Cardinal Pizzaballa visits Holy Family Parish in Gaza days before Christmas

Children greet the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, during his visit to Gaza's Holy Family Parish on Dec. 19, 2025. / Credit: Photo courtesy of the Latin Patriarchate of JerusalemCNA Staff, Dec 19, 2025 / 18:35 pm (CNA).Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, arrived in Gaza City on Dec. 19 for a pastoral visit to Holy Family Parish, the only Catholic church in the Gaza Strip, just days before Christmas.Accompanied by Auxiliary Bishop William Shomali, the Latin patriarchal vicar, and a small delegation, the cardinal's visit comes as a sign of solidarity with the small Catholic community that has endured over two years of conflict and severe hardship, including what Israel Defense Forces said was an accidental deadly attack on the parish compound last June.Upon his arrival at the parish, Pizzaballa was greeted by children, some wearing Santa hats, amid festive decorations including twinkling lights, Christmas trees, and Nati...

Pope Leo XIV: The person and families must be at center of labor system

Pope Leo XIV addresses employment consultants on Dec. 18, 2025, at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican MediaACI Prensa Staff, Dec 19, 2025 / 14:30 pm (CNA).Pope Leo XIV advocated for a labor system that serves individuals and families so that the dignity of each employee is recognized and his or her real needs are met.During a Dec. 18 audience at the Vatican with members of the Order of Employment Consultants, the Holy Father highlighted three aspects that he considers particularly important in the business world: the dignity of the person, mediation, and the promotion of safety.At the beginning of his address in the Apostolic Palace, the pontiff emphasized that at the heart of any work dynamic "should neither be capital, nor the laws of the market, nor profit, but the person, the family, and their well-being, to which everything else is secondary."Consequently, he stated that workers must "be recognized in their dignity" and receive concrete responses to their real needs, such...

Albany's retired bishop files for personal bankruptcy

Bishop Edward Scarfenberger. / Credit: Photo courtesy of the Diocese of AlbanyNational Catholic Register, Dec 19, 2025 / 12:24 pm (CNA).A retired New York bishop has filed for personal bankruptcy protection in federal court after a state jury verdict found him, along with other officials, personally liable for the collapse of a Catholic hospital pension fund that left about 1,100 retirees without the lifetime monthly payments they were expecting.It's not clear whether a Catholic bishop in the United States has ever previously filed for personal bankruptcy protection.Bishop Edward Scharfenberger, 77, who served as bishop of Albany from April 2014 until his retirement in October, is seeking protection from creditors for his assets valued at between $100,001 and $500,000, according to a filing Tuesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of New York.The seven-page filing does not list the bishop's assets but states that he has between 100 and 199 creditors and de...

Massachusetts removes LGBT ideology requirements for foster care parents

null / Credit: New Africa/ShutterstockCNA Staff, Dec 19, 2025 / 12:54 pm (CNA).Massachusetts will no longer require prospective foster parents to affirm gender ideology in order to qualify for fostering children, with the move coming after a federal lawsuit from a religious liberty group. Alliance Defending Freedom said Dec. 17 that the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families "will no longer exclude Christian and other religious families from foster care" because of their "commonly held beliefs that boys are boys and girls are girls."The legal group announced in September that it had filed a lawsuit in U.S. district court over the state policy, which required prospective parents to agree to affirm a child's "sexual orientation and gender identity" before being permitted to foster. Attorney Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse said at the time that the state's foster system was "in crisis" with more than 1,400 children awaiting placement in foster homes. Yet the s...

Church leaders condemn arson attack on top Bangladesh newspaper offices

A group set fire to the office of the country's top Bangla newspaper, Prothom Alo, late on Dec. 19, 2025, to protest the killing of Sharif Osman Hadi, a front-line leader of a 2024 uprising in Bangladesh. / Credit: Dipu MalakerDhaka, Bangladesh, Dec 19, 2025 / 13:24 pm (CNA).Catholic leaders in Bangladesh have condemned arson attacks on the offices of two of the country's top newspapers and the homes of ousted Awami League leaders in protests of the killing of a frontline leader in a 2024 uprising.Sharif Osman Hadi, 32, was shot in broad daylight on Dec. 12 and died in Singapore on Dec. 18. "We condemn this attack and we are very concerned about the upcoming elections," said Father Liton Hubert Gomes, secretary of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Bishops' Conference in Bangladesh.The announcement of Hadi's death prompted thousands of people, especially young, to take to the streets of Dhaka to protest and demand justice for Hadi's killers. Some protesters claim ...

Top 2025 religious freedom developments included mix of persecution, protection

null / Credit: Joe Belanger/ShutterstockWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 19, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).Here is an overview of some of the religious freedom developments and news in the United States and abroad in 2025:White House started the Religious Liberty CommissionPresident Donald Trump established the White House Religious Liberty Commission in May to report on threats to religious freedom in the U.S. and seek to advance legal protections. The commission and advisory boards include members of various religions. Catholic members on the commission include Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Bishop Robert Barron. Catholic advisory board members include Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone, Bishop Thomas Paprocki, Bishop Kevin Rhoades, and Father Thomas Ferguson.Lawmakers condemned persecution of Christians Rep. Riley Moore, R-West Virginia, and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, introduced a joint resolution condemning the persecution of Christians in Muslim-majority countries across the wor...

Cardinal Dolan says of retirement: 'I'll always keep working'

The archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, speaks to EWTN News on Friday, April 25, 2025, at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome. / Credit: Screenshot/EWTN NewsCNA Staff, Dec 19, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).Now that the Vatican has announced that Archbishop-designate Ronald Hicks will succeed Cardinal Timothy Dolan as archbishop of New York, what comes next for the cardinal?"I'll always keep working," Dolan told Father Dave Dwyer, a Paulist priest, executive director of Busted Halo Ministries, and cohost of "Conversation with Cardinal Dolan," during a discussion of his retirement plans earlier this year. "For a priest, your life is your work," he said, indicating that he hopes to continue preaching retreats, which he said he loves, and teaching. "But I won't have an appointment. I won't have administrative duties. Yippee!" Dolan quipped.The cardinal said he is looking forward to having "more choices, instead of waking up in the morning and being han...

Pope Leo XIV appoints new bishop for Palm Beach, auxiliary bishop for Phoenix

Palm Beach Bishop-elect Manuel de Jesus Rodriguez / Credit: Courtesy of the Diocese of Palm BeachCNA Staff, Dec 19, 2025 / 07:30 am (CNA).The Holy See said on Dec. 19 that Pope Leo XIV had made two new episcopal appointments in the United States, with the Vatican announcing a new bishop for the Diocese of Palm Beach as well as an auxiliary bishop for the Diocese of Phoenix. Father Manuel de Jesus Rodriguez will lead the Palm Beach diocese after the resignation of Bishop Gerald Barbarito, the Vatican said. At 75, Barbarito has reached the customary age at which bishops retire. Bishop-elect Rodriguez is currently a priest in the Diocese of Brooklyn, where he serves at Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Queens. Born Jan. 15, 1974, in the Dominican Republic, Rodriguez studied at the Pontifical University Madre y Maestra in that country, receiving philosophy and law degrees there before obtaining several other degrees and certificates, including a doctorate in legal studie...

Jerusalem churches advocate for Gazan children to have cancer treatment in Israel

Eight-year-old Yamen Abu Hilal lies on a bed as a woman sits beside him in a hospital room in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, on Nov. 24, 2025. His condition has sharply worsened amid the collapse of Gaza's health care system, which has been unable to provide diagnostic tools, medication, or equipment since no medical supplies have entered the Strip following the ceasefire. / Credit: Doaa Albaz/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty ImagesWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 19, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).Here is a roundup of Catholic world news from the past week that you might have missed:Jerusalem churches advocate for Gazan children to have cancer treatment in IsraelChurch leaders in Jerusalem have called on the Israeli government to allow children in Gaza with leukemia to be allowed into Israel to receive treatment at Augusta Victoria Hospital on the Mount of Olives. The Dec. 17 statement was addressed to "the responsible authorities" in Israel and signed by the Patriarchs and Heads of the Ch...

Federal court allows Michigan therapists to counsel children claiming to be opposite sex

The Michigan capitol building in Lansing. / Credit: John McLenaghan/ShutterstockCNA Staff, Dec 18, 2025 / 12:36 pm (CNA).Counselors and therapists in Michigan will be allowed to treat children who believe themselves to be the opposite sex, striking down a Michigan law that outlawed such counseling by claiming it constitutes "conversion therapy."The Dec. 17 ruling at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit blocked the Michigan law by stating that it "discriminates based on viewpoint" by forbidding therapists from counseling children that they are their own biological sex rather than the opposite sex.The court noted that the law "expressly" allows therapists to help children commit to a so-called "transition" to the opposite sex. The rule is a "near-certain violation" of the First Amendment, the order said.The Michigan law was passed on the grounds that steering children away from a transgender identity constitutes "conversion" similar to counseling that seeks to mitigate s...