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Bishop Robert Barron is the founder of Word on Fire, a media apostolate focused on evangelization. / Credit: Courtesy of Word on FireCNA Staff, Apr 7, 2025 / 15:22 pm (CNA).The Catholic University of America (CUA) has announced that Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, is set to speak at its 2025 commencement ceremony. Barron, a university alumnus, is known for his work evangelizing digital media through his nonprofit global media apostolate Word on Fire and his YouTube channel, which has reached nearly 2 million subscribers.With its campus in the nation's capital of Washington, D.C., CUA is the national university of the Catholic Church in the United States.Barron will receive an honorary degree alongside five others: U.S. Rep. Christopher Smith; former March for Life president Jeanne Mancini; Archbishop Vicken Aykazian of the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America; Monsignor John Enzler, former president of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese...
Pope Francis at the Jubilee of the Sick in St. Peter's Square on Sunday, April 6, 2025, wearing nasal cannulas for supplemental oxygen as he continues recovering from bilateral pneumonia. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/EWTN NewsCNA Newsroom, Apr 6, 2025 / 07:32 am (CNA).Still recovering from bilateral pneumonia that hospitalized him for nearly 40 days, Pope Francis made a surprise appearance in St. Peter's Square on Sunday for the Jubilee of the Sick, sharing profound reflections on suffering, care, and the transformative power of illness.Wearing nasal cannulas that provide supplemental oxygen, Pope Francis arrived in a wheelchair accompanied by a nurse. Pope Francis blesses the faithful at the Jubilee of the Sick in St. Peter's Square, Vatican City, on April 6, 2025, as his personal nurse, Massimo Strappetti, assists him in the wheelchair. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNAHundreds of faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square on April 6, receiving him enthusiastically around 11:45 a.m. loc...
From left to right: Alexandro Jurado, known as VoiceofReason on social media; Desirae Sifuentes, known as UncatechizedCatholic on Instagram; speaker and content creator Emily Wilson; and Kira Andrea, also known as Mercy Divine Music. / Credit: Photos courtesy of Alexandro Jurado, Desirae Sifuentes, Emily Wilson, and Kira AndreaCNA Staff, Apr 6, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).As digital platforms continue to explode, there has been a rise in Catholic content creators producing and sharing content across many social media platforms as a way to spread the Gospel and reach people for Christ. A quick look at Instagram, for example, yields a plethora of Catholic content creators including priests, religious sisters, catechists, authors, married couples, and more. CNA spoke to a handful of these digital evangelists about their work and their use of digital media in spreading the Gospel. Desirae Sifuentes, UncatechizedCatholic on InstagramDesirae Sifuentes, also known as UncatechizedC...
Deacon Johnny Al-Daoud celebrates his release from captivity in Syria on March 2, 2025, with family and friends. / Credit: St. Michael's Church - Maskana ParishACI MENA, Apr 5, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).On the morning of Sunday, March 2, without any prior notice, Johnny Fouad Dawoud, a deacon in the Syriac Catholic Church for the Archdiocese of Homs, was released from a Syrian prison after a decade of confinement. ACI MENA, CNA's Arabic-language news partner, spoke with him after he was reunited with his family to discuss his ordeal of being captured by the Al-Nusra Front, his moments of faith and doubt behind bars, and the light that now shines in his life.Friends and family gather around Deacon Johnny Fouad Dawoud as he returns home on March 2, 2025, after a decade in captivity. Credit: Photo courtesy of Deacon Johnny Fouad DawoudACI MENA: Tell us first about your upbringing and journey in the Church.Dawoud: I was born into a religiously committed family, and from childhood,...
Matt Vallière (at left), executive director of the Patients Rights Action Fund, and Inclusion Canada CEO Krista Carr (at right) discuss opposition to assisted suicide at a Religion News Association panel moderated by EWTN News President Montse Alvarado (center) on April 4, 2025. / Credit: Ken Oliver/CNAWashington D.C., Apr 4, 2025 / 19:52 pm (CNA).Advocates for those with disabilities focused on what they call troubling trends in government-backed assisted suicide programs in the United States and Canada during a panel on the subject held Friday at the 2025 annual conference of the Religion News Association.Although physician-assisted suicide is still illegal in most parts of the world, the practice is currently legal in about a dozen countries, including Canada, Germany, Spain, and Belgium, along with 10 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.The phenomenon is causing growing concern for patients' rights advocates and disability rights advocates who have warned that jurisdic...
Former cardinal Theodore McCarrick arrives at Massachusetts' Dedham District Courthouse for his arraignment, Sept. 3, 2021. / Credit: Andrew Bukuras/CNACNA Staff, Apr 4, 2025 / 15:47 pm (CNA).Theodore McCarrick, the disgraced former cardinal and archbishop of Washington who spent decades moving in the highest circles in the Church and was later found guilty in a Vatican investigation of sexually abusing minors and adults, died April 3 at age 94. A spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Washington on Friday shared a statement with CNA in which Cardinal Robert McElroy confirmed McCarrick's passing. McCarrick, who was reportedly suffering with dementia, had been living in a facility in rural Missouri. "Today I learned of the death of Theodore McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington. At this moment I am especially mindful of those who he harmed during the course of his priestly ministry. Through their enduring pain, may we remain steadfast in our prayers for them and for a...
Nuns of the Little Sisters of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus in Haiti. / Credit: Courtesy of Aid to the Church in NeedACI Prensa Staff, Apr 4, 2025 / 17:24 pm (CNA).Sisters Evanette Onezaire and Jeanne Voltaire, members of the Congregation of the Little Sisters of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, were murdered in Haiti by armed gangs that continue to sow chaos in several cities across the country.The news was confirmed April 2 by Archbishop Max Leroy Mésidor of Port-au-Prince to the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need, following media reports of the attack perpetrated by members of a coalition of gangs known as "Vivre Ensemble" ("Living Together").The group stormed the town of Mirebalais in central Haiti on Monday, March 31, freeing some 500 prisoners from a jail, storming a police station, and setting fire to several homes, although the exact number of homes affected has not yet been determined.According to the pontifical institution, when the attack began, the nuns...
Father Arul Carasala served as a pastor in the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas for over 20 years. / Credit: Courtesy of Archdiocese of Kansas CityCNA Staff, Apr 4, 2025 / 18:12 pm (CNA).Police have arrested a man in connection with Thursday's shooting death of a Catholic priest in the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas.Gary Hermesch was taken into custody at the Nemaha County Jail under suspicion of first-degree murder in the shooting of Father Arul Carasala, according to the Nemaha County Sheriff's Office. Carasala had been shot at Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Seneca on Thursday afternoon. The priest later died from his injuries at Nemaha Valley Community Hospital, according to a press release from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.The motive for the shooting was unclear as of Friday afternoon. An employee of the parish told the Associated Press that "an older man walked up to [Carasala] and shot him three times." Hermesch, 66, is reportedly a resident ...
Former cardinal Theodore McCarrick arrives outside Massachusetts' Dedham District Courthouse for his arraignment, Sept. 3, 2021. / Credit: Andrew Bukuras/CNACNA Newsroom, Apr 4, 2025 / 19:20 pm (CNA).The following is a timeline of important dates from the McCarrick Report and elsewhere regarding abuse allegations against recently deceased former cardinal Theodore McCarrick.Published by the Vatican on Nov. 10, 2020, the McCarrick Report examined the "institutional knowledge and decision-making" regarding McCarrick, who was found guilty of sexual abuse of minors and seminarians in 2019 and laicized after an expedited canonical investigation. July 7, 1930: Theodore Edgar McCarrick is born in New York City, the only child of Theodore E. and Margaret McLaughlin McCarrick.1954: McCarrick graduates from Fordham University in New York with a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy.1954-1958: McCarrick attends St. Joseph's Seminary in New York and attains a master of arts degree...
Pilgrims walk through St. Peter's Square in September 2024. / Credit: Dorisb.83/ShutterstockVatican City, Apr 4, 2025 / 11:23 am (CNA).Pope Francis on Friday shared a message with Slovak pilgrims, including Slovakia's President Peter Pellegrini, in Rome for the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope.In a written message released by the Vatican, the Holy Father welcomed approximately 4,300 Slovak pilgrims who began their jubilee pilgrimage this week with the celebration of Mass at the Basilica of St. John Lateran."I would very much have liked to be present with you to share this moment of faith and communion, but I am still in convalescence and so I will join you through prayer and with all my affection," the pope's message read.Pellegrini on Thursday posted on X that he "promised" the Holy Father that he would join his country's national pilgrimage to Rome when he visited the Vatican in December of last year.Archbishop Bernard Bober of Košice, chair of the Conference of Slovak Bishops, is a...
