Posted on 11/14/2025 11:00 AM (EWTN News - US Catholic News)
The Austrian Parliament building is lit red as part of the international “Red Week” in honor of persecuted Christians across the globe. / Credit: Aid to the Church in Need
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 14, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).
Here is a roundup of Catholic world news from the past week that you might have missed:
Over 500,000 people will take part in Aid to the Church in Need International’s Red Week 2025, which will see churches and landmarks around the world illuminated in red to raise awareness of religious persecution internationally.
Set to take place Nov. 15–23, the global initiative is expected to see “over 10,000 direct participants for prayers, public events, school gatherings, concerts, and marches,” and to draw in “more than 500,000 participants through media outreach and online platforms,” according to an ACN International press release.
More than 100 events are scheduled around the world, including in Australia, Austria, Germany, Portugal, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Ireland, Switzerland, Hungary, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, and more.
Catholic bishops in Ghana have expressed their closeness with victims of a stampede at the El-Wak Stadium in Accra that left six people dead and several others injured during a Ghana Armed Forces recruitment exercise, ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa, reported Nov. 13.
“We unite our hearts with the bereaved families in grief and lift our prayers to Almighty God for the eternal repose of the departed and the swift recovery of all who are injured,” Ghana’s Catholic bishops said in a statement following the Nov. 12 stampede.
Citing figures released by the acting minister of defense, Cassiel Ato Forson, the bishops noted that 34 casualties were recorded. Of these, six were reportedly confirmed dead, five were in critical condition, 12 were in fairly critical condition, and others were under observation.
Oman has inaugurated a new Catholic pastoral center in Muscat — an important sign of the country’s long-standing respect for religious diversity, according to ACI MENA, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner.
Built on land donated in 1977 by the late Sultan Qaboos, the center provides formation programs, catechesis, and housing for clergy.
Omani Ambassador Mahmoud al-Hassani said the project reflects the nation’s vision of peaceful coexistence and aligns with the Vatican’s mission of dialogue. The center also strengthens ties between Oman and the Holy See, which formally established diplomatic relations in 2023.
The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd (RGS) officially concluded the yearlong celebration of their 200th anniversary on Nov. 11. The contemplative order was founded in 1825 by St. Mary Euphrasia Pelletier in Myanmar.
“I hope it rekindles in all of us a renewed openness to be shaped and made radiant by grace, so that together, as one congregation, and, as one people of God, we allow the fire of God’s love to warm, illumine, and shine through us into the heart of the world,” said Sister Joan Marie Lopez, RGS congregational leader, on her hope for the bicentenary year, according to Vatican News.
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, presided over a Mass in Rome for the bicentennial celebration.
After more than a decade of displacement, Christian families have begun returning to the village of al-Ghassaniyah in Idlib, Syria, ACI MENA reported Nov. 13.
Their return was made possible by a firm government decision to remove foreign extremist groups and by sustained efforts from the Franciscan community. Although many homes are damaged or looted, residents spoke of renewed hope as the Church offered support for the first returning families. The development comes amid wider security shifts in the region and ongoing diplomatic efforts related to extremist fighters.
The Catholic Church is calling for communities to respond after Typhoon Kalmaegi destroyed buildings across the Qui Nhon Diocese, including the house of the bishop and Lang Song Seminary.
“The main house of the Congregation of the Lovers of the Holy Cross in Qui Nhon, the Congregation of the Handmaids of Jesus of Mercy, and many parish churches like Qui Nhon Cathedral and other churches throughout the diocese were severely damaged,” Fides News Agency reported. This comes after severe flooding the week prior, which left 13 dead, 34 injured, and 11 missing.
Maria Vu Thi Hong Anh, head of Da Nang Cathedral Parish Caritas, said in wake of the flooding: “Seeing the images of this historic flood, I feel very sorry for the residents in the rural areas; they are poor and now their life is much more difficult when losing their properties.”
The Catholic Youth Committee in Baghdad held a three-day gathering titled “Think, Discern, Decide,” bringing together young people from several dioceses, according to a Nov. 10 report from ACI MENA.
The event focused on the call to holiness, drawing inspiration from biblical teaching and modern Iraqi witnesses of faith such as Father Ragheed Ganni and other martyrs. Workshops, talks, and prayer times encouraged young participants to live holiness through everyday acts of love and commitment.
Lebanon’s Catholic leaders gathered in Bkerke, Lebanon, for the opening of the 58th session of the Council of Catholic Patriarchs and Bishops, ACI MENA reported.
The meeting focuses on building a synodal Church that listens and acts with spiritual discernment.
Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Bechara Boutros al-Rahi highlighted preparations for Pope Leo XIV’s upcoming visit and called for nationwide prayers and the ringing of church bells upon his arrival. Apostolic Nuncio Paolo Borgia noted that the papal visit will include meetings with all segments of Lebanese society.
Posted on 11/14/2025 09:30 AM (USCCB News Releases)
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Leo XIV does not intend to overturn Pope Francis' limits on celebrating the traditional Latin Mass but will grant two-year dispensations to bishops who ask, a nuncio said.
Archbishop Miguel Maury Buendía, the apostolic nuncio to Great Britain, told bishops Nov. 13 that Pope Leo told him he would not abrogate "Traditionis Custodes," Pope Francis' 2021 letter greatly restricting the celebration of Masses according to the 1962 Roman Missal, the Latin liturgy in use before the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
The Vatican press office did not respond to a request for comment.
But the archbishop made headlines by telling members of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales that the pope would grant bishops who request it a two-year, renewable exemption.
The exemptions are nothing new, a Vatican official told Catholic News Service Nov. 14.
"This is no more than a restatement of the practice of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments since the motu proprio ('Traditionis Custodes') came into force," said Msgr. Enda Murphy, an official at the dicastery.
"What the nuncio is clearly referring to is the necessity for a diocesan bishop to request a derogation from art. 3 § 2 of 'Traditionis Custodes' in order that Mass according to the Missale Romanum of 1962 can be celebrated in a parish church," he said.
The subsection referred to by Msgr. Murphy says that a bishop can designate one or more locations where the faithful who had been celebrating the older Mass could continue to do so, "not however in the parochial churches and without the erection of new personal parishes."
In late October, various Catholic news outlets reported that the Diocese of Cleveland, led by Bishop Edward C. Malesic, had received permission for the older Latin Mass to continue at two parish churches in his diocese. In July, Bishop Michael Sis of San Angelo, Texas, confirmed that he had made a similar request, which was granted.
Pope Leo also personally granted permission for U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, a former Vatican official, to celebrate the older form of the Mass in St. Peter's Basilica in late October.
When Pope Francis issued the restrictions, he declared the liturgical books promulgated after the Second Vatican Council to be "the unique expression of the 'lex orandi' (law of worship) of the Roman Rite," restored the obligation of priests to have their bishops' permission to celebrate according to the "extraordinary" or pre-Vatican II Mass and ordered bishops not to establish any new groups or parishes in their dioceses devoted to the old liturgy.
At the time, Pope Francis said his decision was meant "to promote the concord and unity of the church."
Posted on 11/14/2025 09:30 AM (USCCB News Releases)
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Academic rigor, dialogue and openness to other cultures and disciplines are essential for a Catholic university and even more so for the Pontifical Lateran University, which is often called "the pope's university," Pope Leo XIV said.
The pope officially opened the Rome university's 2025-2026 academic year Nov. 14 and told faculty and students that because they come from all over the world, they represent "a microcosm of the universal church: therefore, be a prophetic sign of communion and fraternity."
The university, founded by Pope Clement XIV in 1773 to train priests for the pope's Diocese of Rome, currently has about 130 professors and just over 1,000 students, mainly studying philosophy, theology, civil law and canon law.
To truly serve the church and the world, Pope Leo said, the university must maintain the highest academic standards.
"The risk is that we slip into the temptation to simplify complex issues in order to avoid the labor of thought, with the danger that, even in pastoral action and in its forms of expression, we sink into banality, superficiality or rigidity," he said.
"Scientific inquiry and the effort of research are necessary. We need well-prepared and competent laypeople and priests," he said. "Therefore, I urge you not to lower your guard regarding scientific rigor, but to carry forward a passionate search for truth and a robust engagement with other sciences, with reality and with the problems and struggles of society."
Faith must be studied in a way that leads to it being expressed "within current cultural settings and challenges," he said, but those studies also are a way "to counter the risk of the cultural void that, in our age, is becoming increasingly pervasive."
The school's Faculty of Theology, the pope said, must find ways to bring forth the "beauty and credibility" of the Christian faith "so that it can appear as a fully human proposal, capable of transforming the lives of individuals and of society, of sparking prophetic changes in response to the tragedies and poverties of our time, and of encouraging the search for God."
The pope also encouraged the university to look for ways to strengthen its courses in peace studies and in ecology.
"The issues they address are an essential part of the recent magisterium of the church which, established as a sign of the covenant between God and humanity, is called to form workers for peace and justice who build and bear witness to the kingdom of God," the pope said.
Everything a Catholic university does, Pope Leo said, should be done with dialogue, respect and the aim of building up a real community of brothers and sisters.
That sense of fraternity, he said, is essential for countering "the appeal of individualism as the key to a successful life," which has "disturbing consequences in every sphere: people focus on self-promotion, the primacy of the ego is fueled, cooperation becomes difficult, prejudices and barriers toward others -- especially those who are different -- grow, responsibility in service is mistaken for solitary leadership, and in the end misunderstandings and conflicts multiply."
On a human and religious level, Pope Leo said, a Catholic university is called to promote the common good and prepare students to contribute to the good of their churches and communities.
"The aim of the educational and academic process must be to form people who, guided by the logic of gratuitousness and by a passion for truth and justice, can become builders of a new, fraternal and supportive world," he said. "The university can and must spread this culture, becoming a sign and expression of this new world and of the pursuit of the common good."
Pope Leo visited the Pontifical Lateran University on Nov. 14 to open the academic year, warning that academic work is often undervalued in the church because of persistent prejudices that dismiss study and research as less “real” or important than...
Posted on 11/13/2025 23:26 PM (EWTN News - US Catholic News)
A person detained is taken to a parking lot on the far north side of the city before being transferred to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Chicago on Oct. 31, 2025. / Credit: Jamie Kelter Davis/Getty Images
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 13, 2025 / 18:26 pm (CNA).
The Catholic advocacy organization CatholicVote has released a report examining the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts, concluding Christians must balance charity toward the immigrant with the common good of the receiving state.
The report, titled “Immigration Enforcement and the Christian Conscience,” comes on the heels of the special message on immigration released by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) at its fall plenary meeting this past week.
“A faithful Catholic approach to immigration begins not with politics but with people. Compassion, hospitality, and solidarity with the poor are not optional virtues,” CatholicVote President and CEO Kelsey Reinhardt said in a press release accompanying the report.
“They are at the center of the Gospel,” she added. “Yet, mercy and justice travel together. One without the other distorts both.”
The report by author Benjamin Mann labels the Biden administration’s border policies as “reckless” and credits them for resulting in human trafficking, sexual exploitation of immigrants without legal status, and rampant drug cartels.
“Catholics who advocate strong but humane immigration enforcement are sometimes accused of disobeying their bishops or the pope, and even violating Church teaching,” the report states. “Properly speaking, there is no such thing as an official ‘Catholic position’ on the practical details of immigration policy.”
The report says that “despite what some Church leaders in America have indicated, a faithful Catholic can support strong and humane immigration law enforcement — by means such as physical barriers, detention, and deportation — without violating the teaching of the Church.”
The report asserts that Catholic teaching on immigration has been distorted by “an ideological immigration lobby” within the Church that “has sought to present amnesty, minimal law enforcement, and more legal immigration as the only acceptable position for Catholics.”
“This is not an act of disobedience or disrespect toward the Church hierarchy but a legitimate difference of opinion according to magisterial teaching,” the report says.
“The truth is that faithful Catholics can certainly disagree with the anti-enforcement position — even if some bishops happen to share the policy preferences of these activists. Such disagreement is not a dissent from Church teaching,” the document continues, citing “recent popes” as having said the Catholic Church “has no ‘official position’ on the practical details of issues like immigration policy.”
“Rather, our faith teaches a set of broad moral principles about immigration, and their application in public life is a matter of practical judgment for laypersons,” the report said.
The CatholicVote document further argues that “it is actually immoral in the eyes of the Church for a country to accept immigrants to the detriment of its own citizens,” citing paragraph 1903 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which states: “Authority is exercised legitimately only when it seeks the common good of the group concerned and if it employs morally licit means to attain it. If rulers were to enact unjust laws or take measures contrary to the moral order, such arrangements would not be binding in conscience. In such a case, ‘authority breaks down completely and results in shameful abuse.’”
Posted on 11/13/2025 18:50 PM (EWTN News - US Catholic News)
Paul Scherz briefs bishops about artificial intelligence at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Fall Plenary Assembly in Baltimore on Nov. 12, 2025. / Credit: Tessa Gervasini/CNA
Baltimore, Maryland, Nov 13, 2025 / 13:50 pm (CNA).
The U.S. bishops received a briefing on the benefits and risks of artificial intelligence (AI) from Paul Scherz at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Fall Plenary Assembly in Baltimore.
Scherz, a theology professor at the University of Notre Dame, has studied the ethics of AI. At the Nov. 12 meeting, Scherz highlighted some of his findings and shared how the bishops should approach the technology within their dioceses.
AI technologies “have great potential to contribute to human flourishing and the common good,” Scherz said. “But note that it would be a mistake to describe these programs as intelligent in the same way that humans are.”
“They lack consciousness and any kind of subjective relationship to the world. So as Pope Leo says, ‘The person is not a system of algorithms. He or she is a creature, relationship, mystery.’ Thus, despite their power and utility, they shouldn’t be called persons or truly intelligent,” he said.
“We’re made for a relationship as created in the image of the triune God. We don’t find our good alone,” Scherz said. “Instead, our individual flourishing is enmeshed with the flourishing of those around us. Together, we see the common good in our common life.”
In his discussion, Scherz highlighted three Catholic ministries that can implement AI while also detailing the potential threats.
The “largest Catholic ministry” AI can be implemented in is health care. Since “17% of U.S. patients receive care at a Catholic institution, it’s almost certainly the ministry in which the most non-Catholics interact with the Church,” Scherz said.
“Through these health care institutions, the Church realizes Jesus’ call to heal the sick,” Scherz said. “Health care is also a sector of the economy that has seen a rapid adoption of AI technologies.”
“For the past decade, health care technology companies have sought to put the vast scores of data embedded in their electronic medical records to use and train AI,” Scherz said. “Insurance companies are using AI to help fix and complete claims that lack incorrect information.”
The issue is the “bias from lack of diversity in training data, such as early genomics studies largely containing research subjects who were middle-class and European descent,” he said.
While AI is used to improve diagnostics and enact greater efficiency, we must be wary of the “significant dangers,” Scherz said. “Anything that restricts basic access in a biased manner would be an offense against the equal human dignity emerging from our shared participation in the image of God.”
Also, “the algorithm cannot substitute a gesture of closeness or a word of consolation,” Scherz said. “Much of what practitioners do is not a pure analytic process. They negotiate with patients to accept care, maintain the spirits of people suffering from a chronic disease, and tinker with therapy so that they better fit the complicated lives of patients.”
“A second ministry heavily affected by AI are Catholic schools,” Scherz said. Education and technology entrepreneurs “are promising a future in which AI enables personalized education for every student.”
“In this vision, AI would be a personal tutor for each child, or at least develop learning plans tailored to the individual,” but AI cannot replace teachers, because they “do more than convey knowledge,” Scherz said.
Teachers “model essential human qualities and inspire the joy of discovery. This relationship of encounter is at the heart of true education. The teacher fosters virtues and serves as an exemplar,” he said.
He also highlighted the clear threat that students will abuse AI and use it to complete writing assignments. Scherz said: “This is a crisis for schools, especially those of the liberal arts curriculum like Catholic schools, because writing is not just about producing content. Writing essays forces a student to think, to organize ideas, to argue coherently.”
Lastly, Scherz addressed AI in the pastoral field. He said: “There is increasing evidence that people are turning to chatbots for religious resources” and AI “is becoming a standard for religious authorities.”
“People are prompting AI, or developing AI applications, that frame their responses and act in the persona of God or a religious figure,” Scherz said. “People are using AI to develop spiritual inventories or to provide spiritual direction.”
“Catholic sites are using AI to provide laypeople with access to Church teaching,” Scherz said. He explained that pastors and parishioners using AI as a research tool to find interpretations of Scripture, catechism information, or doctrine could be beneficial.
For these Catholic AI systems to work, people must actually examine the source material provided. Scherz said: “Unfortunately, people tend to rely on the AI summary, and what starts as a research tool can frequently become more than that.”
AI companions “are incredibly dangerous, especially due to AI’s tendencies toward hallucination and psychosis,” Scherz said. Also “engagement with chatbots can prevent actual encounter with pastors, as people may feel their needs are meant by AI.”
AI “also raises concerns on the side of pastors,” Scherz said. “There are increasing reports of pastors using it for the spiritual aspect of their work, like writing homilies or preparing religious education materials.”
“The problem is that, as with writing in general, homilies are in part formative — shaping the pastor as he engages with Scripture,” Scherz said. “Totally abnegating this role to AI would undermine the authenticity of the pastor’s witness.”
“Technologies provide great opportunities, but also great dangers. They can lead to injustice, alienation, and deformation of character,” Scherz said. “At the same time, AI offers greater efficiency and new capacities for serving the common good.”
Scherz said: “The emergence of AI provides the Church with an evangelical opportunity … People are asking basic questions of what it means to be human for the first time in a long time” and “the Church can provide those answers.”
Posted on 11/13/2025 18:20 PM (EWTN News - US Catholic News)
Mercy Health Perrysburg Hospital in Perrysburg, Ohio. / Credit: Wikimedia Commons
CNA Staff, Nov 13, 2025 / 13:20 pm (CNA).
Catholic hospitals in the United States are explicitly forbidden from carrying out transgender-related surgeries on individuals who believe themselves to be the opposite sex, the U.S. bishops said this week.
The prelates, gathered at the plenary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in Baltimore, voted on Nov. 12 to direct hospitals to “preserve the integrity of the human body” when treating individuals with gender dysphoria.
Such individuals often seek surgery to make their bodies conform to that of the opposite sex. But in updated guidance, the bishops said that while Catholic health care providers must employ “all appropriate resources” to mitigate the suffering of such patients, they can use “only those means that respect the fundamental order of the human body.”
The new rule makes into explicit USCCB policy what the bishops expressed in a doctrinal note in 2023 when they said Catholic providers must not take part in procedures that “aim to transform the sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex.”
The revised directives were hailed by the Catholic Health Association, which in a Nov. 12 statement said that the rules “reaffirm the Church’s teaching on the dignity of all persons and their right to life from conception to natural death.”
The revisions “clarify and affirm current clinical practices” and “are consistent with Catholic health care practice that does not allow for medical interventions that alter sexual characteristics absent an underlying condition,” the group said.
The organization said Catholic health care providers would continue to treat those who identify as transgender “with dignity and respect.”
In their guidelines the bishops noted that it can be “morally permissible” to “remove or to suppress the function of one part of the body for the sake of the body as a whole,” though only in very limited circumstances, such as when a body part is diseased.
In forbidding medical practices that “aim to transform sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex,” the bishops cited the Vatican’s 2024 document Dignitas Infinita, which in part disallows “all attempts to obscure reference to the ineliminable sexual difference between man and woman.”
The USCCB’s guidance comes several months after the Trump administration moved to prohibit transgender procedures performed on children at U.S. hospitals.
Multiple U.S. hospitals earlier this year ended their child transgender programs under pressure from the Trump administration. One watchdog group determined that doctors in the U.S. performed around 14,000 “gender transitions” on underage children between 2019 and 2023.
In January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to prohibit hospitals that receive Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements from performing transgender operations or providing transgender drugs to anyone under the age of 19.
An EWTN News analysis in 2024, meanwhile, showed that nearly 150 Catholic hospitals across the United States provided children with transgender drugs or performed gender-transition surgeries on them between 2019 and 2023.
Posted on 11/13/2025 14:00 PM (EWTN News - World Catholic News)
Representatives of the Roman Curia and the German bishops’ conference meet to discuss the proposed Synodal Conference statute at the Vatican on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025. / Credit: Deutsche Bischofskonferenz/Kopp
EWTN News, Nov 13, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).
Vatican and German bishops held their fourth meeting Wednesday to discuss the statute of a proposed “synodal conference” in Germany.
Posted on 11/13/2025 12:00 PM (EWTN News - US Catholic News)
null / Credit: Wirestock Creators/Shutterstock
CNA Staff, Nov 13, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).
According to a new survey, engagement among U.S. adults who identify as Catholic is strong, especially among the youngest adults, and there is growing trust in the Church after the fallout of the clergy sexual abuse crisis of the early 2000s.
In July, Leadership Roundtable commissioned a polling firm to conduct a national survey of Catholics in the U.S. in order to inform Church leaders of problems as well as strengths within the Catholic Church since the sexual abuse crisis came to national attention in 2002 and the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People was composed to address it.
Researchers composed a 72-question survey and divided respondents into three groups: the Faithful (1,541 respondents), the Occasional (472 respondents), and the Disengaged (1,020). The Faithful said they attend Mass at least monthly, the Occasional said they go a few times a year, and the Disengaged said they go “seldom” or “never.”
Although the Catholic Church in the U.S. has shrunk from 65 million to 50 million people in the more than two decades since the sexual abuse crisis and engagement is “at an all-time low,” the survey’s findings are cause for hope, the authors say.
In a reversal from the organization’s 2003 survey, adults between the ages of 18–29 are now the most likely group (84%) to attend Mass regularly and to be active in their parishes in addition to Mass (attending Eucharistic adoration, social events, and confession), the survey found.
The group’s 2003 survey of 1,004 Catholics found that Mass attendance increased with age. The 2025 survey found the opposite to be true: Two-thirds of young adults (65%) said they attend Mass at least monthly now, compared with 43% of adults aged 45–64 and 42% of those over 65 years old. In 2003, 83% of adults 45–64 and 85% of those over 65 attended monthly.
The survey found that Catholics trust their pastor and other parish staff more than they trust the Church as an institution.
Nearly 80% of respondents said they trust parish staff and volunteers to protect children, and 77% said they trust their pastor and other clergy.
“Building a transparent and accountable leadership culture” was one of the highest priorities across all age groups, according to the survey. For 77% of respondents, it was among their top two priorities, with 45% giving it the highest possible rating of “extremely important.”
In 2003, 70% of respondents said they had high confidence in their bishops as doctrinal authorities but low confidence in them (44%) as listeners of the opinions of laity or parish priests.
That low confidence has not changed much in two decades. In the recent survey, just 49% said they think their bishops involve the laity in solving Church issues. Fewer, 47%, believe bishops “lead with financial transparency,” and 45% worry that their donations will go to paying legal fees and abuse settlements.
Catholics who donate regularly to their parishes (61%) say they would give more if they thought the Church was more transparent about financial matters. Nearly three-quarters of them (72%) said they would give less if there was a scandal in their parish or diocese.
Of Catholics who go to Mass sometimes, 58% donate financially to their parish at least once a year. Of the 42% who never give, 39% cited a lack of financial transparency as their reason.
Regarding education, of U.S. Catholics whose parishes have a parish school, only 53% said they think the school is thriving. This was the lowest rating of all youth formation activities surveyed.
According to its website, Leadership Roundtable, founded in 2003 in the aftermath of the clergy sexual abuse crisis, is a nonprofit organization composed of clergy, laity, and religious “working together to promote best practices and accountability in the management, finances, communications, and human resource development of the Catholic Church in the U.S., including greater incorporation of the expertise of the laity.”
Posted on 11/13/2025 09:30 AM (USCCB News Releases)
BALTIMORE – At the plenary assembly in Baltimore on Wednesday, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) elected Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend as Conference Secretary. They also elected chairmen of six standing Conference committees. Bishop Rhoades will assume the office of secretary immediately upon conclusion of the plenary today, as he is filling the vacancy that results from Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, who had been serving as USCCB secretary, being elected as USCCB president.
Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne South Bend was elected as USCCB secretary and chairman of the Committee on Priorities and Plans in a 126-95 vote over Archbishop James F. Checchio, coadjutor of New Orleans. Bishop Rhoades fills the vacancy created with the election of Archbishop Coakley as Conference president. Bishop Rhoades assumed his new position at the conclusion of this year’s plenary assembly and will serve as secretary through November 2027, at which time he will be eligible for re-election.
Archbishop Jeffrey S. Grob of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, as chairman-elect of the Committee on Canonical Affairs and Church Governance in a 113-108 vote over Bishop Edward M. Lohse of the Diocese of Kalamazoo.
Bishop Peter L. Smith, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon, as chairman-elect of the Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs in a 139-83 vote over Bishop Daniel J. Felton of the Diocese of Duluth.
Bishop William A. Wack, CSC, of the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee, as chairman-elect of the Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis in a 116-106 vote over Bishop Earl K. Fernandes of the Diocese of Columbus.
Archbishop Borys Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, as chairman-elect of the Committee on International Justice and Peace in a 154-68 vote over Archbishop Edward J. Weisenburger of the Archdiocese of Detroit.
Bishop Mark O’Connell, bishop-designate of the Diocese of Albany, as chairman-elect of the Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People in a 116-106 vote over Bishop John P. Dolan of the Diocese of Phoenix.
Archbishop Alexander K. Sample of the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon and Bishop Michael J. Sis of the Diocese of San Angelo tied for a vote with 111-111 for chairman of the Committee for Religious Liberty. Bishop Sis withdrew his name and Archbishop Sample was named the chairman. Bishop Rhoades had been serving as chairman of the religious liberty committee, but was elected as Conference secretary, creating a vacancy in the committee chairmanship. Therefore, Archbishop Sample assumes the chairmanship on Thursday, and his term runs through November 2029.
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Posted on 11/13/2025 09:30 AM (USCCB News Releases)
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence online and in schools demands stronger government-enforced safeguards, education in the critical use of media and more consistent monitoring by parents and teachers, Pope Leo XIV said.
"Children and adolescents are particularly vulnerable to manipulation through AI algorithms that can influence their decisions and preferences," the pope told academics, AI experts and professionals involved in child protection programs Nov. 13.
The group was participating in a conference, "The Dignity of Children and Adolescents in the Age of Artificial Intelligence," which was sponsored by Telefono Azzurro, an Italian hotline for children, and its foundation for research on the mental and physical health of children and teens.
Pope Leo told the group that as AI grows so must the tools needed "to monitor and guide young people's interactions with technology."
But that monitoring, he said, will not accomplish much if parents and teachers are not educated about the potential dangers of AI for young people.
And, the pope said, "governments and international organizations have a responsibility to design and implement policies that protect the dignity of minors in the AI era," including by "updating existing data protection laws to address new challenges posed by emerging technologies and promoting ethical standards for the development and use of AI."
Guidelines and restrictions will not work, however, without "daily, ongoing educational efforts carried out by adults who themselves are trained and supported by networks of collaboration," the pope said.
The adults' role, he said, includes understanding the risks that "premature, unlimited and unsupervised digital access may pose to the relationships and development of young people."
"Only by taking part in the discovery of such risks and the effects on their personal and social life, can minors be supported in approaching the digital world as a means of strengthening their ability to make responsible choices for themselves and for others," Pope Leo said.
The church is not opposed to the use of technology, including artificial intelligence, he said, but people must ensure that it "serves as an ally, not a threat, in the growth and development of children and adolescents."
Pope Leo spoke to participants in a conference on protecting "The Dignity of Children and Adolescents in the Age of Artificial Intelligence" Nov. 13.