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 Academy
Vatican 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.
Several of the academy participants come from places where Catholics live their faith amid severe adversity — from war zones to countries where cartel violence or religious persecution threaten Christian communities.
Among them is Nicolawos Hazboun, a multimedia officer from Bethlehem who works closely with Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa documenting life in the Holy Land for the Latin Catholic Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
On a recent afternoon, Hazboun, 26, paused to reflect on the current situation facing Palestinian Catholics in Bethlehem.
"It's a blessing for us to be in the same place where Jesus was born," he said. "My family is one of the biggest Christian families in Bethlehem. … We are in Bethlehem for more than 500 years … And we want to stay."
But staying isn't easy. "Nowadays we have a bad situation because of the war," Hazboun said. "We don't have any pilgrimage … groups from outside. The people of Bethlehem … depend on the tourists. We don't have any income."
Many Christian families in Bethlehem, he added, are leaving for Europe or North America. "We want the Christians of Bethlehem to grow and to increase in numbers, but unfortunately, the numbers of Christians in Bethlehem are getting low because of the situation."
Hazboun hopes to bring the skills he learns at the EWTN Summer Academy back to Bethlehem and Jerusalem to help him better communicate the experience of Christians in the Holy Land.
"People are always surprised that there are … Palestinian Christians," Hazboun said. "I want them to know that we are a strong community."
"There are still Christians in Bethlehem. … Not all Palestinians are Muslim."
The EWTN Summer Academy, organized by the global Catholic media network EWTN, CNA's parent company, is now in its fourth year of training aspiring communicators in skills ranging from video editing to narrative reporting. The academy is held at the Pontifical Urban University's CIAM center with a panoramic view of Rome and the dome of St. Peter's Basilica and is offered at no cost to participants.
"I feel close to heaven," said Sister Mary Iyadunni Adeniyi, 27, a Nigerian member of the Congregation of Sisters of St. Michael the Archangel making her first pilgrimage to Rome to take part in the academy.
She recalls vividly the 2022 Pentecost massacre at St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo, Nigeria, where dozens of Catholics were killed.
"It feels bad that you just go out and you could get killed," she said. "We pray that God will help our faith and God could restore peace in our country."
Even so, Sister Mary remains committed to building a hopeful future. "The charism of my congregation is evangelization through inculturation," she explained.
"Now, it's a digital world … so we also have to use that for evangelization." She edits videos, designs graphics, and believes strongly in the potential of online platforms to reach young hearts.
"Where can you find the young people in the 21st century? In the media," the sister said.
In Vietnam, Tâm Nguyên Bùi, 31, works with the Vietnamese bishops' conference and also volunteers for the local archdiocese in Saigon.
"Even though we are a minority in the population — about 7% of 100 million people in the country — we have profound experiences in family life… and devotion in the churches," Nguyên said.
"In the EWTN Summer Academy 2025, we are alongside 43 communicators from 23 countries. We come from different backgrounds, different experiences of faith also. I really learn when I speak with others about how they live their faith in their country. For some, it is freely and it's very enjoyable, but sometimes with difficulties," he said.
Nguyên has translated some of the writings of St. John Paul II into Vietnamese and is a veteran of Catholic youth gatherings across Asia. He said that Catholics in Vietnam are hoping that Pope Leo XIV will visit Vietnam soon. "We try to pray that the relationship between Vietnam and the Holy See is better and gets better."
For Ajjan, the Jubilee of Youth will be a continuation of the rewarding experience that he had at the last World Youth Day.
"I've been to the World Youth Days in Portugal and I got hooked. So I was like, 'I'm going to the jubilee. I'm going to South Korea," he said referring to the 2027 World Youth Day in Seoul.
Ajjan has also found a way to serve his local Catholic community. With EWTN Sweden, he helps a young priest to produce a weekly homily video series.
"In our city, we have a very good youth pastor," he explained. "And we started to film a Sunday homily series with him. So each Wednesday we filmed the series, edited it, and then put it out on Sunday morning.?… It was really, really fun."
From Lebanon, Marguerita Kallassy is a trilingual journalist for ACI MENA, CNA's Arabic-language news partner, also owned by EWTN. She has covered everything from street protests to massive religious processions. But her heart lies in telling Catholic stories.
"It was so magical to bring that part of the East that still believes … that still has a place for Jesus in their lives," she said.
She wants to correct the common misperception that Christianity is all but vanished from the Middle East.
"People never realize the scale [of Christianity] in the East. … They thought we have only Muslim community in Lebanon so I really need to tell people that this is the birthplace of Jesus. I mean — Jesus is not from New Jersey, you know?" she joked.
"My work with the EWTN inspired me so that I applied to the Sorbonne?… in media studies," she said. Kallassy will start her graduate studies in Paris in the fall.
Daniela Sánchez y Sánchez, 21, grew up in Puebla, Mexico, and is now studying journalism in Spain.
"Since I was a little kid, I always wanted to know … everything about everything," she said. She began working with Radio María and the Archdiocese of Puebla to report the news of the local Church and bring a message of faith to a country torn by drug violence.
The Church's response, she said, has always been prayer — even for those committing violence. "[We] pray for all the victims, for all the priests who have been affected by this, and pray for those people … who are bad and want to do bad to our community," she said. "We all need to have mercy and pray for them."
Seated in view of St. Peter's, Santos marveled at the experience. "If you're into spreading God's message throughout the world and journalism, this is the best opportunity God has given us."
