Migrants walk alongside the railroad tracks after dismounting from the “La Bestia” train, which they rode through Mexico to reach the Mexico-U.S. border near Chihuahua, Mexico, on Sept. 27, 2023. / Credit: David Peinado Romero/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Jul 28, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

A group of Catholic mothers in the U.S., inspired by Catholic social teaching, is urging support for migrants in the United States through the Dorothea Project, which seeks to defend human dignity, respond to injustice, and educate others in Catholic social teaching.

Katie Holler, a Catholic mother of two, felt called to take action when she learned about the treatment migrants were receiving amid ongoing mass deportations. Turning to social media, she made several posts about the situation and quickly gathered a group of a dozen like-minded Catholic mothers. 

Through online meetings, the mothers took their first action in July — launching a letter-writing campaign to U.S. bishops urging them to speak out publicly and advocate for better treatment toward migrants.

A sample letter on the group’s website written from “a concerned parishioner” says:

“In this moment of profound crisis, I respectfully urge you to stand publicly and actively in solidarity with our migrant brothers and sisters. As a shepherd of the Church, your voice carries moral authority and hope. In light of the Church’s teachings on human dignity, the preferential option for the poor, and the call to welcome the stranger, I believe now is the time for bold and courageous leadership in defense of the marginalized.”

In the two weeks since the launch of the letter campaign, more than 150 letters have been sent to 75 bishops. The group has received one response from the Indiana Catholic Conference seeking to discuss the matter more.

While the group began with only Catholic mothers, it has now expanded to include any Catholic woman interested in taking part. There are currently almost 300 women connected to the Dorothea Project.

The group found inspiration for its name from two Catholic women known for speaking out against injustices: Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman and Servant of God Dorothy Day.

Born in Canton, Mississippi, in 1937, Thea Bowman converted to Catholicism as a child inspired by the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration and the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity, who were teachers and pastors at Holy Child Jesus Church and School in Canton. Bowman witnessed Catholics around her caring for the poor and those in need, and this is what drew her to the Catholic Church.

At the age of 15, she told her family she wanted to join the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration and became a highly acclaimed evangelizer, teacher, speaker, and writer.

As a young adult, Day was very involved in political activism. She became Catholic in 1927 and in 1933 co-founded the Catholic Worker Movement, which combined direct aid for the poor with nonviolent action on behalf of justice.

Day lived in voluntary poverty, advocating for workers’ rights, racial equality, and peace, even when it meant challenging both Church leaders and government policies. Always speaking up for the marginalized, she was arrested multiple times for acts of civil disobedience.

Holler told CNA that while the letter campaign has ended, “we are still helping women send letters by sharing our template on our website.”

“We are now continuing our efforts by figuring out how we can build relationships with parishes and priests for prolonged education, prayer, solidarity, and action related to issues of Catholic social teaching,” she added. “We are also beginning to work on some new campaigns focused on specific feast days. Both of these are in the beginning planning phases.”

“We’re growing fast and are very thankful to be connecting with so many women across the country who are moved by the Gospel and love of neighbor,” Holler said.

“I may always struggle with my restless heart, but I know that I will find the peace I seek if I am faithful in following Him and His Church.” “Thou movest us to delight in praising Thee; for Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.” […]

The post Struggling with a Restless Heart appeared first on Integrated Catholic Life™.

A Daily Quote to Inspire Your Catholic Faith “Those who have been freed and raised up follow the light. The light they follow speaks to them: I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness. The Lord gives light to the blind.” – Saint Augustine of Hippo, Treatise […]

The post Daily Quote — Saint Augustine of Hippo appeared first on Integrated Catholic Life™.

ENCOUNTERING THE WORD — YOUR DAILY BIBLE VERSES “Besides this you know what hour it is, how it is full time now for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed; the night is far gone, the day is at hand. Let us then cast off […]

The post Your Daily Bible Verses — Romans 13:11-12 appeared first on Integrated Catholic Life™.

Pope Leo XIV urges “full respect for humanitarian law” amid a food crisis in Gaza
 in his address following the Angelus prayer on July 27, 2025, at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media screenshot

Vatican City, Jul 27, 2025 / 08:30 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV called for peace negotiations and respect for humanitarian law in Gaza, 10 days after an Israeli strike caused the death of three people at the only Catholic church in the enclave.

“I renew my heartfelt appeal for a ceasefire, for the release of hostages, and for the full respect for humanitarian law,” the pope said, speaking of the nearly two-year-old war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Speaking as is customary at midday on Sunday from a window of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, Leo emphasized “the very grave humanitarian situation in Gaza, where the civilian population is crushed by hunger and remains exposed to violence and death.”

Leo called on the parties in all conflicts around the world to recognize the God-given dignity of every person and “put an end to all actions contrary to it.”

The pope specifically voiced his concern over the escalation of violence in southern Syria and over the situation on the border between Cambodia and Thailand, where violent clashes have broken out in a territorial dispute.

He made his remarks after leading a crowd in St. Peter’s Square in a recitation of the Angelus. Before the prayer, he offered a short catechesis on the Our Father.

“We cannot pray to God as ‘Father’ and then be harsh and insensitive towards others. Instead, it is important to let ourselves be transformed by his goodness, his patience, his mercy, so that his face may be reflected in ours as in a mirror,” he said.

The pope reflected on the day’s Gospel in which Jesus teaches his disciples the Our Father and explained that this passage “invites us, through prayer and charity, to feel loved and to love as God loves us: with openness, discretion, mutual concern, and without deceit.”

Leo also said that this part of the Gospel shows “the characteristics of God’s fatherhood” through evocative images such as “that of a man who gets up in the middle of the night to assist a friend in welcoming an unexpected visitor”; and also “that of a parent who is concerned about giving good things to his children.”

The pope explained that these images remind us that God “never turns his back on us when we come to him, even if we arrive late to knock at his door, perhaps after mistakes, missed opportunities, or failures.”

In the great family of the Church, “the Father does not hesitate to make us all participants in each of his loving gestures,” Leo said.

He added: “The Lord always listens to us when we pray to him. If he sometimes responds in ways or at times that are difficult to understand, it is because he acts with wisdom and providence, which are beyond our understanding.”

Following the prayer, the pope greeted, among other groups, participants in the EWTN Summer Academy, an intensive training program in Catholic communication organized by EWTN News and aimed at young people between 21 and 35 years old with prior experience in digital content creation.

Leo also recalled that this Sunday marks the fifth World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly under the theme “Blessed Are Those Who Have Not Lost Hope.”

“Let us look to grandparents and the elderly as witnesses of hope, capable of illuminating the path of new generations. Let us not leave them alone but join them in an alliance of love and prayer,” he said.

Finally, the pope spoke in Spanish to greet the thousands of young people who will participate in the Jubilee of Youth from July 28 to Aug. 3, one of the biggest events of the current holy year.

“I hope it will be for everyone an occasion to encounter Christ and to be strengthened in faith and in the commitment to follow him with consistency,” the pope said.

View of Eremo delle Carceri, Assisi, Italy, July 2025. / Credit: Emma Silvestri

Assisi, Italy, Jul 27, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

The Hermitage of St. Francis is a little known sanctuary in Assisi that still preserves the spirit of St. Francis.

The Diocese of Fairbanks’ Ukveryaramta Tungiinun team members Danielle Beaver and Jesuit Father Gregg Wood in Chefornak. / Credit: Danielle Beaver

Rome Newsroom, Jul 27, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

For Yup’ik woman Danielle Beaver, 33, sharing her Catholic faith is not just a mission but the reason why she’s alive today. After joining the Native American ministry of the Diocese of Fairbanks, Alaska, in January, Beaver told CNA in an interview that it is her hope to bring younger generations to the Church that saved her life more than once.

The birth of her first child in 2010 was an awakening for Beaver — a descendent of Nora Guinn, the first woman and first Alaskan Native to be a district court judge — who, at that time, was in an abusive relationship with a man and trying to navigate her first year of college studies.

“A week after my son was born I had decided this little boy needed me,” she said. “He needed me to live and I needed to be there for him.”

“So I left that relationship and I believe God had given me him so that I can live,” she continued. “If I continued with that relationship, I don’t think I would be here.”

Beaver said “it took a village” to raise her son. Her grandparents, mother, brothers, the local Catholic community, including members of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, were the family who supported her in those challenging years of her early adulthood. 

While grateful for the love and fervent prayers of the community of Immaculate Conception Parish in Bethel, Alaska, particularly of its parish administrator Susan Murphy — who is also her grandmother — Beaver said going to church was not a priority until 2015. 

That year, the young mother suffered a brain aneurysm and was diagnosed with Moyamoya disease, a rare blood vessel condition, while 26 weeks pregnant with her second child.

“My head was 80% filled with blood,” she told CNA. “Both she and I had a 20% chance of making it.”

She was transported to Seattle for lifesaving surgery but doctors were not convinced she or her daughter would return home to Bethel alive.

With the odds against their survival, family members turned to the Blessed Virgin Mary and trusted in the power of prayer to save them.

“My grandma was praying the rosary every night, every morning, every day,” she shared with CNA. “I had so many people praying for me around the world.”

“[Grandma] told me there’d be people in Europe praying for me, there’d be people down in South America praying for me, there’d be people around the U.S. praying for me,” she said.

As the blood in her brain began to dissolve, Beaver no longer needed to have an emergency cesarean section and managed to carry her unborn daughter to full term.

After giving birth to her baby girl, she then underwent a successful double craniotomy and STA-MCA bypass surgery to help improve blood flow to her brain.

Some doctors who cared for her during her monthslong hospital stay began to call Beaver the “miracle woman with the baby,” telling her that they never met a “survivor of an aneurysm” before.

Looking back on her life so far, the mother of two said she believes sharing one’s personal story and faith journey is a simple but effective way of helping people discover their need for God and the Church in their own lives.

“I don’t know how many people I do reach when I tell them about my life story or what I’ve been through because I never realize that I am ministering to them,” she told CNA.

“I just feel as though I am connecting to people in some way or feel as if it is something they want or need to hear,” she said.

Boardwalk encounters

According to the young lay evangelist, Bethel’s tundra conditions are not a hindrance for her work with Native Americans in the the geographically largest Catholic diocese of the U.S., spanning approximately 410,000 square miles.

Traveling to villages and cities by boat or snow machine, Beaver makes an effort to walk the boardwalks or streets of the new places she visits and to meet people in spaces beyond the parish walls.

She told CNA most people stop to greet and welcome the “new face” in town and speak to her in their own native languages.

“Conversation starts from there,” she said. “Just in Chefornak alone, I was able to connect with an individual and we talked for a good 45 minutes, and I told her I’ll be at the church the next day.”

“On Sunday, after church, we talked again for another 30 minutes,” she said.

Still new to her role with the Fairbanks Diocese, Beaver said she has spent the last few months getting to know her colleagues better, learning, and reading books on evangelization.

“The most rewarding part of working with the Native American communities and families is knowing that I am helping my people,” she told CNA.

“I have been told by several individuals how happy or proud they are to see me, someone young, working in this position, helping with the Church,” she said. “It makes me happy.”

Connecting with the younger generations of Alaska Natives

For many Catholics living in the Diocese of Fairbanks’ Yukon-Kuskokwim Region, the opportunity to see a priest or attend Mass may be once every one to three months. 

As a member of the diocese’s Ukveryaramta Tungiunun team, led by Sister Kathy Radich, OSF, Beaver said her team is doing a lot of good in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Region by assisting permanent deacons and providing formation programs, including retreats and workshops, for people.

“Deacons do speak the languages [spoken] in the villages, which helps a lot especially with the elders,” she said. “I think the main thing that is a problem though is that we don’t have a lot of young adults that attend church.”

“What I’m hoping to do with my job is to bring in the younger generations to church or back to the Church,” she shared.

Relying more on prayer than her own efforts to bring people closer to God, Beaver said she has been encouraged by some young people who have told her of their desire to go back to church.

“All I tell them is, I’ll pray for you,” she told CNA. “I don’t say ‘you should’ because I don’t want to tell them what to do, I just say I’ll pray for you.”

Pope Leo XIV delivers the Angelus address on July 13, 2025 from Liberty Square in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, where he is spending a two-week summer break. / Credit: Vatican Media

CNA Staff, Jul 26, 2025 / 12:00 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV has urged the U.S. chapter of the international Pax Christi movement to move in “the peripheries” of society to spread peace and forgiveness there.

The pope issued the message to the national Pax Christi USA assembly taking place in Detroit. The group says the July 25–27 gathering is an opportunity for participants to renew their “commitment to peacemaking and care for the Earth and all its inhabitants.”

Writing to the gathering, Pope Leo said: “In the midst of the many challenges facing our world at this time, including widespread armed conflict, division among peoples, and the challenges of forced migration, efforts to promote nonviolence are all the more necessary.”

Leo noted that, following the “violence of the Crucifixion,” the risen Christ greeted his apostles with peace, one that was “unarmed and disarming, humble and persevering.”

Christ continues to charge his followers with spreading his peace, Leo wrote.

“In parishes, neighborhoods, and especially on the peripheries, it is all the more important for a Church capable of reconciliation to be present and visible,” he said.

The pontiff prayed that the gathering would inspire the event’s participants to “work to make their local communities” into “houses of peace” that spread justice and forgiveness.

Pax Christi was founded in 1945 near the end of World War II and was recognized by Pope Pius XII in 1952. Its U.S. arm was founded in 1972.

Pilgrims light candles at the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France. / Credit: Courtney Mares/CNA

CNA Newsroom, Jul 26, 2025 / 11:15 am (CNA).

Diagnosed in 2006 with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — a progressive and fatal condition — Antonia Raco experienced a recovery that defied medical explanation.

Pope Leo XIV addresses the crowd at the Angelus on July 13, 2025, at the papal estate of Castel Gandolfo. / Credit: Stefano Costantino/EWTN News

Vatican City, Jul 25, 2025 / 16:23 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV in a message released Friday pointed out that Catholic migrants and refugees “can become missionaries of hope today in the countries that welcome them.”

“With their spiritual enthusiasm and vitality, they can help revitalize ecclesial communities that have become rigid and weighed down, where spiritual desertification is advancing at an alarming rate,” the pope noted July 25 in his message for the 111th World Day of Migrants and Refugees, which will be celebrated Oct. 4–5, coinciding with the Jubilee of Migrants and the Jubilee of the Missions.

The pontiff focused his reflection on the link between Christian hope and migration and praised the faith with which immigrants “defy death on the various contemporary migration routes.”

“Many migrants, refugees, and displaced persons are privileged witnesses of hope. Indeed, they demonstrate this daily through their resilience and trust in God, as they face adversity while seeking a future in which they glimpse that integral human development,” the pope noted in the statement.

He emphasized that their presence “should be recognized and appreciated as a true divine blessing, an opportunity to open oneself to the grace of God, who gives new energy and hope to his Church.”

The Holy Father pointed out that “in a world darkened by war and injustice, even when all seems lost, migrants and refugees stand as messengers of hope. Their courage and tenacity bear heroic testimony to a faith that sees beyond what our eyes can see and gives them the strength to defy death on the various contemporary migration routes.”

“Migrants and refugees remind the Church of her pilgrim dimension, perpetually journeying toward her final homeland, sustained by a hope that is a theological virtue,” he added.

Thus, the pope called for hope for “a future of peace and of respect for the dignity of all” despite the “frightening scenarios” of “wars, violence, injustice, and extreme weather events.” 

Arms trade and current climate crisis

“The prospect of a renewed arms race and the development of new armaments, including nuclear weapons, the lack of consideration for the harmful effects of the ongoing climate crisis, and the impact of profound economic inequalities make the challenges of the present and the future increasingly demanding,” the pontiff noted in the message.

Pope Leo warned the Catholic Church against the temptation of “sedentarization” and, therefore, of ceasing to be a “civitas peregrine,” since as St. Augustine points out in “The City of God,” the people of God are “journeying toward the heavenly homeland,” because otherwise she ceases to be “in the world” and becomes “of the world.”

“This temptation was already present in the early Christian communities, so much so that the Apostle Paul had to remind the Church of Philippi that ‘our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself’ (Phil 3:20-21),” Leo XIV emphasized.

He also called for a move beyond individualism, which he defined as a “serious threat” to the “sharing of responsibilities, multilateral cooperation,” and “the pursuit of the common good.”

In this regard, he criticized the “widespread tendency to look after the interests of limited communities” and pointed out that there is “a clear analogy” between immigrants and “the experience of the people of Israel wandering in the desert, who faced every danger while trusting in the Lord’s protection.”

Finally, Pope Leo expressed his desire to entrust every migrant, and those who accompany them with generosity and compassion, “to the maternal protection of the Virgin Mary, comfort of migrants.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.