Mercedes-Benz marks long history of making cars for the pope
Mercedes-Benz, the German luxury automaker, celebrated nearly 100 years of producing the popemobile — the pope’s personal vehicle.
To mark the occasion, Pope Leo XIV held a private audience with Mercedes-Benz executives on Wednesday. That same day, the exhibit “A Century of the Popemobile” opened at the Vatican Museums, featuring the first popemobile, gifted to Pope Pius XI in 1930, and the one in which St. John Paul II was shot on May 13, 1981.
Evolving transportation for the successors of Peter
In his address to Mercedes-Benz, the pope praised the company for its enduring partnership with the Vatican and reflected on how papal transportation — from St. Peter to the present — has evolved.
“Over the decades, the Popemobile has evolved from a means of transportation into an instrument of encounter, enabling the pontiff to draw closer to the faithful during pastoral visits and public celebrations,” Leo said.
“In this way, your work has helped facilitate the Church’s mission of reaching out to people and bringing a message of faith, of hope, and of charity to the world.”
The pope also encouraged them to direct their innovations toward a more sustainable world, placing their "technological innovation at the service of human dignity, care for creation, and the common good.”
Carriages, the ‘sedia gestatoria,’ and modern transport
Papal transportation has evolved since the late Roman Empire, when popes were carried on the “sedia gestatoria” — ornate, ceremonial thrones carried by 12 footmen during processions and major liturgical celebrations.
From the late 19th century onward, popes increasingly chose modern forms of transportation, with Blessed Pius IX using the first papal train in 1859. The Nürburg 460 Pullman, made by Mercedes-Benz and given to Pope Pius XI in 1930, was the first official automobile used to transport the pope.
The word “popemobile” was first used to describe a custom-made Lincoln Continental for St. Paul VI’s 1965 visit to the United States. Popes since St. John Paul II have used the popemobile, with Mercedes-Benz adapting future models for security since his 1981 shooting.
A duty to ensure the pope’s safety
Speaking on the sidelines of the launch of the exhibit “A Century of the Popemobile,” the Mercedes-Benz executives spoke with EWTN News, reflecting on the near-century-long partnership with the Vatican.
Marc Langenbrinck, CEO of Mercedes-Benz Italy, described the partnership as a privilege, especially as a Catholic.
“[This day] is just simply the most beautiful day of my career because I am Catholic and I believe, and for me it is something which is a project of a lifetime,” Langenbrinck told EWTN News.
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Marcus Breitschwerdt, executive vice president of Mercedes-Benz, explained the security and accessibility measures implemented in the popemobile.
“Well, first of all, a vehicle has to move safely, comfortably, but also safely in terms of traffic and accident risks,” Breitschwerdt said to EWTN News. “It has to be safely conceived and executed in terms of the current modern risks you face if you are in big crowds.”
“So we have armored versions; we have the secured glass Popemobiles, which are very, very sophisticated,” Breitschwerdt added.
Breitschwerdt, in a speech for the exhibit launch, also said that no Mercedes-Benz employee is ever allowed to sit on the pope’s seat in the Popemobile.
“There is a strict rule that no one — not even the mechanics who maintain the vehicles or our CEO — is allowed to sit in the popeʼs seat,” Breitschwerdt said.
Kansas City priest pleads guilty to $160,000 theft from parish
A priest in the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas has pleaded guilty to a six-figure theft from a local parish, archdiocesan officials said this week.
Father Richard Storey, who was accused in May of stealing $160,000 from Curé of Ars Catholic Church in Leawood near Kansas City, Kansas, pleaded guilty to the theft on Oct. 27.
The Kansas City Archdiocese said in a statement that Storey had already repaid just under $160,000 to the parish as restitution. The priest will be sentenced in January.
The archdiocese said it would initiative a canonical investigation following the guilty plea. In addition to the theft, the diocese said it would investigate an “allegation involving an adult victim.”
The archdiocesan finance council’s audit committee will review the results of the investigation, the statement said, after which the committee would present its own analysis to the archdiocesan promoter of justice, who will suggest potential canonical actions to Archbishop Shawn McKnight.
The archbishop “will share the findings of the investigation with the Curé of Ars Parish and communicate its conclusion to the faithful,” the archdiocese said.
Storey allegedly utilized the stolen funds in part on cruises, including at least one apparent withdrawal from within a casino.
Tens of thousands of dollars, meanwhile, were reportedly spent on international travel. The archdiocesan statement said that Storey’s guilty plea fell under “severity level 7,” or a “non-person, non-drug felony.”
The Kansas City Star reported that the plea agreement recommended the priest receive probation including “substance abuse evaluation.”
Vatican publishes Pope Leo’s Mass schedule from All Souls’ Day to Dec. 20
Pope Leo XIV will celebrate a Mass on Nov. 2 for the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed — also known as All Souls’ Day — at the Monumental Cemetery of Verano, the oldest and largest cemetery in Rome.
According to the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff, which announced the event on Oct. 27, the Eucharistic celebration will begin at 4 p.m. local time in this historic Roman cemetery, which preserves evidence of a necropolis dating back to the first centuries of Christianity and includes the Catacombs of St. Cyriaca.
The celebration will form part of the traditional commemorations the Church dedicates to the faithful departed during the first days of November. At the conclusion of the Mass, the Holy Father will offer prayers for the deceased and impart the apostolic blessing over the graves.
It will not be the first time a pope has presided over this celebration at Verano Cemetery. Pope Francis celebrated All Souls’ Day Mass there in 2013, 2014, and 2015. In subsequent years, he chose other significant locations, including the Pontifical Teutonic College of Santa Maria in Campo Santo within the Vatican in 2022 and Rome’s Laurentino Cemetery in 2025.
The commemoration at Verano Cemetery will open the pope’s public liturgical schedule for the months of November and December. Among the events already announced are a Mass for the repose of the souls of the cardinals and bishops who have died during the past year, scheduled for Nov. 5 at 9 a.m. in St. Peter’s Basilica.
He will also celebrate nine Masses and preside over a number of prayer services during the apostolic journey he will make to Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru from Nov. 6–17.
Back in Rome, on Nov. 18, Leo XIV will celebrate a 5 p.m. Mass marking the 400th anniversary of the dedication of St. Peter’s Basilica. On Dec. 8, at approximately 4 p.m., he will lead the traditional act of veneration of the Immaculate Conception in Rome’s Piazza di Spagna.
Pastoral visits to Rome parishes
In November and December, Pope Leo will also visit five parishes in the Diocese of Rome, something he also did earlier this year during the season of Lent.
As bishop of Rome, during each of the afternoon visits, the pontiff will meet with parishioners, learn about the ministries in the parish, and celebrate Mass. Each church is from one of the five geographic divisions of the diocese.
On Friday, Nov. 27, he will visit Sant’Andrea delle Fratte in the city’s historic center. On Nov. 29, the first Sunday of Advent, the pope will travel to San Carlo da Sezze, which is west of Rome, in the direction of the coast.
On Sunday, Dec. 6, he will go to Sant’Eligio, in the east part of Rome; on Sunday, Dec. 13, the feast of St. Lucy, he will visit a parish named for the Italian saint in the western part of Rome; and on the Sunday before Christmas, Dec. 20, he will go to San Roberto Bellarmino in the north.
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.
Nordic bishops: Countries must carefully integrate migrants
The Catholic bishops of the Nordic countries have called for the careful integration of migrants, saying each country must assess how many newcomers it can receive and that migrants are obliged to obey the laws of their new homelands.
In a joint pastoral letter on migration, published Oct. 24, the bishops also warned that restrictive policies are making it nearly impossible for refugees to enter their countries and defended well-integrated migrants against expulsion.
“Migrants must be carefully integrated into their new countries; otherwise, serious problems arise,” the bishops wrote.
The letter, titled “The Earth Is Our Common Home,” is signed by the six members of the Nordic Bishops' Conference, which covers Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Iceland. They are its president, Bishop Erik Varden of Trondheim, Norway; its vice president, Bishop Raimo Goyarrola of Helsinki; Cardinal Anders Arborelius of Stockholm; Bishop Czeslaw Kozon of Copenhagen; Bishop David Tencer of Reykjavik, Iceland; and Bishop Fredrik Hansen of Oslo, Norway. The conference prepared it for Oct. 25, the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
At least 4.6 million people living in the five countries, about 1 in 6 residents, were born abroad, according to national statistics offices. In Sweden, 20.8% of residents were born abroad and in Finland 10.9%. Immigrants make up 19.6% of Icelandʼs population, 17.5% of Norwayʼs, and 13% of Denmarkʼs.
Duties and limits
“Each country naturally needs to assess how many migrants it is able to receive,” the bishops wrote. “When this does not happen, and when more people are received than can be integrated well, social problems result.”
Quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church, they said migrants are “obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.” This “must not be seen to exclude their legitimate right to preserve their own heritage,” they added.
“There is a risk that migrants isolate themselves and fail even to attempt to adapt to their new circumstances,” the letter says. “Over time, this tendency generates unease and conflict.” Migrants “are to be encouraged to integrate but not subjected to forced assimilation.”
Refugees and the well integrated
The bishops said social problems arising from poor integration lead to “new strictures in policy, so that it becomes near impossible to enter within our borders even for refugees and asylum seekers, who stand under the protection of international norms to which our countries are obliged.”
“In some cases, this development has reached the point where it is considered good to send away as many people as possible, including those who are well integrated and who make significant contributions to our societies,” they wrote. “The Church must raise her voice in defense of those who are in danger of being subjected to unjust treatment without due cause.”
The bishops recalled that “the Catholic Church was rebuilt, after the centuries of persecution, in our Nordic countries by migrants who brought their Catholic faith to us.” Parishes, they wrote, “often function as integration workshop.”
“To foster love of oneʼs nation, to value its traditions and heritage, is a good thing,” the letter says. “Narrow-minded nationalism, however, must be abhorrent to Catholics and to all people of good will.”
Citing Pope Leo XIVʼs visits to the Canary Islands and Lampedusa and his call to “disarm our language,” the bishops said public coverage of and discourse about immigration “tend to become harsher, less nuanced, and more aggressive.”
“Europe is searching for a new balance in this area,” they wrote. “We must be realistic about our limitations, human and material. Still, we must be ready never to reject a suffering brother or sister who calls on us for help.”
This story was first published by CNA Deutsch, the German-language sister service of EWTN News, and has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.
A century after Pius XI ordained 6 Chinese bishops, who chooses China's bishops?
When Pope Pius XI ordained six Chinese priests as bishops in St. Peterʼs Basilica on Oct. 28, 1926, he had picked each of them himself from lists sent from China.
A century later, bishops in mainland China are appointed under a controversial agreement the Holy See made with Beijing in 2018. Its text has never been published.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vaticanʼs secretary of state, defended the deal in a 2022 interview. New bishops, he said, were being ordained under a procedure “that leaves the pope the final and decisive say.” He called the results “small achievements” but “important steps toward the progressive healing of the wounds inflicted on ecclesial communion by the events of the past.”
Human Rights Watch said in 2025 the Vatican had never exercised its veto. Critics who spoke to EWTN News say the Chinese Communist Party now has a role in choosing bishops.
‘Spiritual colonies’
On the seventh anniversary of his own episcopal ordination in 1919, Pope Pius XI spoke of his joy at seeing the first “bishops of the native Chinese clergy” consecrated in Rome.
“Unlike the situation in China today, the 1926 consecrations of Chinese bishops were intended to give China native bishops, not to separate those bishops from the Holy See,” Anthony E. Clark, a professor of Chinese history at Whitworth University and a lay Dominican, told EWTN News.
Missions in China operated under a French protectorate at that time. Father Frédéric-Vincent Lebbe, a Vincentian who arrived in China after the Boxer Rebellion, said the missions had created “spiritual colonies” instead of living Churches. He was an early advocate for indigenizing the Chinese Church.
The concern was shared in Rome: Benedict XV, who issued the 1919 apostolic letter Maximum Illud, “wanted to remove European nationalism from the Chinese Church and empower Chinaʼs Catholics to cooperate with the pope in governing their own local community,” Clark told EWTN News.
Seven years later, Pope Pius XI put building up a native clergy “before everything else” in Rerum Ecclesiae.
Fenggang Yang, a Purdue University sociologist who directs its Center on Religion and the Global East, said the 1926 consecrations came “in a time of rising Chinese nationalism that targeted Christianity as a foreign religion under the protection of imperialist European countries.”
“Chinese leadership strengthened the Church’s claim to belong within Chinese society. However, the Catholic Church made the adjustment too little and too slow,” Yang told EWTN News.
By 1948, Fides figures show, only 14 of Chinaʼs 139 bishops were Chinese, but 2,690 of its 5,780 priests were.
From 1949 to 2018
After the communist victory of 1949, Pius XII rejected a “national” Church in Ad Sinarum Gentem and in 1958 condemned the first ordinations of bishops without a papal mandate in Ad Apostolorum Principis. Catholics were divided into registered and unregistered, or “underground,” communities, which Benedict XVI famously called to reconciliation in his 2007 letter.
Under Benedictʼs successor, Pope Francis, the Holy See and Beijing signed a “provisional agreement” on appointing bishops on Sept. 22, 2018. The deal was renewed three times, in 2020, 2022, and, for four years to October 2028, in 2024.
The Holy Seeʼs case
The deal sought “only to attain the Churchʼs specific spiritual and pastoral aims,” including “to reestablish and preserve the full and visible unity of the Catholic community in China,” Pope Francis wrote in 2018.
In a Fides essay, Father Paul Han, a mainland Chinese priest, wrote that the agreement “established a workable framework” and “avoided the long-standing divisions” between “public” and “underground” communities.
The process has not always run smoothly. In April 2023, Chinese authorities transferred Bishop Joseph Shen Bin from Haimen to Shanghai, informing the Holy See but without involving it in the decision as the agreement provides, Vatican News reported.
Pope Francis appointed Shen three months later, having “decided nevertheless to rectify the canonical irregularity” for the “greater good of the diocese,” Parolin said. Such a way of proceeding, the cardinal added, “seems to disregard the spirit of dialogue and collaboration” between the two sides.
During the 2025 sede vacante, official assemblies “elected” two candidates; the successor to Pope Francis, Leo XIV, approved both that August.
More recently, on Oct. 15, Father Ignatius Ding Zuyao was consecrated bishop of Haimen, the see Bishop Simon Zhu Kaimin led from 1926, after Leo approved his candidacy under the agreement. He is the 19th bishop selected under the deal.
‘Nominate’ and ‘choose’
Father Gianni Criveller, a PIME missionary and editorial director of AsiaNews who opened a centenary conference in Taipei this month, said “the situation of 1926 and today are quite different.”
In 1926, he said, the issue was “to overcome the resistance by many quarters, including foreign missionaries in China, to allow local clergy to govern their churches.” Archbishop Celso Costantini, the Holy Seeʼs first apostolic delegate to China, and Pius XI also “were able to overcome the French interference.”
“I am afraid now the interference comes from China authorities: In spite of the agreement in 2018 between the Vatican and China, the freedom for the Catholic Church is quite limited in China,” Criveller said. “The pope can nominate the bishops, but he can hardly choose them. And the nomination by the pope is not acknowledged during the ceremony of consecration of the bishops.”
“I am not in position to offer advice to the pope,” the missionary added. “I respect any popeʼs decision, and I understand that the Holy See seek dialogue and agreements. My point is that the agreement does not bring the benefits that we all hoped for. The freedom for Catholics in China is less than before.”
The critics' case
Nina Shea of the Hudson Institute said Beijingʼs “Sinicization” policy means “Catholic teaching and evangelization must conform to Chinese Communist Party doctrine.”
“Pope Leo should support the Catholic underground in China, as the Church has done in other regions,” Shea said.
She warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping “seeks control over all civil society, including the Catholic Church.”
“Things have changed in China under communist rule,” Yang said. “The secret agreement since 2018 has pressed underground Catholics to go above ground, so that no new underground bishops have been consecrated.”
Some underground bishops who came above ground were then stripped of their episcopal functions, and some died without replacement, he said. “Therefore, the underground Catholic communities are in disarray.”
Meanwhile, Yang said, the China Catholic Patriotic Association “has strengthened its power over all Catholics in China” while implementing the partyʼs Sinicization policy.
People ask how Chinese the countryʼs Catholics are, he noted. “Another question people also ask is: How Chinese is the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]? Is the CCP primarily Chinese or primarily communist?”
“Over the next two years, Pope Leo XIV should set out the criteria and conditions for the renewal of the Sino-Vatican Agreement,” said Benedict Rogers, senior director at Fortify Rights.
“These criteria should include the release of all imprisoned or detained Catholic bishops, priests, and laity, including the release of Hong Kongʼs pro-democracy activist, 78-year-old Catholic and British citizen Jimmy Lai, currently serving a 20-year sentence,” Rogers told EWTN News on Oct. 27.
“The agreement should not be renewed if these criteria are not met.”
Toward 2028
Replying on behalf of Cardinal Stephen Chow of Hong Kong, the dioceseʼs communications office told EWTN News on Oct. 28 that he “is happy to see it moving forward,” citing this yearʼs “steadily increasing number” of episcopal ordinations, “all approved by the Holy Father.”
“In the short term, I will continue the policy that the Holy See has followed for some years now,” Leo XIV said in a 2025 interview.
“In the long term, I donʼt pretend to say this is what I will and will not do,” he added.
Pius XI told the six new bishops: “Please come to Rome more often, as traveling is getting easier,” Criveller recalled. “The pope said that in 1926! After 100 years, Chinese bishops cannot freely travel to Rome.”
Clark agreed. “Chinaʼs faithful wish they could return to 1926, when Chinese bishops were free to travel to Rome, meet the Holy Father, and be more integrated in the universal Church that they espouse,” he told EWTN News.
This month, two mainland bishops attended a Vatican meeting convened by Leo XIV.
Pope Leo XIV: Live the faith without ‘hostility towards the world’
VATICAN CITY — Continuing his catechetical series on the pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes on Wednesday, Pope Leo XIV called on the faithful not to live their faith with a spirit of “opposition” or “hostility towards the world,” while underscoring that a mature and responsible synthesis between faith and culture constitutes “a necessary condition for persevering in the Christian vocation.”
“The constitution Gaudium et Spes reminds us not to live the faith in a spirit of opposition or hostility towards the world, culture, and its human expressions,” the pontiff said during the general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on Oct. 28.
He then cited a passage from the document that exhorts believers to “live in very close union with the other men of their time and [to] strive to understand perfectly their way of thinking and judging, as expressed in their culture.”
Before arriving at the platform set up in St. Peter’s Square, the pope spent about 15 minutes riding through the area in the popemobile. During the ride, he blessed around a dozen children who were brought to him from among the crowd.
A more credible witness
Leo XIV also stressed in his catechesis that a mature synthesis between faith and culture is “an essential requirement for bearing witness to the faith before the world and communicating it to others in a credible manner.”
The second chapter of the second part of Gaudium et Spes is devoted precisely to culture and its relationship with the Christian faith. In this context, the pope recalled that the Catholic Church “has always been concerned with accompanying the preaching of the Gospel with the establishment of schools of every kind, aimed at advancing the human, cultural, and spiritual formation of men and women across the five continents.”
The conciliar text, the pontiff noted, upholds the need “to direct teaching towards a certain unity of knowledge,” while recognizing that changing living conditions may make this more difficult.
According to Leo XIV, Christians are the first who “must strive to bring about this unity of wisdom, first and foremost within themselves.”
“Although they have received from revelation the answers to the great questions of existence, they are not thereby exempt from patient intellectual and cultural formation,” he warned.
On the contrary, he added, human and scientific knowledge must “go hand in hand with the substance of their faith, which must be continually deepened with age and in accordance with their level of study.”
The pope emphasized that the various manifestations of culture contribute to opening minds to the perennial questions on the meaning of the world and of human existence, “thus preparing people to receive the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
He also explained that “the relationship between faith and culture finds its primary foundation in the Incarnation.” For this reason, he said, faith is “an incarnate reality, interwoven with the culture in which it is immersed.”
In this sense, he noted that faith is also required “to become culture,” that is, “to reach the person in their living environment, made up of human words, traditions, religious meaning, art and poetry, thought and science.”
To illustrate this idea, the Holy Father quoted St. John Paul II: “A faith that does not become culture is a faith not fully accepted, not entirely thought out, not faithfully lived.”
The Christian faith and a particular culture
Leo XIV also insisted that faith can be embodied in any culture because “it does not identify itself with any of them in a specific way.” In this way, he explained, the Church draws from the various cultures “all that is good, beautiful, and true” in order to embody and transmit the message of the Gospel.
Finally, he recalled that Gaudium et Spes urges the international community to ensure that everyone has access to fundamental cultural goods “by overcoming illiteracy and the lack of education.”
He also stressed that “it will belong to all to acknowledge and favor the proper and necessary participation of women in the cultural life.”
In his greetings to Italian-speaking pilgrims, the pope noted that only a few days remain before the solemnity of All Saints, which the Catholic Church celebrates on Nov. 1. He invited the faithful to contemplate “this immense multitude of men and women” who have attained holiness and who stand before the Church as a “prophetic sign of the life to come.”
The Holy Father emphasized that eternal life “already begins in the commitment and Christian witness of earthly life,” encouraging believers to live the Gospel faithfully in their daily lives and to allow themselves to be inspired by the example of the saints.
On Nov. 2, the pontiff is scheduled to celebrate a Mass for the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed at the Monumental Cemetery of Verano, the oldest and largest cemetery in Rome. The Eucharistic celebration will begin at 4 p.m. local time in this historic Roman cemetery, which preserves evidence of a necropolis dating back to the first centuries of Christianity and includes the Catacombs of St. Cyriaca.
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.
Pro-life professor in Australia takes Adelaide University to federal court
Prominent Australian pro-life activist Joanna Howe announced she has launched legal action against her employer, Adelaide University, in the Federal Court of Australia.
In an email to supporters on Oct. 23 she said she had been inundated by an avalanche of investigations and complaints about her views on issues including abortion and gender ideology.
“There are now more than 200 allegations and sub-allegations against me,” Howe stated on her website.
“Every single one relates to something I’ve said on a controversial topic. Not one relates to anything I’ve said or done in the classroom. My crime? Disagreeing with the leftwing orthodoxy of the academy.”
None of the complaints, she said, relates to her academic work. She is a Rhodes Scholar who is an expert on the legal regulation of temporary labor migration, labor law, and migration policy. She is the author of three books. She has a doctorate from the University of Oxford and was appointed a full professor in 2023.
Her fierce advocacy for unborn children has made her a national figure in the media. But this should not make her persona non grata in the university, she said.
“Universities should not be a monoculture. Academic freedom means nothing if it doesn’t protect views the activists don’t like,” she wrote.
“This isn’t just about me. It’s about every conservative student, every Christian, and every junior academic who has learned to keep their head down. And it’s about every Australian who has been told to keep quiet at work or face the consequences.”
Howe told the Adelaide Advertiser that other academics were cold-shouldering her over her views. “One colleague came out of the bathroom and, bizarrely, literally screamed in my face,” she said.
She said she wants Universities Australia to decree that “complaints that are made vexatiously or in bad faith” should be dismissed.
She also wants universities to investigate complaints about academics’ research only “if they are made by a person who is a member of the academic staff of the university, a person of good standing in Australia’s academic research community, or a person directly affected by the alleged misconduct.”
This will not be the first time Howe and her employer have clashed.
In 2024 she took Adelaide University to the Fair Work Commission because the university had demanded that she comply with “corrective actions” even though she had been cleared in six investigations.
It wanted her to complete an anti-bias course and to have a formal discussion with her manager about her research. She won that battle: the university withdrew its “corrective actions.” But the complaints have continued.
“Enough is enough,” Howe said. She said she is prepared to fight her case all the way to the High Court.
This story was first published in the Catholic Weekly. It has been adapted by EWTN News and reprinted here with permission.
Under the eyes of social media, Swiss Guards learn to handle threats with discretion
The pope’s personal security, the Pontifical Swiss Guard, has lengthened its training for new recruits amid increased concerns over optics in an age when everything can be filmed by anyone with a cellphone.
“For us it is very important to realize that the world is watching us,” Sergeant Major Marco Radovinovic, a guard for 12 years, told EWTN News.
He said training for guards of the world’s smallest and oldest active military force focuses on quickly stopping potentially dangerous people without “being brutal or over the top.”
The Swiss Guard “are the first line of defense of the Vatican State,” Radovinovic recalled, noting that even a seemingly normal interaction with someone can suddenly become “physical without any warning.”
He emphasized the importance of good training on how to handle a wide array of situations in an appropriate manner.
“Being discreet is also a means to protect the guard himself, not only [in] … the physical fight, but also for the people around us that take photos and so on,” he said.
Viral videos and increased security concerns
The sergeant major noted that following the COVID-19 pandemic, which also coincided with a steep uptick in tourists to Rome, they have noticed “more and more weird behaviors in people.”
He said there has also been an increase in situations requiring them to put their training to practice at the various entrances to the Vatican City State.
Some of these security issues have been caught on video. In June, two PETA activists tried to hop a fence during Pope Leo XIV’s Wednesday general audience. The swift action of guards in response was caught on video.
In May 2023, a man in his 40s — described as being in psychological distress — attempted to storm a gate of the Vatican with his car before being stopped by Swiss Guards.
Multiple security incidents in St. Peter’s Basilica have also been caught on camera, some even going viral. The basilica has separate security personnel, including the gendarmes. While Swiss Guards were not present during the episodes in 2025 — they assist with basilica security during liturgies with the pope — it demonstrates the ability of these moments to go viral on social media.
520 years of papal protection
The Pontifical Swiss Guard was established by Pope Julius II in 1506. It is responsible for Vatican security together with the Vatican gendarmes, which were formed in 1816.
Each of the 135 members of the Vatican military takes an oath at the beginning of his service “to faithfully, loyally, and honorably serve the reigning pontiff and his legitimate successors, to devote myself to them with all my strength, sacrificing, if necessary, even my life in their defense.”
The swearing-in ceremony usually takes place on or around the May 6 anniversary of the 1527 battle known as the Sack of Rome, when 147 guards lost their lives defending Pope Clement VII from the mutinous army of the Holy Roman Empire. In 2027, the Swiss Guard will mark the 500th anniversary of that battle, the deadliest event in its history.
Training to serve the pope
But before promising to serve and protect the pope, each new recruit goes through a rigorous training. In 2026, this training was expanded from two to three months.
“We noticed that there were a lot of things that we had to do with recruits, and two months wouldnʼt suffice,” explained Radovinovic, who has been responsible for the formation of new guards since February.
Young men who join the Swiss Guard — unmarried Swiss males between the ages of 19 and 30, at least 5 feet and 8 inches tall, and in good standing with the Catholic Church — start their training in Rome.
Now, instead of one month in Rome and a second month of physical training with police in Switzerland, recruits will have two months of formation at the Vatican.
“The first step is to come here” to the Vatican “to receive the equipment, the material, the introduction to life in the Vatican State,” the sergeant major said.
He pointed out that new guards are coming to live in a new country with a new language and a different way of doing things. They study Italian and learn how the Vatican works.
Then they spend a month doing martial training with the police in Switzerland, including self-defense, psychological training — like de-escalation tactics — and gun training as well as safe firearm handling.
Guards are trained in the Monadnock Defensive Tactical System, which is rooted mostly in Japanese and Okinawa martial arts, including jujitsu, judo, and karate.
Radovinovic explained that this security defensive tactic is “not as stylistic or … theatrical as judo. It’s more discreet, much more quick and efficient to block someone, to stop someone in a nonlethal way.”
Swiss Guards don’t carry guns and in general try to avoid the use of weapons.
“We are not trained for gunfights,” the sergeant major said. “Thatʼs why the emphasis of our training is especially physical contact.”
“It’s so important for us to have a good training, and especially also mental training, to know what to do in what situations,” he underlined.
Radovinovic noted that with their training they hope to avoid the situations that one sometimes sees in international media, where during stops or arrests, six or seven law enforcement officers may block a single person.
“That can have a negative impact“ on the professional reputation of the Swiss Guard, he said.
“For us, certain techniques like wrist handling or arm handling, [are] very important. Once you do that and you immobilize someone, it can be very clean. It can be very fast. … The other person doesn’t suffer too much,” he said.
“Unfortunately, a little bit of suffering is needed, because it’s a physical contact. But in that way, we know that the guard can handle situations very quickly and very discreet and very efficiently.”
Christian persecution worsened in 55% of countries assessed, report finds
LONDON — Oppression of Christians has worsened in 55% of countries assessed according to the latest report from Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) UK, without any country showing an improvement.
“Persecuted and Forgotten?” outlines how Christians are being forced from their homes through conflict, extremism, and religiously motivated violence in 18 countries across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America between August 2024 and June 2026.
According to research by ACN, 220 million Christians are directly exposed to persecution worldwide. The latest data from Pew Research Center indicates that anti-Christian harassment, ranging from verbal abuse to killings, occurred in 165 countries in 2023, up from 160 in 2021.
At the launch of the report in Portcullis House, London, John Pontifex, head of press for ACN UK, told EWTN News: “By virtue of our shared faith, we identify, inevitably, particularly strongly, with those of our brothers and sisters who suffer for their faith, and we recognize that itʼs an accident of birth that sees them in that situation of persecution and us in a situation of much greater liberty.”
He added: “There are Christians that suffer persecution in more countries than is the case with any other faith group. Up to 165 countries are those where Christians suffer from discrimination, oppression, or persecution. Thatʼs far more than any other religious group, so we need to share their story, and to tell people, our friends, our family, our parish, our [politicians].”
The report outlines how the persecution of Christians by authoritarian regimes has grown to unprecedented levels in countries where there is an anti-West sentiment.
Chinese authorities have intensified their oppression of Christians, as they aim to align religious doctrine more closely with communist principles. This has led to mass detentions, clergy being jailed on legal technicalities, churches closing, and online religious content being controlled.
The report tells of the persecution in Nicaragua, where the regime increased its crackdown on Christians, arresting and exiling clergy, preventing ordinations, seizing Church institutions, and preventing people entering the country with Bibles.
The report also outlines how the arrests of Christians doubled within 12 months in Iran, as crackdowns have intensified.
“Weʼre calling on all countries around the world and the U.N. to fully implement Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which enshrines religious freedom,” Pontifex said.
“Weʼre not calling for special treatment but simply calling for people to band together, to stop acts of oppression — be it people being kidnapped for their faith, be it people being forced from their jobs for reasons to do with their faith … And indeed, for those who are unfairly tried and sentenced to life imprisonment, for crimes theyʼve not committed,” he said. “Like blasphemy laws, which are arbitrarily enforced. And then recognizing there are people who are often asked to pay the ultimate price. This should stop.”
Sub-Saharan Africa was one particular area of focus, listing Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger as territories with the worst extremist attacks since the height of the Daesh (ISIS) violence in the Middle East.
The report outlines how jihadist violence in the Sahel region has led to militant groups now controlling 40% of the country.
“They often coerce villagers to follow Islamic customs, making women veil their faces in public and men grow beards. Those who refuse are expelled or even publicly executed. Where insurgents allow Christians to practice their faith, this is restricted to inside churches, and it cannot be taught to children,” Pontifex explained.
Speaking to the conference about the Christians suffering from this oppression, Caroline Hull, national director of ACN UK, said: “These are people just like you and me. If someone said, ‘Will you give up your faith or I will take your children?’ what would you do? If someone said, ‘Iʼll let you get out of prison if you turn your back on Jesus Christ’? These are fair questions to ask ourselves, and we need to remember that these are people just like us.”
In October 2025, receiving an ACN delegation, Pope Leo XIV declared that religious freedom is “a cornerstone of any just society for it safeguards the moral space in which conscience may be informed and exercised… Religious freedom, therefore, is not merely a legal right or a privilege to us granted by governments; it is a foundational condition that makes reconciliation possible.”
ACN is a Catholic charity founded to help Christians in need where they are persecuted, oppressed, or in pastoral need through support, charitable work, and generating awareness.
On Nov. 18, ACN will celebrate the 10th anniversary of its #RedWednesday campaign, which raises awareness about the persecution of Christians worldwide.
Survey: 39% of Catholics have faced racial discrimination, 10% within parish community
A survey of 2,401 Catholic adults found that 39% said they have faced racial discrimination at some point in their lives, and 10% said they have faced racial discrimination within their parish community.
The survey was published on Oct. 26 by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), which is a research center at Georgetown University that produces social scientific studies about the Catholic Church.
It found significant differences among racial and ethnic categories, with Indigenous and Black Catholics reporting the highest levels of racial discrimination. Non-Hispanic white Catholics reported the lowest levels of racial discrimination.
The survey found that 75% of Indigenous Catholics reported experiences of racial discrimination in their lives. About 15% said they have experienced it in their parishes and 23% have experienced it in Catholic education.
It found that 66% of Black Catholics said they have experienced racial discrimination at some point in their lives, with 26% experiencing it in their parish communities and 26% experiencing it in Catholic education.
About 54% of Hispanic Catholics reported experiencing racial discrimination in their lives, with 15% saying they have experienced it in their parishes and 16% saying they have experienced it in Catholic education.
Among Asian, Pacific Islander, and Native Hawaiian Catholics, 54% said they have experienced racial discrimination in their lives, with 11% saying they experienced it in their parishes and 14% saying they have experienced it in Catholic education.
For white non-Hispanic Catholics, 29% reported they have experienced racial discrimination in their lives, with 6% saying they experienced it in their parishes and 7% saying they experienced it in Catholic education.
The largest category of respondents was white non-Hispanic Catholics, who made up 49% of those surveyed. About 24% of respondents were Hispanic; 16% were Black; 6% were Asian, Pacific Islander, or Native Hawaiian; 2% were Indigenous; 1% were another race; and 1% were mixed.
Ali Mumbach, research assistant for CARA, told EWTN News: “The findings from this report are very revealing about racism in the U.S. Catholic Church.”
“There is one group that experiences racial discrimination within the walls of the Catholic Church in the U.S. more than any other,” Mumbach said. “Black Catholics are the most likely to attend a parish that has merged (26%), have experienced racial discrimination in their parish (26%) as well as in Catholic education (26%). Twenty-six percent is 1 in 4 Black Catholics, compared to 1 in 10 adult Catholics in their parish or in Catholic education.”
“Based on the findings in this study, adult Catholics are generally in agreement with Church teachings that racism is a sin,” she said. “However, the reality of living out anti-racism within the Church seems to be a different story.”
A large majority of each racial and ethnic group said they believe implicit and explicit racism exist in their local communities to some degree. Implicit racism refers to forms of discrimination, such as unfair housing, access to education, and job opportunities. Explicit racism refers to forms of discrimination, such as verbal name calling, being denied services, and racial profiling.
The survey found that 17% of Catholics believe implicit racism exists “very much” in their local communities. It found that 33% believe it exists “somewhat,” 28% believe it exists “a little,” and 22% said it does not exist at all in their communities.
It found that 19% of Catholics said they believe explicit racism exists “very much” in their local communities, 32% said it exists “somewhat,” 27% said it exists “a little” and 22% said it does not exist at all.
White Catholics were the least likely to say explicit and implicit racism exists “very much” in their local communities. Black Catholics were the most likely to say those forms of racism exist “very much” in their communities.
Views about racism
The survey also asked respondents about their views on racism, which CARA said is derived from Church documents that condemn and define racism. A majority of each racial and ethnic group strongly or somewhat agreed with each statement.
It found 75% of Catholics strongly or somewhat agree it is sinful to “exclude, ridicule, mistreat, or unjustly discriminate against persons on the basis of their race or ethnicity.” It found that 19% neither agree nor disagree and 7% either strongly or somewhat disagree.
The survey found that 73% of Catholics strongly or somewhat agree racism can also come in the form of a sin of omission “when individuals, communities, and even churches remain silent and fail to act against racial injustice when it is encountered.” Another 20% neither agree nor disagree and 7% either strongly or somewhat disagree.
It found 67% of Catholics strongly or somewhat agree “racism can only end if we contend with the policies and institutional barriers that perpetuate and preserve the inequality — economic and social — that we still see all around us.” Another 24% neither agreed nor disagreed, and 9% either strongly or somewhat disagreed.