Posted on 09/16/2025 16:24 PM (CNA Daily News)
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. / Credit: President.gov.ua/Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
CNA Staff, Sep 16, 2025 / 12:24 pm (CNA).
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople met with President Donald Trump this week during a visit to the United States, with the leaders discussing world affairs including ongoing strife in the Middle East and Ukraine.
A press release on the patriarch’s website said Bartholomew, considered the first among equals in the Orthodox Church, met with Trump in a “very cordial atmosphere” and congratulated the U.S. leader “on his initiatives and overall efforts to promote peace in the world, and particularly in Ukraine.”
The leaders “also discussed the situation of Christians in the Middle East.”
Also present at the meeting were numerous other Orthodox leaders as well as U.S. Vice President JD Vance. Bartholomew’s office said the patriarch also “offered his condolences to [Trump] for the murder of his friend and colleague Charlie Kirk.”
Kirk, a prominent conservative activist, was shot and killed by an assassin on Sept. 10. Trump has publicly mourned Kirk’s death.
In his first visit to the U.S. in about four years, the patriarch will stay for nearly two weeks.
Bartholomew’s tenure, which began in 1991, has been marked by overtures of reconciliation between the Eastern church and Rome on several centuries-old disputes.
In March of this year the patriarch offered a hopeful historical assessment of the traditional 1054 date for the “Great Schism” between Rome and Constantinople, suggesting that those tensions developed gradually over time and “are not insurmountable.”
During a meeting with Orthodox leaders in June, Pope Leo XIV stated his intention to “persevere in the effort to reestablish full visible communion between [the] churches.”
The Holy Father said that goal can only be achieved “with God’s help, through a continued commitment to respectful listening and fraternal dialogue.”
Amid numerous visits scheduled for his trip in the U.S. this month, Bartholomew is scheduled to receive the Templeton Prize on Sept. 24.
The John Templeton Foundation said in April that the patriarch was being awarded the prestigious recognition “for his pioneering efforts to bridge scientific and spiritual understandings of humanity’s relationship with the natural world, bringing together people of different faiths to heed a call for stewardship of creation.”
Bartholomew has been hailed as the “Green Patriarch” for his promotion of environmental values and causes. The leader has called for the faithful to “protect life on earth from the worst consequences of human recklessness.”
Posted on 09/16/2025 16:24 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. / Credit: President.gov.ua/Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
CNA Staff, Sep 16, 2025 / 12:24 pm (CNA).
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople met with President Donald Trump this week during a visit to the United States, with the leaders discussing world affairs including ongoing strife in the Middle East and Ukraine.
A press release on the patriarch’s website said Bartholomew, considered the first among equals in the Orthodox Church, met with Trump in a “very cordial atmosphere” and congratulated the U.S. leader “on his initiatives and overall efforts to promote peace in the world, and particularly in Ukraine.”
The leaders “also discussed the situation of Christians in the Middle East.”
Also present at the meeting were numerous other Orthodox leaders as well as U.S. Vice President JD Vance. Bartholomew’s office said the patriarch also “offered his condolences to [Trump] for the murder of his friend and colleague Charlie Kirk.”
Kirk, a prominent conservative activist, was shot and killed by an assassin on Sept. 10. Trump has publicly mourned Kirk’s death.
In his first visit to the U.S. in about four years, the patriarch will stay for nearly two weeks.
Bartholomew’s tenure, which began in 1991, has been marked by overtures of reconciliation between the Eastern church and Rome on several centuries-old disputes.
In March of this year the patriarch offered a hopeful historical assessment of the traditional 1054 date for the “Great Schism” between Rome and Constantinople, suggesting that those tensions developed gradually over time and “are not insurmountable.”
During a meeting with Orthodox leaders in June, Pope Leo XIV stated his intention to “persevere in the effort to reestablish full visible communion between [the] churches.”
The Holy Father said that goal can only be achieved “with God’s help, through a continued commitment to respectful listening and fraternal dialogue.”
Amid numerous visits scheduled for his trip in the U.S. this month, Bartholomew is scheduled to receive the Templeton Prize on Sept. 24.
The John Templeton Foundation said in April that the patriarch was being awarded the prestigious recognition “for his pioneering efforts to bridge scientific and spiritual understandings of humanity’s relationship with the natural world, bringing together people of different faiths to heed a call for stewardship of creation.”
Bartholomew has been hailed as the “Green Patriarch” for his promotion of environmental values and causes. The leader has called for the faithful to “protect life on earth from the worst consequences of human recklessness.”
Posted on 09/16/2025 15:54 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
A display promotes the cause for canonization for the founder of the Knights of Columbus, Blessed Michael McGivney, on Sept. 14, 2025. / Credit: Tessa Gervasini/CNA
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 16, 2025 / 11:54 am (CNA).
The canonization of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in 1975 not only marked the establishment of the first American-born saint but also opened the door for other American Catholics to be honored for embodying the universal call to holiness.
“What made her canonization remarkable was that after 200 years of history in the country, it was the first time that a native-born American was declared a saint of the universal Church,” Rob Judge, executive director of the National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton in Emmitsburg, Maryland, told CNA. “It was this validation, that you can come from these lands and obtain holiness.”
Today there are 87 American Catholics on their way to sainthood. To recognize these men and women, the shrine put together the “Saints on Their Way Village” to help share the stories of Americans deemed blessed, venerable, and servants of God.
The “Saints on Their Way Village” was displayed on Sept. 14 — the 50-year anniversary of Seton’s canonization — and was made up of nearly two dozen guilds, each dedicated to advancing the cause of an American on the path to sainthood. They gathered on the shrine’s grounds, where Mother Seton lived and worshipped, to host tables with information and to sign petitions to help advance their causes.
“St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and those on the path to joining her all share one thing in common: They each lived lives of love and service that embody the universal call to holiness,” Judge said.
In 2000, Dorothy Day became a servant of God after her cause for sainthood was officially opened by the Church. Members of the Dorothy Day Guild attended the event to highlight her “steadfastness” and “relatability.”
Day worked as an activist and journalist, focused on social justice and aiding the poor. She influenced 20th-century American Catholicism by demonstrating the “preferential option for the poor,” which integrated faith and action.
“What I find hopeful is that she stayed the course her whole lifetime,” guild member Carolyn Zablotny told CNA. “There were times where I’m sure she had her doubts and she wrote so openly about her struggles. She’s not a cookie-cutter kind of person, she failed at times, but she persevered.”
Day is a “sign of hope,” Zablotny said. “She’s a radical alternative to militarism, racism, and the selfishness that we’re all suffering from. I think she’s a real model for a different kind of holiness.”
Members of the Father Solanus Guild shared the message of Blessed Solanus Casey and provided a prayer for the Capuchin’s canonization. Fellow friar and guild member Brother Daniel, who did not wish to share his full name, told CNA that Casey’s “main goal” was to “thank God ahead of time” as a way to recognize what he is already doing in our lives.
Casey grew up on a farm in Wisconsin and was known as a “simple man” who dedicated his ministry to the sick and troubled. While the Catholic Church has only officially attributed one miracle to Casey, many people have shared stories of unexplained healing after asking for his intercession.
“One of our brothers in the order, his family is connected with Father Solanus,” Brother Daniel said. “He got in an accident and the doctor wanted to amputate his legs. So his mother and father came to Solanus and told him ‘the doctors are going to amputate the leg of my son.’ Solanus said: ‘Nothing is going to happen. Don’t worry.’ The doctors, the next morning, said they could do [another] treatment and not amputate his legs.”
“When people come to [Solanus], he may not get rid of all the problems,” Brother Daniel said. “But when they go from him, they feel peace. They feel that someone is there to comfort them.”
Francis Xavier Seelos was born in Germany in 1819 but moved to the United States and lived much of his life in New Orleans. Now the city houses the National Shrine of Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos, where people come daily “to ask for the blessing of Blessed Francis,” Father Steve, a priest advocating for his canonization who did not wish to give his full name, told CNA.
Seelos was known “as a wonderful man,” he said. “He was totally self-giving — the type of person that makes a saint. When people were sick, he didn’t think about himself at all. He went to bless them and ended up getting sick himself, which is how he died.”
Blessed Francis served as a priest during a time where judgment was often passed, but he “was very kind and gentle in confession,” Father Steve said. “His confession line was always longer than anybody else’s because he was willing to listen and give absolution without making people feel bad.”
Mother Mary Lange was an American religious sister who founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first African American religious congregation in the United States. In 1829, she founded the order despite the trials she knew she would endure. She believed that “if you put your faith in God, it’ll be OK,” Phyllis Johnson, a member of the Mother Mary Lange Guild, told CNA.
The guild is advocating for her canonization because “she loved all people,” Johnson said. “Even the people who treated her shabbily, she still cared for them. She’s a saint for everyone. She took care of everyone. She didn’t discriminate … So if anybody should be a saint, it’s the person who says ‘all people are God’s people.’”
Several employees of the Knights of Columbus, the world’s largest Catholic fraternal service organization, talked with attendees to share the cause for canonization of the organization’s founder, Father Michael J. McGivney.
“He’s a powerful intercessor,” Alicia Mucha, manager of events at the Knights of Columbus, told CNA. “He loves to answer prayers for unemployment, family conflict, and any substance abuse.”
In 1882, McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus “to give men a better community, something that was rooted in their faith that would keep them away from drinking,” Mucha said. The organization started in Connecticut “to provide benefits for women and children, in case anything happened to the men. He would ensure that women and orphans were taken care of.”
In 2020, McGivney was beatified after the Vatican recognized a miracle attributed to his intercession.
Judge said that McGivney and the other potential American saints show “us that we, too, can draw closer to God and achieve great things.”
Posted on 09/16/2025 15:54 PM (CNA Daily News)
A display promotes the cause for canonization for the founder of the Knights of Columbus, Blessed Michael McGivney, on Sept. 14, 2025. / Credit: Tessa Gervasini/CNA
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 16, 2025 / 11:54 am (CNA).
The canonization of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in 1975 not only marked the establishment of the first American-born saint but also opened the door for other American Catholics to be honored for embodying the universal call to holiness.
“What made her canonization remarkable was that after 200 years of history in the country, it was the first time that a native-born American was declared a saint of the universal Church,” Rob Judge, executive director of the National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton in Emmitsburg, Maryland, told CNA. “It was this validation, that you can come from these lands and obtain holiness.”
Today there are 87 American Catholics on their way to sainthood. To recognize these men and women, the shrine put together the “Saints on Their Way Village” to help share the stories of Americans deemed blessed, venerable, and servants of God.
The “Saints on Their Way Village” was displayed on Sept. 14 — the 50-year anniversary of Seton’s canonization — and was made up of nearly two dozen guilds, each dedicated to advancing the cause of an American on the path to sainthood. They gathered on the shrine’s grounds, where Mother Seton lived and worshipped, to host tables with information and to sign petitions to help advance their causes.
“St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and those on the path to joining her all share one thing in common: They each lived lives of love and service that embody the universal call to holiness,” Judge said.
In 2000, Dorothy Day became a servant of God after her cause for sainthood was officially opened by the Church. Members of the Dorothy Day Guild attended the event to highlight her “steadfastness” and “relatability.”
Day worked as an activist and journalist, focused on social justice and aiding the poor. She influenced 20th-century American Catholicism by demonstrating the “preferential option for the poor,” which integrated faith and action.
“What I find hopeful is that she stayed the course her whole lifetime,” guild member Carolyn Zablotny told CNA. “There were times where I’m sure she had her doubts and she wrote so openly about her struggles. She’s not a cookie-cutter kind of person, she failed at times, but she persevered.”
Day is a “sign of hope,” Zablotny said. “She’s a radical alternative to militarism, racism, and the selfishness that we’re all suffering from. I think she’s a real model for a different kind of holiness.”
Members of the Father Solanus Guild shared the message of Blessed Solanus Casey and provided a prayer for the Capuchin’s canonization. Fellow friar and guild member Brother Daniel, who did not wish to share his full name, told CNA that Casey’s “main goal” was to “thank God ahead of time” as a way to recognize what he is already doing in our lives.
Casey grew up on a farm in Wisconsin and was known as a “simple man” who dedicated his ministry to the sick and troubled. While the Catholic Church has only officially attributed one miracle to Casey, many people have shared stories of unexplained healing after asking for his intercession.
“One of our brothers in the order, his family is connected with Father Solanus,” Brother Daniel said. “He got in an accident and the doctor wanted to amputate his legs. So his mother and father came to Solanus and told him ‘the doctors are going to amputate the leg of my son.’ Solanus said: ‘Nothing is going to happen. Don’t worry.’ The doctors, the next morning, said they could do [another] treatment and not amputate his legs.”
“When people come to [Solanus], he may not get rid of all the problems,” Brother Daniel said. “But when they go from him, they feel peace. They feel that someone is there to comfort them.”
Francis Xavier Seelos was born in Germany in 1819 but moved to the United States and lived much of his life in New Orleans. Now the city houses the National Shrine of Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos, where people come daily “to ask for the blessing of Blessed Francis,” Father Steve, a priest advocating for his canonization who did not wish to give his full name, told CNA.
Seelos was known “as a wonderful man,” he said. “He was totally self-giving — the type of person that makes a saint. When people were sick, he didn’t think about himself at all. He went to bless them and ended up getting sick himself, which is how he died.”
Blessed Francis served as a priest during a time where judgment was often passed, but he “was very kind and gentle in confession,” Father Steve said. “His confession line was always longer than anybody else’s because he was willing to listen and give absolution without making people feel bad.”
Mother Mary Lange was an American religious sister who founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first African American religious congregation in the United States. In 1829, she founded the order despite the trials she knew she would endure. She believed that “if you put your faith in God, it’ll be OK,” Phyllis Johnson, a member of the Mother Mary Lange Guild, told CNA.
The guild is advocating for her canonization because “she loved all people,” Johnson said. “Even the people who treated her shabbily, she still cared for them. She’s a saint for everyone. She took care of everyone. She didn’t discriminate … So if anybody should be a saint, it’s the person who says ‘all people are God’s people.’”
Several employees of the Knights of Columbus, the world’s largest Catholic fraternal service organization, talked with attendees to share the cause for canonization of the organization’s founder, Father Michael J. McGivney.
“He’s a powerful intercessor,” Alicia Mucha, manager of events at the Knights of Columbus, told CNA. “He loves to answer prayers for unemployment, family conflict, and any substance abuse.”
In 1882, McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus “to give men a better community, something that was rooted in their faith that would keep them away from drinking,” Mucha said. The organization started in Connecticut “to provide benefits for women and children, in case anything happened to the men. He would ensure that women and orphans were taken care of.”
In 2020, McGivney was beatified after the Vatican recognized a miracle attributed to his intercession.
Judge said that McGivney and the other potential American saints show “us that we, too, can draw closer to God and achieve great things.”
Posted on 09/16/2025 15:24 PM (U.S. Catholic)
Do Catholics have to believe in Marian apparitions, Eucharistic miracles, or the Shroud of Turin? Or practice devotions like wearing the brown scapular or various miraculous medals? While these practices are popularly associated with Catholicism, some might be surprised to find that they are not essential to the faith. I was reminded of this recently […]
The post Jesus doesn’t call us to folklore or superstition, but to love appeared first on U.S. Catholic.
Posted on 09/16/2025 14:21 PM (CNA Daily News)
Vice President JD Vance hosts a podcast episode of “The Charlie Kirk Show” on Sept. 15, 2025, in Washington, D.C., following the assassination of the show’s namesake on Sept. 10. / Credit: Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images
National Catholic Register, Sep 16, 2025 / 10:21 am (CNA).
While serving as the guest host of Charlie Kirk’s podcast Monday, Vice President JD Vance vowed that the Trump administration will seek to “dismantle” left-wing organizations that he said promoted the violence that led to the conservative activist’s assassination last week.
“Charlie was gunned down in broad daylight, and well-funded institutions of the Left lied about what he said so as to justify his murder. This is soulless and evil,” Vance said.
The two-hour broadcast of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” produced by the organization Kirk founded, Turning Point USA, was livestreamed from Vance’s ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. It featured appearances from White House aides and administration officials as well as friends of Kirk.
Vance specifically cited an article in The Nation magazine that he said falsely stated that Kirk had made racist statements. The author, he said, had also expressed “glee over a young husband and young father’s death.”
“Did you know that the George Soros Open Society Foundation and the Ford Foundation — the groups who funded that disgusting article justifying Charlie’s death — do you know they benefit from generous tax treatment?” Vance said.
“They are literally subsidized by you and me, the American taxpayer, and how do they reward us? By setting fire to the house built by the American family over 250 years,” he said.
The Trump administration, Vance said, will be working in the coming months to shut down organizations that facilitate politically motivated violence.
“We’re not always going to get it right. We will sometimes move more slowly than you would like. We will sometimes move more slowly than I want us to. But I promise you that we will explore every option to bring real unity to our country and stop those who would kill their fellow Americans because they don’t like what they say,” Vance said.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, a guest on the program, told Vance that Kirk was a “treasured friend” of 10 years. He also vowed to go after those who may have aided and abetted Kirk’s killer, calling it “a vast domestic terror movement.”
Miller described a coordinated movement to incite violence in the United States.
“The organized doxing campaigns, the organized riots, the organized street violence, the organized campaigns of dehumanization, vilification, posting people’s addresses, combining that with messaging that’s designed to trigger inside violence and the actual organized cells that carry out and facilitate the violence,” he said.
“With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people. It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name,” Miller said.
Vance, during the program, said that polling has shown that liberals are more likely than conservatives to “be happy about the death of a political opponent” and to say that political violence is sometimes justified.
“The data is clear. People on the left are much likelier to defend and celebrate political violence,” Vance said.
“That problem has terrible consequences. The leader of our party, Donald J. Trump, escaped an assassin’s bullet by less than an inch. Our House majority leader, Steven Scalise, came within seconds of death by an assassin himself. Now, the most influential conservative activist in generations, our friend Charlie, has been murdered,” he said.
The vice president, in paying tribute to Kirk, remembered his friend as a faithful Christian and political visionary. He recalled Kirk as a man of great faith who inspired others to be bold in sharing their views.
“On a podcast a couple of months back, Charlie was asked about how he’d want to be remembered if he died. His answer: ‘I want to be remembered for courage, for my faith,’” Vance said.
“In this dark moment for our country, I think that’s the greatest lesson any of us can take from Charlie, to have faith, to have faith in the Lord and to be bold in how we glorify him, to be bold in our pursuits as Charlie was in his,” he said.
When asked by Vance to share something about Kirk, conservative podcast host Tucker Carlson spoke of the role that faith played in Kirk’s life.
“His Christianity was sincere, and his commitment to Jesus was totally sincere. It sometimes isn’t, especially in public figures who throw out Bible verses they don’t understand and stuff like that,” Carlson said.
“But in his case … it informed every single part of his life, from his marriage, to the way he treated his children, to the way he treated his staff, to the way he approached disagreement, to the way he thought of other people, which was always primarily as people first,” he said.
Vance, in his concluding remarks, said Kirk was a man “who told the truth in every place, in every environment.”
“The most important truth Charlie told is this: that long ago, a man begotten, not made, came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit, was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man. For our sake, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and suffered death, and was buried, and rose again on the third day,” Vance said.
“Charlie believed, as I do, that all the truth he told flowed from that fundamental principle, he said. “I really do believe that we can come together in this country. I believe we must. But unity, real unity, can be found only after climbing the mountain of truth,” he said.
Vance said that after speaking with Kirk’s widow, Erika, and the rest of the Kirk family, he was struck by the example his friend set, as a husband who “was never cross or mean-spirited” to his wife.
“Maybe the best way that I can contribute and the best way that I could honor my dear friend is to be the best husband that I can be, to be the husband to my wife that he was to his,” Vance said.
This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, and has been adapted by CNA.
Posted on 09/16/2025 14:21 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
Vice President JD Vance hosts a podcast episode of “The Charlie Kirk Show” on Sept. 15, 2025, in Washington, D.C., following the assassination of the show’s namesake on Sept. 10. / Credit: Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images
National Catholic Register, Sep 16, 2025 / 10:21 am (CNA).
While serving as the guest host of Charlie Kirk’s podcast Monday, Vice President JD Vance vowed that the Trump administration will seek to “dismantle” left-wing organizations that he said promoted the violence that led to the conservative activist’s assassination last week.
“Charlie was gunned down in broad daylight, and well-funded institutions of the Left lied about what he said so as to justify his murder. This is soulless and evil,” Vance said.
The two-hour broadcast of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” produced by the organization Kirk founded, Turning Point USA, was livestreamed from Vance’s ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. It featured appearances from White House aides and administration officials as well as friends of Kirk.
Vance specifically cited an article in The Nation magazine that he said falsely stated that Kirk had made racist statements. The author, he said, had also expressed “glee over a young husband and young father’s death.”
“Did you know that the George Soros Open Society Foundation and the Ford Foundation — the groups who funded that disgusting article justifying Charlie’s death — do you know they benefit from generous tax treatment?” Vance said.
“They are literally subsidized by you and me, the American taxpayer, and how do they reward us? By setting fire to the house built by the American family over 250 years,” he said.
The Trump administration, Vance said, will be working in the coming months to shut down organizations that facilitate politically motivated violence.
“We’re not always going to get it right. We will sometimes move more slowly than you would like. We will sometimes move more slowly than I want us to. But I promise you that we will explore every option to bring real unity to our country and stop those who would kill their fellow Americans because they don’t like what they say,” Vance said.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, a guest on the program, told Vance that Kirk was a “treasured friend” of 10 years. He also vowed to go after those who may have aided and abetted Kirk’s killer, calling it “a vast domestic terror movement.”
Miller described a coordinated movement to incite violence in the United States.
“The organized doxing campaigns, the organized riots, the organized street violence, the organized campaigns of dehumanization, vilification, posting people’s addresses, combining that with messaging that’s designed to trigger inside violence and the actual organized cells that carry out and facilitate the violence,” he said.
“With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people. It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name,” Miller said.
Vance, during the program, said that polling has shown that liberals are more likely than conservatives to “be happy about the death of a political opponent” and to say that political violence is sometimes justified.
“The data is clear. People on the left are much likelier to defend and celebrate political violence,” Vance said.
“That problem has terrible consequences. The leader of our party, Donald J. Trump, escaped an assassin’s bullet by less than an inch. Our House majority leader, Steven Scalise, came within seconds of death by an assassin himself. Now, the most influential conservative activist in generations, our friend Charlie, has been murdered,” he said.
The vice president, in paying tribute to Kirk, remembered his friend as a faithful Christian and political visionary. He recalled Kirk as a man of great faith who inspired others to be bold in sharing their views.
“On a podcast a couple of months back, Charlie was asked about how he’d want to be remembered if he died. His answer: ‘I want to be remembered for courage, for my faith,’” Vance said.
“In this dark moment for our country, I think that’s the greatest lesson any of us can take from Charlie, to have faith, to have faith in the Lord and to be bold in how we glorify him, to be bold in our pursuits as Charlie was in his,” he said.
When asked by Vance to share something about Kirk, conservative podcast host Tucker Carlson spoke of the role that faith played in Kirk’s life.
“His Christianity was sincere, and his commitment to Jesus was totally sincere. It sometimes isn’t, especially in public figures who throw out Bible verses they don’t understand and stuff like that,” Carlson said.
“But in his case … it informed every single part of his life, from his marriage, to the way he treated his children, to the way he treated his staff, to the way he approached disagreement, to the way he thought of other people, which was always primarily as people first,” he said.
Vance, in his concluding remarks, said Kirk was a man “who told the truth in every place, in every environment.”
“The most important truth Charlie told is this: that long ago, a man begotten, not made, came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit, was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man. For our sake, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and suffered death, and was buried, and rose again on the third day,” Vance said.
“Charlie believed, as I do, that all the truth he told flowed from that fundamental principle, he said. “I really do believe that we can come together in this country. I believe we must. But unity, real unity, can be found only after climbing the mountain of truth,” he said.
Vance said that after speaking with Kirk’s widow, Erika, and the rest of the Kirk family, he was struck by the example his friend set, as a husband who “was never cross or mean-spirited” to his wife.
“Maybe the best way that I can contribute and the best way that I could honor my dear friend is to be the best husband that I can be, to be the husband to my wife that he was to his,” Vance said.
This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, and has been adapted by CNA.
Posted on 09/16/2025 13:20 PM (CNA Daily News)
A group of students at Chesterton Academy of the Holy Family in Lisle, Illinois, in 2024. The Chesterton School Network is a network of “joyfully Catholic classical high schools where students grow in faith, virtue, and friendship.” / Credit: Photo courtesy of Chesterton Academy of the Holy Family, Lisle, Illinois
CNA Staff, Sep 16, 2025 / 09:20 am (CNA).
In a suburb of Minneapolis in 2008, a small school named after the Catholic author G.K. Chesterton opened its doors.
Seventeen years later, the school has grown into the wide-reaching Chesterton Schools Network, with schools sprinkled across the United States. And this school year, the network is going international.
The president of the Chesterton Schools Network said there is no other word for it but “miraculous.”
“The growth has been simply astounding,” said Dale Ahlquist, who is also president of the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton, which operates the network.
But why are the schools a hit? Ahlquist credits the Holy Spirit.
“The real driver of this movement has been the Holy Spirit working to enliven the Church, beginning with the domestic Church,” he told CNA.
At Chesterton schools, “faith in Christ is at the center, with daily Mass and a vigorous moral and spiritual formation program,” he said.
“The Chesterton model is both faithfully Catholic and fully classical, presenting the true, the good, and the beautiful as united transcendental aspects of all learning,” Ahlquist added.
In the U.S., Chesterton schools operate in 31 states and 76 dioceses.
Parents love it and students thrive in it, according to Ahlquist.
“The Chesterton model has a proven track record of success now, and people are taking notice,” he said.
“People saw what we were doing here in the U.S., saw the curriculum, witnessed the fruits of the great formation Chesterton Academies provide, and they said, ‘We want that, too.’”
Starting new schools across the world has been “challenging, but exciting,” Ahlquist said.
“Every country presents its own unique regulatory and cultural complexities,” he said. “But the love parents have for their kids and the desire they have to fulfill their vocations as their children’s primary educators and catechists — that’s the same everywhere.”
With seven new schools in the U.S. and another three around the world opened this Fall, Ahlquist said “we only expect demand to grow worldwide.”
Ahlquist said both internationally and in the U.S., the Chesterton schools all follow the same pattern.
“It sprang up organically, from the grassroots,” Ahlquist said of the international launch.
“The hallmark of our model is an integrated curriculum that unites the truths learned in disparate subjects and shows their interconnectedness and interdependency, all united around one great truth: the Incarnation,” Ahlquist said.
“Christ is at the center, the ultimate end not just of our spiritual formation but of character and intellectual formation as well,” Ahlquist said.
“Ultimately, the Catholic faith isn’t something extra, something tacked on arbitrarily to what they’re learning in all the various classes. It’s the undergirding principle, the ‘why’ behind all the other pursuits,” Ahlquist said.
Chesterton schools use the Socratic method, which Ahlquist said “encourages students to take ownership of their learning, to probe with questions, and start seeing the connections that are everywhere.”
“They learn the humanities, including philosophy and theology, and are formed in how to think about God and the universe,” Ahlquist said. “In math and science, they see the handiwork of a creator and an active providence over the natural world. In music, visual arts, and theater, they appreciate the incarnational and sacramental way that beauty attests to the truth and goodness of a God who loves them.”
“From the science lab to the sports field to the chapel, students are oriented toward Christ as their friend, model, and ultimate goal. And they get it. This is what parents notice most, and why the network keeps growing,” he said.
Chesterton’s impact continues into adult life, according to Ahlquist.
After graduation, Chesterton alumni “discern vocations in priestly ministry and consecrated life” and marry earlier in life “than their secular peers,” Ahlquist noted.
“Students really enter into this approach and make it their own,” he said. “Others can see the transformation that takes place in these kids’ lives as they grow into faithful, ethical, confident young adults, ready to live out and share their faith while also excelling in their vocational and career pursuits.”
Posted on 09/16/2025 13:20 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
A group of students at Chesterton Academy of the Holy Family in Lisle, Illinois, in 2024. The Chesterton School Network is a network of “joyfully Catholic classical high schools where students grow in faith, virtue, and friendship.” / Credit: Photo courtesy of Chesterton Academy of the Holy Family, Lisle, Illinois
CNA Staff, Sep 16, 2025 / 09:20 am (CNA).
In a suburb of Minneapolis in 2008, a small school named after the Catholic author G.K. Chesterton opened its doors.
Seventeen years later, the school has grown into the wide-reaching Chesterton Schools Network, with schools sprinkled across the United States. And this school year, the network is going international.
The president of the Chesterton Schools Network said there is no other word for it but “miraculous.”
“The growth has been simply astounding,” said Dale Ahlquist, who is also president of the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton, which operates the network.
But why are the schools a hit? Ahlquist credits the Holy Spirit.
“The real driver of this movement has been the Holy Spirit working to enliven the Church, beginning with the domestic Church,” he told CNA.
At Chesterton schools, “faith in Christ is at the center, with daily Mass and a vigorous moral and spiritual formation program,” he said.
“The Chesterton model is both faithfully Catholic and fully classical, presenting the true, the good, and the beautiful as united transcendental aspects of all learning,” Ahlquist added.
In the U.S., Chesterton schools operate in 31 states and 76 dioceses.
Parents love it and students thrive in it, according to Ahlquist.
“The Chesterton model has a proven track record of success now, and people are taking notice,” he said.
“People saw what we were doing here in the U.S., saw the curriculum, witnessed the fruits of the great formation Chesterton Academies provide, and they said, ‘We want that, too.’”
Starting new schools across the world has been “challenging, but exciting,” Ahlquist said.
“Every country presents its own unique regulatory and cultural complexities,” he said. “But the love parents have for their kids and the desire they have to fulfill their vocations as their children’s primary educators and catechists — that’s the same everywhere.”
With seven new schools in the U.S. and another three around the world opened this Fall, Ahlquist said “we only expect demand to grow worldwide.”
Ahlquist said both internationally and in the U.S., the Chesterton schools all follow the same pattern.
“It sprang up organically, from the grassroots,” Ahlquist said of the international launch.
“The hallmark of our model is an integrated curriculum that unites the truths learned in disparate subjects and shows their interconnectedness and interdependency, all united around one great truth: the Incarnation,” Ahlquist said.
“Christ is at the center, the ultimate end not just of our spiritual formation but of character and intellectual formation as well,” Ahlquist said.
“Ultimately, the Catholic faith isn’t something extra, something tacked on arbitrarily to what they’re learning in all the various classes. It’s the undergirding principle, the ‘why’ behind all the other pursuits,” Ahlquist said.
Chesterton schools use the Socratic method, which Ahlquist said “encourages students to take ownership of their learning, to probe with questions, and start seeing the connections that are everywhere.”
“They learn the humanities, including philosophy and theology, and are formed in how to think about God and the universe,” Ahlquist said. “In math and science, they see the handiwork of a creator and an active providence over the natural world. In music, visual arts, and theater, they appreciate the incarnational and sacramental way that beauty attests to the truth and goodness of a God who loves them.”
“From the science lab to the sports field to the chapel, students are oriented toward Christ as their friend, model, and ultimate goal. And they get it. This is what parents notice most, and why the network keeps growing,” he said.
Chesterton’s impact continues into adult life, according to Ahlquist.
After graduation, Chesterton alumni “discern vocations in priestly ministry and consecrated life” and marry earlier in life “than their secular peers,” Ahlquist noted.
“Students really enter into this approach and make it their own,” he said. “Others can see the transformation that takes place in these kids’ lives as they grow into faithful, ethical, confident young adults, ready to live out and share their faith while also excelling in their vocational and career pursuits.”
Posted on 09/16/2025 12:20 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts. / Credit: Jack Haskins/EWTN News
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 16, 2025 / 08:20 am (CNA).
Exactly one week before the assassination of Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk, CNA interviewed Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts for its new “CNA Newsmaker Interview” series, which will feature periodic in-depth interviews with Catholic leaders in diverse fields.
In the wake of the attack, Roberts wrote in a social media post that “we must never, never, never, never, never, never stop fighting to build the America that [Charlie Kirk] helped make possible.”
Kirk, he said, “restored optimism about the American future for millions of Americans.”
This same optimism for the future of America, alongside an equally shared passion with Kirk for the restoration of family life across the country, is central to Roberts’ work at Heritage.
America, according to Roberts, has “arrived at that moment” where it has reached “an understanding in the broader culture that there is something greater than ourselves that defines us as Americans.”
Roberts credited many Catholic leaders in Washington, including Ethics and Public Policy Center President Ryan Anderson, for contributing to the country’s arrival to this moment.
These leaders, Roberts told CNA, “are firm about what they believe. They’re cheerful. They remember the big picture. And when there are times for disagreement, sometimes with major elected officials in our country, they’re temporary, they’re private, they’re virtuous, and they map to not just the right end in this life but the right end of the next moment.”
In a Sept. 12 address to the nation, Erika Kirk emphasized her late husband’s devotion to revitalizing the family, telling those watching: “Charlie always said that if he ever ran for office ... his top priority would be to revive the American family.”
In his own book, “Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America,” Roberts expressed the same conviction: “The No. 1 challenge Americans face in the 21st century is the crisis of family formation.”
Ultimately, family policy is upstream of most Heritage Foundation policy efforts and is what Roberts considers the focal point of the new conservative movement — which he told CNA “refers to a shift in tactics and composition of American conservatism” rather than a shift in principles.
While the old conservative movement tended to primarily revolve around economic issues, he observed, the new conservative movement recognizes “that goods like the free market flow out of more important things: family [and] a healthy civil society.”
“It’s a real emphasis on those institutions in life that are upstream of what the conservative movement for a generation was fixated on,” he said.
One of the more controversial family life issues Heritage Foundation scholars have worked with the administration on is in vitro fertilization (IVF). The Catholic Church teaches that IVF is unacceptable due to ethical concerns surrounding the practice, including the millions of human embryos killed through the procedure.
“We have a lot of private conversations with a lot of elected officials in this country and others about these issues,” Roberts said regarding IVF. “We’ve seen some real improvement in the rhetoric from the administration, and we look forward to seeing even more.”
“We’re grateful for what we’ve seen and also have reason to believe that in terms of substance, in terms of policy from the administration, that they are doing a good job of balancing all the competing interests” in the country, he continued, noting that the administration is “trying to keep together a governing coalition” on the sensitive topic.
Before Roberts entered the public policy sphere, which included his previous leadership of the nation’s largest state-based think tank, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Roberts enjoyed a successful career in education. First, as a tenure-track college history professor and founding headmaster of a K–12 Catholic school in Louisiana, followed by the presidency of Wyoming Catholic College, where under his leadership, the small institution bucked public funding and was celebrated for its “cowboy-style Catholicism.”
Of all these endeavors, Roberts attributes a key source of his optimistic outlook to the time he spent as headmaster of John Paul the Great Academy in Lafayette, Louisiana. “It wasn’t until going through the arduous journey of keeping a new Catholic K–12 school afloat that I became so optimistic,” he told CNA.
“When I realized six, seven, eight years in that the school was not only going to make it, but it was going to become a model,” he recalled, “I realized that as a conservative, politics and policy are important, but institutions are most important.” Roberts said he believes it will be through these institutions that America will be “revitalized.”
The lifelong educator further observed that “the institutional renewal happening in education is disproportionately classical,” noting that even his doctoral alma mater, the University of Texas, has begun accepting the Classical Learning Test (CLT). “I never thought I would say that,” he mused.
“America’s golden age will be sustained in part because of our politics and in part because of our policy,” Roberts continued, “but most of all because of good decisions that Americans are making,” including by “sending their kids to classical schools.”
According to Roberts, who leads one of the most influential think tanks in the nation’s capital, there is no conflict between being fully Catholic and fully American — two aspects, which he recalls in his book, that were also never in conflict for his Cajun forebears in his native Louisiana.
Known for spearheading the Heritage Foundation’s presidential transition initiative Project 2025, Roberts has been accused by some of aiming to impose Christian nationalism on the U.S. — an assertion Roberts said is “100% ignorant understanding of Church teaching.”
“We are free people,” he said of his approach to public policy as an American Catholic. “We of course are bound by morality, an understanding of morality not just from Scripture but from the magisterium, from the tradition of the Church.” At the same time, this does not prevent Catholics from disagreeing with Church pronouncements on prudential matters, citing his own past disagreements with the energy and environmental policy prescriptions of the late Pope Francis.
“Catholics have total freedom to disagree with the pope when he is not speaking ex cathedra,” he explained.
“As a lay Catholic, I’m totally free to say that Pope Francis spent way too much time engaging in conversations he was ignorant about and should have stayed out of,” Roberts added.
As for Pope Leo XIV, Roberts said he is “optimistic,” citing the Chicago-born pontiff’s choice of name and restoration of several papal traditions as positive signs for the Church at large.
Reflecting on the controversy around Project 2025, Roberts told CNA it was Heritage’s “moral obligation” as a leading policy center to provide a “menu of options that ultimately the president would choose to select or not.”
“The lesson we’ve learned — and the buck stops on my desk — is we’ll never, ever let the American left define our work for six weeks without responding,” he added.
“They picked a fight, but we finished it. And when they pick it the next time, we’ll finish it twice,” said Roberts, who revealed that work is already underway on updating the project in advance of the 2028 presidential election.
Though a cradle Catholic, Roberts’ faith “became unshakable,” according to his book, amid extreme adversity in his family life at a very early age. Roberts had experienced the divorce of his parents at age 4 and the death of his older brother by suicide when he was just 9.
“The only way to overcome all of the disadvantages of divorce, including spiritual, economic, educational, etc., is to know and love Jesus Christ,” he told CNA. For Catholics, he said, that means staying “very close to the sacraments,” including regular Mass attendance, praying the rosary, and frequent confession.
In addition, Roberts advised children of divorced parents “to not allow the decisions and behaviors of our respective parents to get in the way of recognizing that we are called to a vocation.”
“Always, every day, operate in forgiveness, not just toward our family members, our parents, but to everyone we interact with,” he continued. “Don’t hold grudges. Don’t have a chip on your shoulder. Be cheerful, because not only are we Christians, but we’re Americans. We have no reason to be pessimistic.”
Apart from its re-centering on family life issues, Roberts also defined the new conservative movement as a “real corrective” to neoconservative interventionism in national security and foreign policy.
“The American people understand that we’re too much in debt,” he pointed out. “We have too many domestic problems to be engaged in all these far-flung, never-ending wars.”
While America must maintain its status as having the most lethal military in the world, Roberts indicated, “the new conservative movement understands that we, in fact, do worry about Americans first.”
For Roberts, this same principle applies to immigration policy.
While the country’s bishops advocate legalization for millions of people who are currently in the country without legal status, Roberts and the Heritage Foundation maintain a principled no amnesty position.
“They broke the law,” Roberts stated. “Until we correct the breaking of the law, it is a slippery slope… We can’t have the conversation until we correct a much greater injustice. And that is that we have over a hundred municipalities, cities and counties, states that describe themselves as sanctuary cities and counties and states.”
“We not only need to end that,” he continued, “but we need Catholic bishops in those places to say that must be ended, because the continuation of those sanctuary cities prevents ICE and all the interior enforcement from actually focusing on the 268,322 felons we know among the 22 million illegal aliens.”
Roberts noted the Heritage Foundation’s newest project will focus specifically on revitalizing American cities and local governments that have been “forgotten” by conservatives. “The issue of conservatives initiating urban renewal has not been taken up by anyone,” he pointed out, “so we are.”
Heritage will be hiring a policy scholar and campaign manager, he said, revealing that a separate political arm, Heritage Action, aims to gain a conservative policy foothold in more American cities.
“I look at this as someone who believes that I want any American of any political stripe, religious affiliation, to feel like they can live in an American city,” he concluded. “Because if we fail at that, we have failed at the American project.”