Pope Francis receives the bishops of England and Wales for their ad limina visit at the Vatican, Sept. 28, 2018. / Credit: Vatican Media

London, England, Dec 4, 2025 / 13:07 pm (CNA).

A policy change concerning restrictions on the old Mass is relevant to the whole of the universal Church, not just England and Wales, said the head of the Latin Mass Society.

Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio leads the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA. / Credit: “EWTN News In Depth”/Screenshot

CNA Staff, Dec 4, 2025 / 12:07 pm (CNA).

U.S. Military Services Archbishop Timothy Broglio is urging the country’s leaders to refrain from killing noncombatants while neutralizing violent drug cartels across the world.

The Trump administration throughout late 2025 has been launching aggressive strikes against suspected drug cartel operators in the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean. The White House has come under fire for what critics have claimed are indiscriminate and possibly extralegal airstrikes against alleged narco boats.

Human rights advocates have particularly criticized a Sept. 2 strike on an alleged drug smuggling boat in which the military fired a second strike against two individuals who survived the initial strike.

In a Dec. 3 statement, Broglio acknowledged that “dismantling the powerful criminal networks responsible for the flow of illegal substances into our nation is a necessary and laudable task.”

Yet “questions have been raised about the use of military force in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean and, as a nation, we must ensure that the use of military force is ethical and legal,” the prelate said. 

Broglio noted that methods to eradicate drugs and drug smugglers from the U.S. must be “moral” and in line with “just war theory,” which includes respect for “the dignity of each human person.” 

“No one can ever be ordered to commit an immoral act, and even those suspected of committing a crime are entitled to due process under the law,” he said. 

The intentional killing of noncombatants is forbidden in a just war, he said, and it would be “an illegal and immoral order to [deliberately] kill survivors on a vessel who pose no immediate lethal threat to our armed forces.”

Military forces possess a legitimate means of ensuring that noncombatants are not killed, Broglio pointed out: Vessels can be intercepted, boarded, and members of the Coast Guard can arrest suspected drug runners, after which they would be subject to due process in a court. 

“True justice is achieved through transparent legal procedures, accountability, and respect for life — not through violence outside the law,” the archbishop said. 

Broglio — who previously served as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and has led the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, since 2008 — pointed out that the U.S. has “a long tradition of responding to injustice, liberating the oppressed, and leading the free world.” 

Leaders “cannot tarnish that reputation with questionable actions that fail to respect the dignity of the human person and the rule of law,” he said. 

Broglio urged leaders to refrain from asking soldiers to “engage in immoral actions.” He further noted that his own investment in the matter stems from a tradition as old as the the country itself. 

“[F]rom the beginning,” he said, “George Washington wanted chaplains with his troops to tell him the truth.”

Poster for the St. John of the Cross 2026 Jubilee. / Credit: Iberian Province of the Discalced Carmelites

ACI Prensa Staff, Dec 4, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

The Iberian Province of the Discalced Carmelites is preparing to celebrate the jubilee year of St. John of the Cross during the 300th anniversary of his canonization.

Bishop Raimo Goyarrola, the only Catholic bishop in Finland, speaks with CNA in Houston in November 2025 on a fundraising trip for his “mission” Church. / Credit: Amira Abuzeid/CNA

Houston, Texas, Dec 4, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Bishop Raimo Goyarrola has been traveling in the U.S. with Father Jean Claude Kabeza to raise funds to support the Finnish Church, which has seen explosive growth.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A commission set up by Pope Francis to study women deacons has voted against the possibility of ordaining women deacons while also supporting more study on the issue.

It also expressed hope that women's access to other ministries would be expanded.

Pope Francis established the "Study Commission on the Female Diaconate" in 2020 as a follow-up to a previous group that studied the history of women deacons in the New Testament and the early Christian communities.

Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi of Aquila, Italy, was chosen as president of the commission and Msgr. Denis Dupont-Fauville served as secretary. Pope Francis had named 10 other members of the commission -- five women and five men, including two permanent deacons from the United States and three priests.

The seven-page report published Dec. 4 was a synthesis of the commission's work, which concluded in February, and was addressed to Pope Leo XIV. According to Vatican News, the pope requested the synthesis -- which was dated Sept 18 -- be made public.

The Vatican published the synthesis, including the results of votes the commission members took on eight different statements or "theses."

One proposition that showed members split exactly down the middle was: "The masculinity of Christ, and therefore the masculinity of those who receive Holy Orders, is not accidental but is an integral part of sacramental identity, preserving the divine order of salvation in Christ. To alter this reality would not be a simple adjustment of ministry but a rupture of the nuptial meaning of salvation."

When this statement was put to a vote among 10 members in February, it received five votes in favor, confirming its current form, while the other five members voted to remove it.

A statement that received six votes against, two for and two abstaining was: "The undersigned is in favor of the institution in the church of the female diaconate as understood as the third degree of holy orders."

In fact, during the commission's second session in July 2022, members agreed seven to one on the following statement: "The 'status quaestionis' of historical research and theological investigation, as well as their mutual implications, rules out the possibility of moving in the direction of admitting women to the diaconate understood as a degree of the sacrament of Holy Orders. In light of sacred Scripture, tradition and the church's magisterium, this assessment is strongly maintained, although it does not at present allow for a definitive judgment to be formulated, as is the case with priestly ordination." 

The commission unanimously expressed support in 2021 for the establishment of new ministries that "could contribute to synergy between men and women. Their implementation would require the development of appropriate means of formation -- theological, practical, mystagogical -- and support." Pope Francis had announced several months before, in January 2021, that the ministries of lector and acolyte would be open to women.

During its last working session in February, the commission also reviewed materials it received after the Synod of Bishops had allowed anyone to contribute to the commission's deliberations.

"Although many interventions were submitted, the persons or groups who sent their writings numbered only 22 and represented few countries," the report said. "Consequently, although the material is abundant and in some cases skillfully argued, it cannot be considered the voice of the Synod, much less of the People of God as a whole."

The report noted the subject of a female diaconate is of "significant complexity" and lacks "sufficient consensus," as could also be seen in the discussion reports compiled during the October 2024 Synod on Synodality.

However, the report noted some of the arguments being made in favor of women's ordination to the diaconate, citing how proponents have said excluding women from this ministry seems to contradict the biblical foundation of the equal status and dignity of "male" and "female" as images of God.

Because of that, some believe women should not only be allowed access to ordination as deacons, but also to the other degrees of Holy Orders: the priesthood and episcopate, the report said.

"The argument based on the masculinity of Jesus Christ is seen as a sexist and narrow view, leading to discrimination against women," it noted. "According to these views, the 'repraesentatio Christi' should no longer be linked to gender categories but should focus on the ministerial mediation of salvation through men and women."

Given the different arguments, the commission developed during its third and final session the thesis which saw the members split down the middle about the masculinity of Christ and those who receive Holy Orders as not being accidental but is "an integral part of sacramental identity" and "the nuptial meaning of salvation."

The commission then voted nine in favor and one against on a "preamble" that encouraged broadening "women's access to ministries established for the service of the community."

"It is now up to the discernment of pastors to evaluate what further ministries can be introduced for the concrete needs of the church of our time, thus ensuring adequate ecclesial recognition of the diakonia (service) of the baptized, particularly of women. Such recognition will be a prophetic sign, especially where women still suffer situations of gender discrimination," the preamble said. 

Cardinal Petrocchi then added his own personal comment in the report's conclusion, noting the "intense theoretical and existential dialectic" between two theological standpoints.

The first maintains that the ordination of a deacon is for ministry and not for priesthood, which "would open the way toward the ordination of women deacons," he wrote.

The opposing stance, he wrote, insists "on the unity of the sacrament of Holy Orders, together with the nuptial meaning of the three degrees that constitute it, and rejects the hypothesis of a female diaconate; it also notes that if the admission of women to the first degree of Holy Orders were approved, exclusion from the others would become inexplicable."

For this reason, the cardinal wrote, continued study should focus on critically examining "the diaconate in itself -- that is, on its sacramental identity and its ecclesial mission -- clarifying certain structural and pastoral aspects that are currently not fully defined."

"The commission insisted on the urgency of valuing 'baptismal diakonia' as the foundation of any ecclesial ministry," he wrote.

In fact, he wrote, there are whole regions where the diaconal ministry is "almost nonexistent" and others where it is active with functions often "coinciding with roles proper to lay ministries or to altar servers in the liturgy."

"It should also be emphasized that the various commissions were unanimous in pointing out the need to expand 'communal spaces' so that women can participate adequately and share responsibility in the church's decision-making bodies, including through the creation of new lay ministries," the cardinal wrote.

While the report did not name the commission members taking part in the deliberations in 2021, 2022 and 2025, Pope Francis had named the following in 2020: U.S. Deacon Dominic Cerrato, director of deacon formation for the Diocese of Joliet, Illinois; U.S. Deacon James Keating, a former director of theological formation at the Institute for Priestly Formation at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. The other three men were priests: Father Santiago del Cura Elena, a priest of the Archdiocese of Burgos, Spain, and a professor and theologian who has studied and written extensively about priestly ordination; Father Manfred Hauke, a German-born professor at the Theological Faculty of Lugano, Switzerland, and author of a book examining the church's teaching on ordaining only men as priests; and Msgr. Angelo Lameri, a professor of liturgy and the sacraments at Rome's Pontifical Lateran University.

The five women chosen had been: Catherine Brown Tkacz, a U.S.-born professor at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, who focuses on women in the Bible and in Christian tradition; Caroline Farey, a theologian and catechist educator who serves as "Diocesan Mission Catechist" for the Diocese of Shrewsbury, England; Barbara Hallensleben, a professor of theology at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, and former member of the International Theological Commission; Rosalba Manes, a consecrated virgin and biblical scholar, who teaches at Rome's Pontifical Gregorian University; and Anne-Marie Pelletier, a French biblical scholar.

Bishop Simon Kulli of Sapë, Albania. / Credit: ACN

ACI Prensa Staff, Dec 3, 2025 / 18:51 pm (CNA).

The pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) announced the sudden death of Bishop Simon Kulli of Sapë in northern Albania at the age of 52.

The Trump administration intends to cut off federal food assistance for 21 states, which has caused concern for some local Catholic Charities affiliates. / Credit: rblfmr/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 3, 2025 / 17:51 pm (CNA).

President Donald Trump’s administration intends to cut off federal food assistance for 21 states amid a dispute over reporting data about recipients, which has caused concern for some local Catholic Charities affiliates whose areas may be affected.

In May, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins ordered states to share certain records with the federal government about people who receive food stamps through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). She said this was to ensure benefits only went to eligible people.

Although 29 states complied, 21 Democratic-led states refused to provide the information and sued the administration. The lawsuit alleges that providing the information — which includes immigration status, income, and identifying information — would be a privacy violation.

Rollins said in a Cabinet meeting on Dec. 2 that “as of next week, we have begun and will begin to stop moving federal funds into those states until they comply and they … allow us to partner with them to root out this fraud and protect the American taxpayer.”

She said an initial overview of the data from states that complied showed SNAP benefits given to 186,000 people using Social Security numbers for someone who is not alive and about a half of a million people receiving SNAP benefits more than once. The Department of Agriculture has not released that data.

If funding is halted, this would be the second disruption for SNAP benefits in just two months. In November, SNAP payments were delayed for nearly two weeks until lawmakers negotiated an end to the government shutdown.

For many of the states that will be impacted, Catholic Charities is the largest provider of food assistance after SNAP, and some affiliate leaders fear that the disruption will cause problems.

Rose Bak, chief operating officer of Catholic Charities of Oregon, told CNA the nonprofit keeps  stockpiles for emergencies, but “we’ve gone through most of our supplies” amid the November disruption and an increase in people’s needs caused by the high cost of groceries. 

She said their food pantry partners have told her “they’ve never been this low on stock” as well.

“Our phones were ringing off the hook,” Bak said. “Our mailboxes were flooded with emails.”

When asked how another disruption would compare to the problems in November, she said: “I think it will definitely be worse.”

“People are scared,” Bak said. “They’re worried about how they’re going to feed their families.”

Ashley Valis, chief operating officer of Catholic Charities of Baltimore, similarly told CNA that another disruption “would place immense strain on families already struggling as well as on organizations like ours, which are experiencing growing demand for food and emergency assistance.”

“Food insecurity forces children, parents, and older adults to make impossible trade-offs between rent, groceries, and medication,” she said.

James Malloy, CEO and president of Catholic Charities DC, told CNA: “We work to be responsive to the needs of the community as they fluctuate,” and added: “SNAP cuts will certainly increase that need.”

“These benefits are critical for veterans, children, and many low-income workers who have multiple jobs to cover basic expenses,” he said.

Catholic Charities USA launched a national fundraising effort in late October, just before SNAP benefits were delayed the first time. Catholic Charities USA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

null / Credit: Mehdi Kasumov/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 3, 2025 / 17:21 pm (CNA).

The Lilly Endowment announced it will distribute 45 large-scale grants to theological schools across the U.S. and Canada, including directing about $60 million to several Catholic institutions.

The grants, which range from $2.5 million to $10 million, are a part of the Lilly Endowment’s Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative, ​helping theological schools to “enhance their educational and financial capacities” and train pastors “to effectively lead congregations from a wide variety of contexts,” according to a press release from the organization.

The grants will benefit a range of ecumenical traditions, including Catholic institutions, as well as mainline Protestant, evangelical, and Orthodox ones.

Catholic institutions receiving grants include The Catholic University of America, which received over $7 million; Mount Angel Abbey in Saint Benedict, Oregon, which received $10 million; Saint Mary Seminary and Graduate School of Theology in Wickliffe, Ohio, which received nearly $8.9 million; the University of Notre Dame, which received over $5 million; and Saint John’s School of Theology and Seminary, which received $10 million. Loyola University of Chicago received $10  million and Santa Clara University was awarded $10 million.

Saint John’s said in a statement its grant would be used as a part of a mission called “​​Stabilitas: Renewing Rural Ministry.” It will collaborate with nine partner dioceses across the country as a part of the mission, including the Diocese of Saint Cloud, the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, the Diocese of Duluth, the Diocese of Rapid City, the Diocese of Sioux Falls, the Archdiocese of Dubuque, the Diocese of Davenport, the Diocese of Cheyenne, and the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings.

The Catholic University of America said it would use its $7.2 million grant to develop a program to help “strengthen practical leadership skills of current and new priests, seminarians, and other pastoral leaders.” The program also will provide ongoing formation for bishops, according to a release from the university. The Catholic Project will serve as a partner in the program, called New Wineskins.

“This initiative allows us to address some of the most pressing issues in leadership for seminarians, men’s religious communities, bishops, and pastoral leaders. This is an opportunity to build on the School of Theology’s 130-year foundation of preparing leaders for service to the Church,” said Susan Timoney, the principal investigator for New Wineskins.

The initiative has been in place since 2021 and has provided more than $700 million in grants to 163 theological schools.

“Theological schools play a vital role in preparing and supporting pastoral leaders for Christian congregations,” said Christopher L. Coble, the Lilly Endowment’s vice president for religion. “We believe that one of the most promising paths for theological schools to carry forward their important missions and enhance their impact is to work collaboratively with other schools, as well as congregations and other church-related organizations.”

“By doing so they can strengthen their collective capacities to prepare and support pastoral leaders for effective congregational service now and in the future,” he added.

“Collectively, these schools will work collaboratively with nearly 400 other theological schools, colleges and universities, congregations, church agencies, denominations and other religious organizations to educate and support more effectively both aspiring and current pastoral leaders of churches,” the Lilly Endowment said.

Sister Helen Prejean is an anti-death-penalty advocate. / Credit: Don LaVange via Wikimedia Commons

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 3, 2025 / 16:42 pm (CNA).

Catholics and pro-life conservatives joined a broad coalition of more than 50 organizations seeking to end the death penalty in the United States amid the 2025 surge in executions.

Leaders of the coalition, the U.S. Campaign to End the Death Penalty (USCEPD), said they hope the coordinated team can abolish the death penalty in states where it is still practiced. Capital punishment is still on the books in 27 states, but just 16 have executed prisoners over the past decade.

The group’s goals include working with Democrats and Republicans to pass state-level laws that end the use of capital punishment, reducing the imposition of the death penalty in jurisdictions where it remains legal, and increasing awareness about the risk of executing innocent people, the lack of fairness in the system, and the harms inflicted on everyone affected by the death penalty.

In 2024, there were 25 people executed in the United States. In 2025, there have already been 44 executions, and three more are scheduled this month. Florida executed one person in 2024 and has already executed 17 people in 2025. Another two people are scheduled for execution this month.

At the same time, public support for the death penalty hit a 50-year low in 2025, with about 52% of Americans supporting its use and 44% opposing it, according to Gallup, which is a sharp decline from the 1980s and 1990s, when support was above 70% most years. Juries are also less likely to give out death sentences. 

Sister Helen Prejean, who serves on the advisory council of the coalition, said in a Dec. 3 news conference that the death penalty functions as a “semi-secret ritual behind prison walls” and that “when people are separated from this experience, they just go along [with it].”

She discussed her activism in Texas against the execution of Ivan Cantu in 2024 and noted that “people in Texas did not even know an execution was going on.” She said if people have better information, “they will reject that.”

Prejean quoted Psalm 85:12, which says “truth will spring from the earth,” and added that it also “springs up from the experience of people.”

“When we bring them close, they get it,” she said.

Prejean said people who are poor and people who are ethnic minorities tend to face harsher penalties in the criminal justice system, and there is an inaccurate belief that “only the worst of the worst” will be handed the death penalty.

“To give the state the right to take life means you’re going to trust the state,” she said.

One of the group’s partners is the Catholic Mobilizing Network, which works closely with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to oppose the death penalty. Other organizers include Amnesty International USA, the American Civil Liberties Union, The Innocence Project, and Conservatives Concerned.

Catholic Mobilizing Network Executive Director Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy told CNA in a statement that the campaign “is an exciting expression of the growing momentum and interest in ending capital punishment in the United States.”

“The impressive range of organizations involved in the USCEDP represent the incredibly effective efforts happening across the country for this critical mission,” she said. “Catholic Mobilizing Network is honored to be part [of] USCEDP and our collective endeavor to dismantle a system of death and honor the dignity of all life.”

Demetrius Minor, executive director of Conservatives Concerned, said in the news conference that there’s been a growing concern about the death penalty “from a pro-life perspective” within conservative circles.

“[There is a] significant growing interest in the pro-life community into how the death penalty fits into their advocacy for pro-life issues,” he said.

Minor said many state-level bills to abolish the death penalty have won bipartisan support, such as a few Republicans joining the successful effort in Virginia and Republicans signing onto unsuccessful efforts in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana.

“We can ensure that these efforts continue to be inclusive and bipartisan in the future,” he said.

In addition to national advocacy groups, state-level groups in 23 states have joined the coalition’s efforts.

A photo display of persecuted Christians in Iraq and Nigeria can be seen at the Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C., until Feb. 8, 2026. / Credit: Madalaine Elhabbal/CNA

Washington, D.C., Dec 3, 2025 / 13:50 pm (CNA).

A discussion featuring Father Atta Barkindo and Father Karam Shamasha breathed life into a photo exhibit featuring the “forgotten faces” of persecuted Christians in Nigeria and Iraq on Tuesday.

The photo display can be seen at the Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C., until Feb. 8, 2026. Stephen Rasche, a professor of theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville and senior fellow at the Religious Freedom Institute, who spent years serving persecuted Christians in Iraq and Nigeria, said he hopes people will see “the spark of human dignity” in his photographs of Iraqi and Nigerian Christians on display.

The Dec. 2 discussion, titled “Seeing the Persecuted and Displaced: Experts Tell Their Stories,” organized in part by the Knights of Columbus, comes amid calls for the U.S. to take concrete action toward the Nigerian government after President Donald Trump announced his decision to designate Nigeria as a country of particular concern (CPC).

Rasche was a founding member of the Catholic University in Erbil in 2014. According to his bio, he has served as an official representative to the Vatican Dicastery on Refugees and Migrants, and belongs officially to the historical commission to the Vatican postulator in the cause of Father Ragheed Ganni, a servant of God, and three Iraqi deacons who were murdered in June 2007.

Alongside Rasche’s photos of Nigerian Christians, Barkindo said the persecution of his community in Nigeria is happening on two levels. “The first level is the level of government policy,” he said, “and the second level is the physical violence that we have seen and continue to see in Nigeria.” 

Barkindo said before Nigeria became a country, there were two existing Islamic caliphates in the north: the Kanem Borno Empire and the Sokoto Caliphate, both of which had diplomatic relationships with the Ottoman Empire and “were fully established as a pure Islamic territory.” After the British destroyed these empires and installed constitutional democracy, he said, “the grief that followed the dismantling of the Islamic empires actually never left northern Nigeria.” 

On a policy level, he said, the government then established sharia law, shuttered Christian mission schools and other institutions, and made it “increasingly difficult” for Christians in the north to participate in civilian life. 

“The ideology was very established, and that was what now led to the physical violence that we now see in Nigeria,” Barkindo said. 

“The most important thing is that the violence evolved over time,” he said. “It evolved because there was a complete and massive failure of the government to deal with the insecurity and the situation.” 

As director of The Kukah Centre, Barkindo has led grassroots efforts to bolster security in Nigeria. He holds a licentiate degree in political Islam and interreligious dialogue from the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies in Rome and a doctorate from the SOAS University of London. 

In an interview with CNA, Barkindo described his efforts with The Kukah Centre to promote peace throughout Nigeria’s 36 states. “We have the National Peace Committee that mediates in elections, but they don’t have the gift of bilocation,” he said, explaining how the center goes to states where the Peace Committee cannot reach and trains its civilians in mediation and data collection on early warning and early response for security threats. 

“If they observe serious issues and collect intelligence, they can flag that with us at the national level. We reach out to the government and they’re able to mitigate the situation before it turns into crisis,” he said. The Kukah Centre has done this in 23 states so far and hopes to expand its reach to all 36 states before next year’s elections. 

Reflecting on the evening’s discussion, Barkindo said “the willingness of the American people to just listen” had struck him. 

“America, I don’t want to sound too political, is such a significant country right now globally: When Trump spoke, the whole of Nigeria shook,” he said with emotion. “It’s like for the first time Christians now have somewhere to run to because we have been shouting and speaking for years.” 

Persecution in Iraq

During his testimony, Shamasha also noted the deeply engrained presence of Islamist ideology in Iraq, where he said “we are not dying in the streets today as it was in 2014, but our persecution is different today … there is a lot of discrimination against Christians in this land.” 

Shamasha recounted his experience of persecution, which began in 2003 while at a seminary in Baghdad, which closed several times while he was a student. He was eventually forced to leave in 2005 for Erbil, the Kurdish region of Iraq. He became a parish priest in the Nineveh Plains, then fled once more to Erbil in 2014 with the invasion of ISIS. 

It was during this time that the Catholic University of Erbil was founded. While the Knights of Columbus helped to support and feed the Iraqi Christian community, Shamasha said, the university sought to help young people to not only survive but also “to live with dignity” and eventually become leaders, he said.

“Thanks to God, we are still there,” the Iraqi priest said. “We are fighting to remain not just numbers in these countries, but we are fighting to, in fact, be a real member that can shine, that can give light to all the people that they are.” 

Shamasha holds a doctorate and master’s degree in moral theology from the Pontifical Alphonsian Academy in Rome as well as degrees in canon law, interreligious studies, and priestly formation from the Gregorian University, Lateran University, and the Congregation for the Clergy.