Article Archive
Please click below to view any of the articles in our archive.
Father Joseph Friend, Father Artur Bubnevych, and Father Donald Planty are among five U.S. parish priests who have been selected to attend a global gathering of 300 priests at the Vatican from April 28 to May 2, 2024, as part of the ongoing Synod on Synodality. / Credit: Courtesy of Father Joseph Friend; courtesy of Father Artur Bubnevych; EWTN News in Depth/ScreenshotCNA Staff, Mar 20, 2024 / 16:45 pm (CNA).The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) announced Wednesday the names of five parish priests who have been selected to attend a global gathering of 300 priests at the Vatican this spring as part of the ongoing Synod on Synodality.In a March 20 announcement, the USCCB said the five priests consist of four Latin-rite priests and one Eastern Catholic priest, at the request of the Vatican. The five priests include Father Artur Bubnevych, pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Byzantine Catholic Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Father Joseph Friend, parochial admini...
Nicaraguan Vice President Rosario Murillo (left) and her husband, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega / Credit: Inti Ocon/AFP via Getty ImagesACI Prensa Staff, Mar 20, 2024 / 17:30 pm (CNA).With Holy Week just a few days away, Catholics in Nicaragua are preparing for religious celebrations in the midst of ongoing persecution of the faith by the dictatorship of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo. For Martha Patricia Molina, a Nicaraguan lawyer and author of the Spanish-language report "Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church?", the regime "wants to completely eradicate the faith of the Catholic people in order to eliminate the Church." In a March 18 Facebook post, Molina reported that for Holy Week 2024, approximately 4,800 outdoor processions have been prohibited throughout the country (this figure includes processions on the four Fridays of Lent). Outdoor processions are a prominent and integral part of Hispanic Catholic piety.Instead of outdoor process...
Catholic actor Jonathan Roumie during a visit to Unbound's headquarters in Nov. 2023. / Danika Wolf/UnboundCNA Staff, Mar 20, 2024 / 18:00 pm (CNA).Jonathan Roumie, the actor who plays Jesus in the popular television series "The Chosen," will speak at the spring 2024 commencement at the Catholic University of America (CUA), the school announced Wednesday. "Countless numbers of people have had their lives changed for the better by Jonathan Roumie through his portrayal of Jesus Christ," CUA president Peter Kilpatrick said in a March 20 press release. "Jonathan's work is a testament to how Catholics can use their God-given talents to deliver messages of hope and to bring people closer to God," Kilpatrick continued. "I look forward to welcoming him to The Catholic University of America."Besides playing Jesus Christ in "The Chosen," which is now in its fourth season, Roumie has been featured on the Hallow prayer and meditation app, and has served as a ministry leader....
Pope Francis waves to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square for his Wednesday general audience on March 20, 2024. / Credit: Vatican MediaRome Newsroom, Mar 20, 2024 / 12:50 pm (CNA).Pope Francis on Wednesday reflected on the virtue of prudence, noting that it is an essential characteristic for good governance, an observation he made while renewing his call for negotiating an end to war. "War is always a defeat. You can't go on in war. We must make all efforts to negotiate, to negotiate, to end the war. Let's pray for this," the pope said during his Wednesday general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican. While the 87-year-old pontiff arrived in the piazza greeting the faithful from the famous "Popemobile," he relied on an aide to deliver the address. "I asked Monsignor [Pierluigi Giroli] to read it because I still can't," the pope said. Pope Francis waves to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square for his Wednesday general audience on March 2...
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen signed into law a 12-week abortion ban and a ban on transgender surgery on minors on May 22, 2023. / Credit: Courtesy of the Office of the Governor of NebraskaCNA Staff, Mar 20, 2024 / 13:50 pm (CNA).A recently proposed pro-life ballot measure would make Nebraska the first state in the nation to offer unborn children protection in its constitution. State residents, meanwhile, may also be voting on a measure to enshrine broad abortion rights into the state's constitution, with both proposals potentially appearing on the ballot in November.The Protect Women and Children constitutional amendment, preliminary language of which was filed with the Nebraska secretary of state's office March 1, would "amend the Nebraska Constitution" to ensure that "unborn children shall be protected from abortion in the second and third trimesters."The amendment would outlaw abortion after 12 weeks except in medical emergencies or when an unborn child is the result o...
When Biden was a senator (pictured with former Rep. Henry Hyde), he consistently supported and voted for the Hyde Amendment, which banned federal spending on abortion. / Credit: Alex Wong/Getty ImagesWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 20, 2024 / 14:45 pm (CNA).President Joe Biden is calling for taxpayer-funded abortion nationwide and more funding for a program that funnels money to Planned Parenthood facilities in his 2025 budget plan unveiled last week.The $7.3 trillion budget would eliminate two safeguards that prevent taxpayer-funded abortion: the Hyde Amendment and the Dornan Amendment. Both amendments have been included in federal budget bills for decades, but the president's proposal leaves them out completely. His plan would also increase funding for the Title X family planning program, which funnels millions of dollars to the abortion provider Planned Parenthood."Since flip-flopping on taxpayer-funded abortion to run for president, Biden has lost any resistance to his party...
In 2023, over half a million migrants headed toward the United States crossed the Darien Gap, the inhospitable jungle region between Colombia and Panama. / Credit: Gonzalo Bell/Shutterstock.comRome Newsroom, Mar 20, 2024 / 15:15 pm (CNA).Pope Francis on Wednesday sent a letter to the bishops of Colombia, Panama, and Costa Rica highlighting the need to develop greater pastoral care and initiatives to assist migrants who travel through the treacherous Darien Gap."As Christians, every refugee and migrant who leaves his or her homeland challenges us," the pope wrote. "In our villages we find at the same time the hospitable fraternity that welcomes with human sensitivity, but also, unfortunately, the indifference that stains the Darién with blood."The pope's message comes as bishops from the episcopal conferences of the three countries conclude a four-day meeting in Panama titled "Easter with Our Migrant Brothers and Sisters," focused on the Catholic Church's pastoral outreach and s...
Sister Inah Canabarro and her nephew Kléber Canabarro. / Credit: ACI DigitalACI Digital, Mar 20, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA)."My secret, my great secret, is to pray," said Sister Inah Canabarro Lucas, the oldest nun in the world at 115 years of age. "I pray the rosary every day for all the people around the world."The Teresian nun is also the oldest person in Brazil and Latin America, according to the Gerontological Research Group.Sister Inah expressed her good humor and joy in the few words she managed to say in a March 9 interview with ACI Digital, CNA's Portuguese-language news partner. She repeated a prayer several times to the Virgin Mary, praying to her "for all the people of the entire world."The nun currently lives in Porto Alegre in Rio Grande do Sul state in Santo Enrique de Ossó Home, adjacent to the Provincial House of the Teresian Sisters of Brazil, the community she entered in 1927 at the age of 19.According to the home's coordinator, Sister Lúcia Ignez Bassotto, Sister...
A screenshot of Fridolin Cardinal Ambongo during the March 17 interview with KTO. / Credit: KTOACI Africa, Mar 20, 2024 / 09:00 am (CNA).Fiducia Supplicans, the declaration by the Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith (DDF) permitting the blessing of same-sex couples and couples in other "irregular situations," was perceived as "cultural colonization" in Africa, the president of the Symposium of Episcopal Conference of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) said.In a March 17 interview with the French-language Catholic television channel KTO, Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo deplored the lack of "synodality" in the release of the DDF document that has evoked mixed reactions and deep division among Catholic bishops across the world since its publication on Dec. 18, 2023."In this declaration, there was a whole cultural problem, because the African continent perceived Fiducia Supplicans as cultural colonization," said Ambongo, the archbishop of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo.&...
Monstrance for adoration, stock photo. / Zolnierek/ShutterstockCNA Staff, Mar 20, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).Did you know that there are several ways you can gain a plenary indulgence during Lent? There are actually four ways you can receive one. Even though Lent is nearly over, there is still plenty of time for you to complete any, or all, of these. First of all, what is a plenary indulgence?A plenary indulgence is a grace granted by the Catholic Church through the merits of Jesus Christ to remove the temporal punishment due to sin. The indulgence cleanses a person of all temporal punishment due to sin. However, it must always be accompanied by a full detachment from sin. How do we receive one during Lent?The first way is to spend at least 30 minutes in Eucharistic adoration. Visiting the Blessed Sacrament is important all year round. So why not take part in this beautiful practice during Lent and receive some additional graces too? If you've never been to adoration,...
