U.S. Army to reexamine canceled chapel contracts

Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, meets with reporters in Baltimore on Nov. 15, 2022. / Credit: Joe Bukuras/CNAWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 21, 2025 / 13:37 pm (CNA).The U.S. Army is reexamining canceled religious contracts after Archbishop for the Military Services, USA, Timothy Broglio lamented that cuts strained Catholic ministry to the armed forces.Broglio criticized the cancellations of chapel contracts for religious educators, administrators, and musicians. He wrote in a letter to Congress that the contracts were essential to assisting Catholic priest chaplains in their duties.A March memorandum by the U.S. Army Installation Management Command directed the cancellation of the chapel contracts, Broglio said. In his Oct. 17 letter, the archbishop wrote that he was assured directors of religious education and religious affairs specialists would "cover down" on the work of contractors, but "that has not happened" and ...

Aid to the Church in Need: Authoritarian regimes are greatest threat to religious freedom

Cardinal Pietro Parolin speaks at the release of Aid to the Church in Need's "Religious Freedom in the World Report 2025" at the Vatican on Oct. 21, 2025. / Credit: Daniel Iba´n~ez/CNAVatican City, Oct 21, 2025 / 14:07 pm (CNA).Authoritarian regimes are among the main drivers of religious discrimination and persecution in 52 countries, according to an Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) report. The pontifical foundation, alongside Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, released the Religious Freedom in the World Report 2025 at the Vatican on Tuesday, highlighting the need for the Church to bear witness to the millions of people who face threats of persecution and violence.The cardinal decried the "year on year" increase of violations affecting more than 5.4 billion people worldwide at the report's launch and stressed the need for governments to acknowledge religious freedom as an "inalienable right," as asserted by both the Second Vatican Council document Dignitat...

Fact check: Did the Vatican Library open a prayer room for Muslims?

A view of the Vatican Apostolic Library in 2021. / Credit: Franco Origlia/Getty ImagesCNA Staff, Oct 21, 2025 / 15:56 pm (CNA).Reports circulating in media outlets and on social media in October 2025 allege that the Vatican has opened a prayer room for Muslims in the Apostolic Library.Claim: The Vatican Library has opened a prayer room for Muslims.CNA finds: The library does allow Muslim scholars a room in which to pray while they are on site doing research in the Vatican's extensive archives.Breakdown: In mid-October 2025, sensational news coverage rocketed around internet media outlets and social media feeds: The Vatican is "allow[ing]" a "designated Muslim prayer room" in its Apostolic Library (National Review); the library has "add[ed] a Muslim prayer room" (The Dallas Express); the Vatican has "[set] up [a] dedicated Muslim prayer room at [the] heart of [the] pope's 500-year-old library" (GB News); the Holy See has "open[ed]" a "Muslim prayer room in [the] Apostolic Librar...

Magis Center launches AI app on faith, science 

Father Robert Spitzer, SJ, founder of the Magis Center, delivers the opening keynote address at the inaugural Wonder Conference on Jan. 13, 2023. / Credit: Word on Fire/ScreenshotWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 21, 2025 / 16:26 pm (CNA).Magis Center released this week an artificial intelligence (AI) app designed to provide instant, science-based answers to questions about the Church and Catholic moral teachings.MagisAI was announced Oct. 20 by the Magis Center, an organization created by philosopher and author Father Robert Spitzer, SJ, to explore the relationship between science, philosophy, reason, and faith. The free app draws information from Spitzer's 20 books including "Christ, Science, and Reason" and "Science at the Doorstep to God."The app provides spoken answers to users' questions accompanied by the text and reference. If the answer is too technical or confusing, the app can provide simplifications as needed, the Magis Center reported."Whether you're a teacher helping...

Minnesota archbishop delivers letters from Annunciation School to Pope Leo XIV

Archbishop Bernard Hebda of St. Paul-Minneapolis. / Credit: Archdiocese of St. Paul-MinneapolisWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 21, 2025 / 16:56 pm (CNA).Archbishop Bernard Hebda of St. Paul-Minneapolis delivered letters from victims of the Annunciation School shooting to Pope Leo XIV during a recent visit to Rome. The letters from students and their family members thanked Leo for his prayers in wake of the deadly shooting that claimed two lives and injured dozens more on Aug. 27, according to a newsletter posted by Hebda on Oct. 20. Hebda said the opportunity to deliver the letters to Leo had made their first meeting Oct. 2 "particularly meaningful" for him. "Our prayers for the victims of the tragic shooting during a school Mass in the American state of Minnesota," Leo had said on Aug. 31 after leading the weekly Angelus prayer from a window overlooking St. Peter's Square."The loss of life on that occasion was horrific and the impact on students, teachers, and th...

New Jersey bishop installs new leader of Daughters of Charity of the Most Precious Blood

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...

State-level religious freedom protections grow in recent years

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...

Right-leaning Bolivian president-elect Rodrigo Paz thanks God for his victory

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...

Catholic experts say new AI 'Friend' device undermines real relationships

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...

Bishops denounce rising Mafia-style violence in Sicily following murder of 21-year-old

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...