Cassandra Baker, now a coordinator for the Catholic Montessori Institute, presents a math lesson introducing the decimal system to a 4-year-old student in spring 2023 at the Christ the King Catholic Montessori Grade School in Mandan, North Dakota. / Credit: Mike McCleary/University of Mary

CNA Staff, Jun 24, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

The University of Mary has launched the world’s first Catholic Montessori Institute (CMI), making the institute the go-to place for certification in Catholic Montessori education.

Montessori has grown popular in both secular and religious spaces since its founding by Dr. Maria Montessori (1870–1952), a practicing Catholic who developed a way of teaching young children about God according to their own needs.

University of Mary, a small liberal arts college in North Dakota, will serve as the home for the new institute, which organizers hope will become the center of Catholic Montessori education.

JoAnn Schulzetenberg, the executive director and visionary for the program, said she plans for the institute to become a center for networking, mentorship, and connection.

“I envision a worldwide network where individuals — whether establishing new environments, enhancing existing ones, or simply seeking guidance — can come together to connect, find mentorship, and inspire future generations to continue the Montessori tradition,” she told CNA.

Schulzetenberg, who has spent more than 20 years as a Montessori practitioner, said she hopes the program will bring new life to Catholic education.

Montessori education prioritizes holistic development, emotional and cognitive growth, intrinsic motivation, community engagement, and global citizenship, according to Schulzetenberg. 

“Dr. Montessori’s method emphasizes respect for each child’s unique development, encouraging autonomy, exploration, and intellectual, social, and emotional growth,” Schulzetenberg said. 

“She specifically designed materials and an environment to influence mainstream education and special education,” Schulzetenberg said. “This was incredibly important as her method could be utilized in every culture across the globe.”

An estimated 22,000 Montessori education programs exist across 110 countries — but the institute is the first of its kind.

“It is my prayer that this movement will revive and strengthen Catholic schools at risk of closure, breathing new life into Catholic education on a global scale,” she said.

All students and educators seeking CMI certification will begin their training at University of Mary followed by both in-person and online courses over a year. The training program will be run by the Association Montessori Internationale, the organization Montessori co-founded “to safeguard the method’s integrity, ensuring faithful transmission across generations to come,” according to Schulzetenberg. In addition, UMary already offers a fully online master of education degree in Catholic Montessori.

Schulzetenberg said she hopes the institute will “cultivate a global community of Montessori educators who are committed to integrating Dr. Maria Montessori’s authentic pedagogy with their Catholic faith.”

null / Credit: blvdone/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Jun 24, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

The Catholic Church’s enduring commitment to support human rights — anchored in a fundamental understanding of what it means to be human — has taken on renewed urgency amid recent global conflicts such as the Russia-Ukraine war, the war in Gaza, and humanitarian crises like the political fight over migration in the United States.

In his first weeks as pontiff, the newly elected Pope Leo XIV, who chose his name in honor of his predecessor Pope Leo XIII, has emphasized Christ’s call for peace and the respect for the dignity of all people. Papal biographer George Weigel said Leo XIV has the opportunity to continue Leo XIII’s vision of the Church as a “great institutional promoter and defender of basic human rights” in society.

CNA spoke with V. Bradley Lewis, dean of the School of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., about what the Church teaches on human rights and how those teachings have developed over the past few centuries.

Historical roots

Lewis told CNA that contrary to a common misconception, the concept of human rights within Catholic teaching is not a recent addition but rather has roots extending back to the Church’s constant teaching on human dignity, and later in the development of canon law and the thought of theologians such as St. Thomas Aquinas — even if the specific terminology of “human rights” developed relatively recently.

“There’s an important sense in which it was not a new thing in modern times, and in which it’s always been a part of the Catholic tradition,” Lewis said. 

The Catholic Church has always affirmed the inherent dignity of every human person as a creation in God’s image (see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1700). All people have an inherent worth as composites of a mortal body and an immortal soul, and all people are called to have a relationship with God, their creator. 

“Every human person, created in the image of God, has the natural right to be recognized as a free and responsible being. All owe to each other this duty of respect. The right to the exercise of freedom, especially in moral and religious matters, is an inalienable requirement of the dignity of the human person. This right must be recognized and protected by civil authority within the limits of the common good and public order” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1738). 

Natural law

All rights, from a Catholic perspective, are grounded in natural law, which Lewis said provides the essential context for properly understanding and defending human rights from a Catholic perspective. 

There is a right to life because, according to the natural moral law, life is a good that must be protected, Lewis wrote in a 2019 article for the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner. True human rights, then, are derived from natural law and contribute to human flourishing and reasonable ways of living together, he explained.

A problematic way to view rights, he continued, is as purely individual possessions or forms of “individual sovereignty” asserted against others; in contrast, the Catholic way of understanding rights sees them as a framework for understanding and regulating relationships between people within a community.

Various kinds of rights

“There clearly are certain human rights that are absolutely necessary: like the right to life, not to be intentionally killed as an innocent person; rights to religious freedom; rights to family life; things like this. And then there’s lots of other rights that we have that are just legal rights, that can be limited in various ways,” Lewis said.

“And then there are some ‘rights’ that are just totally made up, and that means they could be unmade depending on what we want,” he continued, specifically mentioning in his article societal claims to the existence of “abortion rights, the so-called right to die, homosexual and transgender rights.”

Pope Leo XIII — Leo XIV’s literal and spiritual predecessor — emphasized the rights of workers and the right to private property in his writings as pope from 1878 to 1903. Rerum Novarum, Leo XIII’s foundational document in Catholic social teaching that addressed the challenges of the industrial revolution, emphasizes a need for reforms to protect the dignity of the working class while maintaining a relationship with capital and the existence of private property.

Recent developments

In 1948, in the wake of World War II, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), influenced in part by the thought of Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain, whose work emphasizing the importance of human rights as part of human dignity indirectly influenced the discourse around the declaration, although he wasn’t directly involved in its drafting.

The Church’s teaching developed further throughout the 20th century; St. John XXIII’s 1963 encyclical letter Pacem in Terris includes an extensive catalogue of human rights, including the right to life, the right to respect and to a good name, and the right to education as well as the right to “bodily integrity and to the means necessary for the proper development of life, particularly food, clothing, shelter, medical care, rest, and, finally, the necessary social services.”

“In human society one man’s natural right gives rise to a corresponding duty in other men; the duty, that is, of recognizing and respecting that right. Every basic human right draws its authoritative force from the natural law, which confers it and attaches to it its respective duty. Hence, to claim one’s rights and ignore one’s duties, or only half fulfill them, is like building a house with one hand and tearing it down with the other,” St. John XXIII wrote in Pacem in Terris. 

The Second Vatican Council’s 1965 Dignitatis Humanae further affirmed the importance of religious freedom, saying this right “has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person as this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself.”

The relative lateness of these latter writings might lead some people to believe that the Catholic Church “discovered” human rights in the mid-20th century, which is not correct, Lewis said. Rather, the underlying concepts of what we now call human rights have been present among Catholic thinkers for centuries, even if not explicitly named or discussed in the same focal way; for example, within medieval canon law — which became a highly developed legal system — discussions of rights can be found. 

“Rights really come into our tradition, really the Western tradition, through law. I think wherever you have a very highly developed legal system and system of legal reasoning, you find an attention to rights. There was more of it there in the legal tradition than there was, for example, among theologians,” Lewis continued.

Lewis said the development of the idea of human rights was in part a response to the rise of modern states and governments.

He noted that the modern state possesses an unprecedented ability to exercise concentrated power, due in large part to technology. This power can enable both incredible good and terrible oppression, and given this modern power, human rights are essential protections against potential state overreach and oppression.

“I don’t know anybody who’d want to live in a modern state without the protection afforded [by] human rights. We don’t live in medieval villages or ancient Greek city states anymore. We live in these incredibly powerful modern states. [Government power] has to be limited,” Lewis said.

In 2016, theologian Jeff Keuss joined a national research effort funded by the Lilly Endowment to explore a pressing question: Why were so many young adults turning away from religion? “It wasn’t a million-dollar question,” Keuss says. “It was a $55 million question.” He was one of 12 principal investigators studying the shifting religious landscape […]

The post Young people are seeking connection. Can the church respond? appeared first on U.S. Catholic.

ROME (CNS) -- Sent by his religious order to Hong Kong to share the Gospel in Asia, one Catholic priest's missionary work is raising hell -- but not with the Chinese Communist Party.

"Not a Hope in Hell" is Dominican Father James Dominic Rooney's 2025 book-length defense of eternal damnation -- a Catholic doctrine he says is increasingly debated in academic circles, and one he's frequently invited to speak on across Asia. 

"Just a couple days ago I was in Singapore to discuss hell," he told Catholic News Service June 3, adding that he receives several hell-related invitations each month, ranging from in-person talks across Asia to podcast interviews and article contributions.

People in Asia "think it's a fascinating discussion," he said, noting that atheists in particular are intrigued by the challenge of reconciling hell with Christian teachings on God's love and mercy. 

As one of Christianity's most vividly imagined teachings -- portrayed in foreboding scenes from Michelangelo's fresco "The Last Judgment" to John Milton's poem "Paradise Lost" -- hell, Father Rooney said, remains a subject of both perennial and pressing debate.

"I have a few jihads that I'm on, and this is one of them," he said.

He is not alone in seeing the doctrine of hell as under siege today. In March, Msgr. Charles Pope released his own book on the subject -- also with a tongue-in-cheek title: "The Hell There Is: An Exploration of an Often-Rejected Doctrine of the Church."

"Only 17% of Catholics go to Mass now in (the United States), and so we've got to recover some sense of urgency, which is lacking today," Msgr. Pope told CNS, explaining his motive for writing the book.

Msgr. Pope, a popular lecturer and pastor of Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian Catholic Church in Washington, was interviewed on EWTN in April and expressed his regret over a comment made by Pope Francis in 2024: "This isn't dogma, just my thought: I like to think of hell as being empty. I hope it is."

The comment, made on Italian television, was met with applause. A CNS social media post sharing the late pope's words has been viewed more than 42 million times.

"I think that it's unfortunate," Msgr. Pope said. "Even when they are clear, they are just expressing an opinion. I think popes need to be very careful about what they say, because it carries authority whether they want to admit it or not."

While the Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms the existence of hell and refers to it as an "eternal fire" of everlasting punishment, some Catholic theologians are renewing interest in a minority view held by certain early Church Fathers: that, in the end, all will be saved and reunited with God -- a universalism they argue is more consistent with faith in an all-loving, all-powerful God. 

For example, patristics scholar Ilaria Ramelli, in her 900-page work "The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis" (from the Greek word for "restoration"), argues that saints such as Gregory of Nyssa, Isaac the Syrian and Maximus the Confessor were convinced that all people ultimately would be saved.

This view is often described as "confident" or "hard" universalism, distinguishing it from the position of figures like Swiss Father Hans Urs von Balthasar and, more recently, Bishop Robert Barron, who argue that one may hope -- but cannot know -- that all will be saved.

Jordan Daniel Wood, a theologian at Belmont University in Nashville, defended hard universalism in a livestreamed debate at The Catholic University of America in 2024.

Then, in a February 2025 lecture to students and seminarians at Mount St. Mary’s University, he argued that the principles of doctrinal development could allow for a radical revision of hell, making it temporary and its punishments remedial. 

Critics say that making hell temporary would lessen the gravity of human freedom, threaten the missionary impulse, and contradict Christ's teaching on judgment, but Wood demurs.

"I think it could do nothing but good for the church to come to a clarity, to hold out the Gospel and put its money where its mouth is, so to speak, and say: 'The only reason why we preach the Gospel to you is because we really believe it will fulfill you and satisfy you in a way nothing else can,'" Wood said.

"There's no shadow of hell whose gravity God himself might not be able to compete with," he said.

Wood is writing a book defending universalism with theologian Roberto De La Noval of Boston College.

"We really want to engage in a good faith dialogue with those who really also want to make the best sense of the tradition that we can, and ask about where it might be going," De La Noval said. 

De La Noval and Wood say the current iteration of the debate began with the 2019 publication of Eastern Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart's "That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation," which made a case for universalism.

"Part of the reason it was a watershed was it was able to put into words what a lot of people had felt about their experience of growing up with the doctrine of hell," De La Noval said.

"What David Hart's book was able to do was to crystallize a lot of those felt tensions and give them a logical exposition, a scriptural exposition, and a philosophical and theological exposition," he said.

For his part, Hart said he thinks the debate will go on for some time.

"Right now, the debate has picked up," Hart said. "I like to think that my book, slim though it was, added some dialectical tools to the kit."

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Correction: An earlier version of this story and video referred to Mount St. Mary’s University as the oldest Catholic seminary in the United States. The oldest Catholic seminary in the United States is St. Mary's Seminary and University in Baltimore, founded in 1791. The story and video have been corrected, and we apologize for the error.

Raising hell: Catholics debate eternal punishment

A look into the currently hot debate over whether hell is eternal or God's love and mercy mean everyone will be saved in the end.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Do not be afraid to grapple with your innermost thoughts, feelings and problems so that your heart can be filled with God and his compassion, Pope Leo XIV told seminarians.

Also remember to listen to the "voices" of nature, music, poetry, the humanities and the cries of the poor, the oppressed and people who are looking for the meaning of life, he told them.

Learn "to live the style of welcome and closeness, of generous and selfless service, letting the Holy Spirit 'anoint' your humanity even before ordination," the pope said in a reflection June 24.

The pope led a mediation with hundreds of seminarians and those involved in priestly formation from around the world in St. Peter's Basilica as part of the Jubilee of Seminarians.

When the pope arrived and began walking down the central aisle, the men cheered enthusiastically, ending with a hand-clap chant of "Papa Leone" or "Pope Leo" in Italian. 

He thanked them for their joy and enthusiasm, "because with your energy you fuel the flame of hope in the life of the church."

Speaking in Italian, Pope Leo punctuated a few key points by repeating them in Spanish, such as thanking them for having accepted God's call to pursue the priesthood and encouraging them to "be brave and have no fear!"

Their journey is saying "yes" with "humility and courage" to Christ's invitation to become "meek and strong" in proclaiming the Gospel and to become "servants of a church that is open and a missionary church on the move."

"Jesus, you know, calls you first and foremost to an experience of friendship with him and with your fellow priests" and to deepen this experience in all aspects of life, he said.

"For there is nothing about you that must be discarded, but everything is to be taken up and transfigured in the logic of the grain of wheat to become happy persons and priests, 'bridges' and not obstacles to the encounter with Christ for all who approach you," the pope said. "Yes, he must increase and we must decrease, so that we can be shepherds according to his heart."

Pope Leo spent a large part of his reflection on the importance of caring for one's heart -- the inner workings, thoughts and feelings one keeps inside -- because that is "where God makes his voice heard and where all the most profound decisions are made." 

"As Christ loved with the heart of man, you are called to love with the heart of Christ," he said.

The heart must be continuously converted so that one's whole being "smells of the Gospel," he said.

Exploring deep inside one's heart, where God has always left his mark, can sometimes cause fear, he said, "because there are also wounds in there."

"Do not be afraid to take care of them (these wounds), let yourself get help, because it is precisely from those wounds that the ability to stand with those who suffer will emerge," he said.

"If you learn to know your heart, you will be increasingly more authentic and will not need to put masks on," he said.

The best way to enter into one's inner being is through prayer, he said, which is increasingly difficult in such a "hyper-connected" age, where it is hard to find "silence and solitude."

"Without the encounter with him, we cannot even truly know ourselves," he said.

Pope Leo invited the seminarians to "invoke the Holy Spirit frequently, that he may mold in you a docile heart, capable of grasping God's presence, even as you listen to the voices of nature and art, poetry, literature and music, as well as the humanities."

As they delve into their theological studies, "know how to also listen with an open mind and heart to the voices of culture, such as the recent challenges of artificial intelligence and social media," he told them. 

"Above all, as Jesus did, know how to listen to the often silent cry of the little ones, the poor and the oppressed, and the many people, especially young people, who seek meaning for their lives," he added.

"Have a meek and humble heart like that of Jesus," he said. "May you take on the sentiments of Christ to grow in human maturity, especially affective and relational" maturity.

It is important and necessary "to focus a lot on human maturity, rejecting every kind of masking and hypocrisy," he said.

"Keeping our gaze on Jesus, we must learn to give a name and voice even to sadness, fear, anguish, indignation, bringing everything into relationship with God," he said. "Crises, limitations and frailties are not to be hidden; rather, they are opportunities for grace and a paschal experience."

"In a world where ingratitude and thirst for power often dominate, where the logic of exclusion can prevail, you are called to witness to the gratitude and gratuitousness of Christ, the exultation and joy, the tenderness and mercy of his heart," Pope Leo said.

Pope Leo's message to seminarians

Pope Leo XIV had an audience with seminarians at the Vatican June 24, 2025, who were in Rome for the Jubilee of Seminarians.

null / Credit: Mark Van Scyoc/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Jun 23, 2025 / 18:43 pm (CNA).

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is investigating a Michigan health care provider for allegedly firing a medical professional who refused to participate in sex reassignment surgeries.

According to the June 20 announcement, HHS is investigating the unnamed health care group for allegedly firing a medical professional after she requested religious accommodations in order not to assist in sex trait modification procedures or use pronouns that do not align with biology — practices she said she opposes due to her religious beliefs.

The department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which handles enforcement of health care conscience protections, initiated the investigation under conscience protection laws known as the “Church Amendments,” according to the press release.

The Church Amendments are a series of laws that protect people from discrimination in health care by the government or groups that receive government funding based on their exercise of religious beliefs or moral convictions.

Though the group under investigation remained unnamed by the HHS, the release described it as an “an organizational health care provider” within a “major health system” in Michigan.

The investigation comes amid renewed efforts by the current administration to enforce conscience protections.

HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., during his confirmation hearing, said he would investigate conscience rights, and last month the department began a review of a hospital following reports that the hospital had denied ultrasound technicians exemptions from participating in abortions. This month’s investigation is the third in a series of HHS conscience freedom investigations.

OCR Director Paula M. Stannard said the office “is committed to enforcing federal conscience laws in health care.”

“Health care workers should be able to practice both their professions and their faith,” Stannard said in a statement.

In addition to renewed federal interest in conscience protections, the state of Idaho recently passed legislation to bolster religious freedom protections for doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals when they object to performing certain procedures or providing certain services.

Bishop Robert Barron responded on June 22, 2025, to criticism of a talk he gave at the first meeting of President Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission in Washington, D.C. / Credit: “EWTN News in Depth”/Screenshot

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 23, 2025 / 18:13 pm (CNA).

Bishop Robert Barron responded to backlash against his participation in the President Donald Trump-initiated Religious Liberty Commission, which held its first hearing in Washington, D.C., last week.

In a social media post on June 22, Barron responded to claims made in a recent article by Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist Karen Tolkkinen that he “advocates erasing the boundaries between church and state.”

Barron called the piece “a rather silly article” and “a gross mischaracterization of my position.”

During the Religion Liberty Commission hearing in Washington, D.C., last week, Barron echoed Pope Benedict XVI’s warning against the “dictatorship of relativism” encroaching on American society and encouraged religious people to become more involved in the public square.

Barron encouraged people of faith to enter the public sphere, telling those gathered at the hearing: “Congress will make no laws preventing it, so let’s invade that space.”

Tolkkinen took issue with this, describing Barron’s encouragement as “unnecessarily militant” and religion’s “comeback in American civic life” as “difficult to understand” at a time “where Americans increasingly don’t practice religion.”

“If the bishop gets his way and religion once again permeates civic life in America, let’s hope that everyone’s rights are robustly protected,” she wrote.

In his response to Tolkkinen, Barron pointed out that while the First Amendment to the Constitution prevents Congress from establishing a national religion — a position Barron agrees with — the second clause in the amendment bars Congress from interfering with the free exercise of religion.

“The First Amendment to the Constitution does indeed say that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, and I completely support this,” the bishop said. “Though there can never be an official American religion, there can indeed be expressions of religion in the public space and in civic life.”

Barron concluded his post by saying: “What [Tolkkinen] and her colleagues fear the most are confident and assertive religious people who refuse to stay sequestered in private. So I say: Fight hard against any formal establishment of religion, but fight just as hard for the right to exercise religion in the public space.”

West Virginia Rep. Riley Moore responded to Barron’s post on X, writing: “Bishop Barron is spot on. Forcing faith out of the public square has been disastrous for the West.” A practicing Catholic, Moore had invited Barron to attend Trump’s State of the Union Address in March.

“Christianity is first and foremost an encounter with Jesus, but it also has moral, ethical, cultural, and — yes — political implications that built Western civilization,” the House member added.

The Texas capitol building, where Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill into law on June 21, 2025, that requires public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments. / Credit: BLundin via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 23, 2025 / 17:43 pm (CNA).

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has signed a law requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom at the start of the 2025-2026 school year.

The legislation requires that a “durable poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments” be hung in each Texas public elementary or secondary school classroom.

Under the law, which Abbott signed on June 21, the display of the commandments cannot include “any additional content.” Each copy must be at least 16 inches wide and 20 inches tall, must be in a “conspicuous” location in the classroom, and must have a “typeface that is legible to a person with average vision from anywhere in the classroom.”

The law notes that schools are not required to purchase the copies using district funds but stipulates that schools “must accept any offer of a privately donated poster or framed copy” that meets the specific requirements.

The bill, sponsored by Texas Sen. Phil King, passed in the Senate on March 19 with a 20-11 vote. It was then brought to the House of Representatives by state Rep. Candy Noble and passed on May 25 with a 82-46 vote.

“The focus of this bill is to look at what is historically important to our nation educationally and judicially,” Noble said upon its passage in the House.

The Senate gave final approval on May 28 with a 21-10 vote.

The Texas law comes after similar legislation was passed in Louisiana and Arkansas. The Louisiana law was blocked, however, when a federal appeals court ruled that it was unconstitutional, and the Arkansas law is being challenged in federal court.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced it will sue Texas over the new law and will be joined by the ACLU of Texas, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

The groups contend the law is “blatantly unconstitutional” and their aim is “to stop this violation of students’ and parents’ First Amendment rights.”

Some Christian and Jewish faith leaders sent a letter to lawmakers in March opposing the legislation. They stated that “government oversteps its authority when it dictates an official state-approved version of any religious text.”

The Texas law includes legal protections for schools to combat lawsuits and backlash. According to the law, the attorney general will defend any school facing legal action over compliance with the law and the state will cover any “expenses, costs, judgments, or settlements.”

The law provides specific wording of the Ten Commandments that all schools must use, starting with the words “I AM the LORD thy God.” 

The commandments given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai are used as an ethical foundation by many faiths including Catholicism and other forms of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. 

The law will officially go into effect in Texas on Sept. 1 as the new school year begins.

The bill 10 is one of more than 600 signed by Abbott during the 89th regular legislative session. He also signed another bill that “allows schools to adopt a policy allowing students and employees to participate in daily, voluntary period of prayer and reading of religious texts.”

Purple stole and confessional. / Credit: Roman023_photography/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Jun 23, 2025 / 17:13 pm (CNA).

The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the state of Washington over its recent law mandating that priests must violate the seal of confession if child abuse is learned about during the sacrament of reconciliation.

The DOJ in a press release announcing the lawsuit filed on June 23 said the Washington law “violates the free exercise of religion for all Catholics.”

“The seal of confidentiality is ... the lifeblood of confession. Without it, the free exercise of the Catholic religion, i.e., the apostolic duties performed by the Catholic priest to the benefit of Catholic parishioners, cannot take place,” the DOJ wrote in the brief.

On May 3, Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson signed into law Senate Bill 5375, which goes into effect July 27 and requires priests to disclose child abuse they learn about in confession. However, it exempts other professionals such as nurses and therapists from mandatory disclosure.

Priests who fail to report abuse learned in confession could face up to 364 days in jail and a $5,000 fine. Ferguson, a Catholic, defended the measure in May, saying he is “very familiar” with confession but deemed the law “important legislation” to protect children.

In a May 5 letter to Ferguson, the assistant attorney general of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dhillon, informed him that the DOJ would be investigating the newly passed law and required the state to preserve all records and communications related to the bill. 

Dhillon characterized the new law as a “legislative attack on the Catholic Church and its sacrament of confession, a religious practice ordained by the Catholic Church dating back to the Church’s origins.”

The bishops of the Archdiocese of Seattle and the dioceses of Spokane and Yakima filed a lawsuit May 29 challenging the law, arguing that it violates the free exercise of religion protected by the First Amendment by infringing on the sacred seal of confession. The suit also claims the law violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment as well as the Washington Constitution.

In the bishops’ lawsuit, filed in federal district court, they emphasized the Catholic Church’s commitment to child protection while defending the inviolability of the confessional seal. 

“Consistent with the Roman Catholic Church’s efforts to eradicate the societal scourge of child abuse, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle and the dioceses of Yakima and Spokane have each adopted and implemented within their respective dioceses policies that go further in the protection of children than the current requirements of Washington law on reporting child abuse and neglect,” their lawsuit stated. 

It noted that these policies mandate reporting suspected abuse by Church personnel, including clergy, except when information is learned solely in confession, which is protected by “more than 2,000 years of Church doctrine.”

Spokane Bishop Thomas Daly in a statement in May vowed that clergy would not break the seal of confession, even if it meant jail time. “I want to assure you that your shepherds, bishops, and priests are committed to keeping the seal of confession — even to the point of going to jail,” Daly said in his message to the faithful. “The sacrament of penance is sacred and will remain that way in the Diocese of Spokane.”

Seattle Archbishop Paul D. Etienne echoed this stance, citing canon law, which forbids priests from betraying a penitent’s confession under penalty of excommunication. Etienne referenced St. Peter’s words in Acts 5:29 — “We must obey God rather than men.”

Leaders of various Orthodox churches joined Washington’s Catholic bishops in their own lawsuit against the state, saying in the lawsuit filed June 16 that Orthodox priests, like Catholic ones, “have a strict religious duty to maintain the absolute confidentiality” of information disclosed in confession. 

Their suit continued: “Violating this mandatory religious obligation is a canonical crime and a grave sin, with severe consequences for the offending priest, including removal from the priesthood.” 

Pope Leo XIV waves from the popemobile at the crowds gathered in St. Peter's Square for Mass on Pentecost Sunday on June 8, 2025. / Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Vatican City, Jun 23, 2025 / 16:43 pm (CNA).

More than 6,000 seminarians, bishops, and priests from five continents are in Rome this week to celebrate their jubilee as part of the Holy Year 2025.

According to the Dicastery for Evangelization, the program, which runs June 23–27, includes prayer, catechesis, concerts, jubilee pilgrimages, Masses, and various meetings with Pope Leo XIV.

A welcome event for the seminarians took place Monday at St. Paul Outside the Walls Basilica at 5 p.m. local time. A community rosary and a concert by Rome’s diocesan choir and the “Fideles et Amati” orchestra, conducted by Monsignor Marco Frisina, were also held.

On Tuesday, the seminarians are scheduled to make the pilgrimage to the Holy Door of St. Peter’s at 8 a.m. local time. In addition, at 11 a.m., they will hear a catechesis by Pope Leo XIV in what will be his first official meeting with seminarians from around the world. The day will conclude with Masses in a number of languages at 6 p.m. in 10 churches in central Rome offered by various bishops.

Bishops’ day: Communion and faith

June 25 marks the Jubilee of Bishops. The prelates have come, according to data from the Dicastery for Evangelization, from nearly 50 countries, including Italy, Spain, Poland, Portugal, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, the United States, and the Philippines.

At 10:30 a.m., the bishops will concelebrate Mass at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica with Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect emeritus of the Dicastery for Bishops, as the main celebrant. Pope Leo XIV will then offer a special catechesis to the prelates, concluding with a joint profession of faith above the tomb of the Apostle Peter.

That same afternoon, the Jubilee of Priests will begin with several catecheses organized by language groups, given by bishops in 12 churches in central Rome.

On June 26, priests will participate in a jubilee Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica celebrated by Cardinal Lazzaro You Heung-sik, prefect of the Dicastery for the Clergy. From 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. the priests are scheduled to make pilgrimages to the Holy Doors of the four major basilicas. The day will culminate with a prayer vigil at 7 p.m. in St. Peter’s Basilica presided over by Archbishop Rino Fisichella, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, with testimonies from a seminarian, a bishop, and a priest.

Priestly ordinations at jubilee closing

The week will culminate on June 27, the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, with a Mass to be celebrated by Pope Leo XIV in St. Peter’s Basilica.

During the Mass, the pope will ordain 31 new priests from around the world from Italy, India, Sri Lanka, Romania, the Central African Republic, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Cameroon, Angola, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Ghana, Nigeria, South Korea, Mexico, Uganda, Australia, Brazil, Croatia, Slovakia, and Ukraine.

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