awards and Celebration at the apostolic nunciature in Washington, D.C.
Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, received CMN’s Archbishop Fiorenza Dignity and Life Award, named after civil rights advocate and death penalty abolitionist Archbishop Joseph Fiorenza of Galveston-Houston, at the Oct. 21 event.
Coakley, a longtime advocate against the death penalty including in his home state of Oklahoma, earlier this month condemned the Trump administration’s plan to livestream the military execution of the Fort Hood mass shooter, Nidal Hasan. “Our God is the God of life,” he said in an Oct. 9 statement. “In no way can Hasan’s actions be condoned but this decision is a barbaric promotion of a culture of death and must be reconsidered.”
“It goes without saying that Iʼm very humbled and honored by this this award,” Coakley said during his acceptance speech. “Archbishop Fiorenza was a true champion whom I knew as the president of the bishops’ conference when I was a brand-new bishop, and I had always admired his work and his convictions and his principles.”
“Being in the United States of America at this time has really turned my attention more toward advocating for the condemned on death row and the need for us as a people, as a Church, as a nation to recognize the injustice and the inhumanity of what is being done in our name,” he said.
Being in the United States of America at this time has really turned my attention more toward advocating for the condemned on death row and the need for us as a people, as a Church, as a nation to recognize the injustice and the inhumanity of what is being done in our name.”
Archbishop Paul CoakleyArchdiocese of Oklahoma City
Coakley shared that he first became aware of the importance of advocating for life in 1973, the year Roe v. Wade was passed into law and the year he graduated from high school. The law, he said, allowed “the wholesale destruction of the most vulnerable and innocent of human lives on a massive scale.”
“So for many years, in terms of life issues, opposing abortion and advocating for the right to the life of the unborn was really my primary passion and concern,” he said. “Only later did I come to appreciate the meaning of respect for life from conception to its natural end.”
Coakley reflected that over time, “seeing up close that life is sacred and that it is to be preserved” ultimately led to him to the conclusion “that human dignity cannot be forfeited, no matter how heinous the crime that a man or woman has committed.”
He noted that during his time as an archbishop in Oklahoma, he was struck by the notion that his home state, like Florida and Texas, “was very solidly pro-life in terms of supporting the right to life of the unborn” but was “unforgiving” in its embrace of capital punishment.
Coakley spoke out in August against the execution of a condemned murderer in Oklahoma, calling for prayers for both the killer’s victims and the killer himself while urging a “more humane form of justice.”
Concluding his speech, Coakley expressed gratitude to CMN for its advocacy.
“Iʼm encouraged and hopeful, especially in view of some of the things that have been in the news of late, that weʼll all find renewed courage and determination to continue this fight to advocate for the sanctity, the dignity of every human life, from conception to its natural end,” he said.
Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, apostolic nuncio to the U.S., delivered a message from Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin expressing his closeness to those gathered for the event.
Elizabeth Bruening, a Catholic and two-time Pulitzer-Prize finalist and writer for The Atlantic, also received a Reimagining Justice Award at the event.
Supreme Court order leaves federal prison transgender services in place for now
The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 21 left in place lower-court rulings that require the federal prison system to continue providing transgender-related benefits to inmates.
The unsigned order rejected the Bureau of Prison’s petition to reverse rulings from both the U.S. district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said they would have granted the government’s request.
The high court’s decision means that the bureau may not implement a policy passed in February that forbids the use of hormone therapy on prisoners who believe themselves to be the opposite sex. The rule also forbids “social accommodations” including wigs and makeup.
The suit against the Bureau of Prisons was brought by several inmates who identify as transgender.
LGBT-related policy at federal prisons has been in flux following President Donald Trump’s 2024 election. Earlier that year, the Biden Justice Department had signaled that prisons throughout the United States must provide prisoners with transgender-related medical care, including “hormone therapy” and other gender-related requests.
Just after taking office in January 2025, on the other hand, Trump issued an executive order that purported to combat “efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex.” Among the provisions of that order was a directive ordering the Bureau of Prisons to “[revise] its policies concerning medical care” to move away from gender-related provisions.
Jerusalem patriarchs and church leaders condemn settler attacks in Taybeh, call for accountability
The patriarchs and heads of churches in Jerusalem condemned an attack by “masked settlers” against Palestinian olive farmers and visiting European diplomats and officials in Taybeh, a town east of Ramallah in the central West Bank. The attack happened during an olive harvest event coordinated with the town’s Latin Patriarchate parish.
Calling the violence “not an isolated incident,” leaders have urged authorities to hold those responsible accountable and protect residents.
The attack followed another violent incident in the Palestinian village of Abu Falah, north of Ramallah, when a Washington Post photojournalist was attacked and seriously injured by Israeli settlers while she and other journalists were covering the olive harvest there.
In a statement following the Oct. 17 attack, the church leaders said Palestinian villages across the West Bank were experiencing widespread settler violence during the olive harvest, when families return to their land to gather their crops and renew ties stretching back generations.
“This wild attack on the Christian village of Taybeh and against its peaceful population is not an isolated incident. In the past weeks the Palestinian villages of the West Bank have been exposed to a wide-scale terror by settlers, which is reaching a peak during this time of the olive harvest, when families go to their lands to collect what they need to live and renew their generations-long bond with their lands,” the statement said.
The leaders also expressed concern over a recently published religious ruling permitting Jews to take Palestinians’ olives, describing it as “unfounded, very worrying and dangerous, and absolutely unacceptable.” They welcomed the public rejection of the ruling by several rabbis and other Jewish voices.
Those targeted in the attack included diplomats from France, Belgium, and Poland. The mayor of Aulnoye-Aymeries in northern France, Bernard Baudoux, was physically assaulted, and a Belgian consular vehicle was damaged. Independent international reporting corroborated the attack.
Israeli authorities said they had opened an investigation and later announced arrests.
The attack occurred during a harvest that provides a vital source of income for Palestinian families and reflects farmers’ generations-long connection to their land. The targeting of a delegation that included European diplomats also brought wider international diplomatic attention to the violence facing Palestinian farmers.
The church leaders welcomed Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s condemnation of the attack and the steps taken by Israeli police. They said, however, that conditions on the ground showed the attacks were continuing because of the perpetrators’ “impunity.” They expressed hope that law enforcement would continue “in a serious and consistent manner” rather than remain a one-time response.
In August, the Israeli military declared Taybeh a closed military zone, restricting access to nonresidents in what it described as an effort to curb attacks by Israelis in the area. Attacks nevertheless continued, including the Oct. 17 assault on farmers and the visiting European diplomatic delegation.
Taybeh is one of the West Bank’s most prominent remaining Palestinian Christian communities. The church leaders’ appeal therefore concerns more than the protection of a religious site: It addresses the safety of a Christian community whose residents live and work in the town, facing threats to their security, land, and livelihoods, as well as uncertainty over the future of their families and young people.
The church leaders called on the relevant authorities to bring those responsible to justice and urged the international community to intensify efforts to protect the people of Taybeh and the wider West Bank, along with visitors expressing solidarity with them. They reaffirmed their support for Taybeh’s churches and community and pledged to continue working to preserve the Christian presence there.
The leaders’ statement came a day after a high-level U.S. delegation visited Taybeh. The delegation included Brian Burch, U.S. ambassador to the Holy See; Riley Barnes, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor; and other U.S. diplomatic and security officials.
The delegation met with Father Bashar Fawadleh, pastor of the Latin Patriarchate parish in Taybeh, and the executive director of the Christian Presence Observatory — Holy Land. They heard accounts of the attacks and their effects on residents’ lives and livelihoods.
Members of the delegation said they took those concerns seriously. Participants in the meeting called for practical measures to protect civilians, ensure access to agricultural land, strengthen accountability, and help Palestinian Christian communities remain in their homeland.
This story was first published by ACI MENA, the Arabic-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.
Pope urges educators to help young people encounter Christ amid ‘merciless’ treatment by culture
Pope Leo XIV on Thursday encouraged those involved in Catholic school and university pastoral ministry to respond to a “merciless” culture, which constantly compares and ranks young people, with the trust of Christ, capable of transforming lives just as it transformed the Twelve Apostles.
“Jesus did not choose the Twelve because they were already courageous; he called them and, through his trust, made them capable. To our young people we must be able to repeat the words the disciples addressed to the blind Bartimaeus: ‘Take heart; get up, he is calling you,’” the pontiff said in a message addressed to participants in the International Congress on School and University Pastoral Ministry, which concludes Friday, Oct. 23, in the Paul VI Audience Hall.
The gathering, organized by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education, brings together 1,200 participants from 60 countries and is inspired by the apostolic letter “Charting New Maps of Hope,” the first apostolic letter of Pope Leo XIV. In it, he proposes a new phase of education built on three pillars: cultivating interiority, promoting a humane and rational use of digital technologies, and educating for peace.
“Help the young people you encounter become protagonists of a new way of inhabiting the world, builders of fraternity and of a more just society. Courage is born from a covenant of trust: from the experience of someone believing in you before you believe in yourself,” the Holy Father said.
Digital loneliness and feelings of inadequacy
Leo XIV warned that many students today face situations of suffering marked by “wounded families, digital loneliness, feelings of inadequacy, or fear of a future that seems uncertain.”
“We live in a culture of performance that constantly compares and ranks, sometimes mercilessly. A misunderstood meritocracy ends up failing to respect the dignity of persons,” he warned.
For this reason, he stressed the importance of educational institutions being, above all, “a home, a familiar place where one is expected.”
The pope also emphasized that the proper mission of education is the shared search for truth and encouraged educators to value young people’s questions and foster an encounter between faith and reason: “May your passion be to help young people experience the beauty of an encounter with Christ, as well as the fruitfulness of the synergy between faith and reason.”
Leo XIV also invited participants to focus their efforts on the integral formation of young people, especially in educating their emotional life and interior life.
“School and university pastoral ministry will be all the more fruitful the more it is centered on the education of the heart,” he said. In this regard, he encouraged the promotion of compassion, gratitude, sensitivity to the suffering of others, and openness to God, recalling that “charity and prayer are inseparable.”
In closing, the pope compared the educational mission to Jesus’ accompaniment of the disciples on the road to Emmaus and urged teachers, chaplains, and pastoral workers to walk alongside young people and help them discover the gifts God has placed within them.
“You have chosen to do something much greater: to walk with them along the way until they discover the gifts God has already placed within them,” he concluded.
‘Revival driven by Leo XIV’
Among those taking part in the Vatican gathering is Carina Rossa, a member of the coordinating committee of the Global Compact on Education.
According to Rossa, who is from Argentina, one of the most significant aspects of the congress is the renewed attention the Holy See is giving to educational pastoral ministry, an area that, she explained, until now did not have a dedicated structure within the Dicastery for Culture and Education.
“Educational pastoral ministry is experiencing a revival driven by Leo XIV,” she said. “It is an area that is the heart of the university and the heart of the school.”
She recalled that the Global Compact on Education was launched by Pope Francis in 2020 and highlighted the importance of Leo XIV’s decision to take it up again and relaunch it during the Jubilee of the World of Education in 2025.
“The fact that Pope Leo relaunched the Global Compact on Education has been very important in revitalizing this proposal,” she said. According to Rossa, universities and educational institutions in different parts of the world have shown renewed interest ever since. “There is a need for, and a new enthusiasm about, this project.”
3 priorities for Catholic education
Rossa noted that the congress is centered on three major goals identified by Leo XIV: cultivating interior life, promoting a humane use of digital technologies, and educating for peace.
In particular, she emphasized the importance of recovering the spiritual dimension of education in a context marked by a crisis of meaning and mental health challenges among young people.
“What is emerging strongly is a great desire for meaning, interiority, spirituality, and silence,” she said. “We appreciate that Pope Leo speaks about this from his Augustinian charism, but above all because he does so in light of listening to young people,” the Global Compact on Education representative said.
She explained that in recent years the initiative has gathered testimonies and concerns from young people in different countries.
While she sees among them a strong social commitment and a desire for an integral education, she believes there is an even deeper need.
“St. Augustine reflects today’s young person very well, searching everywhere until discovering that God was within him all along,” she said.
A pastoral ministry that transforms academic life
For Rossa, educational pastoral ministry should not be understood as a parallel activity or one limited to religious celebrations but as a dimension capable of transforming the entire life of an academic institution.
“It is not something isolated, nor is it only about celebrations,” she explained. “It can revitalize the way we teach, the way we relate to students, the way the university connects with its local community, or how it approaches questions such as care for creation, the search for truth, beauty, and culture.”
After only the first day of the congress, the Argentine highlighted the high quality of the presentations and the atmosphere among participants.
“There is a lot of enthusiasm,” she said. “The 1,200 people gathered here are not only listening but are creating a true community among pastoral workers from different parts of the world.”
Unexpected encounter with the pope
One of the most moving moments of the congress was the encounter with Leo XIV, which had been on the schedule for weeks but had been thrown into doubt because of his recent lung cancer surgery, from which he is gradually recovering.
“It was very moving because we were not expecting it,” Rossa recounted. “Given his health situation, it seemed to me a very generous gesture on his part.”
After his address, Leo XIV personally greeted several of the speakers and participants.
This story was first published by EWTN News Español, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.
New Vatican document considers the difficulties of passing on the faith today
The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on Thursday published the document “Venite ad Me: Considerations on the Transmission of the Faith in an Epochal Change,” which is expected to be the last of the documents commissioned from the dicastery by the late Pope Francis.
The text, approved by Pope Leo XIV on Aug. 21, consists of eight chapters and 144 paragraphs, and bears the signature of Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
It is presented as a set of “considerations,” drawing on the input and contributions of several national bishops’ conferences, rather than as a “doctrinal note.”
The document says that today, difficulties to sharing the faith abound, including the spread of secularization and individualism.
“It must be acknowledged that what is in crisis is not only the transmission of the faith, but also a certain vision of the human person and of his or her foundational values — a vision that had found its fulfillment precisely in the Gospel,” it says.
“The crisis of modernity, which is the hallmark of this epochal change, has thus contributed to the emergence of a new culture that has come into competition with the traditional structures through which the faith has been transmitted.”
Encounter with the Lord Jesus
The text says that “the heart of the Christian experience” is “an encounter with the Lord Jesus that brings us into contact with the true light of divine love, keeps us from losing our way in darkness, and leads us to life. It is precisely in this sense that we can speak of the ‘light of faith.’”
“The transmission of the faith,” the document says, “has its ultimate foundation in God’s initiative, who, in Christ, revealed his face and entrusted the Apostles the task of proclaiming the Gospel to all nations. This mission, however, did not end with the apostolic preaching but continues throughout history through the Church.”
The document also recalls the words of Pope Benedict XVI, who, in a 2007 homily, reaffirmed that “the most authentic force of the evangelizing mission of the community of the Lord’s disciples remains the power of attraction.”
Role of the family, Church community
Central to this transmission is the role of the family, “the first and most essential place for the transmission of the faith.” In the family, there exists “the primary setting in which faith [was] passed from one generation to the next,” the document says.
From the family, one then moves to the Church community: “What a person has received from their parents — namely, the witness of faith in Jesus, who fully revealed the face of God’s infinite love, freeing human beings from darkness and opening them to the true light of life — finds in the Church the means and the opportunities to become the guiding principle of how that person sees the world,” it says.
The document adds: “Through catechesis, the celebration of the sacraments, the various spaces that foster active participation in community life (as proposed by the current synodal journey), commitment to the most disadvantaged, and gathering in the house of the Lord on Sundays, one reaches that maturity of faith which ultimately consists in seeing everything ‘through the eyes of Jesus.’”
In our age there are still people who convert or return to the practice of the Catholic faith; nevertheless, “there is also a parallel difficulty concerning the perseverance of neophytes [new Catholics], who often, shortly after receiving baptism, return to a state of practical indifference,” the document says. It therefore becomes necessary, the dicastery warns, to rediscover “the importance of the community in welcoming and accompanying new members of the faithful.”
New technologies and ideology
Addressing new digital technologies and artificial intelligence, the document says “the invitation to faith risks becoming disembodied, detached from concrete life, or tied to ideologies promoted by vocal minorities. This can lead to distortions of the faith itself or of conscience, or it can lead people to construct a so-called ‘do-it-yourself’ faith, shaped by their own tastes and preferences rather than by the teaching of the Church.”
At the same time, this situation opens up new frontiers for evangelization and, the dicastery states, the essential need “to transmit the faith, beginning with the ‘kerygma.’”
“It seems entirely natural that believers should embark on a renewed period of proclaiming the Gospel,” it continues. For this reason, “Christian communities are strongly called to promote — in season and out of season — a renewal of the proclamation of the ‘kerygma.’”
Liturgy
In the document, the liturgy is given particular importance for the transmission of the faith: “If the heart of the Christian proclamation is the encounter with God’s saving love in Christ, the liturgy constitutes the privileged place in which this mystery is celebrated and communicated sacramentally. For this reason, it plays a central role in handing on the faith, serving as the beating heart of ecclesial life, where the community is nourished by the Word of God and the Bread of eternal life.”
“In this regard, we must move beyond a reductive view that regards the liturgy as merely a ritual framework for ecclesial life. The liturgy, in fact, is first and foremost an experience of faith, even before it is a teaching, in that it allows the faithful to participate in gestures, words, silences, and symbols, thereby experiencing the mystery of Christ in a living way,” it continues.
The document further emphasizes that special care must be taken to enable, in every diocese, both the faithful and those approaching or returning to the believing community to encounter the various liturgical sensibilities present within the tradition of the Catholic Church.
While respecting the liturgical norms currently in force, pastors are called to value the richness of the Catholic liturgical heritage in such a way as to reach the diverse sensibilities of their flock. “The Christian community grows and is built up through ritual practices, and in this regard, the Church’s rich spiritual heritage represents a precious and inexhaustible resource,” the document says.
Inculturation
Finally, the document includes a passage on inculturation. It is important to recall, it states, “that the inculturation of the faith constitutes a necessary step in its transmission, since the Gospel message must be made understandable to people who share values and categories that do not perfectly coincide with the Hellenistic-Semitic ones in which the biblical text was originally formulated.”
“Where the faith touches the cultural roots and expressions of a people, its transmission truly becomes easier and more fruitful,” it says.
This story was first published by ACI Stampa, the Italian-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.
Cardinal Filoni delves into God’s relationships with biblical figures, saints in new book
A new book authored by Cardinal Fernando Filoni delves into God’s personal relationships with biblical figures and saints over the past 4,000 years, beginning with Abraham, the father of the faith, and continuing to contemporary saints such as Mother Teresa and Edith Stein.
During a visit to the United States, Filoni, the grand master of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, discussed the book, “My Days Are in Your Hands: Men and Women in the Footsteps of Jesus,” with Erik Rosales on “EWTN News Nightly.”
“They are not extraordinary,” Filoni said of the holy figures in the book; rather, “they became extraordinary.”
“They were normal people, as all the others in the world, as we are normal people,” he said. “What is important in their life to become extraordinary? They were touched by the grace of God, and they answered to this grace of God.”
Filoni also discussed the book on “EWTN Live” with Father Mitch Pacwa. The book is “not a biography” of the people, Filoni explained to Pacwa, but rather a more specific analysis of their unique relationships with God, how God worked in their lives, and how those experiences relate to God’s relationships with people today.
It evaluates people “who are touched by the finger of God, in their sufferings, in their problems, in their difficult lives, [and how] they were touched by the grace of God,” Filoni said.
Filoni told Pacwa the book gets into the “trauma men like Abraham had in their life,” such as his anxiety that “I have no children” and “my wife cannot bear anyone,” before God called him to be a father to biological children and to be the father of many nations.
Another section examines the struggles of Moses while wandering the desert after escaping Egypt, when some of the people were unfaithful, unhappy, and critical. The book lays out how God strengthened Moses by appearing as a burning bush and instructing him “to go home and not to lose faith in his Word.”
People today, Filoni said, may be struggling “because they are neglected, because they are addicted to drugs, they are abandoned.” He asked whether they can have the courage of God amid fear and doubt, saying of all people: “We need the courage of God in our lives.”
Filoni also referenced the archangel Gabriel’s visit to Mary, when he asked her to bear Christ, the Son of God: “If you say yes,” Filoni said, “you have to trust and at the moment, you have to put your life in the hand of God.”
Filoni said Joseph’s role “was not so easy,” because he needed to trust that “this is coming from the Holy Spirit.”
He said the spiritual journeys of both Mary and Joseph are important for men and women looking toward marriage. People today, he said, also have the “mission to give life to this world.”
Some of the other personalities featured in the book include Ezekiel, John the Baptist, Peter, Paul, Helena, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas. The book focuses on not portraying them simply as heroes but rather focuses on their humanity and their struggles and how surrendering to God transformed them.
Polish lawmakers vote to ease abortion law as presidential veto looms
Polandʼs Parliament passed two bills on Oct. 20 to ease the countryʼs abortion law, though both are likely to face a veto from President Karol Nawrocki.
The bills passed the lower house, Sejm, but still need Senate approval and the presidentʼs signature.
Reuters reported that Nawrocki has signaled he would block any liberalization and that the legislation is “almost certain to be vetoed.”
The first bill, an amendment to the penal code, passed 217-213 with three abstentions, according to the Polish news agency PAP. Opponents included the Law and Justice (PiS) party and 14 members of the Polish Peopleʼs Party (PSL), a partner in the governing coalition.
It would repeal the provision under which anyone who terminates a pregnancy with the womanʼs consent outside the law faces up to three years in prison. Helping or persuading a woman to have such an abortion would also no longer be a crime. Women themselves are not penalized under current law. A similar bill failed 218-215 in July 2024.
The second bill passed 233-203 with one abstention. It seeks to reverse an Oct. 22, 2020, Constitutional Tribunal ruling that abortion for severe and irreversible fetal impairment is unconstitutional. Such abortions have not been legal since the ruling was published in January 2021.
Abortion is now legal only when the pregnancy threatens the womanʼs life or health, or up to 12 weeks if it resulted from a crime.
PiS lawmaker Marcin Warchoł criticized Prime Minister Donald Tuskʼs coalition, saying abortion is murder and that the law shapes consciences, according to the Catholic weekly Niedziela. He said the “December 13 coalition,” a reference to the date Tuskʼs government took office in 2023, wants “a soulless and amoral society.”
The coalition lacks the three-fifths majority in the Sejm needed to override a veto, according to the news portal naTemat.
As a candidate in January 2025, Nawrocki said on Polsat News he would not sign a law restoring the so-called abortion compromise in place before the 2020 ruling. He said he could not allow children with Down syndrome to be aborted, PAP reported at the time.
Catholic perspective
“As a person and a bishop of the Church, I will not change my mind,” Bishop Artur Ważny of Sosnowiec wrote in a statement published the same day by the Polish edition of Aleteia.
He added that the defense of the defenseless, especially the unborn human being, is an absolute foundation he cannot and does not want to abandon.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception and that formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense (Nos. 2270, 2272).
In his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae, St. John Paul II wrote that direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral.
This story was first published by CNA Deutsch, the German-language sister service of EWTN News, and has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.
Schoenstatt asks for information on founder as allegations remain under study
The Schoenstatt movement in Germany has asked people who knew its founder, Father Joseph Kentenich, to share memories and documents as research into allegations against him continues, including any experiences of possible abuse.
In 2020, abuse allegations against Kentenich became public, and the Diocese of Trier suspended his beatification cause in 2022.
The appeal, published Oct. 15 on the movement’s German website, explicitly invites accounts of experiences “perceived as crossing boundaries or as abusive.”
“Historical research into the allegations against Father Joseph Kentenich is in full swing and far from complete,” the movement said.
Schoenstatt has a contact page for people seeking to participate.
“Incriminating evidence may be confirmed; it may equally turn out that allegations must be seen in a different light and that the suspicion against him cannot be substantiated,” the organization said.
Submissions will be “collected, treated confidentially and not prejudged.” Because the research will likely take years, it said, “hasty judgments should be avoided.”
“For many people in Schoenstatt, Father Kentenich is one of the formative spiritual figures of their lives,” the movement said. That bond “is not devalued by open research — any more than open research could erase negative experiences.”
Accusations raised in 2020
In 2020, Church historian Alexandra von Teuffenbach accused Kentenich of engaging in manipulative and coercive behavior with members of the Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary, citing files from a 1950s apostolic visitation.
The movement rejected the accusations. “We firmly reject the accusation that Joseph Kentenich was guilty of sexual abuse of members of the Institute of the Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary,” its leadership said in a July 2020 statement.
In May 2022, Bishop Stephan Ackermann of Trier suspended the cause, opened in 1975, after consulting the Vatican.
“The discussions of the last two years have shown that there is a need for in-depth research into the person and work of Joseph Kentenich,” he said at the time. The diocese said the suspension was not a judgment on Kentenich’s life and work.
Born in 1885 and ordained a Pallottine priest in 1910, Kentenich founded Schoenstatt in 1914 in Vallendar, near Koblenz. After a Vatican-ordered visitation, he was separated from the movement in 1951 and spent most of the next 14 years in Milwaukee. He died in 1968.
According to the movement, Schoenstatt is present in more than 110 countries worldwide today.
This story was first published by CNA Deutsch, the German-language sister service of EWTN News, and has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.