Wildfire smoke, conflict, and conversion: Asian Laudato Si’ groups compare notes in Philippines
Smoke from wildfires in Indonesia shut every school in East Timor for three days in October. A young Catholic from the small Southeast Asian nation brought that story to a gathering of Church environmental leaders in the Philippines.
“Smoke haze from Indonesia forced schools to close in Timor-Leste for three days,” said Isaura Barros, 24, who serves on the executive board of the Laudato Si' Movement in Timor-Leste.
The government suspended classes nationwide Oct. 15–17 because of poor air quality.
Barros spoke at the movementʼs Asia-Pacific chapters retreat, held Oct. 24–27 at the CBCP-Caritas Philippines Development Center in Tagaytay City, south of Manila. Seventeen delegates from Myanmar, South Korea, East Timor, Indonesia, and the Philippines took part, Radio Veritas Asia reported.
The Laudato Si‘ Movement is a Catholic network founded in 2015 and named after Pope Francis’ encyclical on care for creation. It says it has more than 8,000 trained volunteers, called animators, and nearly 900 member organizations.
Asian bishops back the work
Bishop Allwyn DʼSilva, auxiliary bishop emeritus of Bombay, India, addressed the retreat by video. He chairs the Office of Human Development of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences (FABC). He pointed to heat waves, flash floods, and unpredictable cold waves across Asia and thanked grassroots animators for their work.
“We all know that there is an ecological crisis in Asia, as well as in the world. The Laudato Si' movement has played a very important part in making people aware and care for creation, to take care of their common home. We are happy that we are collaborating, and I see a great future in our networking and taking care of creation,” DʼSilva said.
Climate activist Lorna Gold, the movementʼs executive director, also spoke by video, from Ireland. She recalled St. Francis of Assisi praying before the crucifix in the ruined church of San Damiano, where he heard the words “Go and repair my house.” Ecological conversion, she said, is a conversion of the whole community, not only of the individual.
A road map to 2030
Cheryl Dugan, the movementʼs Asia-Pacific director, and Christina Leaño, its associate director, presented a global strategic road map for 2027–2030 that leads toward a “Vision 2035.”
The movement, they said, drew up this map over an 18-month process of listening to grassroots communities.
The plan puts ecological conversion at the center, symbolized by the ichthys, the early Christian fish sign. Three pillars meet there: eco-spirituality, rooted in catechesis, liturgy, and faith formation; sustainable and resilient communities; and prophetic advocacy, which includes pressing for fair public policies and an end to investment in fossil fuels. A fourth pillar, organizational strengthening, supports the other three.
Yeb Saño, a Filipino climate activist who chairs the movementʼs board, urged delegates to decentralize leadership so the movement better reflects the synodal spirit of a Church that walks together. Saño led Greenpeace Southeast Asia from 2016 to 2025 and was once the Philippines' chief climate negotiator at the United Nations.
5 countries, 5 settings
In the Philippines, the chapter is known for its annual Walk for Earth and its Deep Journey to Laudato Si' programs. It works with the bishops' conferenceʼs Laudato Si' program and wants to draw in more young people.
In Myanmar, the movement works amid ongoing political and humanitarian conflict. Based mainly around Yangon, the chapter helped write care for creation into the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Myanmarʼs socio-pastoral framework for 2026–2030. It runs the BEES Network, which offers interfaith ecological education for young people and supports people displaced by the fighting.
In South Korea, the chapter has held a Friday climate action in Seoulʼs Gwanghwamun Square since 2020. It has organized ecological Stations of the Cross and protested against the Samcheok coal-fired power plant. Ahead of World Youth Day in Seoul in 2027, it is pressing the countryʼs bishops and dioceses to bring parishes to net-zero carbon emissions.
In Timor-Leste, the chapter grew out of a youth group of 16- to 18-year-olds started by Dircia Sarmento. It now has legal status, works with U.N. agencies and the government, helps run the countryʼs Local Conference of Youth, and reaches remote districts across the nation.
In Indonesia, the movement, known by its Indonesian initials GLSI, is organized in seven diocesan chapters as well as in schools and religious communities. It has set up Laudato Si' centers with the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. With partners in the Archdiocese of Jakarta, it plants mangroves, trains parishes in composting, and runs courses for animators.
Young people and a farm
Delegates agreed on two priorities for the region: giving young people a bigger role, including in the run-up to World Youth Day, and strengthening national chapters and the movementʼs Asia-Pacific secretariat.
The retreat ended with a visit to the SVD Laudato Si' Farm in Tagaytay, a 5.8-hectare (about 14-acre) site run by the Society of the Divine Word. It serves as an ecological education center, a pilgrimage site, and an ecotourism destination. Father Samuel “Sam” Naceno-Agcaracar, SVD, started it in 2020.
Participants ranged in age from baby boomers to Generation Z. The retreat closed with words from Laudato Si': “May our struggles and our concern for this planet never take away the joy of our hope.”
Editor’s note: Cyprianus Lilik Krismantoro Putro coordinates the national working team of the Laudato Si' Movement Indonesia and took part in the retreat.
Pope Leo XIV to young people: Make room for Christ whenever you feel lonely
Pope Leo XIV, in a message for this year’s 41st World Youth Day (WYD), encouraged young people to be courageous in an age of loneliness.
“Some of you know what it means to experience loneliness, disappointment, or the fear of not being good enough,” Leo said in his message. “It is in circumstances like these that we hear the Gospel’s invitation to take courage.”
The Vatican released his message on Tuesday ahead of WYD 2026, to be celebrated locally on Nov. 22, coinciding with the solemnity of Christ the King. The Vatican also published the message ahead of WYD 2027 in Seoul, South Korea, which the pope is expected to attend.
In his message, Leo noted the modern challenges young people face, including anxiety, self-doubt, and the difficulty of maintaining a personal identity in an age of social media.
“Under the influence of carefully curated images on social media, you may find it difficult to recognize and accept who you truly are,” the pope said.
“Perhaps you are anxious about the future, feel pressured to succeed and appear perfect, or experience the stress of constantly comparing yourselves with others or with unattainable, manufactured ideals.”
Leo then explained the need for young people to be vulnerable and to depend on Christ when lonely, citing the apostles’ fear when the risen Christ appeared to them.
“Faith does not immediately dispel the darkness, but neither does it leave us alone in it,” Leo explained. “Open your lives to Christ. Open your communities to Christ.”
“Allow yourselves to be united and transformed by his love.”
As he did in a video message for WYD 2027 in October, the pope also encouraged people to register for the event in Seoul, which will run from Aug. 3–8, 2027.
Pennsylvania teen’s witness of faith and hope inspires calls for her canonization
DOYLESTOWN, Pennsylvania — When Maria Middleton was 5 years old, she disappeared into her room days before Mother’s Day to make a card for her mother.
Susan Middleton was delighted. Maria was already an articulate, precocious child, and Susan eagerly anticipated whatever heartfelt message her daughter had prepared.
The card was decorated with flowers. On the front, Maria had written, “Happy Mother’s Day.” On the inside, it read, “To the second-best mother in the world.”
Susan laughed when she recounted the story in an interview with the National Catholic Register, the sister partner of EWTN News, but the card also reflected something she had tried to instill in Maria from an early age: that while she had an earthly mother who “makes mistakes,” she also had a perfect mother in heaven.
Six years after Maria’s death from a brain tumor at the age of 18, hundreds gathered Oct. 5 at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, as Archbishop Nelson Pérez of Philadelphia celebrated Mass marking the anniversary of her passing.
It was to this shrine that Susan had brought Maria every week to Eucharistic adoration, starting at age 3. Here, Maria learned the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the rosary and developed a deep love for the Blessed Mother, to whom she was consecrated at her baptism.
At the anniversary Mass, Pérez recalled first encountering Maria during the COVID-19 pandemic, when she wrote to him after public Masses had been suspended. She wanted to receive the Eucharist, which she described as the grace she needed amid her illness.
Pérez responded that same day, offering to bring her Communion himself.
“She definitely lived a life that exemplified” Christ’s command to love “God with all your heart,” Pérez said. “That’s why we’re here today.”
Since her death on Oct. 8, 2020, Brian and Susan Middleton have received dozens of messages each week from people who say their daughter has affected their lives, including people who have returned to the Church, rediscovered the sacraments, or deepened their faith through her example.
In June, Pérez was presented with a petition seeking the introduction of the Bucks County teenager’s cause for canonization, beginning the Church’s preliminary process of consultation.
Father Griffen Schlaepfer, a 28-year-old Philadelphia priest who first learned about Maria after her death, encountered her story through a holy card at his parish bearing one of her sayings: “You don’t have to be weird to be holy.”
The line has stayed with him as he has come to know her witness. “You don’t have to be joyless to be holy,” Schlaepfer said. “You can have a full, attractive life and also live in accordance with God’s will completely.”
Faith from an early age
Maria was born Sept. 10, 2002, when Susan was 44, after she and Brian had married following the annulment of their previous marriages and blended their families together. Her parents describe her as an unexpected gift from God. She was also, in many ways, an ordinary teenager.
She loved music, Irish dance, and sports. She excelled academically, was elected class president, and belonged to the National Honor Society, all while serving in various roles at her parish.
Maggie McArdle, a childhood friend, met Maria in first grade. She remembers Maria as funny, witty, and kind — a girl who made silly music videos with her friends and loved making duct-tape wallets.
“I can remember belly laughs, just laughing until our bellies hurt,” McArdle said. “I like to talk to her today and read through our old texts. Those are so special to me.”
Kim O’Grady, Maria’s sister, remembers that relatability as well. Fifteen years older than Maria, O’Grady watched her grow into a teenager who loved Taylor Swift, the Jonas Brothers, and Shawn Mendes and, like other teenagers her age, had Snapchat and Instagram.
Although she had many of the same interests as her teenage peers, there were signs that Maria had her priorities in order when it came to faith and self-growth.
“She knew what her North Star was,” O’Grady said, explaining that Maria seemed to know who she was and what she believed. “If you just have that relationship with God and just focus and hone in on that, you can be who you are and live out to your full potential.”
Maria, conscious of pressures many young people face today, demonstrated in her writings a desire for growth. After watching old videos of herself as a child, for instance, she reflected on how much she had changed and how social media had affected the way she thought about herself.
“I think seeing the videos of me made me realize there’s no reason for me not to be like the way I was when I was little,” she wrote in her journal. “Even if that means to cut out social media a little or do more stuff for fun and just enjoy the little things, that’s what I’ll train myself to do.”
Stephanie Weaver, who taught Maria in Catholic social teaching and moral theology at Villa Joseph Marie High School, saw that combination of faith and action firsthand. As a freshman, Maria started a coat drive benefiting Mother of Mercy House in Kensington and co-chaired the school’s mini-thon — now called Hope-A-Thon in Maria’s honor — a dance marathon that raises money to support children battling cancer.
“There was something so different about Maria because she didn’t just talk the talk,” Weaver said. Instead, she “walked the walk.”
A good student who was involved in various charitable activities, Brian said Maria never confused her accomplishments with her identity.
“Her holiness wasn’t exposed when she was diagnosed” with brain cancer, Brian said. “Her holiness came and grew throughout her lifetime in her pursuit of virtues and offering up her talents to God.”
For Maria, that kind of holiness would soon be tested. In January 2019, when she was 16, she was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor on her brainstem. Doctors told her family she might have nine to 12 months to live.
Missionaries of the Sacred Heart Father Simione Volavola, who knew Maria from childhood through the family’s parish, was in the room when she received the diagnosis.
“She was the most peaceful person in the room,” Volavola said. “She just took it very calmly and accepted it very quickly.”
That peace remained as Maria’s illness progressed, even as her physical suffering increased. “She never lost that peace,” Volavola said. “The body was failing. She was really suffering, but very graceful in the way she carried her cross.”
Maria hoped for a miraculous healing throughout her illness. At the same time, however, she sought to surrender herself to God’s will.
Her journals, which she began keeping as a child, reveal a spiritual life that her parents say they only fully understood after her death. Her first recorded words in a journal at age 11 were simple: “God is merciful.”
Her final written words, as the effects of the tumor made writing increasingly difficult, were two words that would become the name of the foundation established in her memory: “Think hope.”
‘She did not despair’
As Maria’s physical abilities disappeared, her concern for other people did not.
Nine months after her diagnosis, she traveled with her parents to Uganda, where students at Pope John Paul II Academy had been praying for her. One girl, Patience, wrote Maria a letter asking her to pray for her brother, who had sickle cell anemia.
When Maria later received an opportunity through Make-A-Wish, she chose to use it to help Patience’s family and the school.
Back home, during the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, friends organized virtual rosaries for Maria’s healing, including one Zoom meeting that drew more than 2,000 people. In another show of care for the teenager, more than 500 cars participated in a parade outside the Middleton home.
Even as Maria’s condition worsened, Susan said, she never lost hope.
“She watched when her legs didn’t work and her arms didn’t work,” Susan said. “And she could no longer hear. And she could no longer swallow. And she could no longer speak. She knew all this was happening and she did not despair.”
Maria died Oct. 8, 2020, at the age of 18. Her parents now devote much of their lives to sharing her story. Their book, “Think Hope: Maria Middleton’s Life of Unyielding Trust in God,” was published by Ascension in 2025.
At the anniversary Mass, Pérez emphasized that the Church’s discernment about Maria’s possible sainthood is ultimately secondary to the witness she already offers.
“Faith is like a ripple,” he said, quoting Maria. “When you have faith and show it, it will impact other people’s lives.”
“Maria says to young people, you too can have great faith,” he told the Register. “You too can be holy. You too could have hope.”
“You too can live a life of hope and a love of life,” Pérez continued, “of faith and a love for the Lord and for his Church.”
This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, the sister partner of EWTN News, and has been adapted by EWTN News.
The mission: Pope Leo XIV in South America
VATICAN CITY — Pope Leo XIV leaves Rome on Friday, Nov. 6, for an apostolic journey to South America, his first visit there since his election as pope.
The trip will take him to three countries, including Uruguay and Argentina, and culminate in Peru, where he served as a missionary and bishop for about 20 years.
Like most papal trips, this will be a mix of the pastoral and the political, featuring meetings with heads of state and other dignitaries; addresses to the local hierarchy, clergy, and religious; large outdoor Masses; youth vigils; and visits to Church-affiliated charitable institutions.
But this journey will be extraordinary in at least two ways. For one thing, it comes a little more than three weeks after Leo underwent surgery for lung cancer. His doctors have said he needs no further treatment, but his decision not to reduce his schedule, which features more than 40 public and private events, is nonetheless striking. The itinerary will take him to 14 cities and towns, including Cusco, Peru, which lies more than 11,000 feet above sea level.
The other distinctive aspect of the trip, which may help explain Leo’s determination to make it, is its highly personal nature. The pope will spend five of his 11 days on the continent in Peru, two of them in his former diocese of Chiclayo. The first U.S.-born pontiff, Leo is also a naturalized citizen of Peru, where he spent almost half of his 43 years as a priest before becoming pope.
Leo is the first pope in centuries to have served as a foreign missionary, and that experience is central to his identity. As he said upon arriving in Rome in 2023 to take up a new role as a Vatican official: “I still consider myself a missionary. My vocation, like that of every Christian, is to be a missionary, to proclaim the Gospel wherever one is.”
His return to his former mission field will highlight the history of his vocation, as he retraces key steps on his path to leadership of the Church.
According to Father Arthur Purcaro, a fellow Augustinian and companion of then-Father Robert Prevost in Peru, the future pope was changed by his experience in the country, where he encountered a new culture, served the poor amid great social turbulence, and “learned that the Church is for the world and we’re not self-referential.”
Returning now as pontiff, Leo “will be reaching out, to have the eyes of the world see somebody’s knocking at the door,” Purcaro said in an interview. “That perhaps might help people anywhere around the world understand that that’s part of what the mission of the Church is: to open our door, to embrace. … That’s part of who he learned to be and is. And I believe it’s part of why he’s going to these three countries now.”
Leo’s journey to his adoptive continent will also showcase diverse forms of evangelization that the Church practices today.
Catholic missionary work, strictly speaking, has traditionally been aimed at peoples and places where the Church is absent or not well established. But especially since the Second Vatican Council, the Church has increasingly spoken of mission more broadly to include, among other activities, “the new evangelization,” or efforts to revive the faith among baptized people who have drifted away from religious practice or who no longer identify as Catholic.
Such efforts are particularly relevant to the first country on Leo’s itinerary, Uruguay, one of the most secular countries in Latin America, where more than half the population has no religious affiliation and 28% are agnostic or atheist. Under a law dating to 1919, the state’s official calendar lists Christmas as “Family Day,” Holy Week as “Tourism Week,” the Epiphany as “Children’s Day,” and the Immaculate Conception as “Beaches Day.”
Evangelization in such an environment is “a very great challenge,” Bishop Milton Tróccoli of Maldonado-Punta del Este-Minas, president of the Uruguayan Bishops’ Conference, told “EWTN Noticias” in September. The local Church considers Uruguay “a mission country where we must proclaim the Gospel extensively,” Tróccoli said.
Uruguayan secularism reflects the influence of the French model of “laïcité,” and Leo’s approach to the matter could well echo his remarks on his last international trip, to France in September. There, in his speech to President Emmanuel Macron and other dignitaries, the pope argued that religious believers and institutions should have a role in public life.
In another echo of his visit to France, where he denounced the country’s recent legalization of assisted dying, Leo is also likely to criticize Uruguay’s recent legalization of euthanasia. (Euthanasia is the intentional ending of a human life for the purpose of relieving suffering. In assisted dying, a patient takes life-ending drugs himself under the guidance of a physician. Catholic moral teaching prohibits both practices.)
In Argentina, Leo’s visit will inevitably be seen in light of the memory of its native son Pope Francis, who never visited the country during his 12-year pontificate. Leo has vowed to continue his predecessor’s signature initiative of synodality, which seeks to give lay Catholics a greater voice in Church governance and teaching.
Francis said that “synodality is essentially missionary” and that mission is “always synodal,” suggesting that clergy, religious, and laypeople should listen to one another and work together in proclaiming the Gospel. At Leo’s meetings with the bishops of Argentina and Peru, a standard feature of papal visits, local teams responsible for implementing the synodal process will also be included, a sign of the importance that the current pope gives to the topic.
Although Pope Francis was known as an innovator, and even a disruptor of tradition, he was also a champion of popular piety, particularly devotion to the Virgin Mary. Pope Leo XIV will honor that practice on his upcoming pilgrimage to the Argentine city of Luján, home to a revered image of Mary that draws millions of pilgrims each year, and drew more than 2.8 million for a youth pilgrimage in October.
Leo’s visits to Uruguay and Peru will likewise include important Marian shrines: the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Thirty-Three in Uruguay and the Shrine of Our Lady of Peace in Peru. Leo will also crown an image of the Immaculate Virgin at the cathedral in his former diocese of Chiclayo.
According to Bishop Edinson Farfán, Leo’s successor as bishop of Chiclayo, popular piety is a “great ally” in facing one of the greatest challenges to Catholicism in Latin America today: competition from Pentecostal churches. “Popular piety reaches everywhere, especially peripheral areas,” where priests seldom visit but Pentecostals are well-established, Farfán told reporters at a briefing last month organized by the charitable organization Aid to the Church in Need.
The Peru leg of the pope’s trip will highlight an important element of evangelization: the practice of inculturation, or expressing Catholic teachings and forms of worship in terms of local cultures. A key figure in this tradition is St. Turibius de Mogrovejo, a Spanish missionary who served as archbishop of Lima from 1581 until his death in 1606 and who promoted the use of the Indigenous languages Quechua and Aymara in evangelization.
Pope Leo, who studied Quechua during his time in Peru, has a particular devotion to St. Turibius. Then-Father Prevost spent the night before his ordination as a bishop in December 2014 praying before a relic of the saint in a chapel in the town of Zaña. Now pope, he will return to the town, a historic center of Afro-Peruvian culture, on Nov. 14 for a closing celebration of the jubilee year marking the 300th anniversary of St. Turibius’ canonization.
During his visit to South America, the pope will visit centers of the Church’s charitable activity, a traditional concomitant of mission work, including homes for disabled people near Buenos Aires, Argentina, and for abandoned elderly people in Lima, Peru.
Leo will also engage in a form of outreach that has become especially urgent in recent years, following scandals over clerical sexual abuse. The Vatican has said Leo will hold some meetings with abuse victims during his time in South America. These could include people involved in the Sodalitium case. As bishop of Chiclayo, Leo personally assisted victims of abuse by members of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, a Catholic organization suppressed by the Vatican in 2025.
The pope’s last full day in Peru before returning to Rome will be in some ways the most ambitious, and a dramatic illustration of the Church’s missionary efforts. In the morning, he will fly to Cusco in the Andean highlands, where he will meet representatives of popular Catholic devotion at an Inca archaeological site. A few hours later, he will meet missionaries and representatives of Amazonian Indigenous peoples and celebrate Mass in the rainforest. The difficulty of providing the sacraments to remote parts of the Amazon was a major theme of the Amazon Synod that Pope Francis called at the Vatican in 2019.
“The popeʼs presence will make us visible,” said Father David Farfán, a priest of the Diocese of Chiclayo (with no family relation to the bishop of the same surname). “It will draw attention to those places in the heartland of Peru — and indeed anywhere in the world — where communities have been forgotten, rejected, and left behind.”
State-level Catholic conferences prepare the faithful for ballot initiatives
Across the country, state-level Catholic bishops’ conferences are producing guidelines to help Catholic voters consider the moral implications of voting for or against referendums appearing on their Nov. 3 ballots.
Bishops’ conferences at the state level are organizations jointly run by every diocesan bishop in that state, which are active in every state with more than one diocese. A conference will often comment on bills and referendums that implicate Catholic teaching and put out statements on matters specific to their state.
In some states with contentious referendums on the ballot, bishops’ conferences have taken a clear position on initiatives, urging Catholics to either support or oppose the measures. Some of these measures are related to abortion, gender and sexuality, human trafficking, and gambling.
American bishops do not campaign for specific candidates in elections. Yet, advocating for and against referendums is classified in the tax code as “lobbying” instead of campaigning, which is permitted for dioceses and jointly run Catholic conferences. However, there are legal restrictions on the amount of lobbying in which they can engage.
Taking on abortion
Three conferences have taken strong stances on ballot initiatives related to abortion: Virginia, Nevada, and Missouri. Diocese of Boise Bishop Peter Christensen also took a strong stance on an abortion referendum in Idaho, though the state has only one diocese and no conference.
In Virginia and Nevada, the bishops’ conferences are asking the faithful to vote no on proposed constitutional amendments to establish a legal right to abortion in their states. The conferences have produced printed material offered at parishes that discuss Church teaching on the sanctity of human life, and the bishops have released joint statements. Both states have two dioceses.
Amy McInerny, director of Respect Life at the Diocese of Arlington’s Office of Marriage, Family, and Respect Life, told EWTN News the dioceses coordinated on the referendum for two years, “coming up with a battle plan” to oppose the measure.
Las Vegas Archbishop George Leo Thomas told EWTN News that in Nevada, the bishops meet during years with legislative sessions. The conference contracts much of the work to attorneys who are aligned with the Church’s legislative priorities and follow the sessions.
Bishops in Missouri are urging voters to back a pro-life initiative to repeal a state constitutional right to abortion. This also includes producing printed material and offering joint statements by the bishops.
Jamie Morris, executive director of the Missouri Catholic Conference, told EWTN News “it has been a major focus of all four dioceses and of all four bishops.” He said the conference works directly with the bishops, providing them with information about legislative issues so they can take informed stances on the subjects.
Gender and sexuality
Several conferences have also taken positions on issues that implicate Catholic teachings on gender and sexuality, which includes same-sex marriage, transgender people participating in sports, and parental rights.
In addition to the abortion referendum in Virginia, the bishops are fighting against a referendum to enshrine same-sex marriage into the state constitution. Much of the material urging Catholics to oppose the abortion referendum also urges them to oppose this referendum.
The Colorado Catholic Conference, which represents the state’s three dioceses, has taken a stance on two referendums on this subject, encouraging the faithful to support two initiatives.
One referendum would ensure interscholastic and intramural athletics are separated on the basis of biological sex rather than purported gender identity. The other would ban surgeries on children meant to alter their sex characteristics to facilitate a gender transition.
Nebraskans will vote on a referendum to separate sports on the basis of biological sex rather than purported gender identity. The Nebraska Catholic Conference did not officially take a stance on this but did issue a statement that said the conference supported legislation that was nearly identical and urged the faithful to “please keep in mind Catholic social teaching on human sexuality” when voting on the measure.
The Washington State Catholic Conference has spoken positively of a proposed referendum to also separate athletics on the basis of biological sex as opposed to purported gender identity. In a statement to EWTN News, the conference called the initiative “consistent with Catholic teaching on the complementarity and divine design of women and men.”
The conference spoke positively about a separate referendum to restore parental rights to access information related to their child’s mental health, telling EWTN News it “ensures that parents are not kept in the dark about an issue that impacts their childʼs health.” This may include information about a child’s sexuality and gender identity.
Other issues on the ballot
The other issues bishops have taken positions on include human trafficking, gambling, and procedures for changing the state constitution.
The Colorado Catholic Conference has asked Catholics to support a referendum that would mandate life imprisonment for any person convicted of human trafficking of a minor.
The Nebraska Catholic Conference has encouraged Catholics to vote against two referendums that would legalize and regulate sports gambling in the state, warning it would “expand predatory online sports gambling in our state,” which “can lead to family problems, debt, bankruptcy, homelessness, and mental health issues.”
The South Dakota Catholic Conference has backed a referendum that would increase the threshold needed for adopting a constitutional amendment via referendum, from a majority vote to a 60% threshold. This is meant to prevent future referendums to establish legal rights to abortion from succeeding.
The North Dakota Catholic Conference backed a similar referendum to increase the threshold to adopt a constitutional amendment via referendum from a majority vote to 60%, citing the same concerns.
Pope Leo XIV to return to Chiclayo in Peru and the places that shaped his ministry
The Chiclayo Cathedral, a chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas of Tolentino, and the town of Zaña where St. Turibius of Mogrovejo died all have ties to the ministry of the then-Bishop Robert Prevost in the Lambayeque district of northern Peru.
Now, as Pope Leo XIV, he is scheduled to return to the city of Chiclayo on Nov. 13 during his apostolic journey to Peru. He served as bishop there from 2015 to 2023, during which time he traveled to communities across the coastal and highland regions of Lambayeque.
The official program includes events at the Chiclayo Cathedral and the Shrine of Our Lady of Peace as well as events in Pimentel, St. Turibius of Mogrovejo Catholic University, and in Zaña. Some of these locations were part of his ministry; others hold special significance for the history of the Church in the region.
The Chiclayo Cathedral
Facing the city’s main square stands St. Mary’s Cathedral, one of the central hubs of diocesan life during the years Prevost served as bishop and where he celebrated Mass every Sunday as well as other sacraments. The cathedral contains the bishop’s “cathedra” or chair, which symbolizes his governing authority.
During his upcoming visit on Saturday, Nov. 14, Leo XIV will preside over the rite of the coronation of the Immaculate Virgin at the cathedral. In preparation for the celebration, on Oct. 29 the new altar was consecrated and the ambo blessed.
A chapel where he used to pray to St. Nicholas of Tolentino
In the district of San Nicolás, near Zaña, there is a small chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas of Tolentino, an Augustinian friar for whom Leo XIV holds a special devotion.
Father David Farfán Guerrero, a friend of the pope, told EWTN News Español, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News, that Prevost used to go there to pray before the image of the saint. “This is where, as I often say, he ‘put his knees to the test,’” he recalled.
The then-bishop also encouraged pilgrimages of Augustinian novices to the chapel as part of their spiritual formation. Although this site is not listed as a separate stop on the official itinerary, it helps in understanding a devotion that is important to the pontiff.
Zaña and St. Turibius of Mogrovejo
Zaña holds a special place in the life of Leo XIV and of the Church in Peru. It was there that St. Turibius of Mogrovejo died on March 23, 1606, after spending years traveling throughout his vast ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The saint served as archbishop of Lima from 1580 to 1606.
Prevost made a pilgrimage to this town before departing for Rome, following his election as prior general of the Order of St. Augustine. Farfán has noted his particular affection for Zaña and his devotion to St. Turibius, whom he regards as a model for pastoral life.
On Saturday, Nov. 14, Leo XIV will return to the area to take part in a prayer gathering marking the conclusion of the Jubilee Year of St. Turibius of Mogrovejo at the shrine dedicated to the saint.
The Shrine of Our Lady of Peace
At the Shrine of Our Lady of Peace, Robert Prevost entrusted his episcopal ministry to the Virgin Mary, as noted in a handwritten message in the shrine’s guest book dated Oct. 21, 2015.
Furthermore, the then-bishop would frequently visit the shrine to pray and spend time with the religious there. He also took part in meetings and retreats there with priests and would visit the pre-seminary located next to the complex.
On Nov. 13, during his visit to Chiclayo, Leo XIV will meet with bishops, priests, religious, seminarians, and representatives of the Church’s pastoral life at this shrine.
St. Turibius of Mogrovejo Catholic University
The relationship between Leo XIV and St. Turibius Mogrovejo Catholic University (USAT, by its Spanish acronym) is also part of his years in Chiclayo. The institution awarded him an honorary doctorate in law and recognized him as grand chancellor emeritus.
According to the university itself, Prevost received an honorary doctorate in recognition of his accomplishments and service to the Church. In 2023, the Peruvian Bishops’ Conference also awarded him the Gold Medal of St. Turibius of Mogrovejo, one of its highest honors.
On Friday, Nov. 13, he will meet there with representatives of the university community.
Pimentel and Santa Cruz de Succhabamba
The visit will also take the pope to other locations in the region. On Friday, Nov. 13, he will celebrate Mass on the esplanade of the Pimentel plains and make a private visit to St. Óscar A. Romero Chapel.
The following day, he will travel to Santa Cruz de Succhabamba, where he will celebrate another Mass. The town is within the Diocese of Chiclayo, and Prevost visited it regularly between 2015 and 2023. During his time there, he traveled throughout the province, administered the sacrament of confirmation to young people and students, and built and consecrated the shrine dedicated to Our Lady of Remedies in the small rural community of Litcán.
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.
Leo XIV: Faith assures us that ‘our bond with the faithful departed has not been broken’
Continuing a tradition begun by St. John Paul II in the late 1970s, Pope Leo XIV visited a cemetery outside the Vatican on Nov. 2 — the day the Catholic Church commemorates All Souls’ Day — to celebrate Mass and pray for those who have died.
“We have gathered to celebrate the Eucharist in this place of prayer and remembrance, of affection and hope. We offer it in suffrage for the faithful departed, particularly for those who rest here and for those whom each of us carries in our hearts,” the pontiff said during Mass celebrated on the central avenue of Rome’s Verano Cemetery.
The altar from which he presided over the celebration was flanked by a row of tombs. Located in the Tiburtino neighborhood, the cemetery, built in the 19th century during the Napoleonic era, is Italy’s second-largest civil cemetery and the largest in Rome.
The grounds, which include an area designated for non-Catholics, suffered severe damage during the Allied bombing of Rome in 1943 and were rebuilt in 1949.
Upon his arrival, Leo XIV placed a bouquet of white and yellow roses on the marble headstone of a randomly chosen grave belonging to an Italian family and bearing the name Antonia Coccia Nicolini.
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During his homily, the pontiff explained that the commemoration of the faithful departed, celebrated the day after the solemnity of All Saints, guides the prayer of the Church.
“We turn to the heavenly Father so that the life of holiness and blessedness already enjoyed by so many of his sons and daughters may envelop the souls of those who sleep the sleep of peace,” said the pope, who wore purple liturgical vestments, a symbol of penance, prayer, and hope in the Resurrection.
He also emphasized that faith in Christ is illuminated “by the word that has been proclaimed and that strengthens our trust in God’s hands.”
The Beatitudes, the ‘self-portrait of Jesus’
About 1,500 people attended the celebration, according to figures provided by the Vatican.
Reflecting on the Gospel of the Beatitudes proclaimed during the Mass, Leo XIV said they constitute the “self-portrait of Jesus” and reveal the path to a fully realized life, both on this earth and in eternity.
“The risen Lord tells us: Blessed are those who live according to this path, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” he said.
He also observed that this message takes on particular force in a cemetery, which he described as “a threshold between this world and the next,” where faith enables believers to view death through the hope of the Resurrection.
In this context, he stressed that “faith in Christ tells us that our bond with the faithful departed has not been broken but transformed.”
‘The absurd violence of war’
The Holy Father also offered prayers for the deceased and made a special appeal for those suffering the consequences of armed conflicts.
He prayed that “the tears of so many mothers, so many children, and so many elderly people” would move the consciences of those who have the power to end wars.
Reflecting on the beatitude “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted,” he offered a special remembrance for those who have recently lost a loved one.
“At this moment we wish to pray for those who have recently lost a loved one, especially for those from whom a loved one has been taken by the absurd violence of war,” he said.
He then renewed his appeal for peace: “May the tears of so many mothers, so many children, and so many elderly people move the consciences of those who have the power to silence the weapons.”
Christian hope in the face of death
Speaking during the 800th anniversary year of the death of St. Francis of Assisi, Leo XIV recalled the praise the saint added to the “Canticle of Creatures” near the end of his life, when he referred to “Sister Bodily Death” and proclaimed blessed those who are found doing God’s will.
In his homily, the pontiff underscored Christian hope in eternal life and reaffirmed that God keeps forever those who have departed this world. Citing the Book of Wisdom, he recalled that the souls of the just are secure in the Lord’s hands and that “no torment shall ever touch them.”
The pope explained that this promise of salvation lies at the heart of the Church’s prayer on All Souls’ Day, when the faithful entrust their loved ones to divine mercy so that they may attain full communion with God.
Leo XIV also invoked the words of the Book of Revelation, which proclaims that God will dwell forever with his people, as well as the promise of the Good Shepherd that no one can snatch his sheep from his hand.
The pope concluded his homily with a reference to Revelation and God’s definitive promise for humanity: the day when “death shall be no more, neither mourning nor crying nor pain,” because all suffering will have been overcome forever.
With this Mass, Leo XIV, as he did last year, continued a tradition promoted by St. John Paul II, who visited the same cemetery on 12 occasions for the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed. Pope Benedict XVI also celebrated a Mass at the Basilica of St. Lawrence Outside the Walls, located next to the cemetery, though without visiting its graves.
Pope Francis, for his part, maintained the custom of celebrating the All Souls’ Day Mass in various cemeteries throughout Rome during his pontificate.
In addition to Monday’s celebration, Leo XIV is scheduled to preside on Thursday, Nov. 5, at St. Peter’s Basilica, one day before departing on his apostolic journey to Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru, at a Mass offered for the cardinals and bishops who have died during the past year.
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.
PHOTOS: Savannah gives thanks for newly beatified Georgia Martyrs
SAVANNAH, Georgia — Light drizzle fell outside the Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist as a standing-room-only congregation gathered Nov. 1 to give thanks for the beatification of the five Georgia Martyrs, Franciscan missionaries killed in 1597.
By the conclusion of Mass, blue skies and large white clouds had replaced the rain. Inside the cathedral, a spirit of joy and thanksgiving marked the celebration, held on the solemnity of All Saints, one day after the friars were declared blessed at the Savannah Convention Center.
Archbishop Gregory J. Hartmayer of Atlanta presided, and Savannah Bishop Stephen D. Parkes delivered the homily. Cardinal Frank Leo of Toronto, who had presided over Saturday’s beatification as Pope Leo XIV’s representative, was among the concelebrants. Archbishop Gabriele Giordano Caccia, the apostolic nuncio to the United States, also attended.
Parkes urged those celebrating to consider how they would carry the gift of the martyrs’ witness beyond the weekend’s events.
“We have received a gift,” he said.
The bishop suggested introducing couples preparing for sacramental marriage to the newly beatified friars. He spoke of engaged couples learning their story, receiving an image of them and praying for their intercession for faithfulness in marriage. He also proposed prayers at weddings for the newly married couple.
“There are many other ways we can continue to honor these holy men,” he said.
The newly beatified friars are Pedro de Corpa, Blas Rodríguez de Cuacos, Miguel de Añón, Antonio de Badajoz, and Francisco de Veráscola. Four were priests; de Badajoz was a lay brother. All came from Spain and served in missions among the Indigenous Guale people in what is now coastal Georgia.
According to the Diocese of Savannah’s account, the violence began in 1597 after de Corpa opposed a baptized Guale leader’s decision to take a second wife. The account identifies Juanillo, who was in line for leadership, as the man who killed Pedro. Juanillo then led a war party against other missions. Five friars died during the uprising.
Pope Francis authorized recognition of their martyrdom on Jan. 27, 2025. The decree identified their deaths as having occurred in hatred of the faith, clearing the way for their beatification. The diocesan investigation had opened in 1984 and concluded in 2007.
Beatification confers the title “blessed” on a person and permits public veneration within the places or religious communities authorized by the Church. It is distinct from canonization, which extends that recognition to the universal Church.
The Georgia Martyrs’ liturgical memorial is Sept. 22.
The celebration also received attention in Rome. After the Nov. 1 Angelus in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Leo recalled the friars’ missionary service and their deaths.
“Let us invoke the intercession of these martyrs for all missionaries of the Gospel,” he said.
In Savannah, Parkes described the response to the beatification in terms of stewardship.
“We should always accept it with gratitude, with thanksgiving in our hearts,” he said.
“When we receive a gift, we should tend it responsibly,” he continued, “and also return it with increase.”
Polish bishops appeal for dialogue as constitutional court standoff deepens
Polandʼs bishops have appealed for de-escalation and prayer amid a deepening standoff over the countryʼs Constitutional Tribunal, warning that the dispute is driving a “deep crisis of the state.”
“It is not the role of the Church to adjudicate the causes of this dispute or the responsibility for the lack of its resolution,” the Presidium of the Polish Bishops' Conference, headed by Archbishop Tadeusz Wojda of Gdańsk, said in an Oct. 31 statement.
The Polish prelates called on politicians to calm the conflict and asked for “the initiation of constructive dialogue and the peaceful resolution of all difficulties."
The bishops appealed to the faithful to pray “for light and wisdom for the rulers and all those responsible for public life.”
Archbishop Wojciech Polak of Gniezno, Polandʼs primate, urged all sides of the political dispute to “seek a common solution” through talks. The heads of Polandʼs religious orders called for dialogue “on the basis of respect for the Constitution of the Republic of Poland and the applicable legal order.”
Archbishop Andrzej Przybylski of Katowice and military Bishop Wiesław Lechowicz also urged prayer.
A fight over the bench
The tribunal decides whether Polish laws are constitutional. Who gets to sit on it has been contested since 2015.
This term the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, elected eight judges. President Karol Nawrocki, who is backed by the opposition Law and Justice party, swore in three. The other five took their oath in parliament instead, and Tribunal President Bogdan Święczkowski barred them from ruling.
On Oct. 30 one of the five, Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, struck back. She suspended Święczkowski and his deputy, Bartłomiej Sochański, for one month. The courtʼs official account on X replied that she “is not a judge of the Constitutional Tribunal.” Many legal experts doubt she had the power to issue the order, though some say it can be justified as a case of “higher constitutional necessity.”
Nawrocki turned his plane around on the way to Senegal and was inside the building in the early hours of Oct. 31. A statement in his name, read out by Paweł Szefernaker, head of the presidentʼs cabinet, called the nightʼs events “a forcible takeover of a constitutional body.” Hundreds of people gathered outside.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk was just as blunt in a televised address: “In certain matters, there can be no compromise.”
Others want to start over. Szymon Hołownia, whose Poland 2050 party sits in Tuskʼs coalition, has backed a “constitutional reset” — a move that would replace the entire bench. This idea has long been pushed by the opposition right-wing Confederation and left-wing Together parties.
Either way, Tuesday may not settle anything: The daily Rzeczpospolita reported that none of the judges seated before the current parliament will attend the assembly Korwin-Piotrowska has called for Nov. 3. Without them, it would fall short of its quorum of 10.
European Union reactions
In Brussels and Strasbourg, reactions split along political lines: Michael McGrath, the EU justice commissioner, told Politico the tribunal “needs to be able to function in accordance with the Polish constitution and the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU” and that “the Venice Commission has been clear that appointing the new judges lies within the power of the Sejm.”
The Venice Commission is the Council of Europeʼs advisory body on constitutional law.
However, McGrath stopped short of backing the suspensions, and conservatives in the European Parliament saw it the other way.
“The Tusk governmentʼs actions constitute a clear and grave violation of the rule of law,” said Nicola Procaccini, co-chair of the European Conservatives and Reformists group. “We support President Nawrocki in defending Polandʼs constitutional order.”
‘Love transcends death’: How Singapore’s Chinese Catholics remember their dead
SINGAPORE — At some Catholic funeral wakes in Singapore, visitors are given red strings and invited to join in prayers for the souls of the dead. As they leave, they may be offered flower water to wash with, alongside holy water to sprinkle on the caskets.
Such wakes show how Chinese and Catholic customs around death sit side by side, said Bryan Goh, a historian at the National University of Singapore who studies the history of Christianity in insular Southeast Asia.
Catholics, he said, “find no problem offering joss-sticks at Taoist/Buddhist funeral wakes, focusing on the prayers they say in their heart rather than the form of the action.”
Clergy in Singapore did not see these customs as “something in dire need of correction,” Goh said, “mostly because they viewed certain actions and rituals as performance of filiality, rather than religiosity.”
‘Love transcends death’
Father John Chen, a priest of the Archdiocese of Singapore, told EWTN News that the Catholic faith and Chinese culture share one attitude toward the dead: “Love for our departed loved ones does not end with death. Indeed, love transcends death,” he said.
Students from Buddhist or Taoist families often ask him: “If my parents or grandparents are not Catholic, how can I show them respect without compromising my faith?”
Becoming Catholic means “discerning which cultural practices express values compatible with the Gospel and which may need to be reinterpreted or modified in the light of Christian faith,” he said.
Father Luke Zhang, of the Church of the Holy Trinity, a priest of the Congregation of the Disciples of the Lord, founded in China in 1928 by Archbishop Celso Costantini, who later became a cardinal, said some Catholics keep ancestral tablets at home because they live with relatives who are not Catholic. He encourages them to bow before the tablets, offer flowers and fruit, light candles, and pray for the dead with Catholic prayers.
“Through these practices, we express our respect for and remembrance of the deceased, pray for them, and entrust them to Godʼs merciful hands,” he said.
Burning joss paper or spirit money, however, is “strictly prohibited,” he said.
‘Simply go along’
Matthew Tserng Jia Uei, 61, a semi-retired shipping container assistant who leads the Mandarin-language Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament, grew up in a Taoist family and was baptized in 1984. His relatives never insisted that he bow before the family altar.
“They only asked me to do my duty as one of the younger generation and simply go along as a gesture,” he said in written answers in Chinese.
Polly Ng Eng Lan, 65, a retired clerk who accompanies catechumens in the Mandarin-language RCIA at the Church of St. Alphonsus (Novena Church), said priests and catechists generally teach Catholics not to take part in rites of worship, and “only to offer incense to the deceased and pray.”
Michael Robert Tan, 57, an IT director baptized in April 2024, said his RCIA classes touched on what was allowed, including taking part in other faiths' ways of remembering the dead. He keeps no altar or photographs at home. “Nothing, only in my memories,” he said.
Serene Xu, 63, an administrator baptized in 1991, still visits the temple where her familyʼs ashes are kept each Qingming (a traditional Chinese holiday observed to honor ancestors and welcome spring) and on death anniversaries, “to pay my respects and remember them.” Her children, baptized as infants, join the familyʼs Buddhist and Taoist funerals.
“I firmly believe that faith and family traditions can coexist harmoniously when there is mutual respect, understanding, and acceptance,” she said.
Prayer ‘on the couch’
“There has never been a single Chinese way of practicing ancestral worship,” said Michel Chambon of the Initiative for the Study of Asian Catholics.
“Increasingly, people seem to prefer praying privately, in the intimacy of their own hearts, whether on the couch or in bed, rather than gathering before a formal altar,” he said.
Zhang said young Catholics seem “less enthusiastic about memorial activities for the deceased” than their parents' generation, but “perhaps they have their own ways of remembering them, such as a simple prayer in the heart.”
Chen said younger Catholics may seek “to preserve the values of filial piety, gratitude, and family unity while finding contemporary ways to express them.”
For Xu, one hope remains. “Deep in my heart, I continue to hold on to the hope that one day, we will be reunited in our Heavenly Fatherʼs house,” she said.