Jerusalem Christian schools suspend classes for second time this year
Ahead of the new academic year, Christian schools in Jerusalem along with thousands of families are facing a renewed crisis after Israeli authorities failed to renew entry permits for approximately 70 teachers and staff members.
The situation prompted the schools to suspend classes beginning Tuesday, marking the second such decision this year. Classes were also suspended last January for the same reason.
In a statement, the schools said the measures were imposed suddenly and without prior notice, directly affecting their preparations for the beginning of the academic year.
They explained that the absence of so many employees affects not only classroom instruction but also administrative work, health and cleaning services, and security and safety procedures. As a result, the schools said they could not guarantee students a safe and stable start to the academic year.
The schools said they decided to suspend classes after consulting and coordinating with the relevant authorities, representatives of parents, and other Jerusalem schools. The suspension will remain in effect until the necessary permits for teachers and staff members are reissued or renewed.
They also warned that the recurrence of such measures undermines the stability of educational institutions and hinders their ability to fulfill their mission, while also affecting students, their families, school personnel, and the wider community.
The schools recalled that for centuries their institutions have carried out an educational and humanitarian mission and have formed an integral part of Jerusalem’s identity and its cultural and social fabric.
They also reaffirmed their commitment to providing high-quality education and forming generations grounded in knowledge, values, a sense of belonging, and responsibility.
Concluding their statement, the schools expressed hope that the crisis would be resolved quickly, allowing students and staff members to return to their schools and the academic year to proceed normally.
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.
Polish bishops call surrogacy ‘incompatible’ with faith as Warsaw event looms
Poland’s bishops have condemned surrogacy as commercial services seek to expand in the country.
“Surrogacy is by its nature evil and incompatible with Christian faith and morality,” the bishops’ bioethics committee said. “The desire to have children cannot be interpreted as a right to have children, because a child, in the ontological sense, as a human being, is not the property of its parents.”
The bioethics committee of the Polish Bishops' Conference issued a statement on Aug. 27 signed by the head of the committee, Auxiliary Bishop Józef Wróbel of the Archdiocese of Lublin. The committee warned that the “conception and birth of a child cannot be the subject of a commercial transaction” between those who offer their body for rent and those who want to obtain offspring in this way.
The committee underscored that the practice of surrogacy cannot, therefore, “be tolerated, permitted, accepted, or, even less so, promoted by state institutions.”
The statement noted that “more and more offers are emerging in Poland guaranteeing the birth of a healthy child through surrogacy,” likely a reference to an event organized in the Polish capital, Warsaw, for Sept. 12-13 by the Ukrainian fertility clinic BioTexCom: Center for Human Reproduction.
The company says it has a “wide database of donors who meet all individual requirements of clients” as well as “the latest techniques” to achieve “positive results” of in vitro fertilization.
BioTexCom describes surrogacy “as a program during which a healthy woman carries a child for the infertile couple” and promises “best surrogate mothers,” lower prices, and better services than other medical centers in Europe.
However, the bioethical experts of the Polish episcopate pointed out that surrogacy is available only through artificial insemination, usually performed through in vitro fertilization, which has a variety of “genetic, developmental, and psychological” consequences.
Moreover, the experts said such “conceived children will be killed through eugenic abortion if genetic or developmental disorders are detected,” stressing that “the murder of an unborn child is always an extremely evil act” and that under “law in force in Poland, it is also a crime.”
The bioethicists said conducting surrogacy outside Poland does not make it legal, adding that it rather resembles “international human trafficking, which cannot be justified either by the desire to have offspring or the consent” of the parties involved.
The experts concluded that children are “treated as commodities and not as endowed with an inalienable dignity attached to their humanity.” Thus, they called for “the state authorities to take immediate and decisive action to prevent surrogacy by Polish citizens and to block” companies that “offer such procedures.”
Some analysts noted that Poland lacks surrogacy limitations, unlike Slovakia and Italy, where the practice is banned.
U.S. ‘must balance other interests’ in Nigeria, officials say as Christian persecution continues
Political officials and foreign policy analysts are calling for the Nigerian government to enhance its response to ongoing violence against Christians as U.S. troops are set to withdraw from the region at the end of September.
Following an Aug. 28 event at the Hudson Institute, officials told Erik Rosales, EWTN News Capitol Hill correspondent, that while the U.S. remains committed to shedding light on ongoing persecution of Christians in Nigeria, State Department officials are faced with having to weigh the greater good with responding to every attack.
“Itʼs a significant trading partner in the African context for the United States,” Josh Meservey, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told Rosales.
“Itʼs the largest, itʼs the most populous country in Africa. Itʼs the largest economy,” he said. “So these things do really matter. And so as much as weʼre concerned about the violence and we, we must remain concerned, the U.S. government has to balance other interests.”
Latest numbers from advocacy groups found that more than 7,000 Christians have been killed in the first seven months of 2026 alone, while thousands more have been kidnapped.
“The situation has not really changed too much. We may say that the daily attacks of hundreds or 50 that were killed in the past is not — itʼs no longer like that — but people are still being killed,” Father Remigius Ihyula, former director of the Catholic Diocese of Makurdiʼs Justice and Peace Commission in Nigeria, told “EWTN News Nightly” on Aug. 28.
Tibor Nagy, former assistant secretary of the Bureau of African Affairs at the State Department, called for “cooperating with the Nigerians, finding solutions, doing training, maybe helping the Nigerians design a law-and-order system that has local forces instead of just federal forces.”
"There are solutions out there but the Nigerians have to solve this at the end of the day,” he told Rosales.
Meanwhile, Nigerian advocates said U.S. withdrawal from the region would result in heavy consequences for vulnerable communities. "If the U.S. doesnʼt follow through, there will be hell to pay. Christians will be attacked massively,” said Emmanuel Ogebe, a Nigerian-American human rights attorney.
Carmelite sisters building a monastery to ‘last a thousand years’ in Pennsylvania
A community of Discalced Carmelite sisters is using centuries-old methods to build a monastery in hopes that it will serve as “a beacon of light” for generations to come in Fairfield, Pennsylvania.
When the sisters of the Carmel of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph realized they had outgrown their 1940s monastery in the Diocese of Harrisburg, they knew they wanted to build their next home “in a way that is designed to last,” that would speak to St. Teresa of Ávila’s vision for their charism, Catherine Bauer, the director of marketing and development for the sisters, told EWTN News. “And by that, they mean last a thousand years.”
Bucking modern architecture and building conventions, the Fairfield sisters have opted to build their monastery using old-world methods including traditional stonemasonry and timber framing. While the scale of the monastery “will be on the smaller side,” according to Bauer, “it’s more about the stonework, the authenticity of building from the ground up using no nails, no glue, [and] no electricity running through it.”
“They will also have old-world methods of plumbing and water systems,” she added.
The budget for the project, which began in 2013 and is about 20% complete, is $100 million. The sisters have raised about $22 million so far.
“The idea is that over the course of the next 12 or 15 years it takes to build this, once it’s completed, little or no maintenance will be required for this building for future generations,” Bauer said. “So essentially, they spend the money up front now and then in 50 years, you’re not replacing various systems and roofing and walls and all of that.”
While the up-front cost of their home may be steep, the sisters have proven resourceful not only in sourcing local materials such as stone and timber but also stained glass and an altar for their oratory.
The marble altar the sisters found had once served as the original altar at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. Bishop Emeritus William Gainer, who delivered the homily at the oratory’s dedication in 2024, revealed that he had said his first Mass at that altar decades prior, she noted.
“We’re trying to salvage a lot of these things and which is amazing, you know, giving these beautiful items a home,” Bauer said.
While the Carmelites themselves are hidden away, Bauer said, “the monastery is meant to be a beacon of light, a beacon on the hill for the community at large, for the faithful to come and visit, and to be an oasis for everyone, a source of grace and comfort and holiness.”
The public will be able to attend Mass and receive the sacraments and to pray with externs at the monastery.
Ultimately, Bauer said, the mission of the Carmelite order is to beat with the heart of the Church.
“The Carmelite charism is to pray for the priests,” she said. “That’s their whole mission, is to pray for priests and for the Church. And that’s how we’re going to survive. They are the heart of the Church. They’re the ones that keep the blood pumping through the rest of the body of the Church.”
The Church cannot declare war on Latin Mass devotees, Cardinal Robert Sarah says
“We, as a Church, cannot declare war on those who devoutly attend Mass simply because they prefer one form over another; this is a shortsighted and entirely ideological stance and, therefore, neither pastoral nor Christian,” Cardinal Robert Sarah said on Aug. 27. “It is harmful and destructive to the Church.”
Sarah, the former prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, spoke to the Italian newspaper Il Giornale last week about the importance of the traditional liturgy, which dates back to the time of Pope Gregory the Great and earlier, and which was celebrated worldwide until the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965).
After the council, the old liturgy was abandoned, although some priests continued to celebrate it. The archbishop of Dakar, Senegal, Marcel Lefebvre, remained faithful to it and founded the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) under the claim of preserving the Traditional Latin Mass and in opposition to some reforms of the Second Vatican Council. The SSPX has twice been declared to be in schism, including in 2026, and its bishops excommunicated.
In the mid-1980s, the Holy See began to relax the de facto ban. In his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict XVI in 2007 authorized all priests to celebrate the old liturgy; in his view, strictly speaking, it had never been abrogated. He differentiated between the Traditional Latin Mass as the “extraordinary form” and the new Mass as the “ordinary form.”
Pope Francis revoked his predecessorʼs decision in 2021 and severely restricted the classical Roman liturgy with his motu proprio Traditionis Custodes.
“Among the effects of the liberalization of the extraordinary form was the positive influence — I would even say the correction — regarding possible abuses in the celebration of the ordinary form,” Sarah said. “These abuses are extremely serious acts, yet we must never equate the ordinary form itself with them. Many priests testify that discovering the extraordinary form helped them celebrate Mass better.”
“I think Benedict XVI also demonstrated on that occasion a deeply humble and democratic attitude,” the cardinal continued, recalling the 2007 decision. “He wanted to ensure the widest possible dissemination, so that the people of God could decide for themselves, over the decades, which form of living out the faith best suited them. All of this, however, was nullified by Traditionis Custodes, while the pope emeritus was still alive.”
“That did not seem to me a decision that was either sensible or respectful,” Sarah explained. “But Benedict XVI, a man as gentle as a lamb, allowed himself to be humiliated and thus offered his suffering to God in silence and prayer, so as to better identify with Christ’s pain for his Church and to purify it.”
Sarah said that “access to ritual forms that have been recognized and in existence for centuries must never be artificially restricted by means of decrees. If a rite did not serve the faith, it would disappear on its own; if, conversely, it preserves and fosters the faith, we must by no means restrict it, for in doing so we would be restricting the very preservation and spread of the faith.”
This story was first published by ACI Digital, the Portuguese-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.
Bishops from Mexico, U.S., Canada see urgent need to speak ‘with one voice’
“It is increasingly urgent that the Catholic Church in the Americas speak with one voice,” stated Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas, vice president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), following the Mass celebrated Aug. 30 at the cathedral in Cuernavaca, Mexico, which marked the beginning of a meeting among Mexican, U.S., and Canadian bishops.
Bishop Ramón Castro Castro of Cuernavaca, president of the Mexican Bishops’ Conference (CEM, by its Spanish acronym) was the main celebrant of the Mass. Concelebrating alongside various priests, along with Flores, were Bishop Oscar Cantú of San José, California, chairman of the USCCB Subcommittee on Hispanic/Latino Affairs; and Bishop Pierre Goudreault of Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière, president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.
In a brief message, Flores expressed gratitude for “Bishop Ramón’s inspiration in inviting us to this gathering to strengthen this ecclesial communion.”
“In the times we are living through, it will become increasingly important — indeed, urgent — for the Catholic Church in the Americas to speak with one voice, defending the honor of Our Lord and the dignity of the human person — especially the poor and immigrants, who often have nowhere to lay their heads, just like the Lord Jesus himself,” he said.
“We need to preach together and united as one Church, under the guidance of our Holy Father, Pope Leo, and in communion with all the bishops of the world,” he added.
3 distinct countries ‘but one and the same faith’
In his homily, Castro highlighted that this meeting of leaders from North American episcopal conferences is “the first of its kind in our history.”
“We are three distinct countries. We are three Churches with different histories and realities, yet we share one and the same faith, one baptism, one Eucharist, and one mission,” the Mexican prelate affirmed.
Regarding the role of bishops, Castro emphasized that “before being leaders, we are disciples,” and “before having responsibilities, we are men called by the Lord.”
“Perhaps this can be the profound spirit of this gathering of the Church in North America: for all of us to place ourselves once again behind Jesus.”
‘Enormous challenges’
The president of the CEM emphasized that “our peoples face enormous challenges, particularly Mexico,” and pointed to issues such as “violence, demagoguery, corruption, loneliness, secularization, individualism, materialism, polarization, wounded families, and young people seeking reasons for hope.”
He further noted that “perhaps one of the most common themes among the three of us as countries and conferences is migration.”
“Over the coming days, we will have the opportunity to share our perspectives on these realities, not in a spirit of judgment or confrontation but rather out of the pastoral responsibility that falls to us as shepherds,” the bishop of Cuernavaca said.
“We want to better understand the lives of our people. To what end? To be able to serve them better,” he stated.
Castro emphasized that “migration must not be reduced to statistics, public policies, or economic obligations,” because “behind every migrant there is a face, a story, a family, a hope, and, unfortunately, often many wounds.”
“The Church must view these people as brothers and sisters whose dignity must be recognized and protected,” he said.
The Mexican bishop also expressed his wish “that from Cuernavaca we might send a simple yet powerful sign to our churches, churches on pilgrimage in Canada, the United States, and Mexico.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.
Bishop Caggiano urges local parish support as immigrant families fear enforcement
Bishop Frank Caggiano of Bridgeport, Connecticut, called for support as he said recent immigration enforcement in the state has left some Catholic families afraid to attend church or school.
Families in Fairfield County, including those in Danbury and Stamford, “have lived through moments of real fear as immigration enforcement activity has intensified in our area,” Caggiano said in a statement.
Caggiano urged federal officials to respect human dignity no matter one’s country of birth. Regardless of immigration status, each person “is made in the image and likeness of God and possesses a dignity that no earthly power may set aside,” he said.
The bishop’s Aug. 30 statement followed local reports of heightened immigration enforcement throughout local communities.
Gov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut released a statement in July about the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the state. It reported that there would be coordination with community organizations and advocates regarding increased ICE activity.
“Connecticut has some of the lowest crime rates in the country, thanks to the excellent work our state and local police do to keep violent criminals off our streets. Rounding up people at random to fill a quota does not lower crime. It traumatizes families and communities,” Lamont said.
Caggiano detailed some of the specific instances in the diocese.
“I have heard of husbands and fathers taken from their cars on the way to work, of spouses unable to find where a loved one has been brought, and of neighbors who no longer feel at ease walking to the store, dropping off a child at school, or simply going about the ordinary business of the day,” he said.
“Whatever one believes about the just enforcement of our nation’s laws, no person of faith can look upon this kind of suffering with indifference,” he said.
“I do not write to make a political statement, nor is it the place of a Bishop to dictate the particulars of civil policy that belong properly to lawmakers and to citizens acting according to their conscience,” he said.
“But I write as a pastor who cannot remain silent while members of our human family are suffering, while families are separated, and while fear has entered our schools, our workplaces, and our streets,” Caggiano said.
Local parishes are ‘places of welcome and refuge’
Caggiano called on parishes in the diocese to support immigrant families and anyone affected by enforcement actions.
“To our immigrant brothers and sisters throughout Fairfield County, whether or not you are Catholic, whether or not you have ever set foot in one of our parishes, please know that the Church stands with you,” he said.
“Our parishes, our Catholic Charities, and our Office of Hispanic Ministry remain, as they have always been, places of welcome and refuge, and no one need fear that the doors of our churches will ever be closed to them,” he said.
The bishop asked parishes to include a prayer for immigrant families and those affected “at every Mass in the days ahead.” He also urged the community to remember the words the Lord spoke in Scripture: “Do not be afraid, for I am with you.”
“Fear is real, but it does not have the final word,” he said. “Christ walks with every suffering family in Fairfield County each day, and He asks each of us, as His Church, to walk with them as well.”
Caggiano called on Our Lady of Guadalupe, mother of the migrant and consolation of the afflicted, to “wrap her mantle around every family who suffers in this hour.”
Religious freedom under growing threat worldwide, experts warn at Catholic gathering in Italy
RIMINI, Italy — Freedom of religion or belief, a pillar of human dignity and democratic societies, is threatened in many regions of the world by persecution, discrimination, and faith-related violence. In an international context marked by conflicts and radicalization, protecting it is proving crucial for peace and social cohesion.
A panel discussion held on Aug. 21, the opening day of the Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples, titled “The Freedom to Believe: A Human Right at the Center of Geopolitical Challenges,” explored the role of religious freedom in contemporary geopolitical dynamics, with particular attention to minorities in crisis areas and the contribution of faith communities to reconciliation processes. It also examined the responsibilities of the European Union, Italy, and international cooperation in strengthening diplomatic and political instruments to defend this fundamental right.
Following introductory remarks by Maria Cristiana Mele, Italy’s special envoy for the promotion of religious freedom and the protection of religious minorities worldwide, speakers included Cristina Duranti, director of the Good Shepherd International Foundation; Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of the Diocese of Sokoto, Nigeria, who said: “In Nigeria, if you ask someone whether he is Christian or Muslim, he will answer: I am hungry”; Mairead McGuinness, the European Union special envoy for the promotion of freedom of religion or belief; and Andrea Avveduto, journalist and spokesman for the Italian Committee for Freedom of Religion or Belief, who moderated the discussion. Daniela Canclini, president of the Italian Committee for Freedom of Religion or Belief, delivered the concluding remarks.
In his remarks, Kukah highlighted the "actions" of terrorist groups in Nigeria: "Islamic extremism has changed over time. If 15 or 20 years ago Boko Haram persecuted only Christians because it aimed to convert the population to Islam at gunpoint and establish a caliphate in which sharia would be imposed; the groups operating today have no contact with the population. They live in hiding and emerge only to kill, loot, and rape. They do not kill on a confessional basis, so it is inaccurate to say that today they persecute only Christians.
“Their attacks make no distinction based on belief: They kill people on farms, in churches, in mosques, at home, everywhere. There are also several groups affiliated with ISIS but divided among themselves, so if you are killed, you do not even know who did it. The situation is extremely complicated. The only thing that unites these groups with one another and with Boko Haram is violence and the mineral trade.”
He also described the difficulties involved in combating terrorist groups: “The situation is extremely difficult to contain, and the government is present only through the military, which nevertheless allows things to happen. Nigeria is a corrupt state. It has lost the ability to enforce the laws, which do exist, just as there is a constitution. At every political election the same thing happens: There is a suitable candidate, capable, the ideal person to have a positive impact on the government of the country. He will not be elected, because another, wealthier candidate will buy the election with money.”
At the conclusion of the meeting, ACI Stampa, the Italian-language sister service of EWTN News, asked Avveduto to explain why the freedom to believe is increasingly under threat.
ACI Stampa: Why is the freedom to believe increasingly under threat?
Avveduto: We are living in a time in which faith has once again come to be perceived as a problem rather than a resource. On the one hand, there are authoritarian regimes and totalitarian ideologies, which see in the believer someone who obeys an authority higher than the state and therefore fear him; on the other, there is the growth of extremisms that exploit religion to justify violence and the seizure of power.
In between is the fragility of many states: Where institutions collapse, religious freedom is the first to fall, because minorities are left without protection. And there is also a more subtle threat, typical of our secularized societies: the temptation to reduce faith to a purely private matter, expelling it from the public sphere. The freedom to believe is threatened wherever the person is not recognized in his or her entirety, which also includes the spiritual dimension.
Why are more and more Christians under threat?
The numbers are striking: According to Open Doors' World Watch List 2026, the number of Christians exposed to persecution worldwide has risen to 388 million, 8 million more than the previous year — a record year. One Christian in 7 globally suffers persecution. The reasons are different and intertwined: the expansion of Islamist extremism, especially in sub-Saharan Africa; regimes that see Christians as a foreign body or ideological enemy; organized crime that targets Christian communities because they are defenseless.
The center of gravity of Christianity has shifted to Africa, and it is precisely there that it is principally under attack: Christians are often visible minorities, communities that educate, provide care, and build social cohesion; precisely for this reason, they become targets of those who want chaos or a monopoly on power. The paradox is that Christians are persecuted not despite the good they do but often because of it.
Another region is the Middle East. The conflict between Israel and Iran is affecting Lebanon: How are Christians living through it?
Lebanon is once again paying for wars decided elsewhere. Since the beginning of March, the bombings have caused more than 2,000 deaths and over 1 million displaced people, and Christians have not been spared: Members of the community who have nothing to do with Hezbollah have been killed in the attacks. And yet, amid all this, the faith endures: In Christian villages in the south, such as Rmeich, Debel, and Ain Ebel, priests say that daily Mass and the rosary prayed together are what sustain the people under bombardment.
Lebanese Christians are experiencing a double suffering: the material suffering of war and the moral suffering of a country held hostage, whose sovereignty is contested among outside powers. But they also remain bearers of a vocation: As the Maronite patriarch recalls, echoing the words of the popes, “Lebanon is more than a territory; it is a message of freedom, dignity, pluralism, and coexistence.” For this reason, supporting the Christians of Lebanon means supporting the very idea of a pluralistic Middle East.
Another difficult situation is found in Nigeria, as Bishop Hassan Kukah described, and in Sudan: How can Christians be supported?
Nigeria today is the deadliest place in the world for Christians: It alone accounts for about 3,490 victims, 70% of the global total of Christians killed for their faith, amid attacks on villages, burned churches, kidnappings of priests, and even schoolchildren. Sudan, devastated by civil war, is also among the countries experiencing extreme persecution. How can they be supported? First of all, by not forgetting them: The first persecution is silence.
Then through concrete closeness: supporting the local Churches, schools, clinics, and projects that allow communities to remain in their own land rather than flee. There is also the level of political and diplomatic pressure, so that governments are called to their responsibility to protect. And finally prayer, which for the persecuted themselves — they always say this — is not a symbolic gesture but the sign that they belong to a larger body that does not abandon them.
Why is religious freedom a good for everyone, as the Church emphasizes in its magisterium?
Because it is the mother of all freedoms. It concerns the most intimate core of the person: conscience, the relationship with truth, and with the ultimate meaning of life. A state that respects this inner sanctuary will also respect freedom of thought, expression, and association; a state that violates it will sooner or later violate everything else.
This can be seen empirically: The countries where believers are persecuted are the same countries where all human rights are trampled upon. Religious freedom, moreover, does not protect only believers: It also protects those who do not believe, because it affirms that no power may impose or prohibit a worldview. It is the foundation of a truly pluralistic society, where diversity is not merely tolerated but recognized as a source of richness.
So why does the Church fight for religious freedom for everyone?
Because it does not ask for privileges but for a right that arises from the dignity of the person created in the image of God, a dignity that belongs to every human being, Christian or not. This is the teaching of the Second Vatican Council through the declaration on religious freedom, Dignitatis Humanae: Truth imposes itself solely by virtue of its own truth, never through coercion. Faith, to be authentic, must be free; an imposed faith is not faith.
For this reason, the Church defends with the same voice the persecuted Christian in Nigeria, the discriminated-against Muslim, the threatened Jew, the massacred Yazidi: because defending religious freedom only for oneʼs own people would deny its very foundation. And it is also a matter of credibility: The Church knows that the strongest witness is that of those who defend the rights of others, not only their own.
A few months ago in Italy, the Pact among Religions was signed. Can it be a first step toward cooperation and dialogue among faiths?
Yes, and it is a significant step precisely because it is not a declaration of intent but a public and structured commitment. On June 25, at the Ara Pacis in Rome, the leaders of religious confessions present in Italy signed the pact “The Italian Way of Interreligious Dialogue,” which was then presented to Italian President Sergio Mattarella: 15 religious confessions, from the Catholic Church to Muslim, Jewish, Orthodox, Protestant, Buddhist, Hindu, and Baháʼí communities, the fruit of three years of joint work.
The document contains nine commitments and nine concrete actions: educating communities in dialogue, working together for the common good, and promoting a culture of peace. It is important for two reasons. The first is because it shows that religions are not the problem but part of the solution and, as Mattarella said, dialogue pursued sincerely produces understanding and cooperation, and gives life to forms of coexistence that are essential for banishing all intolerance.
The second is this: In a world where religion is exploited to fuel conflicts, a pact among different faiths is the most eloquent refutation of that exploitation. Of course, a document is not enough: It will be everyday practice — in cities, in schools, among young people — that will show whether this first step becomes a journey. But the direction is the right one, and beginning in Italy it can become a model elsewhere.
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.
In fight against antisemitism, Israel steps up U.S. Catholic outreach
JERUSALEM — The Coalition of Catholics Against Antisemitism (CCAA), a lay-led U.S. organization established in late 2023 that “affirms the right of the Jewish people to live safely and securely in their ancestral homeland” as well as recognizes that “modern Israel is essential to that security,” has emerged as a leading resource in the Government of Israel’s outreach to American Catholics, who constitute the country’s largest single religious constituency.
Tammy Ben-Haim, head of religious and interfaith affairs at Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told EWTN news that a May meeting in Washington, D.C., with CCAA Director Simone Rizkallah, a first-generation American of Egyptian-Armenian descent, convinced her of the importance of engaging the organization and its supporters.
“I was so impressed by Simone and the vision she had for the organization to combat antisemitism,” including CCAA’s network of key influencers throughout the American Catholic world, Ben-Haim said.
Signatories to the CCAA’s “Statement of Solidarity and Action,” a statement developed in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack against Israel that also affirms the above-referenced right of the Jewish people “should not jeopardize the right of Palestinians to also live in safety and security,” include dozens of the country’s top Catholic thought leaders and personalities.
“When Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) decided to begin engaging Catholics more proactively and wanted to design a trip specifically for Catholic leaders, it made sense that they would reach out to us,” Rizkallah said.
As a result, the MFA organized a government-sponsored weeklong trip for 13 American Catholic influencers (including EWTN News) that addressed firsthand both concerns for the security of Israelis in the country’s Gaza and Lebanon border regions as well as honest discussions with Israeli Arab and Palestinian Catholics about the conditions and challenges they face.
Signaling the importance of the initiative, the government of Israel highlighted the group’s visit on social media, noting that the journey of the American Catholic community leaders was one of “friendship and solidarity” that served to both “deepen their commitment to standing against antisemitism and strengthening the bonds between Christians and Jews.”
Instagram post
During the visit, the group, which included representatives from various U.S. Catholic educational institutions, media, think tanks, and lay apostolates, came face-to-face with the existential threats Israel has faced in recent years. The group visited sites of the Oct. 7, 2023, invasions into Israel by thousands of Hamas militants from Gaza, meeting with survivors of the attacks that killed over 1,000 Israelis.
From a mountaintop overlooking Israel’s border with southern Lebanon and as multiple explosions could be heard in the distance, the group received a sobering briefing on Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operations to neutralize the threat from Hezbollah in the neighboring country.
In addition, the Government of Israel facilitated the group’s direct interaction with various Christians in the disputed lands internationally known as the West Bank (known in Israel by their biblical names of Judea and Samaria) as well as in Haifa, in northern Israel. To varying degrees, these Christians also see themselves as facing existential threats.
The group’s guide in Bethlehem, the Palestinian-controlled West Bank town of Jesus’ birth, lamented that just in recent weeks the town has lost several large, leading Christian families, who have emigrated to Greece.
Bethlehem continues to experience a devastating loss of its Christian population. From once having constituted a robust majority, the percentage of Christians there is now estimated in the single digits, with conditions for those remaining further exacerbated by the dearth of pilgrims and severe limitations, since the atrocities of Oct. 7, on permissions for Palestinians to enter Israel for work.
In Haifa, the group met with Archbishop Youssef Matta of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, Israel’s largest Christian community. Melkite Greek Catholics represent nearly 40% of Israel’s total Christian population of 185,000. Nazareth, Haifa, and Jerusalem, respectively, are the country’s largest Christian population centers.
In a meeting also attended by Ben-Haim and Cesare Marijeh, senior director of the Christian Department of Israel’s Ministry of Interior Affairs, Matta addressed several challenges facing his community, including alleged extortion rackets by Muslim and Jewish organized crime families as well as discrimination in government subsidies for the Church’s schools, of which there are five under his jurisdiction.
At a luncheon with the delegation, Monsignor Simon Khoury, a Melkite Greek Catholic priest who serves a parish in Cana, asserted that the government has deliberately turned a blind eye to the criminal extortion rackets faced by Christians, as he believes such crimes align with the agenda of certain sectors of Israeli society that favor the displacement of the country’s non-Jewish population.
From the beginning to the end of the trip, members of the delegation pressed Israeli authorities to provide necessary assistance to and security for the country’s Christian population, contending that such actions will go a long way toward bolstering goodwill toward Israel among hundreds of millions of Catholics worldwide.
At a meeting of the group with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ director of the Department for Combating Antisemitism, Arezoo Hersel-Rohila, and the Anti-Defamation League’s Israel director, Carole Nuriel, EWTN News asked them to identify and address the principal antisemitic narrative that the country is currently facing at the international level.
Both women agreed in answering that it is equating Israel’s policy in Gaza to that of the Nazis, i.e., the charge that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The officials vigorously contested this widespread allegation, citing that by definition genocide requires intent and that in contravention of such intent, Israel’s military has repeatedly sought to relocate Palestinian civilians within Gaza to get them out of harm’s way as it targets Hamas’ terrorist infrastructure.
Other organizations that also address this question, such as the American Jewish Committee (AJC), assert that the IDF “still endeavors to warn Gazans prior to attacks and has allowed humanitarian aid for civilians to be delivered under arrangements intended to prevent Hamas from diverting aid or controlling its distribution to reinforce its authority.”
Israel’s government also answers the charge by pointing to evidence that Hamas has repeatedly called on Palestinian civilians to ignore Israel’s warnings about impending strikes, in effect using them as human shields. Defenders of Israel’s actions in Gaza, like the AJC, also contend that “international law does not prohibit Israel from undertaking legitimate actions that will likely result in civilian harm unless the expected civilian harm will clearly exceed the anticipated military advantage from the attack.”
As the ADL and much of the Jewish community worldwide see it, the propagation of antisemitic narratives around Israel’s operations in Gaza have particularly proliferated among social media influencers, including some Catholics.
This also explains in part why a wide range of U.S. Catholic influencers who personally stand in support of the CCAA’s statement of solidarity, including participants affiliated with EWTN News, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Institute on Religion and Democracy, the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, the Family Research Council, the GIVEN Institute, Tepeyac Leadership, Benedictine College, and Franciscan University of Steubenville, among others, were invited to engage firsthand with these ongoing issues.
Ben-Haim, who accompanied the delegation on the Stations of the Cross route in Jerusalem’s Old City, told EWTN News that going forward, she would like to see more such visitors, especially “young up-and-coming Catholic leaders and influencers” have similar experiences.
“No amount of explaining or telling our story equals one visit to Israel,” Ben-Haim explained. Noting that terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah are right at the country’s borders, she insisted “all that I believe Israel and Israelis want is for people around the world to understand this; we want to live in a country and in a region that is peaceful and quiet. We cannot afford to have the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre happen again; we cannot allow our borders to be crossed and our children and families to be murdered for being Jews and Israelis.”
Brazil archbishop establishes rules for use of AI in archdiocesan communications
The archbishop of Aracaju in Sergipe state, Brazil, Josafá Menezes da Silva, has established rules for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in archdiocesan communications. The guidelines, addressed to priests, deacons, lay ministers, and the entire people of God of the Archdiocese of Aracaju, are based on documents of the Church’s magisterium regarding human dignity, communications, and the use of technology.
The principal resources used by Menezes are the message for the 60th World Communications Day and the encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, both by Pope Leo XIV, regarding the safeguarding of the human person in the age of artificial intelligence; the document Antiqua et Nova, a joint note from the Holy See’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and Dicastery for Culture and Education, signed by Pope Francis concerning the relationship between artificial intelligence and human intelligence; and a reflection by Father Doriano Vincenzo De Luca, head of the social communications service for the Archdiocese of Naples, Italy.
“The starting point for all the Church’s reflection on artificial intelligence is the unconditional defense of the dignity of the human person,” the archbishop of Aracaju explained. The prelate highlighted that the note Antiqua et Nova “places human dignity at the center of discernment regarding artificial intelligence and reminds us that technology must be guided by the good of the person and of society” and that “human intelligence must guide the use of technology for the sake of the ‘authentic good of the person.’”
Therefore, “in light of the guidelines of the Church’s magisterium and with the aim of guiding discernment regarding the proper use of artificial intelligence tools, ensuring respect for the principle of human dignity by ‘preserving faces and voices,’ and ensuring these tools serve as an aid rather than replacing the responsible work that only a human being can perform, we hereby establish” certain guidelines within the territory of our Archdiocese of Aracaju, the bishop said.
Review and transparency
Menezes mandated that “all art produced with the aid of artificial intelligence” within the archdiocese must “undergo a mandatory human review before publication” and that “any and all content generated or manipulated by artificial intelligence” must also “be labeled and clearly distinguished from content created by humans, especially when the use of AI could affect the perception of the reality being presented.”
Prohibited uses for clergy
Regarding the clergy, Menezes directed that “generative artificial intelligence must not be used to reconstruct or simulate the appearance of a bishop, priest, or deacon when the result replaces their actual photograph or could be interpreted as an authentic representation of their appearance or of a situation they experienced.”
He also established that “generative artificial intelligence must not be used to reconstruct or simulate the voice of a bishop, priest, or deacon in a message or speech not originally delivered by them” and that “one must not attribute to a real person an appearance, speech, action, or situation that does not correspond to reality.”
In addition, the archbishop prohibited the use of artificial intelligence to “reconstruct a real person’s face, replacing their photograph”; to “significantly modify a real person’s features”; to “create an artificial appearance presented as their actual appearance”; to “produce images placing a member of the clergy in situations that did not occur”; to “produce a synthetic representation that could be mistaken for a real photograph”; and to “create audio files attempting to simulate a person’s voice in a message or speech not actually delivered by that person.”
AI as an auxiliary tool
According to the archbishop of Aracaju, “artificial intelligence can be used as an auxiliary tool” in nine situations: creating backgrounds, creating textures, generating abstract elements, creating illustrations, suggesting layouts, working with colors, assisting with composition, assisting with editing, and helping to create visual concepts.
“These guidelines are based particularly on the message from Pope Leo XIV for the 60th World Communications Day, in which the Holy Father warns that the simulation capabilities of artificial intelligence can fabricate ‘parallel realities,’ usurp faces and voices, and make it increasingly difficult to distinguish between reality and fiction,” Menezes explained.
According to the archbishop, “the same document” also “draws attention to the need to protect people’s images, photographs, audio recordings, faces, and voices, preventing harmful uses such as digital fraud, cyberbullying, and deepfakes that can violate privacy and personal intimacy without consent.”
At the end of the decree, Menezes exhorted “all pastoral workers, communicators, and the faithful to act with prudence, always consulting their respective ordinaries and respecting current regulations, so that technology may serve the mission and never distort it.” He further emphasized that “everything the Church communicates must be truthful in content and responsible in its manner of representation.”
The archbishop ended his directive with the prayer “May Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, patroness of our archdiocese, intercede for us and help us preserve, in every communication, the dignity and beauty of human faces and voices called to reflect Christ.”
This story was first published by ACI Digital, the Portuguese-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.