null / Credit: Pormezz/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Sep 20, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

In 2023, Minnesota passed a law, signed by Gov. Tim Walz, that prohibits clinical mental health counselors from practicing “conversion therapy” with minors, effectively barring them from offering any guidance that does not affirm a child’s struggles with sexual orientation or gender identity. 

This ban, enacted under House File 16 and effective Aug. 1, 2023, complicates access to tailored mental health resources for minors struggling with these issues, especially when a minor seeks to change his or her identity. 

David Kirby, a clinical mental health counselor in Minnesota, told CNA that the law created a new minority: young people with same-sex attraction (SSA) who do not want it.

“There are people who find their gay attraction ego dystonic,” Kirby said. “They don’t want it. Maybe some were born with a propensity to SSA, but they know it’s not how they were created to be.”

The American Psychological Association (APA) opposes conversion therapy, or what it refers to as “sexual orientation change efforts,” because it says such efforts do not meet its definition of therapy, which is a “remediation of a physical, mental, or behavioral disorder or disease.” 

“Same-sex sexual and romantic attractions, feelings, and behaviors are normal and positive variations of human sexuality regardless of sexual orientation identity,” according to the APA, and “efforts to change sexual orientation are unlikely to be successful and involve risk of harm.”

Opponents of conversion therapy often cite the use of shock therapy, which was a derivative of behavioral techniques popular in the mid-20th century. The practice has not been used in the U.S. for decades, however, according to the APA. Shock therapy peaked between the 1940s and 1970s, aligning with the APA’s classification of homosexuality as a sociopathic personality disturbance in 1952 until its declassification as a mental disorder in 1973.

The APA acknowledges that over the last several decades, however, conversion therapy in the U.S. entails only cognitive behavioral and other forms of psychotherapy. 

Ban discourages therapists from addressing other issues, opponents say

Numerous studies, including those from the APA and the National Institute of Mental Health, indicate that struggles with sexual orientation and gender identity often co-occur with other mental illnesses like depression, anxiety, and borderline personality disorder.

According to the Minnesota law’s opponents, the ban on psychotherapy that does not affirm sexual orientation and gender identity can discourage therapists, fearing legal or licensing repercussions, from addressing other underlying psychological issues — such as trauma or other mental health conditions — that could contribute to someone not wanting to be gay or transgender.

Kirby said he and others who testified in the state Legislature against the bill in 2018 and again in 2023 have been “heckled,” and some faced “extreme verbal abuse.”

Kirby said the law has had a chilling effect on Christian counselors, some of whom are afraid that if they say anything in therapy sessions that is not gay- or transgender-affirming, they could face some kind of consequence.

He said he and other counselors also have a “fear that people are coming into therapy posing as clients to spy out the therapist.”

So far, however, he said he has not run into any consequences or “pseudo-clients” himself, nor has he heard of anyone else having done so.

The fear and anxiety remain, nevertheless.

“The bill was superfluous,” Kirby said.

Two of the negative consequences of the law, in Kirby’s opinion, are that it locks people with SSA or gender identity issues into thinking “I can’t change who I am” even if they might want to. It also creates a false presumption of homophobia or transphobia. The idea that “anyone who disagrees with me is afraid of me” is just not accurate, he said.

These things are “really, really deceptive and sad for” people with SSA or gender dysphoria, he said.

“What are therapists for, anyway?” he asked. “We’re here to listen to what the client wants. We’re not here to further our agenda. We all learned that in graduate school. We listen to what the client wants, and if we feel we cannot help them, we tell them so.”

The District of Columbia and 23 states have laws that prohibit mental health counselors from practicing conversion therapy, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBT think tank. Four other states and Puerto Rico restrict but do not prohibit the practice.

‘I know I am not a woman, but I definitely don’t feel like a man’

The journal of Robin Westman, the 23-year-old man who killed two children and injured at least 20 people at a Catholic school in Minneapolis in August, showed in a video on YouTube before the attack that he wrote: “I know I am not a woman but I definitely don’t feel like a man.” 

“Westman wasn’t clear on who he was,” Kirby observed. “He said he regretted his ‘brainwashing,’” referring to his transgender identity.

When asked how he or other Christian counselors would have responded if Westman had come to them for help, Kirby said: “He would have found people who are nonjudgmental; people who would have loved him, met him where he was at.”

He would have received “loving attention, to hear his story; hear his confusion; walk with him,” Kirby continued.

No one would have “hoisted any agenda on him,” he said. “He would have been met by people who were full of compassion, to help him find the pain.”

“In the end, it’s not about changing our gender. It’s not the solution,” Kirby said. “It is to find the deepest pain. At the core of our identity, who we are in God’s eyes, in our own eyes. People resort to turning to gender but it’s not the solution. It’s just a distraction from the deepest pain in the heart.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Christians committed to the exercise of justice on behalf of a nation or the Catholic Church, must strive to fully respect the law, the dignity of the person and the need for reconciliation and forgiveness, Pope Leo XIV said.

Under a very warm midday sun Sept. 20, the pope greeted thousands of participants in the Jubilee of Justice. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and judges, lawyers, court officials, canon lawyers and law professors from about 100 countries attended the event.

Pope Leo focused his remarks on the beatitude, "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness (or justice) for they will be satisfied." 

"To 'hunger and thirst' for justice means being aware that it demands personal effort to interpret the law in the most humane way possible," the pope said. "But more importantly, it calls us to long for a 'satisfaction' that can only be fulfilled in a greater justice -- one that transcends particular situations."

A nation cannot be said to be just only because laws are applied and procedures followed, he said. And upholding the maxim, "to give each their due," is not enough either.

In fact, Pope Leo said, true justice unites the dignity of the person, his or her relationship with others and the shared structures and rules that aim to promote the common good, including of the offender.

The biblical stories of the persistent widow, the prodigal son and the laborers who are paid the same although they work a different amount of time, he said, demonstrate that "it is the power of forgiveness -- inherent in the commandment of love -- that emerges as a constitutive element of a form of justice capable of uniting the supernatural with the human."

"Evangelical justice, therefore, does not turn away from human justice, but challenges and reshapes it: it provokes it to go further, because it pushes toward the search for reconciliation," the pope said. 

"Evil, in fact, must not only be punished, but repaired -- and for this, a deep gaze toward the good of individuals and the common good is necessary," Pope Leo said. "It is a demanding task, but not impossible for those who, aware that they perform a service more demanding than others, commit themselves to living an irreproachable life."

Justice, he said, does not only assume the equal dignity of the person brought before a court, for example. Rather it strives to promote that equal dignity.

"Effective equality is not simply formal equality before the law," the pope said. "This formal equality, though indispensable for the proper exercise of justice, does not eliminate the reality of growing inequalities, whose primary effect is often lack of access to justice."

Pope Leo asked the judges and lawyers "to reflect on an aspect of justice that is often not sufficiently emphasized: the reality of so many countries and peoples who 'hunger and thirst for justice' because their living conditions are so unjust and inhumane that they become intolerable."
 

A new mural painted by artist Adam Cvijanovic, the south and west panels seen here, was unveiled at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025, in New York. The mural, which is the largest permanent artwork commissioned for the cathedral in its 146-year history, celebrates the 1879 Apparition at Knock, Ireland, the faith of generations of immigrants to New York, and the service of New York City’s first responders. / Credit: Diane Bondareff/AP Content Services for the Archdiocese of New York

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 19, 2025 / 18:20 pm (CNA).

St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan has unveiled a 25-foot-tall mural honoring migrants to New York City. 

Housed in the entryway of the iconic New York church, the mural, “What’s So Funny About Peace, Love, and Understanding,” portrays the apparition of Mary, Joseph, and St. John the Evangelist to the Irish village of Knock as well as immigrants from all over the world, including well-known figures such as Dorothy Day, Pierre Toussaint, and Alfred E. Smith. 

The mural also shows the first Native American saint, Kateri Tekakwitha.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who is set to bless the mural this coming Sunday, said at a press briefing on Thursday: “This became not only an ode to Jesus and Mary and Joseph and St. John and the faith of the Irish people who were so instrumental in this archdiocese, it also became an ode to those who followed them and found in this city, this country, and yes, in this Holy Mother Church, an embrace of welcome.” 

Dolan, who will be joined for the official dedication by the rector of the Knock Shrine in Ireland, said he had intended the mural to go up with the last renovations at St. Patrick’s in 2012 but was advised to wait. 

“I’m kind of glad now, because it matured — it was like a Crock-Pot,” he said. 

Adam Cvijanovic, the mural’s painter, said: “I thought when I started making this painting that the important thing to do was to make it about people and portraits. So, everybody in this painting is an actual person. They’re all portraits. Even the angels.”

Dolan’s late mother, Shirley, was the model for one of the immigrants Cvijanovic portrayed. First responders are also depicted in the mural.

“That seemed to me to be a really, really important thing to do,” Cvijanovic continued, “to talk about the people of the city, all of them, and to have it in some place that people could go in New York and feel themselves recognized in the context of respect and hope.”

Major benefactors covered the cost of the mural, according to Dolan.

The cathedral’s rector, Father Enrique Salvo, an immigrant from Nicaragua, weighed in on the mural, saying: “If you would have told me that I was going to be the rector of St. Patrick’s Cathedral when I came to this country, I would have never believed it. But with God, all things are possible, and hopefully it’s an inspiration for everyone that walks in, that we’re not only welcome, but we’re also invited to make a difference and to let God shine through us.”

Pope Leo XIV receives members of various religious congregations on Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025, at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media

ACI Prensa Staff, Sep 19, 2025 / 15:31 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Thursday highlighted the value of the vow of obedience in institutes of religious life as “a school of freedom in love” that lays the foundations of fidelity beyond “the ‘feelings’ of the moment.”

During a Sept. 18 meeting with participants in the general chapters and assemblies of various congregations and institutes, the pontiff reflected on “some unifying characteristics” of the legacy of the founders of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood, the Society of Mary (Marists), the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate Conception, and the Ursulines of Mary Immaculate.

First, he emphasized the importance of community life “as a place of sanctification and a source of inspiration, witness, and strength in your apostolate.”

In this regard, Leo XIV explained to those present that “it is no coincidence that the Holy Spirit inspired those who preceded you to join the sisters and brothers whom Providence placed on their path, so that goodness would multiply and grow through the communion of good people. This was the case at the beginning of your foundations and throughout the centuries, and the same continues to take place today.”

Second, Leo XIV emphasized the value of “obedience as an act of love” in the context of religious consecration.

Drawing on the words of St. Augustine, he recalled that obedience is the daughter of charity: “I do not trust what is stuck in the soil unless I can see what’s hanging from the branches. You have charity, do you? Show me its fruit. Let me see obedience,” the saint of Hippo said.

Leo: Talk of obedience ‘is not very fashionable today’

Leo XIV admitted that “talking about obedience is not very fashionable today,” because it is considered to involve a renunciation of one’s own freedom.

“But that is not the case,” he affirmed before explaining that “obedience, in its deepest meaning of active and generous listening to others, is a great act of love by which we accept dying to ourselves so that our brothers and sisters may grow and live.”

“When it is professed and lived with faith, obedience reveals a luminous path of self-giving that can help the world rediscover the value of sacrifice, the capacity for lasting relationships, and the maturity in community that goes beyond the “feelings” of the moment by establishing itself in fidelity. Obedience is a school of freedom in love,” he explained.

The third characteristic highlighted by the pontiff is related to “being attentive to the signs of the times,” which he defined as “an open and perceptive gaze toward the real demands of our brothers and sisters,” without which the present congregations would not have existed.

“Your founders were capable of observing, evaluating, loving, and then setting out, even at the risk of great suffering and failure, to serve the real needs of their brothers and sisters, recognizing the voice of God in the poverty of their neighbors,” the pontiff noted, encouraging the participants “to move forward in the living memory of those courageous beginnings” to identify their potential, “perhaps still unexplored, in order to put them to good use in the service of the ‘here and now.’”

In his parting words to the religious, Leo XIV praised the hidden work they do: “Dear friends, I know how much good you do every day in so many parts of the world — good that is often unseen by human eyes but not by God’s! I thank you and bless you from my heart, encouraging you to continue your mission with faith and generosity.”

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

null / Credit: nito/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 19, 2025 / 14:31 pm (CNA).

This week the Patients Rights Action Fund, which works to “end the dangerous and discriminatory public policy of assisted suicide,” provided an update on current assisted suicide legislation in the United States, revealing the deadly practice’s ongoing expansion throughout the country.

In a Sept. 18 webinar, group coalitions director Jessica Rodgers explained that most states that allow assisted suicide follow the “Oregon model,” based on Oregon’s assisted suicide criteria. 

The model requires “the patient to be 18 years of age or older, have a terminal illness with six months or less to live, make two or more separate requests with a 15-day waiting period in between, and have two witnesses, which can include heirs to the estate or friends of heirs,” Rodgers said. 

“The drugs must be self-administered and all states do require the falsification of the death certificate,” Rodgers said, meaning the states list the underlying condition that qualifies the patient as the cause of death rather than the prescribed drug that ends his or her life.

States attempting expansions to assisted suicide laws

In 2025, new legislation was proposed in a number of states where assisted suicide is legal to advance its polices and limit some of the “safeguards” in place.

A New Jersey bill was proposed that would remove the 15-day waiting period and the second request if the prescriber thinks death will occur within the time period. The bill is still in play and has not been passed yet. 

In Maine, a 15-day waiting period was reduced to seven days in cases when it is “in the best interests of the patient” according to the judgment of the prescriber. The legislation was passed and signed by the governor after the original version was amended that would have allowed the whole waiting period to be waived.

A Delaware bill passed that allows for advanced practice nurses to prescribe the medication that kills the patients. The bill has no requirements for an in-person exam or a mental health evaluation. 

California proposed a major change that reduced the 15-day waiting period for assisted suicide to only 48 hours. The bill also removes the sunset date, which will keep the End of Life Option Act from expiring. The bill passed last week and is awaiting a signature by the governor.

Some states proposed expansions, but the legislation did not advance. In Washington, D.C., there was a public hearing on a bill that would remove the waiting period in certain cases, but no action was taken.

An Oregon bill was also not advanced that proposed nurse practitioners and physician assistants could prescribe to patients seeking assisted suicide. It also pushed for the waiting period to be reduced from 15 days to 48 hours and would waive the period completely if death is “expected imminently.”

Proposed legislation to legalize assisted suicide 

Assisted suicide is legal in 10 states and D.C., but a number of other states have active legislation to legalize it. 

In New York a bill to legalize assisted suicide was approved and is awaiting signature by the governor, which she must sign by the end of the year. The bill does not require the patient to be a resident of the state, has no waiting period, and does not require an in-person exam or a mental health evaluation.

In Rhode Island assisting a suicide is a felony, but there is proposed legislation to legalize assisted suicide that would require an in-person evaluation. The bill requires a 15-day waiting period between requests and an additional 48-hour waiting period that begins after the patient submits his or her signed request for the medication. 

Nevada does not authorize assisted suicide, but legislation pushing for it proposed advanced practice nurses to be allowed to prescribe the drugs, no in-person exam requirement, only one witness necessarily, and no requirement for the patient to be a resident of the state. 

The Nevada legislation does detail that the prescribed drugs would be the cause of death on the certificate rather than the underlying condition.

Legislation in Maryland would not require a mental health evaluation and has a broad meaning for “terminal illness” that can include treatable conditions. The bill has provisions that allow a patient to communicate through someone else “familiar with the individual’s manner of communicating.” 

Proposed legislation in Massachusetts also has a broad definition for “terminal illness” that can include treatable conditions. There was a public hearing in Massachusetts in the state Joint Public Health Committee, which then moved the bill to a second committee on the state House side where it is still active. 

In New Hampshire, a bill is pushing for no residency requirement, no in-person examination requirement, a broad “terminal illness” definition, and no mental health evaluation. The legislation also proposed a 48-hour waiting period and would allow for advanced practice nurses and physician assistants to prescribe the drugs. 

A Tennessee House bill pushing the legalization of assisted suicide primarily follows the Oregon model. It does have a broad meaning for “terminal illness” that can include treatable conditions. On March 4, the first committee hearing was held on the matter, but it was rejected.

In Illinois, a 2025 bill to legalize assisted suicide in the state stalled and will cross over to the 2026 session. The bill had a five-day waiting period, no requirement for mental health evaluation, and broad terminal diagnosis language.

As legislation continues to be proposed and advances in assisted suicide expand, Patients Rights Action Fund highlighted the lack of mental health evaluations across states and noted that waiting periods are being quickly reduced after the initial passing of legislation.

“Ultimately, assisted suicide laws are inherently discriminatory,” Rodgers said on Sept. 18. 

“They take a segment of our neighbors and say: ‘You get a lower standard of care than everybody else,’” she said. “The patients that qualify for assisted suicide are already inherently in a more vulnerable state because of their diagnosis and because of the financial costs that they’re facing with health care and the cost of treatment.”

Turning Point USA CEO Charlie Kirk speaks at the Republican National Convention on July 15, 2024, in Milwaukee. / Credit: Maxim Elramsisy/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Sep 19, 2025 / 12:02 pm (CNA).

Slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk was reportedly strongly considering becoming Catholic just prior to his assassination, according to a bishop who spoke to him shortly before his killing. 

Robert Brennan, a Los Angeles-based writer and the brother of Fresno, California, Bishop Joseph Brennan, said in a Sept. 18 column in the Los Angeles archdiocesan newspaper Angelus that Kirk had a “personal exchange” with the California prelate about a week before Kirk’s murder at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10. 

The writer Brennan, who said Bishop Brennan gave him permission to share the story, wrote that Kirk had spoken to the prelate at a prayer breakfast in Visalia. The conservative activist “told the bishop about his Catholic wife and children and how he attended Mass with them.” 

Kirk acknowledged “speculation” about his possible interest in becoming Catholic, Brennan wrote in Angelus; he subsequently told Bishop Brennan: “I’m this close” to converting. 

In his Angelus column Brennan pointed to a recent video Kirk made in which he acknowledged some “big disagreements” with Catholicism but claimed that Protestants “under-value” the Blessed Mother. 

“We don’t talk about Mary enough. We don’t venerate her enough,” Kirk said, arguing that Mary is “the solution” to “toxic feminism” in the U.S. 

“[H]ow fitting one of Charlie Kirk’s last videos was about the preeminent mediatrix of all time and space,” Robert Brennan wrote in Angelus. “In his own way he was reaching out to her, and now, I am convinced, she is returning the favor.”

Kirk was fatally shot while taking questions from audience members during a stop at Utah Valley University as part of his “American Comeback Tour.” He is survived by his wife, Erika Frantzve, and their 3-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son.

Prominent Catholics around the world have joined in the chorus of voices mourning Kirk’s death in the days since he was killed. German Catholic Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller referred to Kirk this week as “a martyr for Jesus Christ” and condemned the “satanic celebration” of his death by some of his detractors.

Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life of America and Students for Life Action and a close friend of Kirk’s, said on Sept. 13 that the activist’s death “will be a turning point” for the country. 

And Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said Kirk’s activism “restored optimism about the American future for millions of Americans.”

St. Januarius and the miracle of the liquefaction of his blood contained in a relic. / Credit: Louis Finson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; Photo2023, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

ACI Stampa, Sep 19, 2025 / 11:10 am (CNA).

“We are delighted to announce that the relic has been found completely liquid,” said Monsignor Vincenzo De Gregorio, abbot of the Treasury Chapel of the Naples Cathedral.

Lila Rose (left) debates Frances Kissling on Sept. 16, 2025, at Yale University. / Credit: Live Action via YouTube screenshot

National Catholic Register, Sep 19, 2025 / 10:40 am (CNA).

The news that pro-life activist Lila Rose was declared the winner by students attending a debate earlier this week with an abortion activist at Yale University — a campus not particularly known for its pro-life sentiment — lit up the pro-life corners of the internet.

Rose, the founder and president of Live Action, posted on X following Tuesday night’s debate, which was hosted by the Yale Political Union. She said the event’s organizer was “shocked” after those in attendance voted in favor of the pro-life argument by a margin of 60-31.

For defenders of the lives of unborn babies, it was heartening to see apparent evidence that arguments against abortion are making headway, even at one of the country’s most elite educational institutions. 

Rose’s opponent, Frances Kissling, the former head of Catholics for Choice and founding president of the National Abortion Federation, laid bare the diabolical essence of the “pro-choice” argument. An unborn baby may be human, according to Kissling, but a woman should be able to decide whether the child lives or dies.

“We need to begin to think about abortion as a conflict of values. I tend to favor more or think more about the value of women’s lives,” Kissling said.

“I’m not talking about whether they’re going to die or not,” she said. “I’m talking about the fact that they have decisions to make about how they are going to live that life,” Kissling clarified.

Kissling, who is Catholic and had spent two years as a religious sister in a convent, went on to say that abortion should be condoned by what she said is an ever-evolving Catholic Church.

“The idea that Catholicism never changes is not true, even in very serious decisions,” she said. “I was thinking about this. Whatever happened to limbo?”

“I’m in the group of Catholics who look at the idea that even the Catholic Church can change. We learn new things,” she said. 

Rose countered by describing what allowing “choice” to trump life really looks like, citing the recent case of a 21-year-old college student whose newborn baby was found dead, wrapped in a towel and stuffed in a closet.

“A child hidden in a closet, his humanity denied. If this does not grieve us, then what will? This is what choice over life looks like when the choice of adults is made supreme,” Rose said.

“What about the child’s choice? That has not been represented here yet tonight. And so let me ask the question here plainly: Should murder be legal? Of course not. Then why do we excuse abortion? Abortion is the direct and intentional killing of an innocent human being,” she said.

Rose called for more federal funding for pregnancy-resource centers, for government-funded cash credits for parents, and for making childbirth free.

“Instead of turning to violence against the most vulnerable as a solution to problems that we face, instead, we should be a society that uplifts, that makes life better for the vulnerable, that focuses our energy and our efforts and our organizations and our resources on supporting women and young families and children,” Rose said.

At the conclusion of the debate, Kissling revealed that at the heart of her position is a concession that an unborn child is, in fact, a human being. 

Kissling then presented the argument put forward by adherents of utilitarian moral theory that an action can be justified if it leads to the “happiness” of the greatest number of people.

The abortion activist suggested considering a “thought experiment” involving a situation in which there is a fire in a building, and one is faced with deciding whether to rescue a poor family of six or a doctor who was about to come up with a cure for cancer. 

“I’m asking you to think for yourself about how much you really believe and how much you act and how all our governments act within the principle of ‘every single life [has equal value],’” she said.

“The greatest good for the greatest number of people. Good principle. Do you save the family of six or do you save the doctor? That’s it,” she said.

Following the debate, Sabrina Soriano, a junior and art history major at Yale, said she thought Rose was the clear winner.

“I think Lila definitely just swept the floor and took the trophy prize because she came in with a sense of humility, and also with a deep sense of wanting to do justice to the Church in general, and also to the unborn.”

“I think regardless of if you were pro-choice, you understood that the argument [Kissling made] was weak, and it was based on more of a crowd-surfing or sentimentality rather than the facts,” said Soriano, who is Catholic and a member of the campus pro-life group, as were many students in attendance.

Kylyn Smith, a 19-year-old senior and double major in physics and economics, told the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, that while there was a strong contingent of pro-life advocates in the audience, Rose bested Kissling in the debate fair and square. 

“Lila Rose valiantly defended the pro-life position with a secular, logical argument centered on the humanity of the unborn child. It was incredible watching her speak just as incisively and coherently live and in person as on her videos,” Smith said. 

“Passion from attendees of all opinions quite literally rang throughout the auditorium, from hissing in disagreement to stomping in support. Ms. Rose’s cogent reasoning stood in stark contrast to the often-contradictory statements of the other guest, solidifying Lila’s win.”

This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, and has been adapted by CNA.

Pope Leo XIV greets the families of the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Sep 19, 2025 / 10:00 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Friday said the Church and public institutions need to better support families in social and political life.

“Public institutions and the Church have a responsibility to seek ways to promote dialogue and strengthen the elements in society that favor family life and the education of its members,” the pontiff said Sept. 19 in reference to the encyclical letter Sollicitudo Rei Socialis of St. John Paul II.

“In this context,” he continued, “we can understand the family as a gift and a task. It is crucial to foster the co-responsibility and protagonism of families in social, political, and cultural life, promoting their valuable contribution to the community.”

Leo addressed the participants of a Sept. 17–19 Rome meeting on the future of the family during an audience in the Hall of the Consistory in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace.

The Rome gathering used a synodal method “to listen, discern, and imitate processes of cultural and structural transformation in response to the challenges faced by families in the peripheries, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean, in dialogue with other regions of the world,” according to organizers.

“Living synodality in the family requires ‘walking together,’ sharing sorrows and joys, dialoguing respectfully and sincerely among all its members, learning to listen to one another and to make important family decisions together,” the pope told meeting participants.

Referencing Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, he said threats to the dignity of the family today include “problems related to poverty, lack of work and access to health care, abuse of the most vulnerable, migration, and war.”

“In every child, in every wife or husband, God entrusts us with his Son, his Mother, as he did with St. Joseph, so that together with them we may be the foundation, the leaven, and the witness of God’s love among men,” the Holy Father said.

The Jubilee of Hope, he noted, includes an invitation to think about the roots of one’s faith as received from parents and grandparents: “The persevering prayer of our grandmothers as they prayed the rosary, their simple, humble, and honest lives which, like leaven, sustained so many families and communities.”

The family is called “to be a domestic Church and a home where the fire of the Holy Spirit burns, spreading its warmth, contributing its gifts and experiences for the common good, and calling everyone to live in hope,” he said.

The “Jubilee and Synodal Meeting for Hopeful Discernment on the Future of Life and the Family” was organized by the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, the Latin American Episcopal Council, the Pontifical Academy for Life, and the  John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences.

“Through this Jubilee and Synodal Meeting, the Church wishes to renew its commitment to defending life and the family, building bridges of fraternity and hope for the new generations,” organizers said in a press release.

The following excerpt is adapted from Our Church Speaks by Ben Lansing and D.J. Marotta. ©2024 by Benjamin Terry Lansing and Daniel John Marotta Sr. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com.   Christianity was introduced to Korea in the late eighteenth century by Korean laypeople who encountered the faith while studying in China (Butler’s Lives of the Saints: […]

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