Ezequiel Ponce is among teens chosen to ask Pope Leo XIV questions at the National Catholic Youth Conference Nov. 21, 2025. / Credit: Courtesy of National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 12, 2025 / 14:24 pm (CNA).

A group of teens will speak with the Holy Father during a digital encounter at the upcoming National Catholic Youth Conference (NCYC) in Indianapolis.

Pope Leo XIV will hold a 45-minute digital dialogue with young people from across the United States during the Nov. 20–22 NCYC, hosted by the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry (NFCYM). The pope will speak at 10:15 a.m. ET on Nov. 21 and answer questions from a group of high school students. 

This marks the first time in history that a pope will directly engage with U.S. youth in a live digital encounter. Eight teens have had the opportunity to participate in planning the digital conversation, and five of them will get the chance to speak directly with the Holy Father.

Mia Smothers, Elise Wing, Christopher Pantelakis, Micah Alcisto, and Ezequiel Ponce will ask Pope Leo questions next week as thousands of teens gather in Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. Claire Vitellaro, America Cruz, and Nate Hollinden have also had a voice in the event and will ask questions if the other students are unable to.

Mia Smothers 

Mia Smothers, a high school freshman from Joppa, Maryland, is the youngest teen selected to speak with the pontiff. Growing up in a large family has taught her patience and teamwork, she said. Her parents have encouraged her to stay grounded in faith and to serve others.

Smothers is the second of 10 children and said she hopes her faith and NCYC experience will set a good example for her younger siblings. She wants to show them how wonderful it is to know and love God.

As a parishioner at St. Francis De Sales, Smothers serves as an altar server and helps with Vacation Bible School and youth group. She also participates in cheer, choir, and Helping Hands Club at her school and enjoys reading, dancing, singing, and doodling. 

Elise Wing

Elise Wing is a high school senior from Waterloo, Iowa, who says she enjoys nature and coffee. 

Wing is usually busy with speech, theater, competitive swimming, and serving her parish community at St. Edward’s. She said she loves to have bonfires and game nights with friends and go on road trips with her family. 

Her Catholic faith is the lens through which she sees the world, she said. She said she is inspired daily by St. Thérèse of Lisieux — her confirmation saint. Wing said she is looking forward to going on a pilgrimage to Rome, Florence, and Assisi in Italy this spring and is excited to represent faithful teens at NCYC next week.

Christopher Pantelakis

Christopher Pantelakis, or Chris, is a high school junior who was born and raised in Mesquite, Nevada. Pantelakis said he gets his inspiration from young people who go out in the world to make it a better place.

For fun, Chris said he loves watching sports and participating in any athletic activity. Recently his soccer team at Virgin Valley High School qualified for state. His favorite soccer team is Chelsea in England, which he hopes to watch play in person someday.

Micah Alcisto

Born and raised in Honolulu, Micah Alciso said he enjoys playing baseball, working out, fishing, and going to the beach. The high school senior is a leader in his community serving as a member of Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, LIFE team, and Catholic Honors Society.

Seeing how God continues to work in his life and in the lives of others inspires Alciso, he said. Even in hard times, he said experiences with God remind him he is not alone.

Keeping his faith strong and at the center of his life is important to Chris as he said he believes it will guide his career, relationships, education, and family.

Ezequiel Ponce

Ezequiel Ponce is a high school senior from Downey, California. He has a brother and sister who introduced him to St. Dominic Savio Parish, where he serves as a summer camp counselor and helps lead youth group.

Ponce said he sees his parish as his home and loves participating in the community and growing in his faith. He shares the same birthday as his favorite saint — St. John Bosco on Aug. 16.

Doing community work with kids led him to find a passion for teaching, he said. Ponce teaches at a middle school for one period of his school schedule every day. 

Ponce, who will ask the pope a question, said in an Nov.11 interview with NFCYM that it is “an honor and a great privilege to … talk to the Holy Father.” He added: “It makes me feel like my voice is heard and … that the youth of America’s voice is heard.”

“It is very reassuring that the Holy Father wants to indulge in dialogue with the youth,” Ponce said.

Claire Vitellaro 

Claire Vitellaro is a high school senior from the suburbs of Chicago who said she loves horseback riding and traveling. She said she stays active in her community by participating in flag football, theater, youth group, and as a member of her school’s pro-life club. 

Recently Vitellaro said her faith is growing deeper, which she attributed to a recent mission trip and her involvement in youth group.

In an interview with NCYC organizers, Vitellaro said the experience to hear from the Holy Father is “a beautiful opportunity” for youth. Through the planning process they have looked into: “What are the questions and concerns of the youth today?”

Vitellaro said what is meaningful about the experience is that “it is a dialogue, not a Q and A.” She added: “We hope this conversation seeks connection and understanding.”

America Cruz

America Cruz said he enjoys going on hikes because they help him reset and feel more connected to God. Cruz is a high school senior born and raised in Southern California. He serves as a peer minister for his church’s youth ministry at Sacred Heart in Lancaster.

Cruz has an older sister and a younger brother, who is attending NCYC with him. He said he plans to pursue a career in the U.S. military or as a paramedic or firefighter. He said he hopes to one day become a college professor and possibly work in politics, and his ultimate goal is to help people in need.

Cruz said his biggest inspiration is his mom, who inspires him to grow closer to Christ.

Nate Hollinden

Nate Hollinden, a sophomore in high school, participates in cross country, swimming, track and field, the Tell City Marching Band, St. Paul Impact Youth Group, and is president of his school's Spanish Club.

In Tell City, Indiana, he serves as a community leader as a member of student council and Key Club. He said he enjoys watching football, hanging out with his friends, and playing music. He can play 13 different instruments.

Faith is the most important part of Hollinden’s life, he said. Seeing people’s reaction to kindness and respect inspires him to grow in his faith, he said, as it is what Jesus taught us to do.

Katie McGrady, Catholic author, speaker, and radio host who will serve as the NCYC event moderator, said: “As we’ve prepared these teens to ask a question of the Holy Father, I’ve been struck by how excited they are to get to represent their peers in this moment. Their openness to dialogue, with each other and with adults who have helped prepare this moment, has inspired me to remember that the young Church is the Church of now, not tomorrow.”

null / Credit: joshimerbin/Shutterstock

Baltimore, Maryland, Nov 12, 2025 / 13:15 pm (CNA).

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) approved a new translation of the Bible, which will be used for personal Bibles, the lectionary at Mass, and the text in the Liturgy of the Hours.

Bishop Steven Lopes, chair of the Committee on Divine Worship, announced the translation will be called the “Catholic American Bible.” The translation for personal Bibles and the Liturgy of the Hours will be available on Ash Wednesday in 2027.

The bishops have not announced when the revised lectionaries will be available.

The USCCB also approved a Spanish-language translation of the New Testament, the Biblia de la Iglesia en América, which will be available on Ash Wednesday in 2026.

Lopes made the announcement during the USCCB’s Fall Plenary Assembly in Baltimore on Nov. 11.

According to Ascension Press, one of the publishers of the translation, the Catholic American Bible has a modified translation of the Old Testament from the New American Bible Revised Edition. It will replace the current translation of the Book of Psalms with The Abbey Psalms and Canticles, which was translated by monks at Conception Abbey in Missouri.

The new translation will also include a revised New Testament.

U.S. bishops also approved a new edition of the Roman Pontifical, which is the liturgical book for pontifical Masses, which can only be celebrated by bishops. It is expected to be ready in 2027. The bishops are still awaiting Vatican approval for two of the five pontifical rites, but approval is anticipated in December. 

Carmelite Father Craig Morrison speaks on a panel about Jewish-Catholic relations at The Catholic University of America on Nov. 11, 2025. / Credit: Madalaine Elhabbal/CNA

Washington, D.C., Nov 12, 2025 / 12:45 pm (CNA).

Nostra Aetate, the Church’s declaration on building relationships with non-Christian religions,  “planted a seed” that must continue to be nourished, according to panelists reflecting on the document’s legacy at The Catholic University of America on Nov. 11.

At the event, titled “The Church and the Jewish Community in Our Age,” Bishop Étienne Vetö, ICN, auxiliary bishop of Reims, France, and Rabbi Noam Marans, director of interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee, discussed the state of Catholic-Jewish relations as well as shared practices and difference. 

“Even though Nostra Aetate is one of the shortest, if not the shortest document of Vatican II, it has had a powerful impact,” Vetö said. “A Jew or a Christian from the first half [of] the 20th century who traveled in time to 2025 would find unbelievable the quality of dialogue, understanding, and trust that is now growing between the two communities.”

Rebecca Cohen, program and research specialist for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, agreed, saying Nostra Aetate produced a “seismic shift in Christian understanding” of Judaism that was revolutionary for its time in 1965. 

Nostra Aetate contains a paragraph on Judaism that centers on the biblical roots and shared history with Christianity rather than the Judaism of today. It sowed the beginnings of something that needs nurturing, Cohen said. 

Carmelite Father Craig Morrison, director of the Center for Carmelite Studies and professor of biblical studies, said Nostra Aetate “launched new possibilities for a relationship between Catholics and Jews.”

“No longer was this relationship to be triumphal, Catholics telling Jews who they are, what they believe, and how they kill God, Jesus,” he said, adding: “Western Christianity kept the Jews mostly silent for centuries.”

Today, he continued, “our present task on the Catholic side is not so much as dialogue but rather to listen to the Jews for the first time in our shared history.”

“Our Gospels are a part of Jewish documents and cannot be properly understood apart from the Judaism of the late Second Temple period,” he said.

Ultimately, Craig said, “we know that a better understanding of the concerns of first-century Jews will illuminate the Gospels and significantly reduce the risk of anti-Jewish preaching. Then we will hear Jesus speaking within the first-century Jewish world in which he was incarnated.” 

Marans reflected on the legacy of Nostra Aetate for Jewish people, saying that prior to the document’s publication, the Jewish people viewed Christianity “as a threat.” Conversely, he said, Nostra Aetate was a “gift for Christians” because it meant “Christianity no longer needed to self-define in opposition to the other.” 

At the end of the day, Marans said, “Nostra Aetate was not perfect, but it was good [and] has been perfected over time.” 

null / Credit: LookerStudio/Shutterstock

ACI Prensa Staff, Nov 12, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Ana Lazcano of the University Institute of Artificial Intelligence (AI) at Francisco de Vitoria University in Spain warned that AI is not all-powerful.

BALTIMORE – As the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) gathered for their Fall Plenary Assembly in Baltimore, the bishops issued a Special Message addressing their concern for the evolving situation impacting immigrants in the United States. It marked the first time in twelve years the USCCB invoked this particularly urgent way of speaking as a body of bishops. The last one issued in 2013 was in response to the federal government’s contraceptive mandate.

Under the regulations pertaining to statements and publications of the Conference, a “Special Message” may only be issued at plenary assemblies, and they are statements which the President of the Conference, the Administrative Committee, or the general membership consider to be appropriate in view of the circumstances at the time. To show the consensus of the body, a Special Message must receive two-thirds of the Conference members present and voting at the plenary in order to pass. In a vote of 216 votes in favor, 5 votes against, and 3 abstentions, the bishops overwhelmingly approved the Special Message, with sustained applause of the body following the vote.

The full text of the bishops’ Special Pastoral Message follows:

As pastors, we the bishops of the United States are bound to our people by ties of communion and compassion in Our Lord Jesus Christ. We are disturbed when we see among our people a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement. We are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants. We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care. We lament that some immigrants in the United States have arbitrarily lost their legal status. We are troubled by threats against the sanctity of houses of worship and the special nature of hospitals and schools. We are grieved when we meet parents who fear being detained when taking their children to school and when we try to console family members who have already been separated from their loved ones. 

Despite obstacles and prejudices, generations of immigrants have made enormous contributions to the well-being of our nation. We as Catholic bishops love our country and pray for its peace and prosperity. For this very reason, we feel compelled now in this environment to raise our voices in defense of God-given human dignity.

Catholic teaching exhorts nations to recognize the fundamental dignity of all persons, including immigrants. We bishops advocate for a meaningful reform of our nation’s immigration laws and procedures. Human dignity and national security are not in conflict. Both are possible if people of good will work together.

We recognize that nations have a responsibility to regulate their borders and establish a just and orderly immigration system for the sake of the common good. Without such processes, immigrants face the risk of trafficking and other forms of exploitation. Safe and legal pathways serve as an antidote to such risks.

The Church’s teaching rests on the foundational concern for the human person, as created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:27). As pastors, we look to Sacred Scripture and the example of the Lord Himself, where we find the wisdom of God’s compassion. The priority of the Lord, as the Prophets remind us, is for those who are most vulnerable: the widow, the orphan, the poor, and the stranger (Zechariah 7:10). In the Lord Jesus, we see the One who became poor for our sake (2 Corinthians 8:9), we see the Good Samaritan who lifts us from the dust (Luke 10:30–37), and we see the One who is found in the least of these (Matthew 25). The Church’s concern for neighbor and our concern here for immigrants is a response to the Lord’s command to love as He has loved us (John 13:34).

To our immigrant brothers and sisters, we stand with you in your suffering, since, when one member suffers, all suffer (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:26). You are not alone!

We note with gratitude that so many of our clergy, consecrated religious, and lay faithful already accompany and assist immigrants in meeting their basic human needs. We urge all people of good will to continue and expand such efforts. 

We oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people. We pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement. We pray that the Lord may guide the leaders of our nation, and we are grateful for past and present opportunities to dialogue with public and elected officials. In this dialogue, we will continue to advocate for meaningful immigration reform. 

As disciples of the Lord, we remain men and women of hope, 
and hope does not disappoint! (cf. Romans 5:5)

May the mantle of Our Lady of Guadalupe enfold us all in her maternal and loving care and draw us ever closer to the heart of Christ.

###

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Being a Christian means recognizing every person as a brother or sister and always being ready to lend a helping hand, Pope Leo XIV said.

"Brothers and sisters support each other in hardship, they do not turn their back on those who are in need, and they weep and rejoice together in the active pursuit of unity, trust and mutual reliance," the pope said Nov. 12 at his weekly general audience.

Continuing his series of audience talks on "Jesus our hope," the pope said he wanted to look specifically at Jesus' command to his followers that they love one another. 

Relationships support and enrich human life and make it possible to survive, grow and learn, he said. They are an antidote to "loneliness and even a narcissism that is concerned with others only out of self-interest."

But even more, the pope said, fraternity is "an essential feature of Christianity, which ever since the beginning has been the proclamation of the Good News destined for the salvation of all, never in an exclusive or private form."

As sons and daughters of God, he said, it is clear that all people are brothers and sisters to each other. 

In a world torn by war and division, he said, it is "more urgent today than ever, to reflect on the greeting with which St. Francis of Assisi addressed everyone, regardless of their geographical, cultural, religious and doctrinal origins: 'omnes fratres' (brothers and sisters all)."

St. Francis "placed all human beings on the same level, precisely because he recognized them in their common destiny of dignity, dialogue, welcome and salvation," the pope said.

Summarizing his talk in English, Pope Leo said that St. Francis of Assisi "knew that everyone has the same needs: to be respected, welcomed, heard and saved. Indeed, this is the Good News and a core tenet of our Christian faith: God's saving love is for everyone, no exceptions."

Addressing Portuguese speakers, the pope said Jesus calls his followers to live fraternity "through concrete gestures, words and actions."

Christians, he added, are called to "a continual striving to outdo one another in mutual respect and reciprocal care."

"May the Lord free us from all selfishness and division and renew us in hope that we may faithfully imitate his generous love for all people," he prayed.
 

Pope Leo: May God free us from division!

A look at Pope Leo's audience Nov. 12.

First responders provide aid after a bus carrying a group of mostly teenagers from Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Santa Ana, California, on its way home from a three-day retreat at Camp Nawakwa in the San Bernardino Mountains crashed on a two-lane highway near Running Springs on Nov. 9, 2025. / Credit: Photo courtesy of the San Bernardino County Fire Protection District

CNA Staff, Nov 11, 2025 / 18:16 pm (CNA).

As a group of mostly teenagers made its way home from a Catholic youth retreat in the mountains of Southern California this past weekend, the bus rolled over at a winding turn, injuring 26. 

Nearly 40 parishioners of Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Santa Ana were on their way home from a three-day retreat at Camp Nawakwa in the San Bernardino Mountains on the evening of Nov. 9 when their bus crashed on a two-lane highway near Running Springs. 

When emergency responders arrived, passengers were still escaping from the bus, with many exiting through the roof hatch. Twenty-six passengers were treated for their injuries, including 20 who were later hospitalized, according to the San Bernardino County Fire Department. Three passengers had major injuries.

Jarryd Gonzales, a spokesman for the Diocese of Orange, told CNA that the Diocese of Orange “offers heartfelt prayers and support to the youth, families, and staff of Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Santa Ana who were involved in a serious bus accident.”

“We extend our deepest gratitude to the first-responder agencies for their prompt and professional response in safely evacuating passengers and ensuring they received proper medical attention,” Gonzales said.

Gonzales said about 125 people participated in the retreat, which started Friday and ended Sunday. Most left the retreat in vans, except for the one group that took the bus.

Gonzales said the diocese will continue to “provide further updates as information becomes available.”

“Until then, our entire Diocese of Orange community will keep all those affected in prayer, and we thank all for their continued support,” he said.

Bishop Mark Seitz, chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ migration committee, speaks during a press conference on Nov. 11, 2025, at the USCCB’s fall plenary assembly in Baltimore. / Credit: Hakim Shammo/EWTN News

Baltimore, Maryland, Nov 11, 2025 / 17:46 pm (CNA).

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is launching an initiative called “You Are Not Alone” to focus on providing accompaniment to migrants who are at risk of being deported.

Bishop Mark Seitz, chair of the USCCB Committee on Migration, announced the nationwide initiative during the conference’s Fall Plenary Assembly in Baltimore on Nov. 11.

The initiative, which was inspired by similar efforts in Catholic dioceses throughout the country, will focus on four key areas: emergency and family support, accompaniment and pastoral care, communication of Church teaching, and solidarity through prayer and public witness. 

Seitz said the Catholic Church has been “accompanying newcomers to this land since before our country’s founding.” He said — in addition to spiritual and corporal works of mercy — the Church “cannot abandon our long-standing advocacy for just and meaningful reform to our immigration system.”

He said clergy will continue “proclaiming the God-given dignity of every person from the moment of conception through every stage of life until natural death,” which includes the dignity of those who migrated to the United States. 

The bishop said many dioceses have launched migrant accompaniment initiatives already.

For example, the Diocese of San Diego launched its Faithful Accompaniment in Trust & Hope (FAITH) initiative on Aug. 4. The diocese works with interfaith partners to provide spiritual accompaniment to migrants during court proceedings and throughout the court process.

Seitz reiterates opposition to ‘mass deportations’

In his address to his fellow bishops, Seitz criticized President Donald Trump’s administration for carrying out its “campaign promise of mass deportations,” which he said is “intimidating and dehumanizing the immigrants in our midst regardless of how they came to be there.”

He said the accompaniment initiative was launched because Trump’s immigration policy has created “a situation unlike anything we’ve seen previously.” He specifically referenced efforts to revoke Temporary Protected Status designations for migrants in several countries, including Venezuela and Nicaragua, and restrictions on certain visas.

“Those who lack legal status are far from the only ones impacted by this approach,” Seitz said.

He said most deportees “have no criminal convictions,” and the administration has pressured immigration enforcement “to increase the number of arrests.”

“Our immigrant brothers and sisters … are living in a deep state of fear,” Seitz said. “Many are too afraid to work, send their children to school, or avail themselves to the sacraments.”

Seitz, earlier in the day, noted that bishops are primarily pastors, and “because we’re pastors … we care about our people, and we care particularly for those who are most vulnerable and those who are most in need.”

Pope Leo XIV has encouraged the American bishops to be vocal on the dignity of migrants. In October, the pontiff met with American bishops, including Seitz, and other supporters of migrants. 

According to one person present, Dylan Corbett, the founding executive director of Hope Border Institute, Leo told the group: “The Church cannot stay silent before injustice. You stand with me, and I stand with you.”

The Sacred Heart of Jesus. / Credit: Unidentified painter, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Baltimore, Maryland, Nov 11, 2025 / 17:16 pm (CNA).

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) approved the consecration of the nation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 2026 to accompany the country’s 250th anniversary.

At the USCCB Fall Plenary Assembly in Baltimore, bishops voted “to entrust our nation to the love and care of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.” Devoting the nation is an opportunity “to remind everyone of our task to serve our nation by perfecting the temporal order with the spirit of the Gospel as taught by the Second Vatican Council,” Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, said.

“One hundred years ago, in 1925, in his encyclical instituting the feast of Christ the King, Pope Pius XI, drawing on the teaching of Pope Leo XIII, referred to the pious custom of consecrating oneself, families, and even nations to the Sacred Heart of Jesus as a way to recognize the kinship of Christ,” said Rhoades, who serves on an advisory board for President Donald Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission.

To help Catholics prepare for the consecration, Rhoades said the bishops will develop prayer resources, including a novena. He said they are already putting together other resources for use by dioceses, parishes, and other groups to engage Catholics.

“In his fourth and last encyclical, Dilexit Nos, Pope Francis brought devotion to the Sacred Heart to the forefront of Catholic life as the ultimate symbol of both human and divine love, calling it a wellspring of peace and unity,” said Rhoades, who has served as chair of the USCCB Committee on Religious Liberty. 

Francis “wrote of how the Sacred Heart teaches us to build up in this world God’s kingdom of love and justice. Then in his first apostolic exhortation, Dilexi Te, Pope Leo XIV, following upon Pope Francis’ teaching, invites us to contemplate Christ’s love, the love that moves us to mission in our suffering world today,” Rhoades said.

Before bishops voted to consecrate the U.S. to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Archbishop Paul Etienne of Seattle asked if the bishops will include catechetical materials to guide Catholics, as the devotion “is ultimately inviting people into a deeper relationship with the very person of Jesus himself.”

Etienne said the “devotion to the Sacred Heart is such a rich devotion and almost complex.” 

Rhoades responded they “do intend to have catechetical materials,” because “there is such an abundance of beautiful teaching.” 

At the request of Bishop Arturo Cepeda of San Antonio, Rhoades said the bishops can provide the materials in various languages “to have as many of our people involved as possible.” He said the resources will also allow individuals and families to make their own consecration, as the  consecration simultaneously happens across the nation.

Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski proposed a celebration during the bishops’ spring meeting in Orlando, Florida, in June at the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and suggested inviting Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and other officials to attend.

History of the devotion

The story behind the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus dates back to 1673. At a monastery belonging to the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary in eastern France, Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque began experiencing visions of the Sacred Heart that continued for 18 months.

Sister Margaret Mary learned ways to venerate the Sacred Heart of Christ during her visions. These devotions included a Holy Hour on Thursdays, the creation of the feast of the Sacred Heart after Corpus Christi, and the reception of the Eucharist on the first Friday of every month.

On June 16, 1675, Jesus told Sister Margaret Mary to promote a feast that honored his Sacred Heart. He also gave Sister Margaret Mary 12 promises to all who venerated and promoted the devotion of the Sacred Heart.

The Vatican was first hesitant to declare a feast of the Sacred Heart. But as the devotion spread throughout France, the Vatican granted the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to France in 1765. In 1856, Blessed Pius IX designated the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi as the feast of the Sacred Heart for the universal Church.

Maura Moser (far left), director of the Catholic Communications Campaign, moderates a discussion on immigration with (left to right) Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, chair of the USCCB’s religious liberty committee, and Bishop Mark Seitz, chairman of the USCCB’s migration committee, on Nov. 11, 2025, during a press conference at the conference’s Fall Plenary Assembly in Baltimore. / Credit: Shannon Mullen/National Catholic Register

Baltimore, Maryland, Nov 11, 2025 / 16:04 pm (CNA).

U.S. bishops said immigration enforcement in the United States is a “crisis situation” affecting human dignity and religious liberty in the nation.

At a press conference during the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Fall Plenary Assembly in Baltimore, USCCB President Archbishop Timothy Broglio; Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, Texas; and Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, discussed migrants and the “uncertainty” they feel amid immigration enforcement in the nation. 

In the Nov. 11 press conference, Broglio said immigration enforcement is “preventing people from bringing their children to church, to school, or … to the emergency room.”

He added: “We, as pastors, would like to alleviate that fear and assure ... people that we are with them.”

“I think there’s a remarkable unity among all the bishops. This is an issue of human dignity,” Broglio said. “The Gospel teaches us especially to be compassionate, reach out to the immigrants, and just [have] concern about their well-being.”

“For us, this issue is not an abstract one,” Seitz said. “It’s a personal one because we’re pastors … We care about our people, and we care particularly for those who are most vulnerable and those who are most in need.”

“Bishops across the board” are seeing “people in our dioceses being swept up in this effort to go after people who are immigrants,” Seitz said. “I say that in a very broad sense, because although what the government has been saying, ‘We’re after criminals,’ it’s extended much more broadly than that.”

“While we certainly agree that people who are some threat to our community ought to be taken off of our streets once they’re convicted, the sweep has taken up so many others and has the risk of setting aside any due process.”

Seitz said the right to due process is “a fundamental part of our nation’s basic approach that everyone has certain rights. Those rights ought to be respected with a process that allows us to ascertain whether they indeed did commit some act that was a violation of our law.”

A matter of religious liberty 

Denying Communion to detainees is “an issue of religious liberty,” the bishops said, adding that the USCCB Committee on Religious Liberty is “very concerned” about it.

The committee met on Nov. 10 to discuss how to ensure people in detention facilities receive “pastoral spiritual care and especially the grace of the sacraments,” Rhoades said. “One doesn’t lose that right when one is detained. Whether one is documented or undocumented — this is a fundamental right of the person.”

“It’s heartbreaking when you think of the suffering. Especially those who’ve been detained, separated from families, those who haven’t committed crimes,” Rhoades said. “They need spiritual support in this, and they need the sacraments.”

The bishops were asked by reporters if they plan to speak to the Trump administration about its immigration policies, which are affecting parishes across the United States. 

Seitz said the bishops are working on a statement at their fall meeting. “As bishops, we want to speak from who we are, and certainly, we address issues of principle, such as religious liberty … [and] human dignity,” he said.

“We’ll try to stick to our foundations … in any statement that we make,” he continued. “But we also want it to be something that’s very clear and that is rooted in the Gospel. … It will also, I believe, speak to immigrants, not simply to our government.”

“It will be a message of solidarity with our brothers and sisters who find themselves in difficulty or who find themselves in fear to let them know that they’re not alone, that their pastors are going on with them,” Seitz said.

Rhoades added that the goal of the message is also “to cross the aisle,” as the Church is “not partisan.” 

“We’re talking about human lives in the United States and really important principles of our country — including just human dignity [and] religious liberty,” Rhoades said. “I’m just hopeful that we can move beyond the impasse.”

Later in the day, Seitz announced that the USCCB is launching the “You Are Not Alone” initiative for migrants, which will focus on “emergency and family support, accompaniment and pastoral care, communications and Church teaching … and solidarity through prayer and public witness.”