St. Elizabeth of Hungary Church

Many “Hebrew Catholics” continue to practice aspects of their Judaism; for example, they continue to celebrate the Passover with their families and friends. / Credit: RadRafe~commonswiki, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

St. Louis, Mo., Apr 17, 2025 / 10:54 am (CNA).

Raised in a conservative Jewish household in New York, David Moss had his bar mitzvah at age 13. In his heart, though, he had lost his faith in Judaism.

What followed was a 23-year period of searching for religious truth and life’s meaning, culminating in a dramatic mystical conversion experience that led Moss to embrace the Catholic faith in 1979.

Despite being a happy and committed Catholic today, Moss, 83, has not left his Jewish identity and heritage behind. He is the longtime president of the Association of Hebrew Catholics (AHC), a St. Louis-based group that seeks to provide a welcoming place for Jewish converts to Catholicism and encourage them to preserve their Jewish identity.

When he entered the Church in the 1970s, “I still had a ton to learn. I knew very little … especially how [Catholicism] connected to my Jewish origins. The going narrative was that my Judaism was finished, over,” Moss told CNA.

Amid his own reading and research, Moss encountered Father Elias Friedman, a Carmelite friar and founder of the AHC, who he says helped him to understand that rather than obliterating his Jewish identity, “Catholicism is Judaism in its developed, fulfilled form.”

“It’s like a child that becomes an adult. The adult doesn’t replace the child. The adult and the child are one reality. They’re just the different phases of their existence,” Moss said of his understanding of the relationship between Catholicism and Judaism.

After Moss took over as president of the AHC in 1993, he would often invite his Catholic friends to celebrate the Passover Seder with him and his family in his home, even once hosting Cardinal Raymond Burke, then the archbishop of St. Louis.

Moss said many “Hebrew Catholics” continue to practice aspects of their Judaism; they continue to celebrate Passover with their families and friends, observe Shabbat (the Sabbath), and some even continue to visit the synagogue, the place of Jewish communal prayer and learning. 

“There’s nothing that we do that’s in violation of anything Catholic,” he stressed. “To me, [continuing to observe the traditions of Judaism] just makes Catholicism even greater, because it’s all part of God’s plan.”

“None of the [Vatican] documents talk about what Jews can or can’t do as Catholics,” he continued. 

“So, while we’re waiting for the theologians to work all that out, we’re working it out on the ground, and we try to make sure that anything we do doesn’t go against any established Catholic doctrine or discipline,” he explained.

The Church and Judaism

The Catholic Church has, especially since the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, taught the importance of the common spiritual heritage of Jews and Christians, and condemned any attempt to implicate the entire Jewish people in the death of Jesus. 

Moreover, the Church has reaffirmed that despite Christ’s New Covenant being the fulfillment of the Jewish Old Covenant, the Old Covenant has never been revoked (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 121) and the Jews remain God’s chosen people.

Chief among the Church’s teachings regarding Judaism is Nostra Aetate, written by St. Paul VI in 1965, which addressed the Church’s stance toward all non-Christian religions. In paragraph 4, the document acknowledges the “great … spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews,” recommending a stance of “mutual understanding and respect which is the fruit, above all, of biblical and theological studies as well as of fraternal dialogues.”

Nostra Aetate also strongly articulates the Church’s condemnation of hatred and violence against Jews and Judaism, noting that the Jewish people as a whole are not to be held responsible for Christ’s death and decrying all “hatred, persecutions, displays of antisemitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone.”

Later on, in 1985, the Congregation (now Dicastery) for Promoting Christian Unity released a document that spoke of a “permanent reality of the Jewish people.” 

Drawing extensively from a 1982 speech by St. John Paul II, the document notes that Jews and Christians are “linked together at the very level of their identity”; the document said that an “awareness of the faith and religious life of the Jewish people as they are professed and practiced still today can greatly help us to understand better certain aspects of the life of the Church.”

And in a 1988 document, the U.S. bishops went a step further by explicitly encouraging Catholics to reverently take part in Holocaust (Shoah) memorials and even in Passover Seders, citing the “educational and spiritual value” of doing so. 

The bishops warned, however, against attempting to “baptize” the Seder by ending it with New Testament readings about the Last Supper “or, worse, turn it into a prologue to the Eucharist.”

“Such mergings distort both traditions,” the bishops wrote, saying that any attempt by Christians to participate in Passover celebrations should be done to “acknowledge common roots in the history of salvation.” The tradition of the Seder “truly belongs” to the Jews, however, whereas the Christian celebration of the Triduum is the appropriate “annual memorial of the events of Jesus’ dying and rising.”

Popular works published in recent years such as Brant Pitre’s “Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist” and Scott Hahn’s “The Fourth Cup” have contributed to many Catholics’ understanding of the Jewish roots of the Catholic faith and the Eucharist in particular.

Lawrence Feingold, a former agnostic who converted to Catholicism in 1989 and today serves as director of theology for the AHC, told EWTN’s “The Journey Home” in 2019 that he was estranged from his Jewish upbringing for many years; only after he became Catholic did he begin to connect back to his Jewish faith and become interested in preserving and practicing it.

“It’s so tragic that it’s so often understood as an either/or,” Feingold said, referring to the way many people view Jewish and Catholic identity.

“Whereas for us [Feingold and his wife, Marsha], becoming Catholic opened up the way to the Old Testament,” he continued, saying that after he and Marsha became Catholic, they lived for a time in Jerusalem to learn Hebrew, with the Church of the Holy Sepulcher — the traditional site of Jesus’ resurrection — as their “home parish.” Feingold said he views God’s calling and preparation of the Jewish people the work of “the ultimate artist.”

“You can’t do the perfect thing without perfectly preparing. And the perfect thing is that God became man … and he’s got to prepare for it. And he prepares it in a properly human way by calling a people in which he’s going to become man, and forming that people with all of their particularity … so that he can become man in them.”

Facing antisemitism

Jewish organizations have sounded the alarm in recent years over an apparent rise in antisemitic incidents and attitudes, especially since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023. The American Jewish Committee, in a February report examining all of 2024, reported that 77% of American Jews say they feel less safe as a Jewish person in the U.S. following Hamas’ attacks and their aftermath. 

The Catholic bishops of the United States, as a body, have condemned in recent years what they call a “reemergence of antisemitism in new forms.” In a statement released before the start of the current Israel-Hamas conflict, the bishops called on Christians to join them in opposing acts of antisemitism and reminding the faithful of Christianity’s shared heritage with Judaism. Individual bishops have also spoken out.

Moss commented that he has encountered antisemitic attitudes among fellow Catholics over the years, particularly from those who criticized his stance that one can be a fully observant Catholic while still practicing Jewish traditions — though rarely could any of those Catholic critics provide any official Church teaching to support their claims, Moss said.

He emphasized the need for Catholics to study the Old Testament to fully understand God’s plan of salvation and address misconceptions about Jewish-Catholic identity.

“One of the things that all Catholics should do is read the Old Testament as well as the New, and get commentaries that treat the Old Testament seriously with lessons for us today, with lessons that Christ himself built on to preach his message,” Moss said. 

For example, “Jesus didn’t come up with a new set of Ten Commandments. They were already in existence. He didn’t come up with the notions of mercy and love. They were already there in the Old Testament.”

Moss, now in his mid-80s, said he is on the search for his successor to lead the AHC. Meanwhile, the organization continues to grow slowly, working within the Church’s framework while advocating for the recognition and integration of Jewish traditions in Catholic practice — above all, encouraging Jews who become Catholics not to lose their identity. 

After all, Moss concluded, the New Covenant is the means of salvation, but the Old Covenant has never passed away.

“[Jewish converts] can do everything a Catholic does, but they have their own traditions as well, and they shouldn’t have to give them up,” he said.

Now in its fifth season, Part 1 of “The Chosen: Last Supper” — the first two episodes — has become the highest-grossing installment of the series, raking in a little over $19 million.  / Credit: 5&2 Studios

CNA Staff, Apr 17, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

The popular Christian series “The Chosen” continues to do well at the box office, holding its own against recent Hollywood blockbusters such as “Snow White” and “A Minecraft Movie.”

Now in its fifth season, Part 1 of “The Chosen: Last Supper” — the first two episodes — has become the highest-grossing installment of the series, raking in a little over $19 million in theaters at the time of publishing. 

Part 2 — episodes 3 through 5 — of the fifth season recently hit the $10 million mark, and Part 3, which is episodes 6 through 8, was released April 11 and grossed $5.8 million during its opening weekend.

In an interview with CNA, Dallas Jenkins — creator, writer and director of “The Chosen” — shared what inspired his vision of the Last Supper depicted in Season 5, given many different presentations of this historic event.

“We do it ‘The Chosen’ way, which is we take stories that are famous… maybe they have been portrayed in stained-glass windows or as paintings in the case of the Last Supper, one of the most famous paintings of all time … and we’re going to reveal the humanity of it,” he told CNA during a press junket in Dallas on March 19.

“At the beginning of the Last Supper, it was 13 brothers who were very, very close to each other and who loved each other deeply being told by one of them ‘I’m not going to be with you much longer’ and saying some extraordinarily important things that they don’t quite understand and so they’re trying to make sense of it,” Jenkins said. 

“So the humanization of a story that actually was human but that we don’t often look at it that way is an important part of how we portrayed it and one that, almost because of the fame of this part of the story, the fame of the Last Supper, it’s easy to distance yourself from it emotionally. And so, I think we’re trying to bring you back into what it would’ve been like to be in that room.”

One of the disciples who begins to understand what Jesus is telling them in Season 5 is John. Actor George Xanthis, who portrays John the Apostle, told CNA how he has seen his character go from “thunder to love”  and how viewers are “following him on this journey” from “Son of Thunder,” as Jesus jokingly calls John and his brother James, to becoming “the beloved disciple.” 

Xanthis shared that at the beginning of Season 5, John is “ready to listen” but “he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to be listening for.”

He added that while Mary Magaldene catches the “bug” of understanding what Jesus is telling them in Season 4, “what Season 5 shows is John catches that bug and he catches it off Mary, which is a lovely moment because it’s a foreshadowing of where they’re both going to end up. So, this is kind of John beginning to have that insider’s ear.”

“I would say that he’s starting to pay attention and he’s sticking very, very close to Jesus as he does,” he said. 

The actor pointed out how Jenkins frequently reminded the cast that while they may personally know what happens in the end, at the time, the disciples didn’t know how things were going to end. 

Raised in a Greek Orthodox family knowing the Gospels, Xanthis said he had to “wrestle with that — because I knew what was happening, [so] I’m like, ‘How could the disciples not see this?’”

“So, even as John is beginning to catch on to it, it’s also that he doesn’t believe that it’s going to happen at the end of the week,” he added.

In terms of what he hopes viewers will take away from this season as they themselves are experiencing Holy Week, Jenkins said: “I’m hoping viewers watch this going, ‘When I don’t understand something or someone, can I still trust and follow? Can I still have faith?’” 

“Judas didn’t understand and rejected,” Xanthis explained. “The religious leaders didn’t understand and rejected. We have a tendency to still do that today — things I don’t understand, people I don’t understand, I’m going to reject and I’m going to be secure in my own rightness because confusion is not something I can handle. And I think we see in Season 5, more than ever, what it’s like to follow and trust even when you don’t fully understand.”

Actor Paras Patel, who portrays Matthew, also shared his hopes for viewers this season. 

“A recurring theme with the show is that there is light after darkness and so we are heading into the darkness but know that there is light coming after,” Patel shared. 

“This is going to be a hard season to watch just because we know what’s to come and what’s happening, but I think at the end of the day I just feel like people leave feeling a little bit of hope…you’ll feel a lot, but also just feel rejuvenated and have some strength and hope.”

“The Chosen” is one of several faith-based productions performing well in theaters and on streaming platforms currently. Angel Studios’ “King of Kings” recently set a new record for a biblical animated film with a projected $19 million domestic debut over its opening weekend. The new series “House of David” earned the No. 1 spot on Prime Video’s Top 10 Shows List after its season finale aired on April 3 and drew 22 million viewers in its first 17 days on the streaming platform.

Palestinians stand on the rubble and debris of the Latin Patriarchate Holy Family School after it was hit during Israeli military bombardment in Gaza City on July 7, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. / Credit: OMAR AL-QATTAA/AFP via Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 16, 2025 / 18:36 pm (CNA).

An ecumenical Palestinian Christian organization doubled down on criticism of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) this week, accusing the body of dismissing concerns of Palestinian Christians and portraying opposition to the Israeli government as antisemitic.

The organization, Kairos Palestine, is led by Catholic Patriarch Emeritus Michel Sabbah and is composed of Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christian Palestinians. The group supports “nonviolent resistance” to Israeli policies in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, which includes boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israel.

“As Palestinian Christians living through one of the darkest periods in our history, we are compelled to speak the truth,” Kairos Palestine’s leaders wrote in an April 14 letter to the USCCB.

The dispute between the two groups is rooted in the USCCB’s partnership with the American Jewish Committee (AJC) to create a Catholic edition of AJC’s “Translate Hate” document, which is meant to condemn antisemitism and educate Catholics on antisemitic phrases and beliefs.

Defining antisemitism

Kairos Palestine affirmed in a March 25 letter to the American bishops that “our criticisms of Israel’s policies and the actions of its leaders are not directed at Jewish communities or Judaism itself,” but it expressed disapproval of a few elements of the “Translate Hate” document related to Zionism and the State of Israel.

The document adopts the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which states that manifestations of antisemitism “might include the targeting of the state of Israel” and lists as examples any claim that “the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor” and the application of “double standards” against Israel. It notes that not all criticism of Israel, however, is antisemitic.

According to the “Translate Hate” document, the IHRA definition was used because alternative definitions defend “anti-Israel and anti-Zionist expressions” as not being forms of antisemitism.

Zionism refers to the political movement founded in 1897 aimed at creating a Jewish national homeland and a Jewish state in the Holy Land; international recognition was achieved in 1917 with the Balfour Declaration, followed by the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.

The “Translate Hate” document refers to anti-Zionism as “the belief that the Jewish people do not have the right to a national home in their ancestral homeland” and states that it is widely believed to be “a form of antisemitism.”

Additionally, the document states that calling Zionism inherently racist is antisemitic and alleging that Zionism is a form of “settler colonialism” with the mission of “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinian people is antisemitic and “categorically false.” It states that Jews are “native and indigenous to the land” and that Zionists “never had the goal of eliminating the Arab population living in the region.”

In its March 25 letter to the USCCB, Kairos Palestine referenced these aspects of the “Translate Hate” document as the reasons for their objections, asserting it “dangerously equates Zionism with Judaism” and ignores “overwhelming evidence” of an ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

“It equates Palestinian resistance with antisemitism, a dangerous conflation that distorts reality and undermines legitimate criticism of Israeli racist laws and policies,” the Palestinian Christian group argued. “We categorically reject all forms of antisemitism, just as we reject any attempt to use this charge to justify oppression and to criminalize our legitimate struggle for our basic rights and our right for self-determination.”

Kairos Palestine’s letter says the USCCB “has alienated the indigenous Christians of the Holy Land, causing deep pain to a community struggling for survival” by signing onto this document and is “ignoring their unalienable rights to live in their ancestral homeland and offering the State of Israel a justification for their forced displacement.”

USCCB’s answer and Kairos Palestine’s response

Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the president of the USCCB, provided a response less than one week later on March 31, telling Kairos Palestine in a letter that the USCCB “partnered with the Jewish community … to develop a Catholic commentary on the Translate Hate educational resource authored by [AJC]” in response to rising antisemitism, the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli invasion of Gaza.

“Here in our country, there are some who stand with Jewish Israelis and others who stand with Palestinians,” he continued. “Too often, people of a side or camp do not want to hear that our hearts are broken for all the lives that have been lost, all the worlds that have been destroyed. Empathy has thus become a further casualty of this war.”

Broglio wrote that the USCCB is also working on a document to combat Islamophobia with Muslim partners. He added that the USCCB does not try “to speak on behalf of Palestinian Christians” but rather speaks “to and on behalf of the Catholic community in the United States.”

“I know that, as Christians who have experienced great suffering yourselves, you understand the imperative to stand with all who suffer and to combat hatred wherever it is expressed,” he wrote.

The letter did not directly respond to the specific objections about the definition of antisemitism or the examples that Kairos Palestine criticized.

Kairos Palestine followed up with the USCCB this week, sending another letter calling Broglio’s response “unacceptable,” stating that “nowhere in the bishop’s letter is there any indication that the USCCB intends to ‘stand with’ their Palestinian siblings to prepare a document describing the extent of the suffering we are experiencing.”

“We are grieved and disheartened by the complete erasure of the Palestinian Christian voice in their response,” the Kairos Palestine leaders wrote.

“The Palestinian people in Gaza and in the West Bank are enduring what can only be described as a war of extermination, a genocide and ethnic cleansing,” they continued. “Entire families have been annihilated. Homes, churches, and hospitals have been destroyed. Over 50,000 people, the majority of whom are women and children, have been killed. This is not a conflict between equals. It is a campaign of destruction carried out by a powerful apartheid state, supported militarily and financially by the United States and a number of European countries.”

The follow-up letter accuses the Catholic Church in the United States of being “silent about this devastation” and asserts “it shares in the responsibility for our suffering.” It adds: “It is not enough to condemn hate. You must also condemn the systems and powers that perpetuate injustice.”

“We categorically reject the conflation of our legitimate struggle for freedom, dignity, and human rights with antisemitism,” they added. “We are not anti-Jewish, anti-Judaism, or anti-Semitic. We are a people resisting occupation, apartheid, and dispossession. Equating this with hatred is both theologically and morally wrong.”

CNA reached out to the USCCB for comment on Kairos Palestine’s April 14 response but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Simone Rizkallah, the director of Philos Catholic at The Philos Project, told CNA the “Translate Hate” Catholic edition “is pastoral in nature and shows that the bishops are not tone deaf to the sufferings of our fathers in faith.” The Philos Project is a pro-Israel nonprofit that also works to support persecuted Christians in the Middle East and “a revival of Western values rooted in the Hebraic origins of our faith.”

“Antisemitism was on the rise before the war, and certainly now after the war,” Rizkallah said. “In no way is protecting American Jews dismissing the right of Palestinians to live in safety and security. We are praying for our brothers and sisters in Palestine, we are praying for the release of the 59 remaining hostages and their families who recently visited the United States, the release of which would end the war immediately but which the Hamas terrorists refuse to do.”

Rizkallah said the document does not dismiss “the suffering of our Palestinian brothers and sisters” and that the intended audience is “American Catholics who are picking up a dangerous anti-Jewish and antisemitic spirit.”

“The aggressors in this conflict hate not only Jews and Israel, but Christians and Americans and the West,” she added. “We categorically reject the conflation of fighting an American pastoral issue with the war in Israel and Gaza.”

Kairos Palestine’s ‘open call’ to the USCCB

In the April 14 letter, Kairos Palestine issued an “open call” to American bishops to “see and stand with us,” adding that “we demand to be seen” and “we demand to be heard.”

Kairos Palestine asked the USCCB to “recognize the suffering of Palestinian people including Palestinian Christians and publicly denounce the illegal Israeli occupation, apartheid, and genocide against our people.” They also asked the bishops to urge the United States government to halt military funding for Israel “until it complies with international laws.”

The Palestinian Christian organization urged the USCCB to engage with them to create a resource that “reflects the experience of Palestinian Christians under the Israeli occupation and apartheid.” They also requested that the USCCB revisit Kairos Palestine’s foundational document and “respond theologically and practically to our messages and calls.”

Additionally, Kairos Palestine requested that the bishops meet with Palestinian Christians in Gaza or the West Bank, adding “we will be happy to be your host.”

“While we are approaching Easter, we continue to hold firm to our faith and to the hope of resurrection,” they added. “We call on our brothers and sisters in Christ to act now, not only in prayer, but in prophetic witness.”

The Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France. / Credit: Courtney Mares/CNA

CNA Staff, Apr 16, 2025 / 17:19 pm (CNA).

The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in France on Wednesday announced the recognition of the 72nd miracle at the Catholic pilgrimage site, one involving an Italian woman who was cured of a rare neuromuscular condition more than 15 years ago.

Father Michel Daubanes, the rector of the sanctuary, made the announcement on Wednesday following the completion of a rosary at the French shrine, according to a tweet issued by the directors of the holy site.

The pilgrim who received the miracle was identified as Italian woman Antonietta Raco, who “suffered from primary lateral sclerosis” and who was “cured in 2009 during her pilgrimage to Lourdes,” the tweet said.

Bishop Vincenzo Carmine Orofino of Tursi-Lagonegro in Italy, where Raco lives, likewise announced the recognition of the miracle on Wednesday.

After bathing in the waters at Lourdes in 2009, Raco “began to move independently” after which “the effects of the infamous illness immediately and definitively disappeared,” the Italian diocese said on Wednesday. 

“After a long period of accurate investigations, the International Medical Committee of Lourdes, in turn, declared the medically unexplained character of the scientific knowledge of the lady’s recovery,” the diocese said. 

The bishop subsequently “provided for the establishment of a medical-theological commission and the appointment of an episcopal delegate in order to make the necessary ecclesial discernment about the alleged miraculous healing.”

“Thank God, who with this divine sign has once again manifested his presence among his people,” the diocese said. 

The Italian newspaper La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno reported on Wednesday that Raco’s doctor described the healing as “a scientifically inexplicable phenomenon.”

Raco herself reportedly described experiencing “an unusual feeling of well-being" after bathing in the Lourdes spring in 2009.

Pope Francis on Feb. 11, 2025, named Bishop Edward Weisenburger of Tucson, Arizona, as the new archbishop of Detroit. / Credit: Archdiocese of Detroit

CNA Staff, Apr 16, 2025 / 16:48 pm (CNA).

Archbishop Edward Weisenburger of Detroit announced Wednesday that parish churches in the archdiocese that offer the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) will be unable to do so after July 1, citing the Vatican’s 2023 clarification that diocesan bishops do not possess the authority to allow the TLM to be celebrated in an existing parish church.

A prominent Detroit shrine will still be able to offer the TLM, however, and Weisenburger said he intends to identify at least four non-parish locations in the archdiocese where the TLM can be celebrated.

In an April 16 announcement, the archdiocese said Weisenburger, who was appointed in February and newly installed as archbishop last month, recently told his priests that he is unable to renew the prior permissions given to parish churches to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass, and thus those permissions will expire on July 1.

At issue is Pope Francis’ consequential apostolic letter Traditionis Custodes, issued in July 2021. Among other provisions, the letter directed bishops to designate one or more locations in which priests can celebrate the TLM but specified that those locations could not be within an existing parish church.

Following Traditionis Custodes, bishops in some dioceses that already had thriving Latin Mass communities within parish churches — in places like Denver; Lake Charles, Louisiana; and Springfield, Illinois — granted broad dispensations that allowed parishes to continue offering the Latin Mass as before.

In February 2023, however, the Vatican issued a clarification to Traditionis Custodes to halt this approach, stating that bishops alone cannot dispense these parishes and that such an action is reserved “to the Apostolic See.” Bishops in other dioceses who received Vatican approval to dispense certain parishes from Traditionis Custodes were only granted that permission for a temporary period. 

“The Holy See has reserved for itself the ability to allow the Traditional Latin Mass to be celebrated in parish churches. Local bishops no longer possess the ability to permit this particular liturgy in a parish church,” the announcement from the Detroit Archdiocese reads. 

“With this in mind, the prior permissions to celebrate this liturgy in archdiocesan parish churches — which expire on July 1, 2025 — cannot be renewed.” 

The ministry of St. Joseph Shrine in Detroit, which offers daily Traditional Latin Masses under the care of the canons of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest (ICKSP), will continue, Weisenburger said. ICKSP, an institute whose priests celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass and live according to the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales, has been offering the TLM at the St. Joseph Shrine since 2016. 

“In addition to the exception referenced above, the Traditional Latin Mass may be permitted by the local bishop to be celebrated in non-parish settings (typically chapels, shrines, etc.),” the archdiocesan announcement continues. 

“It is the archbishop’s intention to identify a non-parish setting where the Traditional Latin Mass may be celebrated in each of the archdiocese’s four regions. As noted above, and in accordance with recent decisions by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, these locations will not be parish churches. Once these locations are determined, they will be shared with the faithful.”

Former Detroit archbishop Allen Vigneron, who led the archdiocese from 2009 until his resignation at the customary age of 75 in February, issued guidelines following Traditionis Custodes allowing parishes to request permission to continue to offer the TLM within certain limits. Those guidelines came into force on July 1, 2022. 

Detroit is not the first diocese to have announced an end to the TLM in parish churches as a result of the Vatican’s clarification. In 2022, Bishop Stephen Parkes of Savannah, Georgia, announced his diocese’s cessation of Traditional Latin Masses by May 2023, saying the permission he had sought and received from the Vatican to allow two parish churches to continue offering the TLM had expired.  

Other dioceses, such as Albany, New York, in 2023, revoked the permission it had previously given for two parishes to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass in order to comply with the Vatican’s February 2023 clarification.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance at the 2025 National Catholic Prayer Breakfast. / Credit: EWTN News/Screenshot

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 16, 2025 / 14:31 pm (CNA).

Vice President JD Vance and his family will travel to Italy at the end of Holy Week and through Easter, where they will meet with a top Vatican official, according to a news release from the White House.

Vance, who is a convert to Catholicism, will meet with Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni during his time in Rome, according to the release. 

It’s unknown whether Vance will meet with Pope Francis, who is still recovering from an illness that recently required him to stay in the hospital for more than a month.

According to the news release, Vance will also visit India on the trip. In India, the vice president will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He will visit New Delhi, Jaipur, and Agra and participate in unspecified “engagements” at cultural sites.

During both stops, Vance intends to discuss shared economic and geopolitical priorities with the leaders of both governments. The full trip is scheduled from April 18 through April 24.

Vance last traveled to Europe in mid-February to address the Munich Security Conference in Germany, where he criticized several European governments over a lack of free speech and religious freedom.

After President Donald Trump was reelected in November, Parolin wished him “great wisdom because this is the main virtue of rulers according to the Bible.”

“I believe that, above all, he has to work to be the president of the whole country and so overcome the polarization that has occurred, which can be very, very clearly felt at the moment,” Parolin said last November.

Parolin also expressed hope that Trump could be a force for peace in the world: “To end wars, a lot of humility is needed, a lot of willingness is needed. It really is necessary to seek the general interests of humanity rather than concentrate on particular interests.”

The Vatican and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have both criticized the Trump administration for its plans of mass deportations for immigrants who are in the country illegally as well as for funding cuts to nongovernmental organizations that provide services to migrants in the United States and organizations that provide humanitarian services abroad. Numerous Catholic organizations lost funding due to the administration’s orders.

Vance has defended the administration’s immigration policies by invoking the Christian concept of “ordo amoris,” which means “rightly ordered love.” He told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that one’s “compassion” belongs “first to your fellow citizens.”

“There’s this old-school — and I think a very Christian — concept … that you love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world,” the vice president said.

Pope Francis subsequently wrote a letter to the U.S. bishops, saying that “the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution, or serious deterioration of the environment damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness.”

“The true ‘ordo amoris’ that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘good Samaritan’ (cf. Lk 10:25-37), that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception,” the pontiff wrote.

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops headquarters in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Farragutful, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0> via Wikimedia Commons

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 16, 2025 / 13:59 pm (CNA).

As work on budget reconciliation proceeds in Congress, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is urging lawmakers to protect programs that serve those most in need.

“The Church’s closeness to the poor informs our advocacy. We know firsthand that families are struggling,” the bishops said in an April 15 statement. “We implore [Congress] to protect programs such as Medicaid and SNAP and to expand the Child Tax Credit (CTC) to the most vulnerable children.”

“This Lent,” the bishops continued, “we read the call to turn back to the Lord from the Prophet Isaiah: ‘Make justice your aim.’ (Is 1:17). It is for the sake of justice that the Catholic Church is committed to providing comfort, hope, and relief to those who are poor and suffering.”

The nation’s bishops call for the funding of Catholic Charities agencies, Catholic hospitals, and long-term care facilities and clinics so they can continue to help “our most vulnerable neighbors.”

The bishops said these programs and organizations are necessary to “provide food, shelter, counseling, health care, education, training, and other services.”

The country’s bishops specifically advocate for Medicaid, SNAP and the Child Tax Credit, saying these programs “are essential to helping many families meet basic human needs.”

Tax cut considerations

“Tax cuts that largely favor wealthier persons should not be made possible through cuts to health care and food for families struggling to make ends meet,” the bishops said.

The bishops’ latest statement follows a February letter sent to the congressional leadership focused on support for Medicaid. In that letter, the USCCB, Catholic Charities USA, and the Catholic Health Association asked lawmakers to “prioritize those most in need and working families and protect the Medicaid program.”

The organizations further specified that they support “prohibitions on federal funding of abortions” while maintaining support for aid programs that help “human flourishing.”

“The final budget reconciliation package should provide relief to low-income families and should not place additional burdens on those who are struggling. In responding to Isaiah’s call for justice, action is urgently needed: ‘Come now, let us set things right, says the Lord’ (Is 1:18),” the bishops concluded.

Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago, Ill., mother church of the Archdiocese of Chicago. / Credit: Edlane De Mattos/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Apr 16, 2025 / 13:28 pm (CNA).

The Archdiocese of Chicago has reinstated a priest to full ministry after a monthslong investigation into child sexual abuse allegations against him. 

The archdiocese said in January that it had removed Father Matthew Foley from ministry after claims of abuse dating to around 30 years ago. 

Officials said at the time that civil authorities would investigate the allegations, after which the archdiocese would conduct its own inquiry. Foley “strenuously” denied the allegations at the time. 

On Monday, Cardinal Blase Cupich said in letters to parishioners at multiple parishes that the archdiocesan independent review board had completed its investigation into the allegations. Foley “fully complied” with the investigation, Cupich said. 

“After receiving the results of the thorough investigation, the [review board] today determined that there is no reasonable cause to believe Father Foley sexually abused the person making the accusation,” Cupich said. 

The board “recommended that Father Foley be reinstated to ministry and that the file be closed,” Cupich noted, adding that he “accepted their recommendation effectively immediately.”

In January, at the same time it announced the allegations against Foley, the archdiocese said it was also removing Father Henry Kricek from active ministry due to similar allegations. 

The accusations against Kricek involved alleged abuse that occurred “approximately 40 years ago,” the archdiocese said at the time. 

No decision on Kricek had been announced by the archdiocese as of Wednesday morning. 

Ordained in 1989, Foley is known for having befriended future actor Chris Farley at Marquette University in the early 1980s. He would ultimately preside over Farley’s funeral in 1997. 

The priest was the namesake for one of Farley’s most famous characters, “Matt Foley,” who was featured in several “Saturday Night Live” sketches prior to Farley’s death.

American historian and Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts (right) speaks with "EWTN News Nightly" anchor Erik Rosales on April 15, 2025. / Credit: "EWTN News Nightly"/screenshot

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 16, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts is calling on Americans to become more open about their faith as a means to “revitalizing” religious belief in the United States. 

“I think it’s important, as we are on the brink of Easter during Holy Week, to encourage people of all faiths, whether they’re Christians like me or Jews or Muslims, to speak about their faith,” said Roberts during a Tuesday appearance on “EWTN News Nightly.”

“This is an opportunity here in the United States, not just for political and policymaking success, but more importantly, for the revitalization of our faith as individuals and also as a country,” he said. 

Earlier this week Roberts penned an op-ed for the Daily Signal in which the former Wyoming Catholic College president highlighted “the distinct importance that America’s Founding Fathers placed on Christianity, particularly Our Lord’s passion and resurrection.” 

Roberts in that op-ed called for the return of religious practice to the public sphere. 

“As Christians around the country reflect on that same story this Easter, we should resolve to transform our gratitude — for the political freedoms that our Founding Fathers fought for and the spiritual freedom that Christ died for — into action,” he wrote. 

On Tuesday, meanwhile, Roberts told EWTN News Capitol Hill Correspondent Erik Rosales that President Donald Trump has “done two things exceptionally well thus far.”

“The first is he’s been unabashed about speaking about America’s religious roots,” he said. “The second thing that he’s done — and it’s both in the State Department and across the administration and other agencies — is end the Obama-Biden-era practice of running roughshod over religious liberty.”

“It’s not that we want to establish one particular religion as the official one,” he said. “It’s that we, just as people of faith, want to be able to do more than just have private religious thoughts. We actually want to live out our faith in the public square.”

Roberts insisted that for America to experience a true “cultural awakening,” it must be willing to practice religion publicly. 

“That awakening is not going to come from politics and policy, it’s going to come from each of us,” he said. “We can make [politicians’] jobs easier as it relates to policymaking if we live out our respective faiths with zeal, with a real passion, with a persuasiveness to bring people to the truth.”

Ultimately, he said, the “golden age of America” will not be ushered in merely by economic policies or by reforming Washington.

“Most importantly, it’s going to be because each of us plays a role in revitalizing the religious institutions in our lives and our communities,” he said.

Credit: iweta0077/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 16, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

A new initiative is trying to shift the narrative on the Catholic priesthood by shining light on stories of heroic virtue, courage, and selfless acts from modern-day priests and bishops in an effort to strengthen the appeal of the vocation.

The Philadelphia-based nonprofit International Institute for Culture (IIC) launched the first pillar of its “Shepherding Future Shepherds” program, which is the creation of ThankAPriest.com. It showcases positive stories with the hope of inspiring young Catholic men to consider vocations to the priesthood.

“By sharing stories of priestly heroism and compassion, we hope to inspire young men to recognize the priesthood as a profound and fulfilling vocation,” IIC President John M. Haas said in a statement.

“Our goal is to bring to light the countless untold stories of the good and virtuous work priests do every day,” he added. “This effort is critical not only to restoring confidence in the priesthood but also to inspiring future vocations.”

An IIC news release notes that the number of active Catholic priests globally has dropped from about 60,000 to only 35,000 from 1970 to 2020, even though the number of Catholics has risen by 20 million people within that time frame. 

The nonprofit warned that within the next five years, some regions will only have one priest for every 6,000 Catholics.

Matthew Haas, the project director of the initiative and son of the IIC president, told CNA the drop in overall priests is further complicated by the average age of priests increasing.

“In the next 10 years, 20 years, we’re going to see a dramatic dropoff of priests who are able to remain active,” he said.

Our culture “is becoming more secular, just overall,” he noted, but the declining trend in priests is more severe.

“It’s not a 1:1 ratio that would explain the priesthood,” Haas said. He argued there is a negative perception about the priesthood among many young people rooted in Church scandals but that those scandals reflect a “very small group of people — bad actors.”

Haas added that a major part of the initiative is to “start changing perception” because there are “so many good priests doing noble, heroic … things.”

“We’re sharing all kinds of stories, but one of the things we want to make sure we’re doing is there’s going to be a wide representation,” he added.

The heroism of Bishop Christian Carlassare

The first profile on ThankAPriest.com tells the story of Bishop Christian Carlassare, who was the bishop of the Diocese of Rumbek in South Sudan and is now the bishop of the Diocese of Bentiu in the same country.

Carlassare was shot by two unknown assailants when he was bishop-elect of Rumbek.

“Two gunmen broke into his house during the night, burst into his bedroom, and shot him several times,” the profile notes. “There was speculation it was a targeted assault. Bishop Carlassare sustained numerous gunshot wounds to his legs, but miraculously none of the injuries were life threatening.”

The profile shares the message to his diocese that Carlassare recorded while in the hospital in Nairobi, Kenya, in which he tells them: “I want you to be at peace, to know that I’m well here in the hospital.” 

“I’m being taken care [of] and I’m improving,” he said. “It will take some time for my legs to be able again to walk, but I assure you that I will be back and I will be with you. Please let us be united in prayer, let us be united with all our hearts to uphold forgiveness in our community and be able to seek for justice with the same heart of God. It is a merciful heart.”

Carlassare, who is a native of Italy, spent months in his home country to rehabilitate himself before returning to serve his diocese in the East African nation. On his decision to return to the diocese, the bishop said: “I clearly could not turn my back to this call … and abandon the sheep when witnessing Christ becomes demanding.”

The profile notes that Carlassare hoped his return would signal “reconciliation, forgiveness, and new beginnings,” which is “a message that defines his ministry, and one he hopes to share with the divided nation.”

Prior to his appointment as a bishop, Carlassare served the Church as a missionary priest with the Comboni Missionaries religious order. He served South Sudan as a missionary priest for 15 years before his appointment.

Matthew Haas told CNA there are many priests “putting their lives … at risk in some instances to serve God” and it’s important to tell the stories of “these men [who] are holy and serving the Church and trying to do good things,” expressing hope that “people see them as role models” and “aspire to live a life like that.”

The organization is also requesting that people share stories of priests who are living heroic and virtuous lives through their vocation.

Next steps for the initiative

The launching of the website represents the first pillar of the initiative, which intends to “elevate” the priesthood within society. The other three pillars are: educate, engage, and embark.

Matthew Haas told CNA that the second pillar, “educate,” will likely be launched this year and is designed to be “really reaching out, specifically to young men.” This will include efforts to show people the different roles priests can have and the distinctions between priests, deacons, brothers, and monks.

“We believe God has a calling for everyone,” he said. 

The third pillar, “engage,” is also supposed to be launched later this year and is designed to help young men navigate the discernment process and connect them to resources to help in that decision-making process, according to Haas. 

The fourth pillar, “embark,” is scheduled to begin in early 2026. This part is meant to provide the help of spiritual guidance. Haas said most men who enter the seminary “had either a spiritual director or a guide who helped them through the discernment process.”

“The work we’re doing now is laying the foundation for these priests who are going to be available in the next decade,” Matthew Haas added.

He noted that the discernment process and the priest formation process can take up to a decade to complete, which is why it’s “urgent to start now.”

“It will help to reverse the trend of secularism by bringing in new and young priests to help serve our Church,” he said.