U.S. bishops launch 'Healing and Hope' initiative to promote, strengthen mental health

null / Credit: Prostock-studio/ShutterstockWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 16, 2025 / 14:07 pm (CNA).Ahead of World Mental Health Day on Oct. 10, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has announced an addition to its ongoing National Catholic Mental Health Campaign to amplify local engagement on mental health. The title for the initiative, "Healing and Hope," was taken from the National Catholic Mental Health Campaign's introductory statement, written by Archbishop Borys Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia and Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, Bishop Robert Barron."As pastors, we want to emphasize this point to anyone who is suffering from mental illness or facing mental health challenges: Nobody and nothing can alter or diminish your God-given dignity. You are a beloved child of God, a God of healing and hope," the U.S. bishops said this week. The initiative "builds upon the goal of promoting healing and hope for all who struggle with me...

British royal family holds first Catholic funeral in centuries for Duchess of Kent

Pallbearers from The Royal Dragoon Guards carry Katharine, Duchess of Kent's coffin, draped in the Royal Standard, into Westminster Cathedral for a Vigil for the Deceased with Rite of Reception and Vespers for the Dead ahead of her funeral on Sept. 15, 2025, in London. / Credit: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty ImagesWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 16, 2025 / 15:07 pm (CNA).The British Royal family held its first Catholic funeral in modern history on Tuesday for the duchess of Kent, the first senior British royal to be received into the Church since the 17th century. The duchess died on Sept. 4 at the age of 92 and asked that her funeral be held at Westminster Cathedral in London. She was raised Anglican but joined the Catholic Church in 1994. She described her conversion as a "long-pondered personal decision" but said she was attracted to the solace and clarity of the faith. Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent holds a koala during a 1988 visit to Brisbane, Australia. Credit:...

Jubilee of Consolation: Mother who lost her only son never reproached God for anything

Silvia Toma before participating in the vigil with Pope Leo XIV on Sept. 15, 2025. / Credit: Victoria Cardiel/EWTN NewsVatican City, Sep 16, 2025 / 15:50 pm (CNA).Silvia Toma has a scar on her soul: Four years ago she buried her 34-year-old only son, who had two little daughters. "It was sudden leukemia. He was admitted on May 25, 2021, and died on June 3," she said, still choked up by the pain.At that time, the COVID-19 pandemic regulations allowed no visitors. Safety measures prevented her from caressing his hand in his slow agony."They never let us visit him. He was hospitalized in the coronary care unit completely alone," she recalled. They could only communicate minimally through WhatsApp messages.Praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet at his sideThe day before he died, they let her in to see him. "His wife spent 15 minutes with him and I for another 15. I took the opportunity to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet with him." The doctors then asked them to leave the room and a fe...

Parents of Annunciation shooting victim say daughter's progress is a 'miracle'

Flowers are seen on Sept. 3, 2025, outside the Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, where a shooter killed two children and injured 21 other people on Aug. 27, 2025. / Credit: Alex Wroblewski/GettyCNA Staff, Sep 16, 2025 / 16:14 pm (CNA).Less than three weeks after the Annunciation Catholic School shooting in Minnesota that killed two children and injured 21 during Mass, the parents of a 12-year-old girl who was shot in the head say her progress has been "miraculous."When Sophia Forchas arrived at the hospital with a critical gunshot wound in her head, the doctors warned her parents that her life was in the balance."Doctors warned us she was on the brink of death," Forchas' parents, Tom and Amy Forchas, said in a statement. "In that darkest hour, the world responded with faithful devotion and fervent prayer." As news of the shooting spread, people around the world offered prayers for the victims and the community in prayer services, online, and in the quiet of thei...

UN expert joins detransitioner in urging governments to protect parental rights

Reem Alsalem is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls. / Credit: ADF InternationalWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 16, 2025 / 16:44 pm (CNA).The United Nations (U.N.) Expert on Violence Against Women and Girls Reem Alsalem was joined by detransitioner and activist Chloe Cole last week in urging governments to support parents in protecting their children from "gender transition" medical interventions."Parents and legal guardians must be part of these processes from the very beginning," Alsalem said during a Sept. 8 panel coordinated by the Alliance Defending Freedom International at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva."Yet, in many countries, parents who do not want to endorse a 'gender-affirmative' approach to their children's distress have too often been left unsupported at best, or vilified, ostracized, or even separated from their children," said Alsalem, who opposes the "dangerous narrative" that children can make fully-informed adult-l...

Catholic father murdered while on pilgrimage to Marian shrine in Pakistan

Marian shrine in Mariamabad, Pakistan. / Credit: Agenzia Fides, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsACI Prensa Staff, Sep 16, 2025 / 17:42 pm (CNA).Men on motorcycles murdered a father and injured a 16-year-old boy while they were taking part in a pilgrimage to the national Marian shrine of the Virgin Mary in Mariamabad in Pakistan, an incident that has shocked Christians in the Muslim-majority country.According to the Vatican news agency Fides on Sept. 12, Afzal Masih, a married father of four, was murdered on Sept. 7 while he was on a pilgrimage to the shrine located in the Archdiocese of Lahore."We are deeply saddened by the murder of Afzal Masih. He was a devout Catholic who was participating in a Marian pilgrimage to venerate and pray to the Virgin Mary. Today, we express our deepest condolences to his family," Father Tariq George, rector of the shrine, told Fides.The murder occurred while Afzal Masih was traveling with 15 other members of the faithful and several young men on...

Homilies across U.S. take stock of Charlie Kirk assassination

Priests throughout the country have mentioned assassinated conservative Christian activisit Charlie Kirk in their homilies this week. / Credit: ChoeWatt/ShutterstockWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 16, 2025 / 18:24 pm (CNA).Catholic priests around the country have discussed the assassination of Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk during their homilies in the last week.Kirk, 31, was shot during a campus event at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10. The alleged shooter has since been apprehended and identified as 22-year-old Tyler Robinson. Kirk is survived by his wife, Erika, and their two young children."So many times it seems almost surreal how the Gospel passage for the day fits … a situation that we face as Christians in our daily lives," Father Chris Alar at the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, said during his homily on Sept. 11, referencing the day's reading from the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus instructs his disciples to love their enemies....

CNA Newsmaker Interview: Kevin Roberts and living out the optimism of Charlie Kirk

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts. / Credit: Jack Haskins/EWTN NewsWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 16, 2025 / 08:20 am (CNA).Exactly one week before the assassination of Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk, CNA interviewed Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts for its new "CNA Newsmaker Interview" series, which will feature periodic in-depth interviews with Catholic leaders in diverse fields.In the wake of the attack, Roberts wrote in a social media post that "we must never, never, never, never, never, never stop fighting to build the America that [Charlie Kirk] helped make possible."Kirk, he said, "restored optimism about the American future for millions of Americans."This same optimism for the future of America, alongside an equally shared passion with Kirk for the restoration of family life across the country, is central to Roberts' work at Heritage. America, according to Roberts, has "arrived at that moment" where it has reached "an understanding in t...

'Joyfully Catholic' Chesterton Academy Network opens international schools

A group of students at Chesterton Academy of the Holy Family in Lisle, Illinois, in 2024. The Chesterton School Network is a network of "joyfully Catholic classical high schools where students grow in faith, virtue, and friendship." / Credit: Photo courtesy of Chesterton Academy of the Holy Family, Lisle, IllinoisCNA Staff, Sep 16, 2025 / 09:20 am (CNA).In a suburb of Minneapolis in 2008, a small school named after the Catholic author G.K. Chesterton opened its doors.Seventeen years later, the school has grown into the wide-reaching Chesterton Schools Network, with schools sprinkled across the United States. And this school year, the network is going international.The president of the Chesterton Schools Network said there is no other word for it but "miraculous.""The growth has been simply astounding," said Dale Ahlquist, who is also president of the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton, which operates the network.But why are the schools a hit? Ahlquist credits the Holy Spirit.S...

JD Vance: Trump administration will 'dismantle' leftist groups promoting violence

Vice President JD Vance hosts a podcast episode of "The Charlie Kirk Show" on Sept. 15, 2025, in Washington, D.C., following the assassination of the show's namesake on Sept. 10. / Credit: Doug Mills-Pool/Getty ImagesNational Catholic Register, Sep 16, 2025 / 10:21 am (CNA).While serving as the guest host of Charlie Kirk's podcast Monday, Vice President JD Vance vowed that the Trump administration will seek to "dismantle" left-wing organizations that he said promoted the violence that led to the conservative activist's assassination last week."Charlie was gunned down in broad daylight, and well-funded institutions of the Left lied about what he said so as to justify his murder. This is soulless and evil," Vance said.The two-hour broadcast of "The Charlie Kirk Show," produced by the organization Kirk founded, Turning Point USA, was livestreamed from Vance's ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. It featured appearances from White House aides and administr...