Conductor Riccardo Muti has been awarded the 2025 Ratzinger Prize. / Credit: Riccardo Muti Italian Opera Academy

Vatican City, Nov 25, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV will present the 2025 Ratzinger Prize to the renowned Italian conductor Riccardo Muti, one of the most influential and respected figures in international music, during a concert in the pope’s honor on Dec. 12.

The Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation announced that the prize will be awarded to Muti at a Christmas concert directed by the Italian conductor in the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican, in the presence of the pope.

Recognized for the expressive depth with which he interprets musical scores, Muti was also admired by Benedict XVI, who, beyond his profound theological erudition, was a great lover and connoisseur of classical music. The German pontiff was an ardent admirer of Muti’s talent, to which he attributed exceptional spiritual and cultural value.

The maestro reciprocated this esteem with repeated expressions of affection, even after Benedict XVI resigned from the papacy in February 2013, when he moved to the “Mater Ecclesiae” Monastery for a life of prayer and seclusion.

Upon learning of the award, Muti expressed his emotion with these words: “I have always followed and deeply admired Pope Benedict XVI, whose thoughts, reflections, and meditations have been and will continue to be a source of [spiritual] nourishment for men and women of goodwill.”

The presentation of the 2025 Ratzinger Prize will not only celebrate the maestro’s artistic achievements but will also be a tribute to the relationship of mutual admiration and profound respect he had for Benedict.

The concert will include the “Mass for the Coronation of Charles X,“ composed by Luigi Cherubini in 1885, performed by the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra and the Guidi Chigi Saracini Choir of the Cathedral of Siena.

Muti, born in 1941 in Naples, began his musical career as a pianist and choirmaster, eventually becoming one of the world’s most renowned conductors.

He has conducted some of the foremost orchestras, such as the New York Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, and the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, where he has left an indelible mark thanks to his commitment to the faithful interpretation of classical music. Throughout his career, he has received numerous international awards, solidifying his reputation as a master of the symphonic and operatic repertoire.

The Ratzinger Prize, established in 2011, is awarded annually upon the recommendation of the foundation’s scientific committee and with the approval of the pope, recognizing outstanding figures in Christian-inspired culture and art. Previous recipients include theologians, biblical scholars, philosophers, jurists, and artists from various continents and religious denominations.

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

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Vatican City, Nov 25, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

A new Vatican document defends marriage as a monogamous relationship amid the growing popularity of polyamory and addresses the pastoral challenges caused by conversion to Catholicism of people in polygamous situations.

“One Flesh: In Praise of Monogamy” was published in Italian by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on Nov. 25.

“Polygamy, adultery, or polyamory are based on the illusion that the intensity of the relationship can be found in the succession of partners,” the Vatican says.

To illustrate this metaphorically, the text cites the myth of Don Juan, an unbridled seducer whose womanizing leads him to hell, which demonstrates that “multiplying partners in a supposed total union means fragmenting the meaning of marital love.”

The text also draws on the writing of poets Walt Whitman, Pablo Neruda, Rabindranath Tagore, and Emily Dickinson, as well as philosophers such as the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard.

The document, signed by Pope Leo XIV, does not address the indissolubility of marriage or the purpose of procreation but focuses on the unitive aspect of marriage: “A communion of love and life shared by both spouses, a communion that is not oriented solely toward procreation but also toward the integral good of both.”

The text originated from a request made during the Synod on Synodality for African bishops to prepare a statement on polygamy. African bishops themselves asked the Holy See for guidance on the issue, the doctrine dicastery said earlier this month.

In the Nov. 25 document, the dicastery says it also wanted to provide a deeper reflection on monogamy in the face of growing “public forms of nonmonogamous unions — sometimes called ‘polyamory’” — in the West.

The Vatican’s doctrinal note emphasizes that “properly understood, monogamy is not simply the opposite of polygamy.”

Drawing from the teachings of St. John Paul II, the Vatican affirms that “only monogamy guarantees that sexuality develops within a framework of recognizing the other as a subject with whom one shares one’s life entirely, a subject who is an end in himself and never a means to one’s own needs. Sexual union, which involves the whole person, can treat the other as a person, that is, as a co-subject of love and not an object of use, only if it develops within the framework of a unique and exclusive belonging.”

“Those who give themselves fully and completely to the other can only be two,” the text states, after noting that in nonmonogamous relationships everyone “would be treated as means and not as persons.”

Sexuality: Total and open to life

The text makes it clear that placing sexuality within the framework of a love that “unites spouses in a single friendship” does not imply a “devaluation of sexual pleasure.” Rather, “by orienting it toward self-giving, it is not only enriched but also enhanced.”

Thus, “sexuality is no longer the release of an immediate need but a personal choice that expresses the totality of the person.”

The Vatican criticizes contemporary culture that reduces sexuality to consumption: “Various problems have arisen from an excessive and uncontrolled pursuit of sex, or from the simple denial of its procreative purpose.”

Therefore, the Vatican defends openness to life in sexual union as a form of expression of “conjugal charity” without requiring that every act explicitly have that purpose.

On an anthropological level, the document insists that “the defense of monogamy is also a defense of the dignity of women,” since “the unity of marriage implies, therefore, a free choice on the part of the woman, who has the right to demand exclusive reciprocity.”

The document also addresses sexual violence, which it says proliferates on social media, and invites Catholics to provide education on “faithful and monogamous love.”

“Education in monogamy is not a moral restriction but rather an initiation into the grandeur of a love that transcends immediacy,” it says.

Theological foundations and spiritual tradition

The text offers a broad overview of the Christian tradition that has upheld and reflected upon marital unity. It quotes popes and Church fathers, including St. John Chrysostom, who saw in marital unity an antidote to “unbridled sexual abandon, without love or fidelity.”

Citing the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the text also considers the challenges for those who, desiring to convert to the Catholic faith, must navigate complex family situations. In addition to Africa, the document cites Asia, specifically India, where “monogamy has generally been the norm and has been considered an ideal in married life,” but polygamous relationships have also been present.

Africa’s Catholic bishops issued a document earlier this year with six pastoral guidelines for how to welcome people in polygamous situations into the Church, both while upholding Church teaching on marriage and not leaving women and children vulnerable to abandonment and poverty.

At the Aug. 4 assembly of the Symposium of Episcopal Conference of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) in Kigali, Rwanda, Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Cameroon’s Bamenda Catholic Archdiocese clarified that during the deliberations at the Synod on Synodality, “polygamy was not brought up as an African concept to be approved. It was brought up as a challenge to Christian marriage in Africa.”

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

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EWTN News, Nov 24, 2025 / 16:08 pm (CNA).

Published on Oct. 30, the document is intended to serve as an orientation aid for Catholic and other schools in Germany.

Pope Leo XIV greets pilgrims from Latvia on Nov. 24, 2025, at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media

ACI Prensa Staff, Nov 24, 2025 / 15:38 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV stated that hope “does not mean having all the answers, but rather it calls us to put our trust in God.”

The pontiff made his remarks during an audience granted Nov. 24 at the Vatican to faithful from Latvia, who traveled to the Eternal City to commemorate the centenary of the first official Latvian pilgrimage to Rome.

After greeting Prime Minister Evika Siliņa, with whom he had met privately earlier, the Holy Father thanked the pilgrims for keeping the tradition alive and following in the footsteps “of your forebears in the faith.”

He then recalled that Rome “has always been a home for all Christians, since it is here that the great apostles Peter and Paul gave the supreme witness to the Gospel by becoming martyrs for the faith.”

The Holy Father also recalled Pope Francis’ visit to the country in 2018, on the occasion of the centenary of the nation’s independence, where he spoke “of the difficulties your country experienced in the past.”

“While the current conflict in your region may evoke memories of those turbulent times,” Leo said, “it is important for all of us to turn to God and to be strengthened by God’s grace when faced with such tribulation.”

Recalling Francis’ words, Leo emphasized the “vital role the Christian faith played in your country’s history.” He expressed gratitude for the bond between Latvia and the Holy See, whose relations have grown closer in recent years.

The Holy Father also affirmed that it is necessary to unite with hope “the virtue of faith in order to keep our eyes on the present and see the many ways that God is blessing us here and now.”

In this regard, he explained that a pilgrimage “has an important role in our life of faith for it gives us the time and space to encounter God more deeply.”

“It takes us away from the routine and noise of everyday life,” he added, “and offers the space and silence to hear God’s voice more clearly.”

Finally, he encouraged them to share what they experienced in Rome when they return home, because, he affirmed, “a pilgrimage does not end but its seeds should take root in your daily discipleship and bear fruit in your lives.”

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 receives Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople at the Vatican on May 30, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Nov 23, 2025 / 12:29 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV has called on Christians to move beyond “theological controversies” that no longer serve the cause of unity and to rediscover together the faith professed at the Council of Nicaea 1,700 years ago.

In a new apostolic letter, In Unitate Fidei (“In the Unity of Faith”), released Nov. 23, the solemnity of Christ the King, the pope links the anniversary of the first ecumenical council to the holy year of 2025 and to his upcoming apostolic journey to Turkey, where he will commemorate Nicaea’s 1,700th anniversary and take part in an ecumenical event with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew on Nov. 30 before traveling on to Lebanon.

“I would like this letter to encourage the whole Church to renew her enthusiasm for the profession of faith,” the pope writes, stressing that the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed “for centuries … has been the common heritage of Christians, and it deserves to be professed and understood in ever new and relevant ways.”

In a strong ecumenical appeal, Leo XIV says the Nicene Creed “can be the basis and reference point” for a renewed journey toward full communion among Christians. “It offers us a model of true unity in legitimate diversity. Unity in the Trinity, Trinity in unity, because unity without multiplicity is tyranny, multiplicity without unity is fragmentation,” he writes.

“We must therefore leave behind theological controversies that have lost their ‘raison d’être’ in order to develop a common understanding and even more, a common prayer to the Holy Spirit, so that he may gather us all together in one faith and one love,” the pope continues.

“The restoration of unity among Christians does not make us poorer; on the contrary, it enriches us,” he adds, calling the goal of full visible unity “a theological challenge and, even more so, a spiritual challenge, which requires repentance and conversion on the part of all.”

‘This Creed gives us hope’

Linking Nicaea to today’s crises, Leo XIV notes that the holy year is dedicated to the theme “Christ Our Hope” and that the Nicene Creed remains a source of confidence amid war, injustice, and suffering.

“In this holy year, dedicated to the theme of ‘Christ Our Hope,’ it is a providential coincidence that we are also celebrating the 1,700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea,” he writes. That council, he recalls, “proclaimed the profession of faith in Jesus Christ, Son of God. This is the heart of the Christian faith.”

“In these difficult times we are living, amid so many concerns and fears, threats of war and violence, natural disasters, grave injustices and imbalances, and the hunger and misery suffered by millions of our brothers and sisters, this Creed gives us hope,” the pope says.

Leo XIV presents the letter as an invitation for all Christians “to walk in harmony, guarding and transmitting the gift they have received with love and joy,” especially through the words of the Creed: “I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God … for our salvation he came down from heaven.”

Nicaea and the heart of the Christian faith

The pope devotes much of In Unitate Fidei to explaining the historical and theological context of the Council of Nicaea, which met in 325 to address the Arian controversy over the divinity of Christ.

The dispute, he notes, “concerned the essence of the Christian faith,” namely the answer to Jesus’ question in the Gospel: “Who do you say that I am?” In response, the Nicene Fathers confessed that Jesus is the Son of God “in as much as he is of the substance (ousia) of the Father … ‘begotten, not made, consubstantial (homooúsios) with the Father.’”

“The Fathers of Nicaea were firm in their resolution to remain faithful to biblical monotheism and the authenticity of the Incarnation,” Leo XIV writes. By adopting terms such as “substance” and “consubstantial,” which are not found in Scripture, the council “did not … replace biblical statements with Greek philosophy,” he explains. Rather, it sought “to affirm biblical faith with clarity and to distinguish it from Arius’ error, which was deeply influenced by Hellenism.”

“The Nicene Creed does not depict a distant, inaccessible, and immovable God who rests in himself but a God who is close to us and accompanies us on our journey in the world, even in the darkest places on earth,” the pope writes. “His immensity is revealed when he makes himself small, laying aside his infinite majesty to become our neighbor in the little ones and in the poor. This revolutionizes pagan and philosophical conceptions of God.”

Leo XIV also highlights the Nicene emphasis on the full humanity of Christ, noting the clarification that the Word “became man.” Against teachings that suggested the Logos only assumed a body, he recalls that later councils made explicit that “in Christ, God assumed and redeemed the whole human being, body and soul.”

Quoting St. Athanasius and the patristic tradition, the pope writes: “Divinization, then, is true humanization (becoming fully human). This is why human existence points beyond itself, seeks beyond itself, desires beyond itself, and is restless until it rests in God.” Only God, he adds, “in his infinity, can satisfy the infinite desire of the human heart, and for this reason the Son of God chose to become our brother and redeemer.”

A call to examine conscience

Beyond doctrine, Leo XIV insists that the Creed must shape Christian life.

“Both the liturgy and the Christian life are thus firmly anchored in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed: What we profess with our mouths must come from the heart so that we may bear witness to it with our lives,” he writes. “We must therefore ask ourselves: What about our interior reception of the Creed today? Do we experience that it also affects our current situation? Do we understand and live out what we say every Sunday? What do these words mean for our lives?”

“In this sense, the Nicene Creed invites us to examine our conscience,” the pope continues. “What does God mean to me and how do I bear witness to my faith in him? Is the one and only God truly the Lord of my life, or do I have idols that I place before God and his commandments?”

He ties this examination to care for creation and social justice, asking: “How do I treat creation, the work of his hands? Do I exploit and destroy it, or do I use it with reverence and gratitude, caring for and cultivating it as the common home of humanity?”

Echoing the Second Vatican Council, Leo XIV notes that “for many people today, however, God and the question of God have almost no meaning in their lives” and that Christians themselves bear some responsibility, since “they do not bear witness to the true faith; they hide the true face of God with lifestyles and actions that diverge from the Gospel.”

Instead of proclaiming a merciful God, he laments, “a vengeful God has been presented who instils terror and punishes.”

Following Christ and loving one another

At the center of the Creed, the pope writes, is the confession of Jesus Christ as Lord and God.

“The profession of faith in Jesus Christ, Our Lord and God, is the center of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. This is the heart of our Christian life,” he says. “For this reason, we commit to follow Jesus as our master, companion, brother, and friend.”

Following Christ, he continues, “is not a wide and comfortable path,” but “this often demanding or even painful path always leads to life and salvation.”

“If God loves us with all his being, then we too must love one another,” Leo XIV writes. “We cannot love God whom we do not see without loving our brother and sister whom we do see. Love for God without love for neighbor is hypocrisy; radical love for our neighbor, especially love for our enemies, without love for God, requires a ‘heroism’ that would overwhelm and oppress us.”

“In the face of disasters, wars, and misery, we bear witness to God’s mercy to those who doubt him only when they experience his mercy through us,” he adds.

Ecumenism as ‘sign of peace and instrument of reconciliation’

Recalling the teaching of Vatican II and St. John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical Ut Unum Sint, the pope says that in a divided world “the one universal Christian community can be a sign of peace and an instrument of reconciliation, playing a decisive role in the global commitment to peace.”

He notes that, while full visible unity with Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and communities born of the Reformation has not yet been achieved, ecumenical dialogue “founded on one baptism and the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed” has already helped Christians recognize each other as brothers and sisters in Christ and rediscover “the one universal community of Christ’s disciples throughout the world.”

“We share the same faith in the one and only God, the Father of all people; we confess together the one Lord and true Son of God, Jesus Christ, and the one Holy Spirit, who inspires us and impels us towards full unity and the common witness to the Gospel,” he writes. “Truly, what unites us is much greater than what divides us!”

‘Come, divine Comforter’

The letter concludes with a prayer to the Holy Spirit for the renewal of faith and the healing of divisions among Christians.

“Holy Spirit of God, you guide believers along the path of history,” Leo XIV prays. “We thank you for inspiring the symbols of faith and for stirring in our hearts the joy of professing our salvation in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, consubstantial with the Father. Without him, we can do nothing.”

“Come, divine Comforter, source of harmony, unite the hearts and minds of believers. Come and grant us to taste the beauty of communion,” he continues. “Come, Love of the Father and the Son, gather us into the one flock of Christ. Show us the ways to follow, so that with your wisdom, we become once again what we are in Christ: one, so that the world may believe.”

The Chapel of Christ the King at Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia. / Credit: Courtesy of Christendom College

Dublin, Ireland, Nov 23, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

The feast of Christ the King was instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925 following his encyclical Quas Primas. Today it is celebrated on the final Sunday before Advent. 

null / Credit: Courtesy of the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles

Dublin, Ireland, Nov 22, 2025 / 13:00 pm (CNA).

How Marthe de Noaillat championed Christ’s kingship against all odds.

Kevin Duffy'’s analysis of ONS conceptions data over the 10 years to 2022 illustrates that approximately half of women who have not had a child by the age of 30 would not have been childless without abortion in the years before this. Duffy says: “For these women it was a decision upon becoming pregnant, not to continue into motherhood at that time, for a whole myriad of reasons.” / Credit: Courtesy of Kevin Duffy

London, England, Nov 22, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

A report called “Abortion and Childlessness” shows that many women who have abortions in their 20s may be faced with the real risk of remaining childless at 45.

Archbishop Dermot Farrell of the Dublin Archdiocese holds up the decree on Nov. 14, 2025, that Pope Leo XIV sent him granting his request that St. Mary’s Pro Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Dublin be designated as the cathedral Church of the archdiocese. / Credit: John McElroy/Dublin Archdiocese

Dublin, Ireland, Nov 21, 2025 / 12:09 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV formally designated St. Mary’s Pro Cathedral as the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Dublin, ending 200 years of the cathedral’s “temporary” status.

The ordination of Jonathan Goodall (former Anglican bishop) to the Catholic priesthood in Westminster Cathedral, London, March 12, 2022. / Credit: Mazur/CBCEW.org.uk

London, England, Nov 21, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

The U.K. has seen a significant rise in Anglican clergy, including bishops, converting to Catholicism, according to a new report released Nov. 20.