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Sister Reji Varghese began her three-year term as head of the Daughters of Charity of the Most Precious Blood for the United States after her recent installation. / Credit: Joe Gigli/Diocese of PatersonCNA Staff, Oct 21, 2025 / 17:26 pm (CNA).Sister Reji Varghese began her three-year term as head of the Daughters of Charity of the Most Precious Blood for the United States after her recent installation presided over by Bishop Kevin Sweeney of Paterson, New Jersey, on Oct. 13.Varghese will be the delegate for the Daughters in the U.S., leading three missionary communities that live out their charism by "caring for the youth and the elderly while reflecting in the day-to-day life that same sacrificial love that impelled Christ shed his blood for our salvation," according to the statement from the Daughters.The Daughters of Charity of the Most Precious Blood at the installation of their new head, Sister Reji Varghese. Credit: Joe Gigli/Diocese of PatersonThe superior general o...
Thirty states have adopted some version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) first signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1993. / Credit: Leigh Prather/ShutterstockWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 21, 2025 / 17:56 pm (CNA).Protections for religious freedom in the U.S. have grown in recent years with multiple states adopting laws to strengthen the constitutional right to freely exercise one's religion.As of 2025, 30 states have adopted a version of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) or similar legislative protection for religious freedom. The most recent states to adopt those protections for state-level laws were Georgia and Wyoming in 2025 and Iowa, Utah, and Nebraska in 2024. West Virginia and North Dakota adopted them in 2023 and South Dakota and Montana did the same in 2021.RFRA was first adopted in 1993, when then-President Bill Clinton signed it into law to expand religious freedom protections. Under the law, the federal government can...
Bolivian president-elect Rodrigo Paz Pereira. / Credit: Jallallabolivia, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsACI Prensa Staff, Oct 21, 2025 / 18:26 pm (CNA).Rodrigo Paz Pereira of the Christian Democratic Party is the president-elect of Bolivia after defeating former Bolivian President Jorge "Tuto" Quiroga Ramírez of the Free Alliance coalition in a close runoff election on Oct. 19.Both were seen as candidates from the political right, although Paz Pereira is considered more centrist. The election marks the end of nearly two decades of the South American country's Movement Toward Socialism government, which brought Evo Morales to power as president in 2005 and to which outgoing President Luis Arce also belongs.According to preliminary results, Paz Pereira obtained 54.61% of the vote, while his opponent obtained 45.39%. Quiroga acknowledged his defeat at a press conference.'I want to thank our God'In his first speech as president-elect, on the evening of Oct. 19, Paz Pereira stat...
A commuter waits at the Westchester/Veterans Metro K Line station on Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025, in Los Angeles. / Credit: Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times via Getty ImagesWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 21, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).A controversial ad campaign posted in the New York City subway system has sparked criticism and vandalism over the past few weeks. The print ads are selling an AI companion necklace called "Friend" that promises to be "someone who listens, responds, and supports."The device first launched in 2024, retailing at $129. It is designed to listen to conversations, process the information, and send responses to the user's phone via a connected app. While users can tap the disc's button to prompt an immediate response, the product will also send unprompted texts. The device's microphones don't offer an off switch, so it is constantly listening and sending messages based on conversations it picks up.CNA did not receive a response to a question from Friend.com about t...
Capella di Santa Rosa, St. Rosalia's Chapel inside of the Palermo Cathedral, Basilica Cattedrale Metropolitana Primaziale della Santa Vergine Maria Assunta in Sicily, Itay, on May 5, 2022. / Credit: Frank Bienewald/LightRocket via Getty ImagesRome, Italy, Oct 21, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).The murder of a 21-year-old Italian man after trying to break up a fight has prompted two southern Italian archbishops to sound the alarm against the rise of Mafia-style killings among young people. At a prayer service Oct. 18 for Paolo Taormina, who was killed one week ago outside the family-owned bar where he worked, Archbishop Gualtiero Isacchi of Monreale, Italy, told the faithful present that their presence was "a sign of resistance and a desire for change.""The violent, typically Mafia-like logic of oppression, which some shamefully and unconsciously praise on social media, aims to erase human conscience and dignity, to extinguish hope, and to condemn the person to the resignation...
Artist Raúl Berzosa works on the portrait of St. Peter To Rot. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Raúl BerzosaACI Prensa Staff, Oct 21, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).Malaga, Spain-born artist Raúl Berzosa has painted portraits of popes for the Vatican, and his works have graced the covers of booklets at Vatican ceremonies and even the Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum. However, as he himself confessed on X, none had ever hung on the façade of St. Peter's Basilica.That honor came this week with the portrait of St. Peter To Rot, which Berzosa painted for the saint's canonization ceremony on Oct. 19. The Vatican commissioned the Catholic artist to paint the official portrait, which has been displayed since Oct. 17 on the façade of St. Peter's Basilica. Berzosa considers the work to be a fruit of grace and the culmination of a life dedicated to reflecting the light of faith in art.Peter To Rot, who was born in Papua New Guinea, served as a catechist and died a martyr for the faith in 1945. H...
null / Credit: Antonio Salaverry/ShutterstockWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 21, 2025 / 10:00 am (CNA).Instagram updated restrictions on teen accounts to be guided by PG-13 movie ratings to prevent teenage users from accessing mature and inappropriate content.In 2024, Instagram introduced Teen Accounts to place teens automatically in built-in protections on the app. Last week, the social media platform announced additional updates to the accounts to only show teenagers content "similar to what they'd see in a PG-13 movie."Teens under 18 will be automatically placed into the updated setting and will not be allowed to opt out without a parent's permission. The new restrictions ban users from searching inappropriate words and from following or messaging accounts with mature content.Father Michael Baggot, LC, professor of bioethics at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome, said "any change to help empower parents, protect their children, and restrict age-inappropriate ...
null / Credit: Ivon19, public domain via Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA-4.0)CNA Staff, Oct 21, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).Catholics across the United States are encouraged to participate in the national Respect Life Novena beginning Oct. 22 in an effort to unite in prayer for the protection of the unborn and all those affected by abortion.The Respect Life Novena is offered annually by the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops (USCCB) and consists of nine days of prayers, Scripture readings, and suggested acts of reparation.Some of the prayer intentions in this year's novena include ones for the protection of life from conception to natural death, for those who have undergone an abortion to experience God's healing and mercy, for those with disabilities to be treated with dignity, and for an end to the death penalty, among others.This year, the Respect Life Novena will be available on the free version of the Hallow app and a different U.S. bishop will lead the faithful in prayer ...
Seven new saints were canonized on Oct. 19, 2025. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/EWTN NewsACI Prensa Staff, Oct 20, 2025 / 14:53 pm (CNA).Pope Leo XIV on Monday highlighted the life testimony of the saints canonized Sunday, Oct. 19, as "luminous signs of hope" for today's Catholics."The men and women we proclaimed saints yesterday are luminous signs of hope for all of us, because they offered their lives for love of Christ and their brothers and sisters," the pontiff said in his address to the pilgrims, representatives of the clergy, and civil authorities who had traveled to Rome to participate in the canonization of the seven new saints.Leo XIV expressed his hope that the canonization of Venezuela's first two saints, Carmen Rendiles and José Gregorio Hernández, would be "a strong incentive for all Venezuelans to come together and recognize themselves as children and brothers and sisters of the same homeland, reflecting on the present and the future in the light of the virtues that th...
Bishops fill St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican for the Synod on Synodality closing Mass on Oct. 27, 2024. / Credit: Vatican MediaWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 20, 2025 / 15:23 pm (CNA).The Vatican has recognized an Australian bishop's synodal plan to restructure the governance of his diocese. The Vatican's General Secretariat of the Synod has officially recognized a pastoral plan laid out by Bishop Michael Kennedy of Maitland-Newcastle that will see the diocese adopting a governance structure that "will operate in synodal mode."In an Oct. 14 response to the pastoral letter on social media, the Vatican synodal office posted the letter. The social media post said the bishop invites the faithful to "embrace this vision more fully," fostering a Church that listens, learns, and acts together in the service of the Gospel.What's in the plan? According to Kennedy's missive, titled "Letter on Synodality and the New Diocesan Governance Framework for the Diocese of Maitland-N...
