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"Where are the kids protesting this?" Bill Maher said of the Christian genocide in Nigeria during the Sept. 26, 2025, edition of his HBO program "Real Time with Bill Maher." / Credit: Noam Galai/Getty ImagesCNA Staff, Sep 30, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).Political satirist Bill Maher, who has often been a vocal critic of Christianity, recently called attention to the persecution of Christians in Nigeria, calling the ongoing violence a "genocide attempt.""I'm not a Christian, but they are systematically killing the Christians in Nigeria," he said during the Sept. 26 episode of his HBO show "Real Time with Bill Maher.""They've killed over 100,000 since 2009. They've burned 18,000 churches," Maher said, referring to violent Islamists in Nigeria such as Boko Haram."This is so much more of a genocide attempt than what is going on in Gaza," he continued. "They are literally attempting to wipe out the Christian population of an entire country.""Where are the kids protesting this?" Maher ask...
Nurses who are on strike hold signs in support of the community following a shooting and fire at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in front of Henry Ford Genesys Hospital on September 29, 2025 in Grand Blanc, Michigan. (Photo by Emily Elconin/Getty Images) / Credit: Emily Elconin/Getty ImagesCNA Staff, Sep 29, 2025 / 21:45 pm (CNA).Multiple U.S. Catholic bishops offered prayers and expressed their solidarity after a gunman attacked a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) chapel in Grand Blanc, Michigan, on Sept. 28,, killing four people, injuring eight, and setting the building on fire. The incident occurred just before 10:30 a.m. during a Sunday service with hundreds in attendance.The suspect, identified as 40-year-old Thomas Jacob Sanford of Burton, Michigan, drove a pickup truck into the chapel's entrance, entered with an assault-style rifle, and began shooting. Witnesses reported Sanford shouting anti-LDS slurs. He then used an accelerant to start...
Some of the coffins of 73 Christians from Benue State, central Nigeria, massacred by Fulani jihadists in 2018. / Credit: International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of LawACI Prensa Staff, Sep 29, 2025 / 16:53 pm (CNA).Attacks against Christian communities, especially in northern Nigeria, are not an isolated phenomenon but rather a strategy to "annihilate them all and Islamize the country," said Emeka Umeagbalasi, a criminologist and researcher.The expert has spent 30 years denouncing human rights violations in his country and is clear that "this is not simply a case of violence.""We have documented the coordinated and systematic murder of an entire people; therefore we are clearly talking about a Christian genocide," he told ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news partner.Umeagbalasi, the director of the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), has just published a report with chilling data on the violence that extremists carry out every...
Bishop Michael Martin greets parishioners while surveying storm damage in Waynesville, North Carolina, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. / Credit: Diocese of CharlotteCNA Staff, Sep 29, 2025 / 18:43 pm (CNA).Bishop Michael Martin of the Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina, said the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) must cease at four parishes and will be only be permitted at a chapel beginning Oct. 2.After delaying the restrictions three months, Martin said in a Sept. 26 letter that the Chapel of the Little Flower in the St. Therese Parish in Mooresville, North Carolina, which was recently renovated by the diocese and can seat just over 350 people, will have two Masses each Sunday and on holy days of obligation, both of which will be said by Father Brandon Jones, the recently appointed chaplain. The bishop said the chapel is "not a parish, nor is it a parish-like community being formed for those who desire to celebrate the TLM."Brian Williams, a leader of Charlotte Latin Mass attendees si...
President Trump's Religious Liberty Commission meets on Sept. 29, 2025, in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Tessa Gervasini/CNAWashington, D.C., Sep 29, 2025 / 19:13 pm (CNA).Teachers, coaches, and other public and private school leaders said their religious liberty was threatened in American schools at a hearing conducted by President Donald Trump's Religious Liberty Commission on Sept. 29.Speakers said there must be a fight for schools to bring back the "truth" to protect students and religious liberty. Joe Kennedy, a high school football coach; Monica Gill, a high school teacher; Marisol Arroyo-Castro, a seventh grade teacher; and Keisha Russell, a lawyer for First Liberty Institute, addressed the commission led by Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick."There has to be a call to action," commission member Dr. Phil McGraw said. "The most common way to lose power is to think you don't have it to begin with. We do have power, and we need to rally with that power."Teachers and coaches describe e...
Statue of St. Michael the Archangel in Brazil's Chamber of Deputies on Aug. 12, 2025. / Credit: Kayo Magalhães/Chamber of Deputies of BrazilSao Paulo, Brazil, Sep 29, 2025 / 14:17 pm (CNA).St. Michael the Archangel's feast day was officially incorporated into Brazil's national calendar following the enactment of a law approved by acting President Geraldo Alckmin and published on Sept. 25 in the official government gazette.The date established is Sept. 29, the day on which the Catholic Church celebrates the holy archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, and in particular St. Michael, venerated as the protector and defender of the faith."The date established by this law aims to pay tribute to St. Michael the Archangel, recognizing his historical importance and relevance to the Catholic faith of the Brazilian people," Law No. 15.219 states.The website of the presidency of the republic noted that St. Michael is "a symbol of protection and defense of the faith, and patron saint of t...
Pope Leo XIV meets with members of the European Parliament's Working Group on Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue on Sept. 29, 2025, at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican MediaVatican City, Sep 29, 2025 / 14:52 pm (CNA).Pope Leo XIV on Monday said European institutions need "people who know how to live a healthy secularism" while urging recognition that religion has value both on a personal and social level."When the religious dimension is authentic and well cultivated, it can greatly enrich interpersonal relationships and help people live in community and society. And how important it is today to emphasize the value and importance of human relationships!" he noted.Leo XIV made his remarks on Sept. 29 when receiving at the Vatican the European Parliament's Working Group on Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue. The objective of this structure, an initiative of the European People's Party (EPP) coaltion, is to promote dialogue between different cultures, religions, ph...
null / Credit: Zack McCarthy via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)ACI Africa, Sep 29, 2025 / 15:24 pm (CNA).Members of the Zimbabwe Heads of Christian Denominations (ZHOCD) marked the International Day of Peace on Sept. 21 with an appeal to the international community to cancel Zimbabwe's debt, saying such a step would help revive the country's economy, reduce poverty, and build lasting peace.Zimbabwe is struggling with an $8.3 billion debt (in U.S. dollars), mostly in arrears, which blocks access to affordable international financing and slows economic recovery.In a joint statement published on Twitter by the Zimbabwe Council of Churches, the ZHOCD body, which consists of the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops' Conference, Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe, and the Union for Development of Apostolic Churches in Zimbabwe Africa, the Christian leaders stressed that peace cannot be separated from social and economic well-being."On this International Peace Day, we urge international partners to consider...
Pope Leo XIV waves to pilgrims gathered for the Mass for the Jubilee of Catechists on Sept. 28, 2025, in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican MediaVatican City, Sep 29, 2025 / 10:50 am (CNA).Pope Leo XIV has put a spotlight on the risks of artificial intelligence in his choice of theme for next year's World Day of Social Communications, as the Vatican emphasizes the important role of Catholics in media and AI literacy.The pope's choice of theme for the 60th World Day of Social Communications 2026, published Monday, is "Preserving Human Voices and Faces." The day is celebrated every year on Jan. 24, the feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of journalists and writers.The Vatican's explanatory note emphasizes the risks of AI, including that it "can generate engaging but misleading, manipulative, and harmful information, replicate biases and stereotypes from its training data, and amplify disinformation through simulation of human voices and faces."The theme ...
Archbishop of Philadelphia Nelson J. Perez speaks to members of his congregation at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul following a special Mass for Pope Francis on April 21, 2025, in Philadelphia. / Credit: Matthew Hatcher/Getty ImagesCNA Staff, Sep 29, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).Philadelphia Archbishop Nelson Pérez on Sept. 29 announced the designation of multiple "missionary hubs" throughout the Philadelphia Archdiocese, part of a broad effort to help bring lapsed Catholics back into the Church while highlighting the "deeply positive impact" the Church has had on the region. The rollout comes after Pérez earlier this year revealed the 10-year plan meant to bring Catholics back to the pews. The archdiocese said in January that the effort would be "phased in" across the region. A "standout feature" of the campaign, the archdiocese said on Monday, is the creation of five "missionary hubs" at parishes in the region's four major counties of Delaware, Bucks, Montgomery, a...
