Lois McLatchie Miller and Chris Elston were arrested by Belgian police this week while advocating for child protection from transgender medical treatments, June 5, 2025. / Credit: ADF International

CNA Staff, Jun 7, 2025 / 11:00 am (CNA).

Police in Brussels arrested pro-life activist Lois McLatchie Miller and child protection advocate Chris Elston on Wednesday for peacefully displaying signs that advocated for the protection of children against transgender medical treatments. 

The incident occurred when Miller, a Scottish senior legal communications officer with ADF International, and Elston, a Canadian pro-child activist known as “Billboard Chris”, were surrounded by an angry mob as they held signs that read: “Children are never born in the wrong body” and “Children cannot consent to puberty blockers.” 

The pair were in the EU capital engaging members of the European Parliament about the dangers of puberty blockers for children. 

Belgian police arrested the duo amid the nonviolent demonstration. Officers took them to separate police stations, where they were ordered to remove their clothes and subjected to searches. 

They were released after several hours in custody with no charges filed, though police informed them that their signs would be destroyed.

Elston said police initially told them they needed a permit and were later told they would be charged with “disturbing the peace.”

“I just can’t believe that we live in a world where we were the bad guys in this situation,” Miller said in a video posted to social media after her release.

Speaking of the police, she said: “They saw that we were the minority, that we were being attacked … Instead of standing up for our rights … they took us away, and let the mob go free.”

On June 6, Miller’s husband and fellow pro-life advocate Calum Miller told EWTN News Nightly that Europe needs to “wake up” and that Americans have a “profound role” in helping Europeans preserve their basic freedoms. 

He also called for the sanction of politicians and authorities involved in the assault on free speech in Europe.

Paul Coleman, the executive director of ADF International, condemned the arrests, stating: “The Belgian authorities not only failed to uphold the fundamental right to speak freely, they turned the power of the state against those who were peacefully exercising their rights at the behest of a mob.” 

Coleman described the incident as a disturbing display of authoritarianism in the heart of Europe, emphasizing that ADF International is exploring all legal options to defend free speech rights in Belgium. 

“We are grateful our colleague has been safely released, but we are deeply concerned by her treatment at the hands of the police in Brussels,” he added.

After his release, Elston said activists “are not going to stop” talking about the dangers of puberty blockers for children. “We are going to keep having these conversations.” 

The arrests come amid tensions over free expression in Belgium. Just a year ago, a Brussels mayor attempted to shut down the National Conservatism Conference, citing ideological disagreements with its speakers. 

ADF International intervened with emergency legal action that allowed the event to take place. The organization is vowing to challenge the recent arrests as well.

“We will not stand by while peaceful citizens are criminalized for speaking out on vital issues – especially when it’s the safety and wellbeing of children at stake,” Coleman said.

Pastor Rick Warren speaks to EWTN Vatican Bureau Chief Andreas Thonhauser on "EWTN News Nightly," Friday, June 6, 2025 / Credit: EWTN News

CNA Staff, Jun 7, 2025 / 10:30 am (CNA).

Evangelical pastor Rick Warren this week said the upcoming 2,000th anniversary of the death and resurrection of Jesus highlights the Lord's "unanswered prayer" of unity in the Christian world, a unity which he said will help bring the message of salvation to the world.

Warren, the founder of the Baptist Saddleback Church in California, spoke to EWTN Vatican Bureau Chief Andreas Thonhauser in Rome on attending a gathering of Global 2033, a Catholic evangelization initiative working to spread the Gospel message ahead of the two-thousand-year observance of Christ rising from the dead.

Asked by Thonhauser why he was speaking at a Catholic event, the Protestant minister claimed that "no single denomination can complete the Great Commission on their own."

"There are 2.5 billion people in the world who claim to believe in Jesus Christ," Warren said. Of those, "1.3 billion are Catholic. About half of the Christian Church is Catholic."

Dismissing potential criticisms that his intent is to convert Catholics to Protestantism, Warren pointed to Christ's prayers in John 17, in which he prayed to God: "Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one."

That plea "is still the unanswered prayer of Jesus," Warren said.

"We're never going to have cultural unity. We're never going to have structural unity," Warren pointed out.

"We're never going to have unity in doctrine," he further claimed. "But we can all agree on one thing. Every Christian understands we're called to go [and evangelize]."

On praying alongside Catholics in Rome, Warren said: "I pray with anybody who believes Jesus Christ is the Lord of my life. These are brothers and sisters in Christ."

Looking forward to 2033, Warren said: "What the world needs now is hope."

The Baptist pastor further shared that EWTN has been a "great ministry in [his] life." He pointed to the 2013 death of his son, who took his own life that year after struggling with mental illness.

"It was the worst day of my life," Warren said. "One of the things that helped me through was on EWTN, they were praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. And the Chaplet of Divine Mercy ministered to me and to my wife."

"It was a healing balm in my heart," he said.

Pastor Rick Warren speaks to EWTN Vatican Bureau Chief Andreas Thonhauser on "EWTN News Nightly," Friday, June 6, 2025 / Credit: EWTN News

CNA Staff, Jun 7, 2025 / 10:30 am (CNA).

Evangelical pastor Rick Warren this week said the upcoming 2,000th anniversary of the death and resurrection of Jesus highlights the Lord's "unanswered prayer" of unity in the Christian world, a unity which he said will help bring the message of salvation to the world.

Warren, the founder of the Baptist Saddleback Church in California, spoke to EWTN Vatican Bureau Chief Andreas Thonhauser in Rome on attending a gathering of Global 2033, a Catholic evangelization initiative working to spread the Gospel message ahead of the two-thousand-year observance of Christ rising from the dead.

Asked by Thonhauser why he was speaking at a Catholic event, the Protestant minister claimed that "no single denomination can complete the Great Commission on their own."

"There are 2.5 billion people in the world who claim to believe in Jesus Christ," Warren said. Of those, "1.3 billion are Catholic. About half of the Christian Church is Catholic."

Dismissing potential criticisms that his intent is to convert Catholics to Protestantism, Warren pointed to Christ's prayers in John 17, in which he prayed to God: "Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one."

That plea "is still the unanswered prayer of Jesus," Warren said.

"We're never going to have cultural unity. We're never going to have structural unity," Warren pointed out.

"We're never going to have unity in doctrine," he further claimed. "But we can all agree on one thing. Every Christian understands we're called to go [and evangelize]."

On praying alongside Catholics in Rome, Warren said: "I pray with anybody who believes Jesus Christ is the Lord of my life. These are brothers and sisters in Christ."

Looking forward to 2033, Warren said: "What the world needs now is hope."

The Baptist pastor further shared that EWTN has been a "great ministry in [his] life." He pointed to the 2013 death of his son, who took his own life that year after struggling with mental illness.

"It was the worst day of my life," Warren said. "One of the things that helped me through was on EWTN, they were praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. And the Chaplet of Divine Mercy ministered to me and to my wife."

"It was a healing balm in my heart," he said.

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat speaks to "EWTN News in Depth" Anchor Catherine Hadro on Friday, June 6, 2025 / Credit: EWTN News

CNA Staff, Jun 7, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

Americans could be on the cusp of a religious revival. according to Ross Douthat, an author, Catholic convert, and New York Times columnist. 

Douthat, who often writes on the intersection of faith, culture, and public life in his column, shared his thoughts on all things American and Catholic, from Pope Leo XIV to Vice President JD Vance to the American religious landscape, in an interview with anchor Catherine Hadro on “EWTN News in Depth” on Friday.

Douthat described the U.S. religious situation as a “a very unsettled but curious landscape,” particularly after a years-long decline in religious interest that plateaued during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It's not that America is having a religious revival. It's more that we're considering whether to have a religious revival,” he said.

Interest in religion has moved beyond the hardline atheism of the early 2000s characterized by figures like Richard Dawkins, Douthat said. He observed that there has been “a surge of interest in religion,” especially among Generation Z. 

Sometimes the interest is traditional, as reflected in rising numbers of converts to Catholicism in some dioceses, from Los Angeles to Dublin. Other times it takes on an alternative tone. 

“You have a surge of interest in religion, and some of that shows up in traditional faith. Some of it shows up in anything from UFOs to psychedelics,” Douthat said. 

Atheism, he indicated, has failed to keep its promises. In the early 2000s “there was a sense that once we get rid of these hidebound Bronze Age superstitions, everyone will get along better: Politics will be less polarized, science will be held in higher esteem and sociologically people will be happier. Kids won't be afraid of going to hell, things like that.” 

“And obviously none of that has happened.”  

Douthat cited rising division, polarization, and “existential angst” in the nation in recent years as setting the groundwork for a resurgence of religion.  

“You have a lot of people, some of whom are coming into the Church, others who are exploring around the edges, who are reacting to that environment,” he said. 

First impressions of Pope Leo: a unifying figure  

When asked to describe the new pope, Douthat called him “unifying,” “charming,” and “mildly inscrutable.”  

Douthat says that inscrutability is “part of the reason he was elected pope in the first place.” 

“There is still a hint of mystery to who the pope definitively is and what he definitively thinks,” he said. “And there may be a long period of time where that mystery gradually unfolds in the life of the Church.” 

Douthat noted that Leo was a “dark horse” figure “who's very good at making different groups of people feel heard and understood.” 

Leo’s episcopal motto is one of unity: “In Illo Uno Unum,” meaning “in the One, we are one.” Douthat said he hopes Leo will bring about this unity. 

“Obviously there were a lot of conservative and traditionalist Catholics who were frustrated or anxious at various moments in the era of Pope Francis,” he said.

“[Leo] hasn't really done all that much — it's been one month — but there's so far this sense of just sort of relief at a feeling of kind of stability and normalcy in the papal office,” Douthat said.  

Pope Leo XIV chose his name because the last pope with that name, Pope Leo XIII, “was pope at a time of huge industrial and technological transformation and offered a distinctively Catholic witness for that age,” Douthat noted. 

“There is this landscape that people live in online, disconnected or connected in new ways,” he said. “That is, I think, clearly perilous to the soul in various ways.” 

The digital and AI realms have “deep effects on family and marriage and community,” especially for parents raising kids in this environment. 

“There are fundamental questions of morality and spirituality that are bound up in how you relate to your phone,” he continued. “And I think it is really important for the Church to figure out what to say about it.”

JD Vance interview

Douthat recently interviewed Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, about how faith shaped his politics, among other topics. 

Reflecting back on a part of the interview where he asked Vance about the Church’s teachings on immigration, Douthat said that he was “pressing” the vice president because he believed there were “real tensions” in the dispute, citing deportations by the Trump administration.   

Vance and Pope Francis had publicly disagreed on politics earlier in the year. In February, Pope Francis sent a pastoral letter to the U.S. bishops calling for the recognition of the dignity of immigrants after Vance, a Catholic convert, publicly advocated applying “ordo amoris,” or “rightly-ordered love,” to the immigration debate. 

“[A]s an American leader, but also just as an American citizen, your compassion belongs first to your fellow citizens,” Vance said at the time, while acknowledging that the principle “doesn’t mean you hate people from outside of your own borders.”

In the letter, Francis tacitly rebuked Vance’s remarks, arguing in part that “the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution, or serious deterioration of the environment damages the dignity of many men and women.”

Douthat noted that Vance’s situation is a “tremendous challenge,” especially because he is vice president, not president.   

“There’s always a certain kind of tension between being an elected politician in a pluralist, non-Catholic society and trying to be faithful to the teachings of the Church,” he said. 

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat speaks to "EWTN News in Depth" Anchor Catherine Hadro on Friday, June 6, 2025 / Credit: EWTN News

CNA Staff, Jun 7, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

Americans could be on the cusp of a religious revival. according to Ross Douthat, an author, Catholic convert, and New York Times columnist. 

Douthat, who often writes on the intersection of faith, culture, and public life in his column, shared his thoughts on all things American and Catholic, from Pope Leo XIV to Vice President JD Vance to the American religious landscape, in an interview with anchor Catherine Hadro on “EWTN News in Depth” on Friday.

Douthat described the U.S. religious situation as a “a very unsettled but curious landscape,” particularly after a years-long decline in religious interest that plateaued during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It's not that America is having a religious revival. It's more that we're considering whether to have a religious revival,” he said.

Interest in religion has moved beyond the hardline atheism of the early 2000s characterized by figures like Richard Dawkins, Douthat said. He observed that there has been “a surge of interest in religion,” especially among Generation Z. 

Sometimes the interest is traditional, as reflected in rising numbers of converts to Catholicism in some dioceses, from Los Angeles to Dublin. Other times it takes on an alternative tone. 

“You have a surge of interest in religion, and some of that shows up in traditional faith. Some of it shows up in anything from UFOs to psychedelics,” Douthat said. 

Atheism, he indicated, has failed to keep its promises. In the early 2000s “there was a sense that once we get rid of these hidebound Bronze Age superstitions, everyone will get along better: Politics will be less polarized, science will be held in higher esteem and sociologically people will be happier. Kids won't be afraid of going to hell, things like that.” 

“And obviously none of that has happened.”  

Douthat cited rising division, polarization, and “existential angst” in the nation in recent years as setting the groundwork for a resurgence of religion.  

“You have a lot of people, some of whom are coming into the Church, others who are exploring around the edges, who are reacting to that environment,” he said. 

First impressions of Pope Leo: a unifying figure  

When asked to describe the new pope, Douthat called him “unifying,” “charming,” and “mildly inscrutable.”  

Douthat says that inscrutability is “part of the reason he was elected pope in the first place.” 

“There is still a hint of mystery to who the pope definitively is and what he definitively thinks,” he said. “And there may be a long period of time where that mystery gradually unfolds in the life of the Church.” 

Douthat noted that Leo was a “dark horse” figure “who's very good at making different groups of people feel heard and understood.” 

Leo’s episcopal motto is one of unity: “In Illo Uno Unum,” meaning “in the One, we are one.” Douthat said he hopes Leo will bring about this unity. 

“Obviously there were a lot of conservative and traditionalist Catholics who were frustrated or anxious at various moments in the era of Pope Francis,” he said.

“[Leo] hasn't really done all that much — it's been one month — but there's so far this sense of just sort of relief at a feeling of kind of stability and normalcy in the papal office,” Douthat said.  

Pope Leo XIV chose his name because the last pope with that name, Pope Leo XIII, “was pope at a time of huge industrial and technological transformation and offered a distinctively Catholic witness for that age,” Douthat noted. 

“There is this landscape that people live in online, disconnected or connected in new ways,” he said. “That is, I think, clearly perilous to the soul in various ways.” 

The digital and AI realms have “deep effects on family and marriage and community,” especially for parents raising kids in this environment. 

“There are fundamental questions of morality and spirituality that are bound up in how you relate to your phone,” he continued. “And I think it is really important for the Church to figure out what to say about it.”

JD Vance interview

Douthat recently interviewed Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, about how faith shaped his politics, among other topics. 

Reflecting back on a part of the interview where he asked Vance about the Church’s teachings on immigration, Douthat said that he was “pressing” the vice president because he believed there were “real tensions” in the dispute, citing deportations by the Trump administration.   

Vance and Pope Francis had publicly disagreed on politics earlier in the year. In February, Pope Francis sent a pastoral letter to the U.S. bishops calling for the recognition of the dignity of immigrants after Vance, a Catholic convert, publicly advocated applying “ordo amoris,” or “rightly-ordered love,” to the immigration debate. 

“[A]s an American leader, but also just as an American citizen, your compassion belongs first to your fellow citizens,” Vance said at the time, while acknowledging that the principle “doesn’t mean you hate people from outside of your own borders.”

In the letter, Francis tacitly rebuked Vance’s remarks, arguing in part that “the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution, or serious deterioration of the environment damages the dignity of many men and women.”

Douthat noted that Vance’s situation is a “tremendous challenge,” especially because he is vice president, not president.   

“There’s always a certain kind of tension between being an elected politician in a pluralist, non-Catholic society and trying to be faithful to the teachings of the Church,” he said. 

Sam Brownback. / Credit: Albert H. Teich/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Jun 7, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

In a recent interview with the Vienna-based Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe (OIDAC Europe), former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback discussed how Christian organizations are increasingly being deplatformed and debanked when engaging in public debate and offered ways to address these challenges and uphold religious freedom. 

“The typical technique in the West is a suffocation technique on religion,” Brownback told OIDAC Europe Executive Director Anja Hoffmann in an interview released June 4. OIDAC Europe is a nongovernmental organization that researches, analyzes, documents, and reports on cases of intolerance and discrimination against Christians in Europe. 

According to Brownback, examples of this technique include pro-life pregnancy centers being dropped by their insurance companies and organizations being taken off of social media platforms. 

Brownback’s own National Committee for Religious Freedom had its bank account canceled without explanation by Chase Bank in 2022 after 45 days of it being opened. 

“You see these techniques and it’s all a suffocation effort. We’re not going to throw you in jail — we can’t throw you in jail — but we can try to strangle you as much as possible so that you can’t operate as a group. And that’s why we’ve got to push back against it in the West more and more,” he said.

In 2018, Brownback — who previously served as a U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1996–2011 and as the 46th governor of Kansas from 2011–2018 —  was sworn in as the U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom during President Donald Trump’s first term in office. He became the first Catholic to serve in the role.

During his tenure, he promoted religious freedom as a means of promoting individual and economic flourishing and reducing religion-related violence. He also highlighted China’s persecution of Uyghurs and strongly condemned the Xinjiang internment camps. At the 2020 Ministerial to Advance Freedom of Religion or Belief in Poland, Brownback also spoke about the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on religious freedom.

In the interview, Brownback pointed out that now with the use of social media, issues of religious persecution happening around the world have become more visible and need to continue to be brought to light.

“We’re not powerless now … we used to be just dependent upon the media to surface and to get these things out and for us in the United States; if it didn’t get on CBS, NBC, or ABC it didn’t happen, we didn’t know about it,” he explained. “That’s not the case now. You’ve got all these social media outlets that are out there … and you can put it out there and you need to get it out there.”

Brownback also encouraged individuals to not only share content about the issues taking place but also to include ways that individuals can help. He said he thinks many might be surprised to see how much people actually care about these issues once they find out they’re happening.

“You’re seeing more support for religious freedom in the United States and other places and a lot of it has been a long-term awareness building. These things are going on and then as people look at them and say, ‘Is that really happening?’ you say, ‘Yes, that’s really happening.’”

He added: “Changes rarely happen until people actually have to smell and feel something and see that something actually is going on here that’s wrong.” 

Sam Brownback. / Credit: Albert H. Teich/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Jun 7, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

In a recent interview with the Vienna-based Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe (OIDAC Europe), former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback discussed how Christian organizations are increasingly being deplatformed and debanked when engaging in public debate and offered ways to address these challenges and uphold religious freedom. 

“The typical technique in the West is a suffocation technique on religion,” Brownback told OIDAC Europe Executive Director Anja Hoffmann in an interview released June 4. OIDAC Europe is a nongovernmental organization that researches, analyzes, documents, and reports on cases of intolerance and discrimination against Christians in Europe. 

According to Brownback, examples of this technique include pro-life pregnancy centers being dropped by their insurance companies and organizations being taken off of social media platforms. 

Brownback’s own National Committee for Religious Freedom had its bank account canceled without explanation by Chase Bank in 2022 after 45 days of it being opened. 

“You see these techniques and it’s all a suffocation effort. We’re not going to throw you in jail — we can’t throw you in jail — but we can try to strangle you as much as possible so that you can’t operate as a group. And that’s why we’ve got to push back against it in the West more and more,” he said.

In 2018, Brownback — who previously served as a U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1996–2011 and as the 46th governor of Kansas from 2011–2018 —  was sworn in as the U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom during President Donald Trump’s first term in office. He became the first Catholic to serve in the role.

During his tenure, he promoted religious freedom as a means of promoting individual and economic flourishing and reducing religion-related violence. He also highlighted China’s persecution of Uyghurs and strongly condemned the Xinjiang internment camps. At the 2020 Ministerial to Advance Freedom of Religion or Belief in Poland, Brownback also spoke about the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on religious freedom.

In the interview, Brownback pointed out that now with the use of social media, issues of religious persecution happening around the world have become more visible and need to continue to be brought to light.

“We’re not powerless now … we used to be just dependent upon the media to surface and to get these things out and for us in the United States; if it didn’t get on CBS, NBC, or ABC it didn’t happen, we didn’t know about it,” he explained. “That’s not the case now. You’ve got all these social media outlets that are out there … and you can put it out there and you need to get it out there.”

Brownback also encouraged individuals to not only share content about the issues taking place but also to include ways that individuals can help. He said he thinks many might be surprised to see how much people actually care about these issues once they find out they’re happening.

“You’re seeing more support for religious freedom in the United States and other places and a lot of it has been a long-term awareness building. These things are going on and then as people look at them and say, ‘Is that really happening?’ you say, ‘Yes, that’s really happening.’”

He added: “Changes rarely happen until people actually have to smell and feel something and see that something actually is going on here that’s wrong.” 

Psychologist Greg Bottaro, who once discerned a religious vcocation with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, founded the Integrated Daily Dialogic Mentorship program to give a new take on traditional therapy. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Greg Bottaro

CNA Staff, Jun 7, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

After years of therapy with certain patients, Catholic psychologist Greg Bottaro felt “stuck.” 

“I had poured myself into them for seven or eight years, but despite all that effort, we weren’t reaching real breakthroughs,” Bottaro explained. “Deep down, I knew there had to be a better way.”

During a subsequent sabbatical, Bottaro had an idea: therapy inspired by Christ’s “model of accompaniment.” It wouldn’t be a week-to-week check-in, where Bottaro said clients often forgot the problems they meant to ask about, or run up against the session time constraints. 

Instead, Bottaro’s vision involved 24-hour access to a therapist — not through paragraph-long texts or late-night phone calls but through voice messages.

After testing the process out with some clients using a voice message app, Bottaro found that “within weeks, we started seeing breakthroughs.” So he launched a program called Integrated Daily Dialogic Mentorship to provide a new take on traditional therapy. 

“This is how Jesus actually accompanied people,” Bottaro explained. “He walked with his disciples daily, immersed in their lives and available.”

Mental health and Catholicism 

As a psychologist himself, Bottaro sees an opportunity to bring the Catholic understanding of the human person into the realm of mental health. 

“The mental health space is crying out for a deeper vision of the human person — and Catholics are uniquely positioned to offer it,” he said. 

“We have a tradition that sees every person as made in the image of God, created with reason, will, emotion, and the capacity for communion,” he continued.

He noted that the field of psychology “often reduces people to diagnoses or data.” In this atmosphere, Catholic anthropology is “desperately needed.” 

Bottaro sees a deep connection between Catholicism and mental health. 

Catholics are “called to love,” Bottaro said simply. “Love means presence. It means walking with people in their pain, not from a place of superiority but from solidarity,” he said.

Mentorship is only possible with this “accompaniment.”

Bottaro said he hopes the app “draws people into deeper connection with God, with others, and with themselves.”

“My hope for this app — and this movement — is that it becomes a bridge,” he said. “A bridge between faith and psychology. Between suffering and healing. Between isolation and relationship.”

“I hope it raises the standard — not just for mental health care but for what it means to truly care for the human person,” he added.

Inspiration from Francsican friars

Bottaro spent four years discerning with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. He credits the experience for giving him the strength to launch the program.

Living with the friars trained Bottaro in “daily practice of trustful surrender to divine providence,” he said.

“There is no food unless God provides it through the generosity of another person. That’s hard,” Bottaro said.

The friars take a vow of poverty and work closely with the impoverished and the homeless of New York City. Living with them helped Bottaro “to leap with a faith that all things work for the good of those who love the Lord.”

“There is no way I would have taken the leap and launched a whole new method of accompaniment without that trust,” he said. 

The Integrated Daily Dialogic Mentorship program is more than just 24-hour access to a therapist. Therapists are formed and trained through Bottaro’s mentorship program, which has roots in his own “deeply ingrained” Franciscan spirituality.

Central to that worldview is “reverence for the individual human person and a love for the suffering soul,” Bottaro said. 

Most of all, Bottaro credits the “life, teaching, and friendship” of the late Father Benedict Groeschel, the Franciscan friar who mentored him.

As part of the certification process, soon-to-be mentors read Groeschel’s book “Spiritual Passages.”

“My students get to read his brilliant way of communicating the integration of spirituality and psychology, its importance, and how it can lead to human flourishing,” Bottaro said.

Centered on relationship 

With the rising use of AI chatbots for everything from grocery lists to therapy, Bottaro said it’s important to remain centered on “human connection.” 

Many are turning to AI chatbots when they need help, using it as a journal or treating it like a therapist. But Bottaro noted that AI lacks the essential human element of relationship.  

“AI can simulate answers — it can’t simulate relationship,” Bottaro said. “It can’t know you, hear the inflection in your voice, or pray with you. It can’t love.” 

Through the app, Bottaro hopes to provide that element of relationship.

“It’s a community of people who are formed together, who grow together, and who are invited to heal together,” Bottaro said.

“Everything we do is about building real human connection — rooted in faith, formed by truth, and carried out through relationships,” he added.  

Bottaro’s ministry, CatholicPsych Institute, will host its second annual conference this month, gathering together spirituality and mental health experts to discuss a Catholic response to the mental health crisis. Keynote talks will be led by various experts, including Francsican Friar of the Renewal Father Columba Jordan, at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey, from June 20–22. 

“In a world increasingly tempted to turn to algorithms for meaning and direction, we are trying to offer something radically countercultural,” Bottaro said. “Real people, trained and formed in the truth about the human person, who show up to walk with you toward healing, growth, and purpose.”

Psychologist Greg Bottaro, who once discerned a religious vcocation with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, founded the Integrated Daily Dialogic Mentorship program to give a new take on traditional therapy. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Greg Bottaro

CNA Staff, Jun 7, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

After years of therapy with certain patients, Catholic psychologist Greg Bottaro felt “stuck.” 

“I had poured myself into them for seven or eight years, but despite all that effort, we weren’t reaching real breakthroughs,” Bottaro explained. “Deep down, I knew there had to be a better way.”

During a subsequent sabbatical, Bottaro had an idea: therapy inspired by Christ’s “model of accompaniment.” It wouldn’t be a week-to-week check-in, where Bottaro said clients often forgot the problems they meant to ask about, or run up against the session time constraints. 

Instead, Bottaro’s vision involved 24-hour access to a therapist — not through paragraph-long texts or late-night phone calls but through voice messages.

After testing the process out with some clients using a voice message app, Bottaro found that “within weeks, we started seeing breakthroughs.” So he launched a program called Integrated Daily Dialogic Mentorship to provide a new take on traditional therapy. 

“This is how Jesus actually accompanied people,” Bottaro explained. “He walked with his disciples daily, immersed in their lives and available.”

Mental health and Catholicism 

As a psychologist himself, Bottaro sees an opportunity to bring the Catholic understanding of the human person into the realm of mental health. 

“The mental health space is crying out for a deeper vision of the human person — and Catholics are uniquely positioned to offer it,” he said. 

“We have a tradition that sees every person as made in the image of God, created with reason, will, emotion, and the capacity for communion,” he continued.

He noted that the field of psychology “often reduces people to diagnoses or data.” In this atmosphere, Catholic anthropology is “desperately needed.” 

Bottaro sees a deep connection between Catholicism and mental health. 

Catholics are “called to love,” Bottaro said simply. “Love means presence. It means walking with people in their pain, not from a place of superiority but from solidarity,” he said.

Mentorship is only possible with this “accompaniment.”

Bottaro said he hopes the app “draws people into deeper connection with God, with others, and with themselves.”

“My hope for this app — and this movement — is that it becomes a bridge,” he said. “A bridge between faith and psychology. Between suffering and healing. Between isolation and relationship.”

“I hope it raises the standard — not just for mental health care but for what it means to truly care for the human person,” he added.

Inspiration from Francsican friars

Bottaro spent four years discerning with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. He credits the experience for giving him the strength to launch the program.

Living with the friars trained Bottaro in “daily practice of trustful surrender to divine providence,” he said.

“There is no food unless God provides it through the generosity of another person. That’s hard,” Bottaro said.

The friars take a vow of poverty and work closely with the impoverished and the homeless of New York City. Living with them helped Bottaro “to leap with a faith that all things work for the good of those who love the Lord.”

“There is no way I would have taken the leap and launched a whole new method of accompaniment without that trust,” he said. 

The Integrated Daily Dialogic Mentorship program is more than just 24-hour access to a therapist. Therapists are formed and trained through Bottaro’s mentorship program, which has roots in his own “deeply ingrained” Franciscan spirituality.

Central to that worldview is “reverence for the individual human person and a love for the suffering soul,” Bottaro said. 

Most of all, Bottaro credits the “life, teaching, and friendship” of the late Father Benedict Groeschel, the Franciscan friar who mentored him.

As part of the certification process, soon-to-be mentors read Groeschel’s book “Spiritual Passages.”

“My students get to read his brilliant way of communicating the integration of spirituality and psychology, its importance, and how it can lead to human flourishing,” Bottaro said.

Centered on relationship 

With the rising use of AI chatbots for everything from grocery lists to therapy, Bottaro said it’s important to remain centered on “human connection.” 

Many are turning to AI chatbots when they need help, using it as a journal or treating it like a therapist. But Bottaro noted that AI lacks the essential human element of relationship.  

“AI can simulate answers — it can’t simulate relationship,” Bottaro said. “It can’t know you, hear the inflection in your voice, or pray with you. It can’t love.” 

Through the app, Bottaro hopes to provide that element of relationship.

“It’s a community of people who are formed together, who grow together, and who are invited to heal together,” Bottaro said.

“Everything we do is about building real human connection — rooted in faith, formed by truth, and carried out through relationships,” he added.  

Bottaro’s ministry, CatholicPsych Institute, will host its second annual conference this month, gathering together spirituality and mental health experts to discuss a Catholic response to the mental health crisis. Keynote talks will be led by various experts, including Francsican Friar of the Renewal Father Columba Jordan, at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey, from June 20–22. 

“In a world increasingly tempted to turn to algorithms for meaning and direction, we are trying to offer something radically countercultural,” Bottaro said. “Real people, trained and formed in the truth about the human person, who show up to walk with you toward healing, growth, and purpose.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- On the eve of Pentecost, Pope Leo XIV prayed that the Holy Spirit would help Catholic lay associations, movements and communities live the Gospel before trying to preach it and would be a force for unity in the church and in the world.

"In a divided and troubled world, the Holy Spirit teaches us to walk together in unity," the pope said as he joined an estimated 70,000 people for an evening prayer vigil in St. Peter's Square June 7.

"Evangelization, dear brothers and sisters, is not our attempt to conquer the world, but the infinite grace that radiates from lives transformed by the Kingdom of God," he said. Evangelization requires walking together on "the way of the Beatitudes," being people who are "hungering and thirsting for justice, poor in spirit, merciful, meek, pure of heart, men and women of peace."

"Jesus himself chose this path," Pope Leo insisted. "To follow it, we have no need of powerful patrons, worldly compromises, or emotional strategies." 

The vigil was part of the Jubilee of Ecclesial Movements, Associations and New Communities. The program began about 90 minutes before Pope Leo arrived in the popemobile. The Focolare movement's international Gen Verde choir and band performed; and members of the Sant'Egidio Community, the Neocatechumenal Way, Nuovi Orizzonti and Communion and Liberation gave testimonies about how the groups helped them grow closer to Jesus and motivated them to help others.

The program was punctuated with video clips of St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XIV and Pope Francis addressing similar Pentecost vigils with the groups.

The gifts of the Holy Spirit, given to build up the unity of the church and inspire its efforts to help others, was the common theme of the clips.

In his address, Pope Leo said "synodality" is "a word that aptly expresses how the Spirit shapes the Church." 

At Pentecost, Mary and the disciples "received a Spirit of unity, which forever grounded in the one Lord Jesus Christ all their diversity," he said. "Theirs were not multiple missions, but a single mission. They were no longer introverted and quarrelling with one another, but outgoing and radiant with joy."

"Dear friends, God created the world so that we might all live as one. 'Synodality' is the ecclesial name for this," the pope said. "It demands that we each recognize our own poverty and our riches, that we feel part of a greater whole, apart from which everything withers, even the most original and unique of charisms."

"Think about it," he told the crowd. "All creation exists solely in the form of coexistence, sometimes dangerous, yet always interconnected."

"The opposite is lethal, but sadly, we are witnessing this daily," the pope said. "May your meetings and your communities, then, be training grounds of fraternity and sharing, not merely meeting places, but centers of spirituality." 

The Holy Spirit can change the world because it can change human hearts, he said. "The Spirit inspires the contemplative dimension of life that rejects self-assertion, complaining, rivalry and the temptation to control consciences and resources."

Celebrating Pentecost during a Jubilee Year, he said, is a special time to recognize the importance of walking together and showing the world the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.

"The earth will rest, justice will prevail, the poor will rejoice, and peace will return, once we no longer act as predators but as pilgrims," the pope said. "No longer each of us for ourselves, but walking alongside one another. Not greedily exploiting this world, but cultivating it and protecting it, as the Encyclical Laudato Si' has taught us."

If the groups are united among themselves and with their local parishes and dioceses, he said, "all of us will then work together harmoniously as one. The challenges facing humanity will be less frightening, the future will be less dark, and discernment will be less complicated -- if together we obey the Holy Spirit!"
 

Pope Leo's vision of evangelization

Pope Leo XIV celebrated the Vigil of Pentecost with the Jubilee of Movements, Associations, and New Communities on June 7 in St. Peter’s Square. In his homily, the pope outlined his vision for the church’s mission of evangelization, emphasizing that it...