U.S. bishops offer pre-midterms guidance on faithful citizenship
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) published a guide for dioceses that outlines how they can train priests to better assist members of their congregation to be “faithful citizens.”
It comes about two months before the midterm elections, which will decide control of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. It does not instruct people how to vote, but does note principles of Catholic teaching that should be considered when making that decision.
Faithful citizenship, the guide explains, embraces “the fullness of the Church’s teachings and is a way of living the Gospel in attending to specific duties in the public square, which sit alongside a wide array of other duties.” It emphasizes that faith must come before politics.
The guide, titled “Outlines for Clergy Formation on Faithful Citizenship,” offers sample outlines for clergy formation sessions, which includes the options of a a 3-5 hour session and a concise 1-hour session.
It was developed following internal dialogue among bishops after some had requested a guide on the subject. It focuses on Catholic Social Teaching, how it applies to modern politics in the U.S. and how to help priests communicate those teachings to their congregations.
“We are supposed to be agents of transformation of society according to the principles of the Gospel and the profound dignity and the life of every human person,” Archbishop Alexander Sample of the Archdiocese of Portland said in a video message that the USCCB provided to dioceses to accompany the guide.
“The church and the laity,” he said, “we need to have a seat at the table to help form a society where every individualʼs dignity is recognized and everybodyʼs right to life is recognized.”
The document includes five guiding principles of Catholic Social Teaching, which derive from Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas.
First, it points to the common good, noting the obligation for every person “to act in a manner that serves the whole of society” and be “a neighbor to all.” It cites the Second Vatican Council’s definition of the term: “the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social groups and their individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfillment.”
Second, it points to the Universal Destination of Goods. It notes that God “created the world and entrusted it to the care of humanity.” It pointed to Pope Leo XIII’s teachings in Rerum Novarum, which defends the right to private property, but not one that is absolute. The right is “subordinate to the duty to ensure that all can live in dignity,” it explains.
It points to subsidiarity, which is the principle that “issues should be addressed at as local a level as possible.” It notes “natural justice forbids a government from intruding on the dignity of the family.”
The fourth principle is solidarity, which it explains “puts into practice our Lord’s vast definition of neighbor given in the Parable of the Good Samaritan.”
Fifth, the guide states, is social justice. It states the term is often “incorrectly perceived as ‘woke,’” but stems from the cardinal virtues. It cites Pope Leo XIV, who explained it as “looking beyond one-on-one relationships … to the structural elements that lead to injustice in society.”
Bishop Daniel Flores of the Diocese of Brownsville, Texas, said in the video message that Catholics are “called to be faithful, faithful citizens, faithful people in the building up of a society and a community that is somehow reflective of the very things that God Himself has shown us in Christ.”
“And the rest is in Godʼs hands,” he said. “I think as Catholics, our first role in political life and in social life is to give an authentic witness that we that we carry within ourselves, the person of Christ and all that that implies.”
The guide refers to faithful citizenship as “a way of life, not merely something exercised when marking a ballot.”
“Although it addresses specific moral issues — abortion, racial equality, economic inequities, criminal justice, euthanasia, family life, immigration, participation in the political process, war and peace, and many more — faithful citizenship fundamentally is a way of seeing the world in the light of the Gospel and allowing Gospel truth to point the way to prudential judgements and concrete decisions,” it explains.
Cana launches wedding registry storefront, partnering with Catholic businesses
Cana has launched its own registry storefront, partnering with brands for traditional wedding gifts and also working with Catholic businesses to offer couples everything from Catholic jewelry to sacred home decor.
The storefront launched on Sept. 4, putting “Catholic vendors front and center,” Cana founders told EWTN News.
Cana is a faith-focused wedding-planning platform designed for Catholic and Christian couples to build their websites. The Cana site helps engaged couples manage registries, guest lists, RSVPs, and it connects users with a diverse range of vendors.
It is intended to help couples plan a beautiful, reverent, and personalized wedding, the founders said. It is free of charge to the thousands of couples who use it.
Bringing Christ and ‘intentionality’ to wedding registries
“Up until this point, Cana essentially was just an affiliate partner for pretty much any online retailer. The most popular provider was Amazon, but also Target, Crate & Barrel, and Williams-Sonoma,” James Reichert, co-founder of Cana, told EWTN News.
“Then couples could take an individual link from a Catholic retailer and add that item to their registry. But we were essentially an affiliate partner for the big retailers,” he said.
Cana didnʼt want to be “a Catholic version” of the secular wedding websites, but rather “we wanted to be something truly, radically different,” Reichert said. “So we built our own registry storefront.”
The storefront puts “our Catholic vendors front and center,” Gabe Gessler, co-founder of Cana, added.
“We’ve partnered with big brands. Couples can add ultra high quality kitchenware and bedding items and they can create a full scale wedding registry through the service,” Reichert said.
Reichert said they also partnered with “incredible Catholic retailers: West Coast Catholic, The Little Catholic, The Catholic Company…,House of Joppa, and Darling & Divine.”
“For the first time, Catholic and Christian couples donʼt just have to register for their home goods, all the cookware, dinnerware, bedding things, that they would typically do on a regular wedding registry,” he said.
Now, “they can also register for sacred arts, sacred jewelry, beautiful wall mounts, and icons from all of these incredible brands that have been trusted for decades,” Reichert said.
Cana is hoping to be a “central point for all those different brands on one beautiful wedding registry experience,” he said.
“So many of our brides, they desire intentionality,” Gessler said. “They desire an intentional experience that points them towards the person that matters the most, which is Jesus Christ.”
To give couples a better experience, Cana is “placing forward, front and center, really high quality, what we truly believe are world-class companies, that are able to meet this intersection of commerce and the faith all in one,” Gessler said.
“We believe itʼs going to bless our partners more,” he said.
“Really what we want to do is help create this ecosystem where a Catholic bride doesnʼt need to go scour the internet for all these different partners, or these different registries. But actually she can just have it all in one place,” Gessler said.
“Then also she can come and support these incredible Catholic businesses,” Gessler said.
Cana
Launched in September 2025, “Cana really exists to help couples focus on Christ from their engagement to eternity,” Reichert said. “Our biggest desire is to just help create holy couples and holy marriages.”
“Weʼve now been around for a year,” Gessler said. “Weʼve had more than 8,000 brides join Cana.”
“Itʼs not just a registry experience. Itʼs a digital wedding planning experience that is totally holistic and centered around Christ and the sacrament of marriage rather than just …the excitement of the day,” Gessler said.
“When you get married to your spouse … itʼs an opportunity to enter into this new stage of your life and to place Christ at the center of it,” he said.
“We are praying for every single couple who uses us every day,” Reichert said. “To any couple who has the courage to use us to plan their wedding, we genuinely are so grateful for every single one.”
Scottish Catholic bishop: Scotland ‘must stand with both mother and child’
Scottish Catholic bishop: Scotland ‘must stand with both mother and child’
President of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland John Keenan is urging the Scottish government to reform the country’s expansive abortion law, calling on the government to reject efforts to expand the abortion regime there.
While the government doesn’t plan to change abortion law from 2026-2027, it intends to follow through with recommendations made by a pro-abortion advisory group and to fund late-stage abortion.
“Every unborn child is a unique human life deserving of protection, and every mother should be supported in ways that uphold her dignity and the dignity of her child,” Keenan said in a statement.
“I therefore make a direct appeal to all elected representatives who recognize the inherent dignity of every human life, to reject any further liberalization of abortion provisions in Scotland and to oppose measures that would remove essential safeguards or further weaken protection for unborn children.”
The advisory group “excluded prolife voices and … adopted a principle of ‘non-regression’ on abortion provision,” the bishop said, arguing that the group “lacks both legitimacy and credibility.”
“It has made radical recommendations to the Scottish Government which, if implemented, would effectively permit abortion up to birth for any reason and remove the current requirement for two doctors to approve abortions up to 24 weeks.”
“It is astonishing that the report also recommends that future legislation should make no reference to sex-selective abortion, paving the way for unborn babies to be aborted simply because they are deemed to be the wrong sex,” he said.
“The establishment of later-stage abortion provision in Scotland, alongside proposals to weaken existing legal safeguards, raises grave moral and social questions,” he said.
Canada doctors’ group voices support for infant euthanasia
The Quebec College of Physicians recently voiced support for euthanasia of newborn babies in some circumstances.
“The CMQ reiterates that medical assistance in dying may be an appropriate treatment for babies suffering from extreme pain that cannot be relieved and who have severe malformations or serious polysymptomatic syndromes that destroy any prospect of survival,” the group said in a statement to the Daily Mail.
“The CMQ believes that parents should have the opportunity to obtain this care for their infant under these well-defined circumstances,” the group continued.
Kentucky brings lawsuit against abortion nonprofit
The state of Kentucky has filed a civil lawsuit against an “activist organization” over its advertisements for abortion pills.
Mayday Health, a pro-abortion nonprofit, recently advertised abortion-inducing drugs via a banner flown by plane over the Kentucky State Fair.
Attorney General Russell Coleman in a post on X said: “It appears abortion activists are flying over Louisville advertising illegal drugs. They are breaking the law.”
“Since January, our Office has been investigating mail order abortion pills,” Coleman said. “We will not tolerate this illegal danger.”
Coleman’s office announced a civil suit against Mayday Health on Sept. 3, arguing that the “out of state activists” were breaking Kentucky law.
Prayer platform marks St. Teresa’s canonization anniversary by taking petitions to her tomb
Sept. 4 marks the 10th anniversary of the canonization of St. Teresa of Calcutta, an occasion the prayer platform Hozana is commemorating by taking prayer intentions from people around the world to her tomb.
The platform will collect the intentions and deliver them to the Motherhouse of the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta (Kolkata), India, where the saintʼs remains are laid to rest.
As Sharael Sánchez, head of Hozana’s Spanish-language division, explained to ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News, the initiative is being carried out in collaboration with the Missionaries of Charity and is seeking to enable “those who cannot travel to Kolkata to entrust what they carry in their hearts to that place.”
The response to this initiative has been significant. Last year alone, more than 700 intentions were submitted, written in English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese.
“How many hearts, from so many different places, will have commended themselves to St. Teresa in this way?” wondered Sánchez, who hopes that even more people will send in their petitions this year.
As Sánchez noted, the tomb of St. Teresa of Calcutta has become “a place of prayer and pilgrimage for the faithful from various countries.” Inscribed on the tombstone are words from Christ that encapsulate the heart of her mission: “Love one another as I have loved you.”
A life dedicated to poorest of poor
St. Teresa of Calcutta was born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in 1910 and is of Albanian origin. She entered religious life and later moved to India, where she dedicated her life to serving the poor, the sick, orphans, and the dying.
In 1950, she founded the Missionaries of Charity, a congregation that expanded its presence to numerous countries over the years. Her work and the witness of her service to the most needy earned her international recognition, and in 1979, she received the Nobel Peace Prize.
St. Teresa died on Sept 5, 1997, which is the day the Church celebrates her liturgical memorial. Her remains were laid to rest at the motherhouse of the Missionaries of Charity, the very place where Hozana now seeks to deliver the prayers of those from various countries who wish to entrust their intentions to the saint.
Pope Francis canonized her on Sept. 4, 2016, during a Mass celebrated in St. Peterʼs Square in Rome.
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.
Mother turns grief into national AI‑safety campaign for Catholic families
The Diocese of Nashville’s Catholic Schools Office is raising awareness among Tennessee Catholic families about how to protect their children from risks posed by AI.
The Sept. 17 talk, titled “Catholic Family’s Guide to AI Safety,” will be given by Megan Garcia, a Catholic mother whose son took his own life while using an AI chatbot. Garcia’s talk will center on the “growing dangers of AI, chatbot risks, and protecting children at home.”
“After the heartbreaking loss of her 14-year-old son, Sewell Setzer III, following an intense relationship with an AI companion chatbot, Garcia transformed her grief into a mission to protect other children and families,” the diocese said in a Sept. 2 press release.
Garcia is an attorney and child safety advocate and serves as chair of the Blessed Mother Mary Foundation. She met with Pope Leo XIV in November 2025 during an audience with participants in a conference on child dignity and AI ethics.
DePaul University partners with Vatican Laudato si’ Center for Higher Education
DePaul University has announced it will serve as the Chicago-based partner for the Vatican’s Laudato si’ Center for Higher Education.
The university will also launch the DePaul Institute for a Sustainable Future “to drive the collaboration, expanding a shared commitment to advancing integral ecology and human development,” according to a Sept. 2 press release from the university.
“As a Catholic, Vincentian university, DePaul recognizes that caring for our common home is inseparable from caring for one another,“ Robert L. Manuel, president of DePaul University, said. ”The health of our planet directly affects the well-being of people and communities around the world, particularly those most vulnerable to a changing environment.”
The university will collaborate with more than 60 research and higher education institutions across 35 countries through its participation in the Global Alliance for Laudato si’, according to the release.
National Catholic Bioethics Center launches master’s degree with Catholic University of America
The National Catholic Bioethics Center has announced its partnership with the Catholic University of America for a master’s degree in moral theology and ethics.
Starting with the 2026-2027 academic year, “students who complete the NCBC’s National Catholic Certification Program in Health Care Ethics can transfer six credits toward CUA’s master’s degree in moral theology/ethics,” according to an Aug. 24 press release from the bioethics center.
“This is a great opportunity for our students to further their graduate education with a trusted, faithful institution of higher education following completion of our Certification Program,” Joe Zalot, director of education at the NCBC, said in the release. “CUA is now the sixth academic partner to which our students can transfer credits.”
Graduates of Catholic colleges more prepared for AI, national study finds
A study carried out on behalf of the Center for Catholic Studies at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas, has found that graduates of Catholic colleges report higher levels of preparedness in dealing with AI than graduates of secular institutions.
The findings came as part of the Center’s third Holistic Impact Report, carried out in partnership with YouGov, according to a Sept. 3 press release from the university.
About 44% of Catholic college graduates said they use AI at least daily, compared with 36% of secular college graduates, while 33% said their college moderately or better prepared them to use AI, compared with 23% of secular graduates, according to the study.
Catholic college graduates were also slightly more likely to use AI at all and more likely to view it as beneficial to society, with 36% expecting significant or transformative benefits compared with 28% of secular graduates.
“After three studies, we are seeing a remarkably consistent picture of what Catholic higher education contributes to graduates’ lives,” Jason King, Beirne chair and director of the Center for Catholic Studies at St. Mary’s University, said in the release.
“The findings on AI are particularly interesting because the greater confidence graduates of Catholic colleges express in engaging this new technology is accompanied by a stronger sense of meaning and purpose in their lives and work.”
Insurers will pay out extra $30 million in Winona-Rochester Diocese abuse settlement
Insurers for the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, will pay an additional $30 million to clergy-abuse victims there, with the payout coming several years after the diocese itself already settled with victims for another multimillion-dollar sum.
The settlement was announced on Sept. 3 by the law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates. The law firm, which represents abuse victims around the country, said the settlement will apply to more than 145 survivors.
The Winona-Rochester Diocese filed for bankruptcy in November 2018 and settled with abuse victims there in 2021 for $28 million. The law firm said that settlement included contributions from two diocesan insurers — LMI and Interstate — but did not include a payout from the diocese’s largest insurance company, U.S. Fire.
A lawsuit against the insurer had been working through the courts, the Anderson law firm said, with the trial set to begin on Sept. 28 before the insurance company announced the settlement.
The Winona-Rochester Diocese did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Attorney Jeff Anderson, meanwhile, said in his law firm’s press release that the settlement “forges a new path forward to combat insurers denials and delays across the country.” He described the settlement as “a triumphant turn toward justice.”
Insurance payouts are one of the ways that dioceses in the U.S. pay for abuse settlements. Other income streams include contributions from parishes, real estate sales, and cash reserves.
Insurers have at times argued that they should not be liable to pay into abuse settlements. Church leaders in the Baltimore and New York archdioceses in recent years have sued their respective insurers to force them to pay into high-dollar payouts.
Those disputes have at times turned bitter. In February the Archdiocese of New York claimed that its longtime insurer Chubb had for several years been “secretly” posing as the “Church Accountability Project,” allegedly encouraging abuse victims to “pursue claims against the [archdiocese].”
In 2025, meanwhile, an advocacy group called the Coalition for Just and Compassionate Compensation launched an ad campaign urging Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to force insurance companies to pay millions of dollars in abuse claims.
Pope Leo XIV to Arab-region churches: ‘Do not be afraid of your smallness’
Pope Leo XIV offered a clear measure for the mission of the Church in the Middle East, a region marked by conflict, migration, and hardship, telling Latin-rite bishops serving across the Arab world that the Church’s strength should not be judged by numbers.
“Do not be afraid of your smallness. The fruitfulness of the Church is not measured in numbers, structures or resources, but in fidelity to the Gospel,” the pope said Sept. 3 during a meeting at the Vatican with members of the Conference of the Latin Bishops in the Arab Regions (CELRA).
Pope Leo said a small Christian community, when rooted in Christ, can remain a valuable presence in society, “not because it seeks power, but because it serves; not because it imposes itself, but because it bears witness; not because it responds to violence with more violence, but because it counters force with charity.”
The pope also recalled Christians who have given their lives in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and other countries scarred by violence. Their names, he said, “may not be known to the world, but they are well known to God.”
Their witness, he added, should encourage Christian communities not to give in to fear or resignation, particularly as many families face instability or are forced to emigrate.
Pope Leo called on the Church in the region to give particular attention to families and young people as well as to migrants, especially the large migrant communities living in the states on the Persian Gulf.
He urged Christian communities to become “homes where nobody feels like a stranger” and to defend the dignity of every person. At the same time, he emphasized that amid humanitarian and social challenges, the Church must not lose sight of its essential mission: proclaiming the Gospel, prayer, the sacraments, and Christian formation.
The pope also encouraged greater communion among the Church’s different traditions and rites and called for continued dialogue with Muslims and other religious communities.
“Dialogue does not mean renouncing one’s own identity, but living it out without fear of encounter,” he said.
Concluding his address, Pope Leo urged the bishops not to make success or recognition their primary goal, but instead to remain faithful to the Gospel and to the people entrusted to their care.
“Do not be afraid to sow without immediately seeing the fruits,” he said. “The sowing is yours; the growth is God’s.”
This story was first published by ACI MENA, the Arabic-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.
Pope Leo XIV points to St. John Henry Newman as a model for education today
Pope Leo XIV received a delegation from the University of Oxford’s Oriel College at the Vatican on Sept. 4, highlighting St. John Henry Newman’s vision of education as a response to contemporary challenges.
Founded in 1326 at the initiative of King Edward II, Oriel is considered Oxford’s oldest royal foundation.
Marking the 700th anniversary of its royal charter, the pope noted that the college “has remained firm in its Christian identity” throughout the centuries.
He said the anniversary offered “an opportunity to celebrate its Catholic origins as the ‘College of the Blessed Virgin Mary.’”
That identity, he said, has been key to Oriel’s development “not just [as] an academic institution, but a true community of faith and scholarship in its deepest meaning.”
Oriel’s connection to St. John Henry Newman
The college is also known for its role in the 19th-century Oxford Movement and its association with St. John Henry Newman, who was a fellow there before his conversion to Catholicism.
Leo praised Newman as “a shining example of a scholar who not only showed the inseparability of faith and reason in his works but even more admirably in his life.”
“There was a great concreteness to his ideas, since his religious convictions were rooted in his personal relationship with God, while his scholarship was both sublime and eminently practical,” the pope said.
Leo also said Newman’s thinking on education remains especially relevant in the face of contemporary challenges.
“In the context of today’s challenges, Newman’s own thought on education is particularly relevant, for he proposes a Christian formation that embraces the entire person and measures the value of education according to human dignity, justice and the capacity to serve the common good,” he said, citing his October 2025 apostolic letter Drawing New Maps of Hope.
Addressing members of the delegation, the pope encouraged them “to seek the truth courageously and to promote this integral anthropological vision.”
“As a result, your work can genuinely facilitate a ‘heart to heart’ encounter with your brothers and sisters, and especially with our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life,” he said.
Finally, referring to Newman’s celebrated hymn Lead, Kindly Light, Leo recalled the English saint’s trust that God would guide him amid life’s uncertainties and urged the delegation to entrust themselves and the college’s future to Christ.
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.
U.S. bishops focus on young people, artificial intelligence in Labor Day message
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is commemorating Labor Day as a time to “celebrate workers and honor the dignity of work” in a statement published in advance of the holiday.
“Work is more than a way to make a living; it is a form of participation in God’s creation,” Archbishop Shelton J. Fabre, chair of the USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, said in the statement.
The archbishop’s’ statement focuses on concerns about labor, such as stagnant wages, not enough opportunities for young people, affordability and other economic issues, and the ongoing growth of artificial intelligence (AI), which has sparked fears about job security.
“This year, we focus on young people and vulnerable communities who face uncertainty in today’s economy,” Fabre said. “Traditional economic indicators tell us the economy is growing, but hiring has slowed, especially for unemployed workers, and unemployment remains high for Black workers.”
The statement indicates that about one-fourth of workers make $35,000 annually or less, and nearly three-fourths of low-wage workers lack stable and secure jobs. It also cites data from a 2025 poll that showed that 70% of Americans believed it was unaffordable to have children, 13 points higher than the previous year.
On AI, Fabre said, “there is widespread concern [it] will lead to higher unemployment and to fewer jobs that can support a family.” He said young people are “the most impacted so far and also experience the most anxiety” about AI.
“We must listen to the experiences of workers, families, young people, and communities of color as they struggle to find stability,” he said.
The archbishop referenced Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, which addresses AI concerns at length. The Holy Father warns humanity against creating “a new Tower of Babel” and pleads for society to instead “build the city in which God and humanity dwell together.”
The pope “notes that although AI presents new opportunities, it also risks normalizing a vision that is anti-human,” Fabre said.
“AI systems can imitate but never replace human intelligence,” he said. “AI cannot feel, love, discern, or receive God’s grace and wisdom. It is not morally neutral and risks creating ‘new forms of exclusion.’ AI must be carefully developed to ensure it serves the common good and humanity itself.”
Echoing the pontiff, Fabre warns against “de-skilling, surveillance, rigid and repetitive tasks, reduced agency and creativity, unemployment, job insecurity, concentrated power, and increased inequalities.”
“Furthermore, AI relies on low-wage workers, who are often hidden and who endure harsh conditions, caught in an exploitative supply chain,” he said. “Pope Leo calls us to work together to ‘design systems centered on the human person and not solely on performance’ and foster an economy that values the God given dignity of each person. Dignified work is not merely about productivity, but also participation in God’s creation. A just economy is not judged on profit alone, but on inclusive growth and protection for the most vulnerable.”
Although Fabre acknowledged that it “may seem daunting” to align AI development with the interests of workers, “we have been here before.” He referenced the 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, authored by Pope Leo XIII amid the Industrial Revolution.
“The Church has brought the sacredness of the human person to the questions of work and labor for these last 135 years,” Fabre said. “We recognize that as we observe the 40th anniversary of Economic Justice for All, the U.S. bishops’ landmark document on the economy, much of the teaching of this document remains relevant for our shared project in the United States.”
The archbishop said everyone — including the Church, the government, labor unions, civil society groups, and corporations — have a shared responsibility “to protect the human person and the dignity of work.”
“As new technology reshapes our economy and our work, let us be ‘builders of communion,’ ensuring that innovation and development is for the benefit of all, not just a few, and that each person can contribute to the Kingdom of God through their work,” Fabre said.
Pope Leo XIV to seminarians: ‘As I look at each of you, I see the marvelousness of God’
On Sept. 3, Pope Leo XIV received at the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace a group of seminarians from two Italian seminaries, thanking them on behalf of the Church for “the ‘yes’ you have spoken and continue to speak each day.”
“It is neither easy nor a given in today’s world, and the Church knows this well,” he stated during the audience granted to delegations from the Pius XI Pontifical Apulian Regional Seminary in Molfetta and the Interdiocesan Seminary of Aversa.
Both seminaries are celebrating significant anniversaries this year. Molfetta is commemorating the centenary of its new premises — commissioned by Pope Pius XI, after whom the seminary is named — while Aversa is celebrating the tercentenary of the opening of its current facility.
Leo XIV also expressed his gratitude to the families present. “A vocation never arises without a suitable context; it often requires a home, and parents who pray and know how to let their children go. My gratitude, and that of the entire Church, goes out to you, dear families,” he noted.
The pope also highlighted God’s freedom, from which every vocation springs. “There is no competition, no ranking, nor is it written that he chose the best: He chose those he willed. In a world so intent on celebrating personal self-fulfillment, it is important to remember that none of you, nor any of us, is here because we earned it, but solely through a free choice by God the Father, a sign and guarantee of a gratuitous love that always precedes us and never disappoints,” he emphasized.
"The Lord continues to call, in every age of history and in every place.”
Pope Leo XIV
He also affirmed that the mere presence of these individuals with a priestly vocation in the seminary constitutes a sign of hope for the entire Church, a hope that, as he explained, stems not from “vague optimism,” but from the “certainty that the Lord continues to call, in every age of history and in every place.”
The pope also emphasized that the effort to live the spiritual life is sustained by “the beauty of fraternity and shared mission.”
“Jesus does not call just one man, but twelve, with personalities that are very different and by our standards, sometimes unexpected. The Lord gathers them and keeps them together so that they may learn that the Church is lived in communion: it belongs to none of us, and we are all called to love and serve it as one body,” he explained.
Addressing the formators, he asked them to be the “first teachers of that care and fraternity which are manifested in authentic, personal, and communal relationships, grounded in truth and charity.”
The pope made it clear that the mission of future priests will be to bring the Gospel to the people of their communities, that is, “to families struggling to get by; to young people who, barely twenty years old, pack their bags to look for work; to the elderly living in solitude; to the marginalized; to those who have lost a sense of purpose in life.”
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.