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On April 7, 2009, Mariela Villanueva landed in Venezuela convinced that she was going to end her marriage. Five years had passed since her husband, Harold Figueras, had left his family in Peru and rebuilt his life in another country. She carried with her the pain of a long separation and the resolve to sign the divorce papers. He had with him a written list of all the grievances he intended to unleash the moment he saw her.

Nothing happened the way either of them had imagined.

They arranged to meet on a Wednesday at 3 p.m., the Hour of Mercy, at the very spot where they had courted years before. When Mariela appeared, Harold frantically searched for the sheet of paper containing his complaints. It had vanished.

"I was expecting a war. She opened her arms to embrace me, and I realized that I was the only one who wanted to fight," Harold recalled in an interview with ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News.

Mariela said she made that gesture because she had already begun a process of conversion and was holding onto one last hope.

That embrace did not immediately restore the marriage, however. It would still be nearly a month before he ended the other relationship he was in and decided to return to his family. But on that day, they both attest, Jesus won the first great battle.

A marriage marked by woundedness

Harold and Mariela met in 1998 at the Venezuelan College of Engineers. He worked in systems; she was a young lawyer running a legal consultation firm with dozens of professionals under her supervision.

While Mariela had grown up in a Catholic family and frequently prayed the rosary, Harold was completely indifferent to the faith.

"I used to make fun of priests. For me, getting married in the Church was simply a matter of fulfilling a social formality," he admitted.

They were married in a civil ceremony and on Sept. 2, 2000, received the sacrament at marriage at St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Barranco, Peru. However, they acknowledged that they came to the altar without truly understanding the meaning of the vocation of marriage.

"We began our life together without God at the center. That was the first major mistake," Harold explained.

Over the years, deep-seated wounds began to surface: abandonment, loneliness, pride, an inability to communicate, and unrealistic expectations about love. Venezuela's economic crisis further aggravated the situation. Harold traveled constantly between the two countries until, one day, he simply stopped coming back.

Mariela was left alone in Lima with her young daughter.

'Mom, teach me to pray'

Paradoxically, the restoration did not begin when Harold changed. It began when Mariela got down on her knees.

Estranged from the Church and filled with resentment, the young mother had abandoned the practice of her faith after being hurt by a bad experience at a parish. Everything changed thanks to an unexpected request from her 7-year-old daughter: "Mom, grandma says you know how to pray. Teach me the rosary."

Mariela agreed, more out of a sense of obligation than anything else. Shortly after that, her daughter insisted on making her first Communion and said something that pierced her mother's heart: "You know what it's like to have Jesus in your heart… so why don't you [go to Communion]?"

Those words led Mariela back to the confessional.

From then on, she began a routine that would change her life: daily Mass before work, Eucharistic adoration at midday, and the rosary every night with her daughter.

"I was looking for God to change my husband. The Lord ended up changing me," she related.

'Look at me'

During Eucharistic adoration, an experience occurred that would, years later, give its name to the retreat the couple now leads as part of the Peruvian Catholic movement "Jesus and Mary Are Restoring My Family."

Mariela was praying, seeing herself as the victim in her story: "Lord, look at me. Look at how good I am. Look at what he did to me."

Then, she raised her eyes toward the monstrance.

"I no longer saw the monstrance. I saw Jesus, wounded and bloodied. And he said to me only: 'Look at me.'"

In that moment, she experienced a personal encounter with Jesus. She began to recall her own sins from childhood and realized that, for years, she had been unable to recognize her own wounds.

"I realized that God wasn't going to ask me about Harold's sins. He was going to ask me how much I loved my husband within the sacrament."

Her prayer changed completely, and she no longer asked for Harold to return. She only prayed: "Lord, bring him back to you."

The hell of the occult

While Mariela was deepening her prayer life, Harold was heading down a completely opposite path.

Seeking better financial prospects, he began consulting tarot cards. Next came syncretist Santería practices, and finally Palería, a witchcraft practice involving human remains and animal sacrifices.

"I entered a dark room containing skeletal remains. I felt an indescribable fear, yet I kept looking for answers where they weren't to be found," Harold recalled.

Amid that emptiness, he began to notice something strange. Mariela kept calling him, but no longer to get him back.

One afternoon, in a mocking tone, he asked her: "What's wrong? Don't you need me anymore?"

Her answer baffled him.

"No. What's going on is that I have someone here who loves me."

Harold thought she had another romantic partner, but today he knows his wife was speaking of Christ himself.

Welcomed back with love

After that encounter with his wife in Venezuela, Harold eventually returned to Peru.

He admitted he was terrified of facing Mariela's family and above all, their daughter. He imagined reproaches, humiliation, and rejection. Yet, he found exactly the opposite.

"They all hugged me as if I had just stepped out to buy bread," he recounted.

A few days later, he accompanied Mariela to the Oblate Fathers' church in the Barranco neighborhood of Lima. He had no thought of even going inside. He was standing near the doorway when, as he tells it, he felt an inner impulse that led him straight to the confessional.

"I told the priest: 'Father, I've been separated from my wife for five years, and I don't know why I've come back.'"

The priest invited him to attend a spiritual retreat. It was there that Harold experienced his own conversion.

Before the Blessed Sacrament, after resisting for hours, Harold looked up: "I no longer saw the monstrance. I saw two honey-colored eyes that pierced my heart. I began to weep as I never had in my life."

From that moment on, he abandoned the occult and began a journey of faith that continues to this day.

An ongoing miracle

More than 15 years have passed since that reconciliation.

Harold and Mariela maintain that the true miracle was not simply living together again but discovering that marriage is a daily path to holiness.

"Restoring the marriage takes your whole life. It doesn't stop when the husband returns. It begins there," Mariela said.

That experience gave rise to the "Jesus and Mary Are Restoring My Family" movement, an initiative that supports spouses who are separated or on the verge of divorce. The path they propose begins with one's own conversion rather than an attempt to change one's spouse.

Those who come to the mission begin with what's called "Mary's Workshop," a preparation for consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary that focuses on the sacrament of marriage. There, the aim is for each person to acknowledge his or her own wounds and receive the tools to discern how to handle their issues as a family.

However, Harold and Mariela noted that not all journeys end the same way. Some married couples manage to reunite, while others go their separate ways, including through the process of a declaration of nullity. What remains, they maintain, is the call to conversion and to seek God's will.

"The Lord wants us to be holy," Mariela explained. She said that even when a person goes through a process different from what she or he hoped for, suffering can become an opportunity to draw closer to Christ and offer that pain for the holiness of the Church.

Today, when they look back, the couple no longer see themselves as the same people who had separated. Mariela describes Harold as a man more committed to knowing God's love and capable of giving of himself to his family.

For his part, he acknowledged that the woman he reunited with after five years was no longer the same one he had left behind.

For this reason, their testimony does not aim to offer a formula for restoring a lost marriage. It is, above all, the story of two people who discovered that, before asking God to change the other person, they had to allow themselves to be transformed by him.

"Many people come saying, 'I want my husband to come back.' We tell them: First, let Jesus return to the center of your heart," Harold explained.

Their message to couples in crisis stems from that experience: Don't hide your wounds, don't let shame defeat you, and don't confuse restoration with a simple return to the life you had before.

For as they discovered that Wednesday afternoon in 2009, some marital battles are not won by defeating the other person but by allowing oneself to be conquered by God's merciful love.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

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NAIROBI, Kenya — For a priest, taking time to rest is not a "luxury," the secretary of the Vatican Dicastery for Evangelization said, urging priests to embrace healthy periods away from work to sustain their physical and mental health.

In his address during the launch of a six-week formation program that seeks to explore priestly life in Nigeria, Archbishop Fortunatus Nwachukwu reflected on cases of mental health struggles among the members of the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life (ICLSAL), noting that priests should embrace rest just as Jesus himself did during his ministry.

"Rest, then, is not a luxury in priestly life; it is necessary for physical and mental health," the archbishop said, noting that the recent news of the resignation of German Bishop Karl-Heinz Wiesemann after a period of serious psychological strain is "a timely reminder that priests and bishops are not immune to exhaustion, depression, or burnout."

"We need proper rest, healthy boundaries, supportive relationships, and, when necessary, professional help. Caring for oneself is not stepping away from ministry; it helps us remain well enough to serve," the Nigerian-born Vatican official emphasized during the launch, which was held virtually on Aug. 26.

Organizers of the program seek to explore priestly life, starting with Nigeria, amid mounting mental health concerns among Catholic priests.

According to organizers, participants in the program will look at "the quality of life, service, joy, aspirations, fears, and anxieties" that they say are "gradually pervading the cycle of a priest's life and ministry."

Guided by the theme "Fully Alive in Christ: Caring for the Self — The Priest as a Living Gift," the program also seeks to explore priestly self-care, spiritual renewal, emotional well-being, burnout, healthy relationships, and living out the Church's mission with confidence and joy.

Participants in the formation will have access to training materials and will also receive a certificate of participation.

In his presentation, Nwachukwu recalled the situation in the Diocese of Aba, where he said the age at which many priests have died points to the need for greater attention to the well-being of clergy.

"Each time I visit the priests' cemetery of the Diocese of Aba, close to the cathedral, I am struck and left sad by the age bracket of the colleagues whose remains are already lying there," said the Vatican official, who also serves as the representative of the Holy See to the United Nations and Specialized Institutions in Geneva following his December 2021 appointment.

Many of the priests, he added, died before reaching the age of 50. "Only very few crossed the bars of 60 and 70 years," he said.

Beyond the premature deaths of priests, Nwachukwu noted the growing number of young priests experiencing mental health challenges, raising the question of what can be done to address the situation.

He said the concern was not about questioning God's will but about examining how seriously the Church takes Jesus' teachings and example regarding the self-care of those entrusted with ministry.

Nwachukwu reflected on Mark 6:31-32 as a guiding text for understanding the importance of rest in priestly ministry. In the passage, Jesus tells his disciples: "Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while."

The Nigerian Church leader explained that Jesus invited his disciples to take a pause from their ministry and join him in a period of rest. He noted that Jesus himself demonstrated the importance of taking a break — particularly after receiving news of the death of his cousin, John the Baptist.

The archbishop said the Gospel accounts show that Jesus' decision to withdraw was connected both to grief and to the demands of ministry.

He said St. Matthew presents the withdrawal after Jesus receives news of John the Baptist's death, while Mark and Luke place the invitation to rest after the disciples returned from a successful missionary assignment.

The disciples had been so occupied with their mission that "many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat," he noted, adding that their missionary work had included casting out demons as well as anointing the sick with oil and healing them.

Nwachukwu said the experience offers an important lesson for priests who devote themselves intensely to ministry.

"God-given energy needs God-given direction," he said, explaining that strength, passion, and drive must be directed toward one's vocation and mission. Otherwise, he warned, such energy can easily be spent elsewhere.

He said this spiritual energy, when properly directed, can lead a person to Christ and enable him or her to bring others to Christ.

He recalled Pope Benedict XVI's homily at his episcopal ordination on Jan. 6, 2013, in which the late pontiff described the spiritual restlessness of the Magi as the force that led them from the East in search of the newborn Jesus.

According to Nwachukwu, such restlessness finds its fulfillment in Christ.

The archbishop also reflected on Jesus' invitation in Matthew 11:28: "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

He cautioned that rest detached from Christ can be harmful to priests, emphasizing that the rest Jesus offers is not simply an escape from work but a source of renewal.

He explained that the Greek expression used in the passage, "kago anapauso humas," means "and I will give you rest." The verb "anapauo," he noted, conveys the idea of an elevating or renewing rest.

For priests, Nwachukwu said, this kind of rest should include periods of detachment from routine activities to allow for physical renewal and to strengthen relationships with God, fellow priests, family members, and the faithful.

He added that physical refreshment should include ordinary needs such as taking adequate time to eat and drink, while mental and spiritual renewal should involve learning how to direct one's energies toward Christ through prayer and genuine charity.

This story was first published by ACI Africa, the sister service of EWTN News in Africa, and has been adapted by EWTN News.

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Pope Leo XIV took part in an historic boat procession on Aug. 29, becoming what the Vatican said was the first pope to travel across the waters of Lake Albano at Castel Gandolfo during a procession for the Feast of Our Lady of the Lake.

The town of Castel Gandolfo has been home to the papal summer residence since the early 17th century. The papal palace there overlooks Lake Albano, a roughly 2-square-mile lake in a volcanic crater.

The pope traveled by boat across the lake after Mass at the Church of Maria Santissima del Lago. The papal procession was accompanied by a statue of Our Lady of the Lake.

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A new biography published in Lithuania recounts the life of Cardinal Sigitas Tamkevicius, SJ, one of the leading Catholic figures in the resistance to Soviet religious persecution. It details his work as editor of the underground Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania publication and his subsequent imprisonment by the KGB.

Written by journalist Regina Statkuviene and published by the DONUM Foundation, "In the Light of the Altar" draws on recent interviews she conducted with Tamkevicius. The book also includes his letters and diary entries alongside accounts of his childhood, priesthood, underground activities, imprisonment, exile, and later episcopal ministry.

Tamkevicius was arrested in 1983 and sentenced to six years in a strict-regime labor camp followed by four years of exile in Siberia.

His story offers an insight into the experience of Catholics who resisted the Soviet Union's efforts to suppress religious life and impose state atheism.

Catholic resistance in Soviet-occupied Lithuania

Founded by Tamkevicius in 1972, the Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania ("Lietuvos kataliku bažnycios kronika," or "LKB Kronika") was an underground publication documenting religious persecution and human rights abuses in Soviet-occupied Lithuania.

The Kronika recorded arrests and interrogations of clergy and lay Catholics, confiscation of Church property, restrictions on religious practice, and attempts by Soviet authorities to infiltrate the Church. It was a strictly factual catalog of human rights violations, not a literary magazine or a platform for theological commentary.

Its reports were secretly typed and reproduced, with editions being smuggled to Western diplomats and foreign journalists in Moscow, with activists often microfilming the pages and hiding the negatives inside everyday objects like book covers or flashlights.

Once in the West, the material was translated and disseminated internationally, including through Vatican Radio and Radio Free Europe, directly challenging Soviet claims that religious freedom existed behind the Iron Curtain.

In the book's foreword, Archbishop Petar Rajic, current prefect of the Papal Household and former apostolic nuncio to Lithuania, described Tamkevicius as one of the most prominent witnesses to the Soviet era.

"Every Catholic who loves the Church should read the Chronicle," Rajic wrote, calling it a testimony to the spiritual strength and resistance of the Lithuanian people, rooted in the victory of the cross of Christ and offering lessons for Catholics today and future generations.

Arrest and KGB interrogation

The Kronika not only exposed Soviet religious persecution to the outside world but also strengthened the underground Catholic resistance within Lithuania. The KGB consequently intensified efforts to identify and suppress those involved in producing and distributing the publication.

Since Tamkevicius openly preached against state atheism and challenged Soviet restrictions on the Church, he was seen as a visible figure within the Catholic resistance movement.

The Soviet authorities eventually arrested Tamkevicius in May 1983 and charged him with "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda." After six months of pretrial detention in the KGB isolation prison in Vilnius, he was sentenced in December to six years in a strict-regime labor camp in the Ural Mountains, followed by four years of exile in Siberia.

During his detention, Tamkevicius recalled psychological pressure from KGB interrogators. On one occasion, an interrogator offered him tea and biscuits. He drank the tea at around 2 p.m. and soon became extremely dizzy.

His next clear memory came hours later, when he heard the interrogator angrily questioning him about a document concerning the underground seminary. He was then told that it was already 10 p.m. "Only then did I realize that after drinking the tea I had lost consciousness," he recalled.

Tamkevicius believed he had been drugged to extract information from him. The attempt failed. "Seeing how angry the interrogator was, I understood that he had managed to extract nothing from me," he said.

Life in the labor camp

Tamkevicius recalled that his first assignment in the labor camp was peeling potatoes. "Each potato had to be taken out of almost ice-cold water," he recalled. He feared that doing this for six years would make him ill, but after two weeks he was transferred to a metalworking workshop, where he collected metal shavings from lathes and carried them to containers.

Prisoners worked eight hours a day and were allotted another eight hours for sleep. The food was poor, consisting largely of "thin soup and watery porridge." Later, after Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985, Tamkevicius was assigned to the camp kitchen and had to rise at 4 a.m. to prepare breakfast.

The ingredients were often badly preserved. Fish, he recalled, could be heavily salted and stored for years. He learned to make the most of what was available, washing the fish overnight and frying it separately so that prisoners could have a more edible meal.

During more than five years in captivity, Tamkevicius was transferred under guard seven times and encountered prisoners ranging from teenagers to murderers. The experience became for him a reflection on human nature and the consequences of abandoning moral law.

"A life without God, without the commandments of the Decalogue, a life without love," he wrote, describing the selfishness, pride, lust, and greed that shaped much of prison life. His reflections ultimately turned toward his own imprisonment and vocation.

"Lord, what was it that brought me behind bars and barbed wire?" he asked. "The affairs of the Church? Yes. Concern for people's moral lives? Yes. Living according to my conscience? Yes. Thank you, Lord, that the answer was 'yes.'" For Tamkevicius, imprisonment was ultimately the consequence of refusing to compromise his faith in the face of communist oppression.

From persecution to freedom

Tamkevicius was released in 1988 as Soviet repression began to weaken. He returned to Lithuania as the country moved toward independence, restored on March 11, 1990.

Tamkevicius' story offers a firsthand account of the cost of defending the faith under communism and the role of ordinary believers in preserving the Church through decades of persecution.

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Senate GOP report finds dangerous lack of guardrails for abortion pill prescribing

A five-month-long investigation by Republicans in the U.S. Senate found that abortion pill manufacturing companies are falling short on critical oversight while bringing in millions of dollars in revenue.

The manufacturers are not fulfilling their obligation to oversee prescribers while making tens of millions of dollars each year, according to the report, released by U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana).

The investigation also found that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's "lack of guardrails ensuring a sufficient provider-patient relationship creates accountability gaps for a product that carries risks of significant adverse health outcomes," according to the report.

Three companies, Danco Laboratories, GenBioPro, and Evita Solutions, reportedly did not provide details on how they followed existing federal regulations, according to the report.

Among its findings, the report cited an undercover investigation that found that a girl as young as 13 years old could buy abortion pills.

Cassidy, a doctor and the chairman of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, headed the investigation.

"Abortion drug companies are putting mothers at risk through their failure to properly oversee the prescription and distribution of their products. We are seeing that the explosion in online sales of chemical abortion drugs has opened the door to coercion and abuse of women," said Cassidy in a statement.

"FDA and the sponsors of these drugs have a responsibility to the American people to crack down on these prescribers that violate the prescribing requirements and reinstate the safeguards that keep mothers and babies safe," he continued.

40 Days for Life says it will cover legal fees for arrests over New Jersey protest law

The pro-life group 40 Days for Life says it will cover legal fees if protesters are arrested under New Jersey's new abortion clinic buffer zone law.

A new law signed by New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill on Aug. 20 could lead to legal crackdowns on protests near abortion clinics. The law criminalizes "interference" with "reproductive" or "gender-affirming" care.

The law further criminalizes inflicting "emotional harm" against those seeking or providing "reproductive health care services." It also bans filming and sharing videos within 100 feet of an abortion clinic.

40 Days for Life, a group that organizes prayer vigils outside abortion clinics, has pledged to cover legal fees for peaceful protesters should the law be used to target them.

"If New Jersey — or anywhere else — targets a 40 Days for Life participant for peacefully and lawfully praying in public, our Institute of Law & Justice will have your back," the group said on Aug. 28.

The group's CEO Shawn Carney told the New York Post, meanwhile, that the services would be covered "at no cost."

Catholic Virginians launch campaign against abortion ballot measure

Catholic leaders in Virginia are launching a campaign to oppose a ballot measure that would enshrine a right to abortion in the state.

The Protect Virginia 2026 campaign urges Catholics to vote against the state's "Right to Reproductive Freedom" amendment which will be on the ballot in November.

Richmond Bishop Barry Knestout voiced opposition against the "radical" amendment in a letter to Catholics in the state.

"Every life is sacred," Knestout said. "The Church has always taught that abortion is an intrinsic evil. It takes one of God's greatest gifts – a human life."

"No law can ever make right what is intrinsically wrong," he continued. "Let us pray for the courage to confront this evil that threatens to destroy life, to be persistent yet compassionate in our advocacy, and to vote so that we stand up for the great good that God has given us."

"Let us commit ourselves to defending those who cannot speak for themselves and to witnessing to the Gospel of Life in both word and deed."

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Pope Leo XIV on Aug. 29 said bishops of the Eastern Catholic Churches can remove their patriarchs when assembled in synod, though the Holy Father said the pope must still give his assent to the proposal.

The pope made the declaration in an apostolic letter issued motu proprio titled Mutua Concordia. The letter modified canons 106 and 126 of the Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium.

The pope in the letter said the "mutual concord" between the head of an Eastern Church and the church's bishops "is the soul of communion of the Eastern ecclesiastical hierarchy."

If the "sacred bond" between the two "were to be irreparably compromised, this would constitute a grave wound requiring a remedy," the pope said. In such situations, the bishops in question "must be able to exercise canonical authority" to remedy the crisis.

Synods will thus have the power to "[remove] their own Patriarch from office for a grave cause," the pope said. Such a procedure would still guarantee the patriarch in question "a full defense before the synod," the pope noted.

The pope, however, will retain "the sole concession of consent to the synodal decision," Leo wrote. That provision will ensure "that the full freedom of the Fathers in expressing their choice is guaranteed, sheltered from any possible internal or external undue pressure."

The order comes into effect "immediately," Leo wrote in the letter.

In June Leo emphasized the "great gift" the Eastern Catholic Churches offer to the Universal Church, which he said is "often unaware of the diverse ecclesial traditions within its ranks."

"The Christian East can only be preserved if it is understood: to lose that understanding is to impoverish the Church," the pope told the Reunion of Aid Agencies for the Oriental Churches at the time.

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The U.S. Department of Justice this week said that the government's practice of restricting federal funding from religious activities is "presumptively unconstitutional," paving the way for greater public funding of religious groups.

Such restrictions on federal funding are made "without any compelling government interest," the Justice Department said in an Aug. 25 memorandum opinion issued to the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services.

In its 2004 decision Locke v. Davey, the U.S. Supreme Court held that public authorities are free to withhold funding from programs and activities that are explicitly religious in nature.

In its memorandum, however, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel said restricting federal funding based on either the religious status of an organization or the use of funds for religious purposes is "not required" under the U.S. Constitution.

Such restrictions "discriminate based on anticipated religious use without any compelling governmental interest," the memorandum said, and as a result they "violate the Free Exercise Clause."

"Use-based religious restrictions on generally available federal funding programs are presumptively unconstitutional," the document said.

The memorandum specifically addressed programs administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which controls billions of dollars in federal funding. It was not immediately clear if the directive applied to other federal departments. A spokesman for the Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The religious freedom legal group First Liberty, meanwhile, hailed the memorandum as "a major victory for religious liberty."

Faith-based organizations and schools "can now apply for and utilize federal grants without scrubbing the religious aspects of their programs," the group said.

First Liberty argued that opinions from the Office of Legal Counsel "serve as binding legal guidance for the executive branch," meaning the memo "effectively instructs all federal agencies to rewrite their grant-making rules to align with this new standard."

The group noted that one of its network attorneys is Joshua Davey, part of the namesake of the 2004 Supreme Court case that established the precedent of restricting federal funds for religious activities and groups.

That decision "has never been formally overturned," First Liberty said, but "that could change in the very near future."

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The practice of surrogacy made national news in August when surrogate mother McKenna West fled to Texas to give birth to a baby after its biological parents requested it be aborted due to a treatable heart condition.

West was sued by the couple for not adhering to the terms of the surrogacy contract, which included a clause allowing them to request abortion of the baby if it were found to have fetal abnormalities.

The mother sought refuge in Texas and gave birth there to the baby, whom she named Gabriel; the state ordered a hospital system to provide the baby life-giving care.

The controversial case has generated significant commentary around gestational surrogacy, the practice in which a woman is paid to grow and birth a baby for the parents.

The Catholic Church explicitly opposes surrogacy, describing it as a comprehensively immoral practice that offends the dignity of everyone involved. But why specifically does the Church so strongly forbid this arrangement?

Practice is 'contrary to the unity of marriage' and of human dignity

Joseph Meaney, a senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, described surrogacy as an arrangement in which "a woman agrees to carry a child for another — either a couple or another individual — with the express purpose of giving that child to them."

"Traditional" surrogacy involves using the birthing mother as the biological mother, Meaney said. One example of this, he said, can be found in the Bible, in the Book of Genesis' account of Sarai allowing her servant Hagar to serve as a surrogate with the former's husband, Abram.

The "modern version" of surrogacy, meanwhile, involves impregnating a surrogate using in vitro fertilization (IVF) either via a donor or using gametes from the "intending parents."

The Catholic Church has condemned and prohibited this practice for decades.

Meaney pointed to the 1987 instruction from what was then the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith known as Donum Vitae, which describes surrogate motherhood as "contrary to the unity of marriage and to the dignity of the procreation of the human person."

The practice of surrogacy, according to the instruction, "represents an objective failure to meet the obligations of maternal love, of conjugal fidelity, and of responsible motherhood; it offends the dignity and the right of the child to be conceived, carried in the womb, brought into the world and brought up by his own parents; [and] it sets up, to the detriment of families, a division between the physical, psychological, and moral elements which constitute those families."

Meaney summed up the instruction's claims on surrogacy as: "It's bad, bad, really bad, worse than bad."

Joe Zalot, the director of education at the Catholic bioethics center, told EWTN News that the dispute in Texas over baby Gabriel is a "textbook example" of what is wrong with surrogacy.

That case, he said, demonstrates "how commercial surrogacy denigrates the surrogate, seeking to reduce her to a subservient role viz-a-viz the genetic 'parents,' as well as how surrogacy contracts denigrate the dignity of the preborn child through the demand that it be killed if a prenatal anomaly is diagnosed."

Catholic opposition to surrogacy has become more outspoken in recent years. Both Zalot and Meaney pointed to Pope Francis' January 2024 address to the Holy See's diplomatic corps; in those remarks Francis decried surrogacy as "deplorable."

The practice "represents a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child," the pope said. He expressed hope for an international ban on the procedure.

In the United States, meanwhile, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) says in its ethical guidance for Catholic healthcare that Catholic health providers may not participate in surrogacy arrangements.

The bishops in that directive cite "the dignity of the child and of marriage" as well as "the uniqueness of the mother-child relationship."

In an August 2025 essay, Meaney further argued against "altruistic surrogacy" in which a woman agrees to carry a child for someone else with no monetary reimbursement.

The intentions of these women, he acknowledged, "seem … frequently generous" and compassionate. Yet such arrangements retain "most of the unethical qualities" of commercial surrogacy, he said.

He further noted that the biblical account of Sarai's arrangement with Hagar functions as "a cautionary tale of how badly such arrangements can go," insofar as Hagar and her child Ishmael "ended up banished and almost died in the wilderness."

The practice is widely legal in the U.S. Only one state, Louisiana, outlaws commercial surrogacy entirely; more than a dozen states broadly allow it, while a majority of states are at least generally permissive of it.

Meaney said the matter "really does come down to ethics. There's what can be done, and what should be done; there's the technically possible, and the moral. And the two are not coterminous."

"One's reproductive capacity should be reserved for the sacred purpose of bringing a new life into the world, not a commercial contract with strangers," he said.

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Inspired by the movie "Top Gun: Maverick," a D.C.-based youth ministry is using a weekendlong camp to build mentors and strengthen the bonds between Catholic fathers and their sons.

The annual "Top Gun Father and Son" camping event welcomes dads and sons for a mission to grow closer, strengthen their relationships through challenges and reflections, and partake in faith-filled adventures.

Encounters, Convictions, and Your Decisions (ECYD), an international Catholic association of adolescents with the Legionaries of Christ and Regnum Christi, hosts the annual weekend at Camp Castleton in Virginia for boys in fifth to eighth grade and their fathers.

The event is only one of the fruits of ECYD, which also carries out other youth clubs, camps, leadership trainings, and gatherings.

Father Vito Crincoli, LC, the director of the ECYD Leadership Training program in D.C., told EWTN News the ECYD ministry is "based on the spirituality of Jesus calling you to be his friend."

"It's an international movement," he said. "In Washington, D.C., in particular, we've been putting a lot of emphasis on forming dads to be mentors for our clubs."

"One is because we don't have as many priests as we would like to run the youth ministry. But also, above all, we want to create vibrant apostles, vibrant laypeople, to run youth work. And because men really want to be mentors."

"We've noticed in these past years of our ministry that there's been such a desire for the men to want to be involved. And we saw that precisely through the father-son weekends we do. It awakens something in them."

Men "want to do more," Crincoli said. "They want to give more."

Finding unexpected inspiration from film

While the camp grew out of the desire to minister to Catholic men, it was ultimately a fictional adventure film about U.S. Navy aviators that set the idea into motion.

After noticing a "father and son tone" in the 2022 film "Top Gun: Maverick," Crincoli was inspired to bring together families for the event, which now welcomes anywhere from 20 to 40 fathers and sons.

Crincoli was inspired by the relationship between the film's characters Pete Mitchell and Bradley Bradshaw, better known by their call signs "Maverick" and "Rooster."

While the two Top Gun pilots are not related, Crincoli noticed a bond between them that is unique to a father and his son.

In the movie, "Maverick is trying to be the best dad he could be for Rooster. Experiencing his own limitations, but also just trying," Crincoli explained. "And then Rooster is looking for the type of dad he wants: 'I need a role model in my life. Someone who can guide me.'"

"We're really trying to tell the dads: 'Be a dad as a mission.' It's a mission of love. The whole idea of Top Gun Father and Son is that you and your son are a team. You're preparing your son for life."

"That's what Maverick was doing with Rooster. He was preparing him for battle."

Top Gun Father and Son

While at the camp, the group has previously been joined by members of the U.S. Naval Academy, including a Catholic former Top Gun pilot who "gave a talk to the dads about learning to fly with your kids — learning to fly with them through life."

A pivotal part is the "moment where the dads earn their wings," he said. "We had somebody donate real Navy wings to us."

"It's a ceremony. We'll have the wings on the table, the flag, the dads line up and then … the dads become 'Top Gun dads'" and "they get their wings." It "begins the mission of the weekend."

To help the participants live out the mission, the dads have "a training camp," Crincoli said. "In that training camp we have different activities."

The activities include anything from dodgeball and nighttime "missions" to quiet time in prayer. The weekend includes "different dynamics and different adventures" to create fellowship and teamwork between the fathers and sons.

During dodgeball, "it's the fathers and sons as teams against each other," Crincoli explained. "But then, if their son gets hit with the ball, the dad has to go and rescue his son."

"There's even a night mission that the son and the dad have to do together. There was one year that we did a mission where the dads and kids had to crack codes and to find the missing pilot. But they have to do it together — the son and dad."

The event also includes father and sons giving each other their own call signs and explaining why they chose them for each other. It's a "dynamic of 'How well do you know your son, and how well does your son know you?'"

Along with the mission-center games, the group most importantly spends time in prayer throughout the weekend.

The "most beautiful" part of the event is when "we have the adoration — father-son adoration together," Crincoli said. "The dad and his kid, they both come up to receive the blessing with the Blessed Sacrament. It's a very intimate moment."

"Then we have the finishing Mass. And after the Mass, the dads and the kids are together," and "it's the award ceremony."

Then, "the dads give their wings to their sons" and "as they're pinning the wings to their son, they're praying over their kids. They're blessing them. They're encouraging them."

The many 'lights' that come from the event

The last day includes "a debriefing with the dads," Crincoli said. "We sit down with the dads and we start asking them, 'What has this weekend been for you?'"

"The dads begin to express different comments," Crincoli said. He further reflected on some of the past insights he has heard from fathers. 

"The men say, 'It is great to be with men that believe what I believe.'"

"Another, he goes, 'It's beautiful, it's great, to be with men who are strongly Catholic, who are bonded by their sons, and that we could be a community.' One of the dads said, 'I really want to be a mentor in this because ... this is an extension of my fatherhood.'"

After the weekend, "they come back," Crincoli said. They come back as mentors for ECYD clubs or take part in its other camps.

"There are so many different lights that come from this," he said.

The next annual Top Gun Father and Son will be held the weekend of Oct. 17–18. It will include the presence of members of the U.S. Naval Academy and a former Navy Seabee chief who will support the weekend with leadership and inspiration.

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The Latin Mass and traditional Vietnamese prayers and catechetical texts written by missionaries prior to the Second Vatican Council are growing in popularity among young Vietnamese Catholics.

"Few Catholic communities in Southeast Asia still possess such a rich heritage," Joseph Christopher Nguyen Thien Tuan Hoang, the leader of a Latin Mass community in Vietnam, said in an Aug. 25 UCA News report.

While there is no established parish dedicated to the Latin Mass according to the report, traditional communities are able to attend the liturgy when approval is granted and with the help of foreign visiting priests.

"Our biggest challenge is not hostility, but misunderstanding," Hoang said. "If more Church leaders understood why some young Catholics are drawn to the older liturgy, I believe more people would have the opportunity to experience this part of the Church's tradition."

From Gaza to Taybeh, priests call for living Christian presence in Holy Land

Father Gabriel Romanelli of Holy Family Parish in Gaza City discussed the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza during a video appearance at the Rimini Meeting, a signature event hosted by the Catholic movement Communion and Liberation.

Romanelli described Gaza as a devastated territory where water, electricity, and basic necessities remain scarce. The priest said his decision to stay was rooted in pastoral duty: the parish could not abandon children, people with disabilities, or struggling families.

ACI MENA, the Arabic-language sister service of EWTN News, reported Aug. 26 that Gaza's Christian community now numbers 541 Catholics and Orthodox, and 60 members have died since the war began.

Father Francesco Ielpo, custos of the Holy Land, also spoke at the event, turning attention to the attacks facing the Christian town of Taybeh and called for concrete protection of fundamental rights. He also encouraged pilgrims to return, noting that their presence supports local Christians and strengthens their calling to care for the holy sites.

10 Catholic dioceses in the Philippines call for end to mining agreement

Bishops representing 10 Catholic dioceses in the Philippines have issued a joint pastoral statement addressed to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Environment Secretary Juan Miguel T. Cuna calling for an end to mining in the island of Sibuyan.

The letter, titled "Let Sibuyan Live: A Joint Call to Initiate the Cancellation of APMC's Mining Agreement," urges political leaders to carry out a comprehensive review of a mining agreement with Altai Philippines Mining Corp (APMC) in Sibuyan to ensure compliance with environmental laws, according to an Aug. 24 report from Inquirer.net.

The bishops expressed concern over the mining agreement's threats to the island's mountains, watersheds, rivers, coral reefs, and species unique to the island.

Recently appointed apostolic nuncio to Germany makes first visit

The recently appointed apostolic nuncio to Germany, Archbishop Hubertus van Megen, completed his inaugural visit to the headquarters of the German Bishops' Conference (DBK) in Bonn this week, CNA Deutsch, the German-language sister service of EWTN News, reported Aug. 28. 

During the meeting, van Megen presented his official assignment letter as nuncio to the DBK chairman signed by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin. "It was the first visit of an apostolic nuncio to the Secretariat of the German Bishops' Conference in more than 13 years," the DBK noted in its announcement on social media.

Van Megen has served as nuncio to Kenya and South Sudan and held various positions within United Nations institutions.

UK member of Parliament calls for reforms before considering assisted suicide

Member of Parliament Zubir Ahmed, a former health minister in the British Labour Party and National Health Service doctor, has backed calls from Prime Minister Andy Burnham, a Catholic, to carry out health reforms before considering legislation on assisted suicide.

"What kind of society are we building if, before we've fixed the systems designed to care for people, we introduce a system designed to help them die?" Ahmed asked in an Aug. 25 op-ed in The Guardian. "As a former health minister who has seen the system from the inside, I am able to say it is not ready or equipped to answer this question."

Ahmed's remarks come after the prime minister said in July that debates on assisted suicide should be delayed until the country's palliative and social care systems have been reformed.

Syria's Catholic schools seek to remain both strong and compassionate

With another school year approaching, Syria's Christian schools are struggling to keep tuition affordable while covering salaries, taxes, electricity, books, and other rising expenses.

Father Fadi Najjar, secretary-general of Catholic educational institutions in Syria, said no child should be forced out because a family cannot pay, ACI MENA reported Aug. 27. At the same time, he cautioned that schools cannot fulfill their educational mission if they are treated solely as charitable institutions. Najjar appealed to churches and aid organizations to support families in genuine need and help protect the future of Christian education in Syria.

Catholic priest in Ghana suspended for 'abandoning' pastoral ministry

Ghana's Diocese of Konongo-Mampong has imposed an indefinite canonical suspension on a priest of the diocese for taking a leave of absence and "abandoning his pastoral ministry" without legitimate permission.

Bishop John Opoku-Agyemang announced the suspension of Father Samuel Adapore on Aug. 24, ACI Africa, the sister service of EWTN News in Africa, reported. The priest has been barred from administering any of the sacraments publicly, including the celebration of Mass, or officiating any other liturgical services.

The bishop said he made the decision "with a heavy heart but a great sense of duty to Holy Mother Church" to suspend the priest, who he noted had left his parish without telling anyone where he was going, including immediate family members.

Sierra Leonean priest cautions religious against shunning help for mental health struggles

The president of the Regional Union of Priests of West Africa has told members of the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life not to be ashamed of seeking psychological support, stressing that "mental-health struggles do not cancel their vocation," ACI Africa reported Aug. 25.

"Our priests and religious spend their lives caring for others. We must also care for them. They need trusted friends, safe spaces for honest conversation, regular medical and psychological support, sufficient rest, and communities that listen without judgment," Father Peter Konteh said following the resignation of Bishop Karl-Heinz Wiesemann of German's Speyer Diocese over mental health struggles.

Christian city of Qamishli, Syria, turns 100

The city of Qamishli marked its centennial with a Christian community far smaller than the one that helped build the northeastern Syrian city.

Founded in 1926 after Christians fled Ottoman-era massacres, the city once had a population that was nearly 90% Christian, ACI MENA reported Aug. 25. Father Samir Kanoun, priest of the church of St. Yacoub Al-Nusaibini in Qamishli, said decades of migration, intensified after the Syrian crisis began in 2011, have reduced that share to about 20%, leaving roughly 2,000 Christian families.

Despite the decline, Qamishli retains a rich mix of Syriac, Armenian, Chaldean, Assyrian, and Protestant churches. Their cooperation grew stronger during the war through shared prayer, security coordination, and charitable work.

Kanoun remains hopeful, pointing to the city's active young Christians and the Church's efforts to preserve their faith, heritage, and sense of belonging to Syria.

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