Mosaics by alleged abuser Father Marko Rupnik are displayed throughout the shrine in Lourdes, France. / Credit: Courtney Mares/CNA

Rome Newsroom, Jun 19, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Advocates for sexual abuse victims say that religious art by the accused abuser Father Marko Rupnik should be taken down or covered up to spare victims further suffering. But Church authorities in charge of the works, which decorate prominent Catholic churches around the world, have responded to those calls in different ways. 

Rupnik has been accused of the sexual and psychological abuse of dozens of women under his spiritual care in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He was briefly excommunicated by the Catholic Church in 2020 and expelled from the Jesuit order in 2023, but he remains a priest. The Vatican is still in the process of making a final judgment in his case.

Responding to calls that Rupnik’s works be covered or destroyed and for reproductions to be removed from websites and publications, shrines in Europe and the U.S. have covered up their now controversial mosaics. But other institutions have taken a more tolerant approach. Some authorities, including the Diocese of Rome, are waiting to see what the Vatican does before they decide what to do with his art.

Earlier this month, the official Vatican News outlet removed images of the priest’s distinctive works, inspired by artistic traditions from Eastern Christianity, from its website, after years of criticism for its use of them to illustrate pages dedicated to saints and feast days.

The Vatican’s communications dicastery did not respond to a request for comment on the recent change and whether it reflected a new policy under Pope Leo XIV. Last year, the department’s top official, Paolo Ruffini, defended leaving the images online, saying that to remove them would not be “the Christian response” and that he didn’t want to “throw stones” at the disgraced artist.

According to the Rome-based Centro Aletti, the art and theology school founded in 1993 and previously directed by Rupnik, the workshop has 232 completed mosaic and other art projects around the world — with the vast majority concentrated in Europe, especially Italy, where there are approximately 115 installations across the country.

Centro Aletti last year called the pressure to remove works of art by the studio part of “cancel culture” and the “criminalization of art.” Neither Rupnik nor the workshop responded to requests for comment for this article. 

Some calling for the art’s removal or concealment say that seeing the works in places of worship can have a traumatic effect on abuse victims, particularly since Rupnik’s accusers say he sexually abused them as they assisted him in the process of making his art.

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors sent a letter to top Vatican officials last year urging them not to display artwork, like Rupnik’s, “that could imply either exoneration or a subtle defense” of those accused of abuse. 

The secretary of the commission, Bishop Luis Manuel Alí Herrera, told EWTN News in April in response to a question about the Rupnik case that “art can be a powerful tool for healing, but the content of an artwork — and especially the identity of its creator — can be re-traumatizing for someone who has experienced these horrific crimes [of abuse].”

Francesco Zanardi, an Italian abuse survivor and founder of Rete L’Abuso, told CNA that “in this case, [Rupnik’s work] is not art, it is a symbol,” which “creates problems for the victim, above all because it maintains a link between the Church and Rupnik … an inappropriate link.”

“That it should be removed seems obvious to me,” Zanardi added. He called it “almost offensive” how much attention is on Rupnik’s artwork instead of on the harm done to the priest’s alleged victims.

Others, instead, believe that Rupnik’s art should be understood as separate from the man and his alleged crimes. Father Dino Battison, chaplain of the Shrine of Our Lady of Health of the Sick in the northern Italian region of Veneto, told CNA that the shrine will be leaving its Rupnik mosaics in place and visible.

“Beauty and the message are one thing… Mercy is another thing not to be forgotten,” he said. “How many artists have behaved badly from a moral point of view... and how many works of art should we remove or destroy.”

Rome waits on Vatican

In Rome, Rupnik’s mosaics can be found in nearly four dozen locations, including a large number of parish churches as well as hospital chapels and the chapels of religious congregations and international seminaries.

The Diocese of Rome has Rupnik art in its major seminary and at the headquarters of the diocesan branch of the international charity Caritas. A diocesan spokesperson told CNA that any decision by the diocese will need to be made in conjunction with the Holy See.

The Vatican has at least three original mosaics by the artist, including in the Redemptoris Mater chapel in the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City, in the chapel of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and in the San Calisto Building in Rome’s Trastevere neighborhood.

Pope Francis also had at least one image by Rupnik hanging in his apartment at the Vatican guesthouse.

CNA received no response from the Vatican Press Office or the Dicastery for Communication about what the Holy See or the pope will do about the works of art.

The Jesuit order has works by its former member in five locations in Rome: in two chapels at its general curia, in the chapel of the international seminary, and in the chapels of two residences.

Rupnik’s former superior, Father Johan Verschueren, told CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, ACI Prensa, that the order is not planning to remove Rupnik mosaics from Jesuit communities for the time being, treating it as an “internal problem” because they are in private chapels closed to the public.

Verschueren said opinions about the art differ by generation, and “so far, only some younger Jesuits in formation are not happy with these mosaics. For trained Jesuits it is different.”

For some Jesuit priests, Verscheuren said, the mosaics “now function more as a mirror of our fallen human reality: We are all capable of great and terrible things at the same time. It humbles us and helps us realize that we are all sinners in need of salvation and mercy.”

International shrines act — or don’t

Rupnik’s art can be found in some of the most prominent Catholic shrines around the world, including the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida in the state of São Paulo in Brazil. The second-largest cathedral in the world, the Aparecida shrine is decorated with more than 65,600 square feet of Rupnik mosaics on its exterior depicting scenes from the Old and New Testaments.

ACI Prensa received no response from the shrine to an inquiry about the fate of the Rupnik mosaics.

At the end of March, the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes, one of the most popular shrines in the world, announced it would cover mosaics by Rupnik on the entrances to the shrine’s main church between late March and early June. 

“A new symbolic step had to be taken to make the entrance to the basilica easier for all those who today cannot cross the threshold,” Lourdes Bishop Jean-Marc Micas said at the time.

Eight months prior, the Knights of Columbus covered the priest’s mosaics in the two chapels of the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C., and in the chapel at the Knights’ headquarters in New Haven, Connecticut, a dramatic move that represented at the time the strongest public stand by a major Catholic organization regarding the former Jesuit’s art.

“The No. 1 factor [in the decision] was compassion for victims,” Patrick Kelly, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, told EWTN News in 2024. “We needed to prioritize victims over anything, any material thing.”

The Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima in Portugal, which receives over 6 million visitors a year, said earlier this year it is taking a mixed approach: It has stopped using images of Rupnik’s art in any online or published materials, but it will not take down the mosaics that cover the entire back wall of the shrine’s largest and most modern worship space, the Basilica of the Holy Trinity.

In the southern Mediterranean island country of Malta, the Diocese of Gozo has said it is sticking to its decision not to remove a series of Rupnik mosaics from the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Blessed Virgin of Ta’ Pinu, including one above the main door. 

Other prominent sites of Rupnik art

One of the most popular shrines in Italy, the shrine of St. Pio of Pietrelcina in San Giovanni Rotondo, also features floor-to-ceiling Rupnik mosaics in its lower church, where Catholics pray at the tomb of the Capuchin saint commonly known as Padre Pio. The mosaics along the access ramp and in the crypt were completed between 2009 and 2013.

The Capuchin Franciscan friars who run the shrine in San Giovanni Rotondo did not respond to CNA’s question about whether they would do anything about the mosaics.

An aide to the bishop of Caltagirone in Sicily, whose cathedral church features Rupnik mosaic installations from 2015 on the back wall of the sanctuary and on the front of the altar, and whose seminary chapel features a Rupnik workshop painting dating to 2023, said there was no assessment in progress about their possible removal.

After Italy, Spain is the European country with the highest concentration of works by the priest, with at least 12 separate sites featuring his art. Among them, highlights include the Madrid Cathedral (with mosaics in the sacristy, chapter house, and chapel of the Blessed Sacrament) and the Cave Sanctuary of St. Ignatius in Manresa.

The Loyola Center in Bilbao, a religious center associated with the Society of Jesus, has several mosaics designed by Rupnik as well as a Jesuit church in Seville.

In statements to ACI Prensa, José Luis García Íñiguez, coordinator of the communications office of the Jesuits in Spain, said the order’s headquarters in Rome has offered to initiate a process of reparation in an unspecified form to 20 of Rupnik’s victims, but “for now, there is no firm decision on what to do and how to do it with the mosaics.”

Montse Alvarado and Paola Arriaza contributed to this report.

Venerable Augustus Tolton. / Credit: Public domain

CNA Staff, Jun 19, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

On June 19, the United States commemorates the anniversary of the 1865 order that gave freedom to enslaved African Americans in Texas, issued two months after the Civil War ended. More commonly known as “Juneteenth,” it became a federal holiday in 2021 and serves as a fitting day to remember the first Black Catholic priest in the U.S. whose cause has been opened for canonization — Venerable Augustus Tolton.

Tolton was born into slavery in Brush Creek, Ralls County, Missouri, on April 1, 1854, to Catholic parents Peter Paul Tolton and Martha Jane Chisley.

Peter Paul escaped shortly after the beginning of the Civil War and joined the Union Army, dying shortly thereafter. In 1862, Augustus Tolton, along with his mother and two siblings, escaped by crossing the Mississippi River into Illinois. 

“John, boy, you’re free. Never forget the goodness of the Lord,” Tolton’s mother reportedly told him after the crossing.

Tolton began to attend St. Peter’s Catholic School, an all-white parish school in Quincy, Illinois, thanks to the help of Father Peter McGirr. The priest went on to baptize Tolton, instruct him for his first holy Communion, and encouraged his vocation to the priesthood.

No American seminary would accept Tolton because of his race, so he studied for the priesthood in Rome and was ordained in 1886 at the age of 31, becoming the first African American ordained as a priest.

Tolton returned to the U.S. where he served for three years at a parish in Quincy. From there he went to Chicago and started a parish for Black Catholics — St. Monica Parish. He remained there until he died unexpectedly while on a retreat in 1897. He was just 43 years old. 

During his short but impactful life, Tolton learned to speak fluent English, German, Italian, Latin, Greek, and African dialects. He was also a talented musician with a beautiful voice. He helped the poor and sick, fed the hungry, and helped many discover the faith. He was lovingly known as “Good Father Gus.”

Tolton’s cause was opened by the Archdiocese of Chicago on Feb. 24, 2011, making him a servant of God, and then on June 12, 2019, Pope Francis declared him venerable, which is the second step toward canonization.

Addressing the committee who was to decide where Tolton would be sent after his ordination in 1886 and who overruled the previous decision to send him to Africa, Cardinal Giovanni Simeoni reportedly said the following: “America has been called the most enlightened nation in the world. We shall see whether it deserves that honor. If the United States has never before seen a Black priest, it must see one now.”

Despite President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation going into effect on Jan. 1, 1863, it could not be implemented in states still under Confederate control, and enforcement of the proclamation relied upon the advance of Union troops. It wasn’t until Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger and some 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas, on June 19, 1865, that more than 250,000 enslaved African Americans were freed by executive decree.

This story was first published on June 19, 2024, and has been updated.

“Witnesses to Hope” is the theme for the 2025 Religious Freedom Week, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops announced June 18, 2025. / Credit: Freedom Studio/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 18, 2025 / 18:43 pm (CNA).

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is commemorating 2025 Religious Freedom Week with the theme “Witnesses to Hope,” according to a June 18 announcement.

Religious Freedom Week, which the USCCB first launched in 2018, begins on Sunday, June 22 — the feast of Sts. Thomas More and John Fisher — and runs through Sunday, June 29 — the solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul.

The USCCB is urging Catholics to “pray, reflect, and act to promote religious freedom” during the week. The conference is also asking the faithful to contact their senators in support of school choice in the Senate budget reconciliation bill, which could benefit Catholic schools.

In its announcement, the USCCB stated that the theme “builds on the annual [religious freedom] report released earlier this year by the conference’s Committee for Religious Liberty that highlights the impact of political polarization on religious freedom.”

The USCCB’s Jan. 16 annual report on the state of religious liberty expressed concerns about policies on immigration, gender ideology, abortion, and in vitro fertilization (IVF).

In the January report, the bishops wrote that Catholic nongovernmental organizations are being “singled out for special hostility” and referenced the El Paso-based Annunciation House, which Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is seeking to shut down. After the report was issued, President Donald Trump’s administration stripped some federal funds from Catholic organizations that provide foreign aid and domestic services for migrants.

The report also criticized proposed rules that push gender ideology onto schools and hospitals, which Trump has reversed. The bishops also expressed concerns about potential bills to impose abortion, contraception, or IVF coverage mandates for health insurance policies.

In its June 18 news release, the USCCB also announced a religious liberty essay contest the bishops organized with the Secretariat of Catholic Education and Our Sunday Visitor Institute. According to the bishops, the top essays from the competition will be published during Religious Freedom Week.

The Blessed Sacrament is seen through the window of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage van moments before departure from St. John the Evangelist Church in Indianapolis on May 18, 2025. / Credit: Jeffrey Bruno

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

The National Eucharistic Congress has changed the route and agenda for the conclusion of the 2025 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage in Los Angeles this Sunday, citing safety concerns. 

The culmination of the St. Katherine Drexel pilgrimage route will no longer include a Eucharistic procession through downtown Los Angeles but will instead remain on the grounds of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, and the festival that was to follow the procession has been canceled entirely. 

The route adjustment and festival cancellation follows recent riots in Los Angeles over deportations of unauthorized immigrants. The unrest began in early June. More than 350 people have been arrested since, and the Los Angeles mayor only recently lifted a curfew.

The change of plans is designed to ensure the safety of participants while still “providing an opportunity for the people of God to come together in prayer and community,” according to National Eucharistic Congress President Jason Shanks.

“Based upon our conversations with LAPD this week, we feel confident that this new plan ensures the safety of all involved while still bringing the Eucharistic presence of Our Lord to downtown L.A. in this intentional way,” Shanks said in a June 18 statement. 

Organizers noted that “the center of the 2025 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage is not an event but a Person.”

More than 3,000 people from around the U.S. are registered to attend the pilgrimage’s culminating June 22 Corpus Christi Mass and procession, according to organizers. The Mass will still take place at the downtown cathedral on Sunday afternoon along with the scaled-down procession.

The pilgrimage, named for St. Katharine Drexel, which follows the unprecedented four national pilgrimages that took place during the summer of 2024, is organized to bear witness to the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. 

The 3,300-mile, 10-state trek began in mid-May in Indianapolis and included a group of eight young Catholic “Perpetual Pilgrims.”

The perpetual pilgrims have endured a lot already, encountering anti-Catholic protestors along the route. Nevertheless, the pilgrims endeavored to preserve a spirit of quiet prayer amid the rowdy protests.

According to the updated schedule released by the National Eucharistic Congress, on the final day of the St. Katharine Drexel pilgrimage route Catholics will gather for Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels at 3 p.m., as originally planned. The apostolic nuncio to the United States, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, will celebrate, while Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles will preach the homily. Bishop Andrew Cozzens of Crookston, Minnesota, and all the Los Angeles bishops will concelebrate along with them.

The Eucharistic procession is scheduled to begin after Mass, at approximately 4:30 p.m. Rather than going through the public streets of downtown, the procession will proceed through the cathedral plaza with several stops along the way. 

The bishops will then take the Eucharistic Lord onto Temple Street — a main street in front of the cathedral, which will be closed to traffic — to bless the city. The prayerful event will conclude with a final Benediction inside the cathedral. 

Amid the changes, Shanks said “revival can’t be stopped by circumstance.”

“The flames of Eucharistic faith continue to spread nationwide,” he continued. “Now more than ever, we are calling Catholics across the country to become Eucharistic missionaries: to carry the fire of revival into your homes, your parishes, and your communities.”

Pope Leo XIV waves as the popemobile passes by a crowd of American pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the pope’s general audience on June 18, 2025, at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Jun 18, 2025 / 15:53 pm (CNA).

“Take part in the steps of Leo XIV with your donation to Peter’s Pence.”

With these words, the Vatican is encouraging Catholics to participate in the collection to support the Holy Father in his mission at the service of the universal Church.

At the end of June, most parishes hold the Peter’s Pence collection, a financial contribution that the faithful offer to the pontiff as an expression of support for the needs of the Catholic Church around the world and the charitable works it carries out.

The collection is taking place on the solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, which is celebrated Sunday, June 29.

According to a statement from the Vatican, Peter’s Pence also represents a gesture “of communion and participation in the pope’s mission to proclaim the Gospel, promote peace, and spread Christian charity.”

In support of this initiative, the Secretariat for the Economy and the Dicastery for Communion released a video presenting the “first steps” of Pope Leo XIV as successor to St. Peter.

In the moving, short video, images from the beginning of the Holy Father’s pontificate are shown, along with several significant quotes of his, taken in particular from his first greeting to the world from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.

In 2023, the latest year for which data is available, 48.4 million euros (about $55.6 million) was raised compared with 43.5 million euros (about $50 million) the previous year, according to a statement from the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy.

These donations were supplemented by 3.6 million euros (about $4.1 million) in income from assets. However, expenses totaled 109.4 million euros (about $125.7 million).

Given this situation, on Feb. 26 Pope Francis created the “Commissio de donationibus pro Sancta Sede” (Commission for Donations to the Holy See), a new body to raise funds “for the mission and charitable works of the Apostolic See.” The commission will operate “ad experimentum” (on a trial basis) for the next three years, until 2028.

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

Pope Leo XIV addresses pilgrims at his general audience in St. Peter’s Square on June 18, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Jun 18, 2025 / 14:25 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on June 18 renewed his strong call for peace, urging people to not “get used to war.”

Addressing pilgrims at the end of Wednesday’s general audience, the pontiff lamented that “the Church is brokenhearted at the cry of pain rising from places devastated by war.”

In particular, he focused on the conflicts in Ukraine, Iran, Israel, and Gaza. “We must not get used to war!” he exclaimed from St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican.

In this context, he emphasized that “the temptation to have recourse to powerful and sophisticated weapons needs to be rejected.”

He then cited the Second Vatican Council noting that in modern warfare, “every kind of weapon produced by modern science is used in war, the savagery of war threatens to lead the combatants to barbarities far surpassing those of former ages.”

“For this reason, in the name of human dignity and international law, I reiterate to those in positions of responsibility the frequent warning of Pope Francis: ‘War is always a defeat!’” the pontiff said, quoting his predecessor.

Finally, he also recalled the words of Pope Pius XII, who reiterated that “nothing is lost in peace. Everything may be lost in war.”

Pope Leo XIV’s remarks come a day after Russia launched a massive missile and drone attack on Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.

Authorities have confirmed 23 fatalities, and the Ukrainian Air Force claims to have neutralized 30 of the 58 drones launched in another attack carried out against its territory early Wednesday morning.

Meanwhile, the ceasefire has not held in Gaza, and more than 50,000 people have died in the territory since the war between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas began.

The conflict has spilled onto different fronts, most recently with Israel and Iran trading attacks.

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

“Ballet is a woman,” famously declared George Balanchine, the legendary choreographer who helped make The Nutcracker a holiday staple. At first glance, ballet appears to center women: Most dancers are female, most children in ballet classes are girls, and the audience is largely made up of women. Yet behind the curtain, power still skews male. […]

The post Can the church make space for women to lead? appeared first on U.S. Catholic.

Scenes from the beatification of Floribert Bwana Chui Bin Kositi, a Congolese martyr, in Rome on Sunday, June 15, 2025. In a Monday, June 16, audience with pilgrims from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), who traveled for the beatification of Bwana Chui at the Papal Basilica of St. Paul Outside-the-Walls, the Holy Father said: “This Congolese layman highlights the precious witness of the laity and young people.” / Credit: Vatican Media

ACI Africa, Jun 18, 2025 / 11:57 am (CNA).

Floribert Bwana Chui Bin Kositi, a Congolese martyr beatified in Rome on Sunday, June 15, provides a powerful testament to the invaluable witness of the laity and youth, Pope Leo XIV said.

In his Monday, June 16, audience with pilgrims from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), who traveled to participate in the beatification of Bwana Chui at the Papal Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, the Holy Father said: “This Congolese layman highlights the precious witness of the laity and young people.”

“This African martyr, in a continent rich in youths, shows how young people can be leaven for peace — peace that is unarmed and disarming,” Pope Leo said about Bwana Chui, who had turned 26 in June 2007 and was murdered the following month.

The pope added: “May the long-awaited peace in Kivu, in Congo, and across all of Africa come soon — through the intercession of the Virgin Mary and Blessed Floribert.”

On Nov. 15, 2024, the late Pope Francis recognized the martyrdom of Bwana Chui and authorized the Vatican Dicastery for the Causes of Saints to publish the decree announcing his beatification. 

Born on June 13, 1981, in the city of Goma, Floribert Bwana Chui was abducted and martyred in the same Congolese city on July 8, 2007, for standing up against corruption. 

Bwana Chui hailed from a wealthy family and studied law and economics. As a student, he joined the Community of Sant’Egidio, the Rome-based lay Catholic association dedicated to the provision of social services and arbitrating conflicts. He volunteered to reach out to street children.

He started his professional life in DRC’s capital city, Kinshasa, as a claims officer at the customs and goods control agency, the Congolese Control Office. His duty was to evaluate products crossing the DRC eastern border.

In this capacity, Bwana Chui had to wrestle with a moral dilemma, that of allowing contaminated food imported from neighboring Rwanda and without proper documentation and authorization for sale entry into DRC. He chose to speak up.

In his June 16 address to the Congolese pilgrims at the Vatican, Pope Leo lauded Blessed Bwana Chui’s unwavering stance against corruption, emphasizing that such moral courage is rooted in a life grounded in prayer.

“Where did such a young man find the strength to resist corruption, so deeply rooted in the current mentality and capable of unleashing violence?” the pope asked.

Blessed Bwana Chui’s “decision to keep his hands clean — as a customs officer — was shaped by a conscience formed through prayer, listening to the word of God, and communion with his brothers and sisters,” the pontiff said.

“He lived the spirituality of the Community of Sant’Egidio, which Pope Francis summarized with three ‘Ps’: prayer, the poor, and peace,” Pope Leo said and went on to remember the Congolese martyr for his dedication to the poor, saying: “The poor were central in his life. Blessed Floribert had a committed relationship with street children, driven to Goma by war, disdained and orphaned.”

“He loved them with the charity of Christ; he cared for them and was concerned about their human and Christian formation,” the Holy Father said. “Floribert’s strength grew from his faithfulness to prayer and to the poor.” 

Blessed Bwana Chui was a man of peace, the Holy Father further said, and explained: “In a region as afflicted as Kivu, torn by violence, he waged his battle for peace with gentleness — serving the poor, fostering friendship and encounter in a fractured society.”

“This young man, not resigned to evil, had a dream — nourished by the words of the Gospel and closeness to the Lord,” the pope said. “Many young people felt abandoned and hopeless, but Floribert listened to Jesus’ words: ‘I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you’ (Jn 14:18).”

Testimonies about Bwana Chui have indicated that he “preferred to die rather than allow through food that could harm many people.”

People who knew him say he refused to be bribed and reportedly went on to destroy the expired rice. For his honesty and moral integrity, he was abducted and then murdered, according to witnesses, who recalled that he was fond of saying: “Money will disappear quickly. And what about those who would have consumed these products?”

The remains of Bwana Chui will be transferred from the Kanyamuhanga cemetery to a place where pilgrims can access them with ease. “This step will be followed by a procession and then Mass at Goma Cathedral Parish,” Bishop Willy Ngumbi Ngengele said during a June 9 press conference. 

The June 15 beatification of Bwana Chui made him the fourth blessed in the DRC after Sister Marie-Clémentine Anuarite Nengapeta from the Diocese of Wamba, layman Isidore Bakanja from the Mbandaka-Bikoro Archdiocese, and Father Albert Joubert from the Diocese of Uvira, who was beatified in August 2024 alongside three Xaverian missionaries in eastern DRC.

This story was first published by ACI Africa, CNA's news partner in Africa, and has been adapted by CNA.

Pope Leo XIV spoke about how Christ can heal our past during the Wednesday general audience in St. Peter’s Square on June 18, 2025. / Credit Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Vatican City, Jun 18, 2025 / 06:03 am (CNA).

After a turn in the popemobile to greet thousands of faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his general audience on Wednesday, Pope Leo XIV continued his catechesis on “Jesus Christ, Our Hope.”

The pope reminded listeners that Jesus is capable of healing and unblocking the past, which at times paralyzes us — inviting us to move forward and decide what to do with our own history.

The Church: A house of mercy

The Holy Father invited the faithful to reflect on moments in which “we feel ‘stuck’ and trapped in a dead end,” where it seems “pointless to keep hoping — we resign ourselves and no longer have the strength to fight.”

Referring to the Gospel passage from John 5:1–9, which recounts the healing of a paralytic, the pope said that it is Jesus who “reaches people in their pain” — the sick and those who had been cast out of the Temple for being considered unclean.

These people, the Holy Father recalled, hoped to get well in a pool whose waters were believed to have healing powers. According to the custom of the time, the first person to plunge into the pool when the water stirred would be healed.

“That pool was called ‘Betzatà,’ which means ‘house of mercy.’ It could be seen as an image of the Church, where the sick and the poor gather, and to which the Lord comes to heal and bring hope,” he added.

The paralysis of disillusionment

Jesus then approaches a man who had been paralyzed for 38 years and had never managed to enter the pool. The pope pointed out that “what often paralyzes us is precisely disillusionment. We feel discouraged and risk falling into neglect.” When Jesus speaks to the paralytic, he asks a “necessary” question: “Do you want to be healed?”

“Sometimes we prefer to remain in the condition of being sick, forcing others to take care of us. It can also become an excuse to avoid deciding what to do with our lives. But Jesus leads this man back to his true and deepest desire,” Leo XIV said.

The paralytic, feeling defeated, replies that he has no one to help him into the pool — an attitude that, according to the pope, “becomes a pretext for avoiding personal responsibility.”

Regarding the man’s fatalistic view of life, the pope said that at times “we think things happen to us because we are unlucky, or because fate is against us. This man is discouraged. He feels defeated by life’s struggles.”

With Jesus, we discover that life is in our hands

Nevertheless, Jesus “helps him discover that his life is also in his own hands. He invites him to rise up from his chronic condition and take up his mat. That mat is not thrown away or abandoned: It represents his past illness — his history,” the pope continued.

The past, he explained, had kept the man stuck, forcing him “to lie there like someone already dead.” But thanks to Jesus, he is able to “carry that mat and take it wherever he wants — he can decide what to do with his history. It’s a matter of walking forward, taking responsibility for choosing which path to take.”

Finally, the pope invited the faithful to ask the Lord “for the gift of understanding where in our life we have become stuck. Let us try to give voice to our desire for healing. And let us pray for all those who feel paralyzed and see no way out,” he said.

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

The British Parliament building in London. / Credit: Marinesea/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Jun 17, 2025 / 18:46 pm (CNA).

British lawmakers voted to decriminalize abortions in England and Wales in a move that pro-life advocates say could endanger women and unborn children.