Jubilee of Youth: Meet the brave Catholic communicators who are telling their stories

Several of the participants at the 2025 EWTN Summer Academy in Rome, an intensive program in religious journalism and digital storytelling, come from places where Catholics live their faith amid severe adversity. / Credit: Lemmy Ogbonnaya Ijioma/EWTN Summer AcademyVatican City, Jul 31, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).Mikhail Ajjan fled war-torn Syria and the terrors of ISIS with his family when he was 10. Now a university student in Sweden, the 21-year-old Catholic faces a vastly different challenge of living his faith in a secular environment and is honing his media skills to help spread the Gospel.Ajjan is one of more than 40 young Catholics from 23 countries who have come together to train in the 2025 EWTN Summer Academy in Rome, an intensive program in religious journalism and digital storytelling, which coincides this year with the Catholic Church's Jubilee of Youth.Mikhail Ajjan, 21, is originally from Aleppo, Syria, but now lives in Sweden. Credit: Lemmy Ogbonnaya Ijioma/EWTN Summ...

UCLA to pay more than $6 million to settle antisemitic complaints

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators occupy an encampment on the campus of UCLA on April 25, 2024, in Los Angeles. / Credit: Eric Thayer/Getty ImagesWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 30, 2025 / 16:09 pm (CNA).The University of California, Los Angeles, (UCLA) has agreed to a permanent court order forbidding campus antisemitism and a $6.13 million settlement after a number of discrimination complaints were filed against the school by Jewish students.In June 2024, three students sued UCLA after the school "allowed a group of activists to set up barricades in the center of campus" to block Jewish students from accessing "critical educational infrastructure," according to the lawsuit, filed in U.S. district court. The suit was managed in part by the religious liberty law firm Becket.UCLA agreed to the payout on July 28 after fighting the lawsuit for over a year. Some of the millions will be allocated to the defendants that brought the case forward, while more than $2 million of the funds...

Abuse victims agree to $246 million settlement from Diocese of Rochester, New York

Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Rochester, New York. / Credit: DanielPenfield via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)CNA Staff, Jul 30, 2025 / 16:39 pm (CNA).Hundreds of clergy abuse victims agreed to a massive settlement from the Diocese of Rochester, New York, this week, bringing the diocese's yearslong bankruptcy proceedings closer to an end. Documents obtained by CNA show a near-unanimous vote in favor of accepting the diocese's proposed $246 million settlement plan, with just a handful of "abstain" votes and none voting against it. The payment comes after years of wrangling in U.S. bankruptcy court as the diocese, the survivors, and diocesan insurance providers worked to come to a settlement amount on which all of them could agree. In 2022 the diocese said it would pay $55 million into a settlement fund, with Bishop Salvatore Matano noting that "additional recoveries" could come from diocesan insurers. Earlier this month Continental Insurance Co. agreed to pay $120...

Archbishop Gallagher: Search for truth, not crucifixes, defines Catholic universities

Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, Vatican secretary for relations with states, celebrates Mass at Guadalupe Basilica in Mexico City on July 27, 2025. / Credit: Courtesy of Basilica of Our Lady of GuadalupeVatican City, Jul 30, 2025 / 17:09 pm (CNA).Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, secretary for relations with states and international organizations of the Holy See, noted that universities are not Catholic "because of the number of crucifixes" but because they strive to seek truth that is "in harmony with the certainty of faith.""Far from being just another institution in the global marketplace of ideas, and much less Catholic just because of the number of crucifixes on its walls or chapel services, a truly Catholic university is a place where the search for truth is in harmony with the certainty of faith," he noted.As reported by Vatican News, Gallagher gave his reflections during the inaugural conference of the 28th general assembly of the International Federation of Catholi...

Fraud in juvenile migrant program causing backlog in visas for foreign priests, religious

null / Credit: Vinokurov Kirill/ShutterstockWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 30, 2025 / 17:54 pm (CNA).U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has released a report showing widespread fraud in its permanent residence program for unaccompanied minors, which has led to a backlog in the issuance of visas to foreign-born priests and religious, whose visas fall under the same category.According to a report published on July 24, USCIS has identified widespread age and identity fraud among applicants to the Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) visa program intended for unaccompanied immigrants under 21 years old.USCIS revealed that of the 300,000 SIJ applicants it reviewed from 2013 to 2024, most SIJ petitioners were over the age of 18. In 2024 alone, 52% of applicants were 18, 19, and 20 years old. One-third of all SIJ applicants were males over the age of 18. The vast majority of applicants, 73.6%, originated from El Salvador, Guatemala, or Honduras.Typically, SIJ petitioners mu...

Protests erupt in India after nuns arrested on human trafficking allegations

Nuns in habits pray alongside novices at the Indore Bible Convention in Madhya Pradesh, October 2023. / Credit: Anto AkkaraBangalore, India, Jul 30, 2025 / 14:09 pm (CNA).Protests are spreading in India over the arrest of two nuns on conversion and human trafficking charges in Chattisgarh state in central India. The ongoing demonstrations that began with the July 25 arrests intensified after the release of the nuns was delayed by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government opposing bail for the religious, who have been in jail for nearly a week."What kind of justice is this?" Cardinal Baselios mar Cleemis, the archbishop of the Syro Malankara Church and former president of Catholic Bishops' Conference of India, said on July 30.The prelate spoke at the end of a protest march to the Kerala Legislative Assembly at Thiruvananthapuram, demanding the "immediate release" of the nuns, who are from the Christian heartland of Kerala.On July 27, the Indian Catholic ...

Catholic bishops urge government support after Bangladesh plane crash

Flowers and offerings are placed at the grave of Ukya Chhaing Marma. The seventh-grader died from his wounds after being rescued from a July 21, 2025, plane crash at his Dhaka school. / Credit: Piyas BiswasDhaka, Bangladesh, Jul 30, 2025 / 14:39 pm (CNA).As parents grieve the loss of their children, the Catholic bishops of Bangladesh have urged the government to fully support victims and families following the July 21 crash of an air force training jet into a local school that killed at least 35 and injured over 170 people, most of them children.Bishop Ponen Paul Kubi, secretary-general of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Bangladesh, told EWTN News the incident is "deeply saddening for us and a great loss for our country, as we have lost many from our future generation. We have requested prayers in our churches, because prayer is our source of strength and comfort."The parents of Ukya Chhaing Marma, a 14-year-old who died after a Bangladesh Air Force training jet crashed int...

Pope Leo XIV addresses youth at packed general audience

Pope Leo XIV signs a portrait of himself for a pilgrim at his general audience on July 30, 2025, in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican MediaACI Prensa Staff, Jul 30, 2025 / 15:09 pm (CNA).Before a packed St. Peter's Square filled with young people who had come from all over the world for the Jubilee of Youth, Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday gave his first general audience after his vacation in Castel Gandolfo.Aboard the popemobile, the pontiff toured the colorful esplanade, warmly and enthusiastically greeting the hundreds of thousands of young pilgrims waving the flags of numerous countries.At the beginning of his July 30 catechesis, the last in a series dedicated to the public life of Jesus, the Holy Father lamented the climate of violence and hatred that marks our time, a reality that, he affirmed, "deeply wounds human dignity." Against this backdrop, he firmly emphasized: "Our world needs healing.""We live in a society," he explained, "that is becoming ill due t...

How a Catholic priest led the Church's 'significant' contribution to Deaf history

Father Charles-Michel de l'Épée founded the National Institute for Deaf Youth of Paris in 1760. / Credit: Public domainCNA Staff, Jul 30, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).Sign language is currently one of the most popular families of languages in the world, with National Geographic estimating more than 300 forms of sign language used by more than 70 million people worldwide.Yet most people, and even most users of sign language, may be unaware of the notable role that Catholics played in the earliest years of modern sign language, including the founding of the world's first free school for deaf people.That school, the National Institute for Deaf Youth of Paris, was founded in 1760 by Father Charles-Michel de l'Épée. The institute says on its website that the priest was inspired to develop a system of sign language after meeting two deaf twins. He would go on to launch a small school on the rue des Moulins in Paris that would in time become the national institution. Jordan Eickman, a p...

Leo XIV: Don't be discouraged in your faith journey, God is always there to sustain you

Pope Leo XIV greets a group of catechumens from France during an audience on July 29, 2025, at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican MediaACI Prensa Staff, Jul 29, 2025 / 14:59 pm (CNA).Speaking to a group of catechumens from France, Pope Leo XIV on Tuesday explained that baptism "gives us life" to renounce a "culture of death," which is so prevalent in today's society.During the July 29 meeting at the Vatican with the catechumens, chaplains, and catechists of France, which also included the bishop of Nice, Jean-Philippe Nault, the Holy Father emphasized that baptism "makes us full members of the great family of God."He added that this sacrament "introduces us into communion with Christ and gives us life," committing those who receive it "to renounce a culture of death," which he said includes "indifference, contempt for others, drug use, the pursuit of an easy life, sexuality turned into entertainment and the objectification of the human person, injustice, etc.""Baptism makes us...