Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska (pictured in St. Peter’s Square in 2019) criticized the University of Nebraska for allowing a student to mock the Mass in a drag show. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

CNA Staff, Aug 8, 2025 / 13:08 pm (CNA).

The University of Nebraska has officially apologized for sanctioning a profane “drag” performance that mocked the Catholic Mass earlier this year, with the school undertaking an investigation into the incident after Catholic outcry against it. 

Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska, publicly criticized the so-called “drag Mass” in June, calling it “a blatant public display of faith-based discrimination.”  

The event was put on in April by music doctoral student Joseph Willette, who claimed the performance was meant to “bridge the gap between queerness and spirituality.”

The demonstration “imitated various parts of the Mass, including the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei.”

On Aug. 8 the bishop said in a public statement that he had met with University of Nebraska President Jeffrey Gold and other leaders of the university after the incident. The university told the prelate that an “investigation into the matter was already underway.”

Conley wrote that University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Chancellor Rodney Bennett subsequently sent a follow-up letter in which the administrator told the bishop: “We regret deeply that the matter we met to discuss has caused disruption, and we sincerely apologize.”

The university will “fully embrace the opportunity this incident has prompted to consider carefully how we educate members of our community about the impact individual acts may have on people and communities — both positively and negatively, and whether intended or inadvertent,” Bennett wrote, according to Conley.

In his Aug. 8 letter Conley said the school was also establishing a university advisory group meant to reduce the likelihood of such incidents occurring in the future. 

It is unclear if the university has concluded its investigation into the event or if the inquiry is still ongoing. The school did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Aug. 8. 

The school’s President’s Advisory Roundtable on Community Engagement will help advise the school on “addressing sensitive and often emotional matters for which there are strong convictions.”

Representatives from the local Catholic community will be included on the panel, Conley said. 

In addition to backlash from the bishop’s office, state lawmakers also reportedly criticized the performance. 

Nebraska Sen. Dan Lonowski told the higher education news website the College Fix that he and a dozen colleagues wrote to the university condemning the display. 

Lonowski, a Catholic, told the Fix that the performance “[did] not appear to advance music nor faith in any manner.” Lonowski said the university confirmed that it was undertaking an investigation.

Conley, meanwhile, expressed hope that the school was apologizing not just for the controversy surrounding the incident but “for the substance of the incident itself.”

“On behalf of Catholics and all people of faith, I would like to see a more concrete commitment from the university to provide training and education on why this behavior is offensive to Catholics,” the bishop wrote. 

Mocking the Eucharist, Conley said, “should never be an action that is rewarded with a degree, but instead should be condemned for its ignorance and evil.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks to Raymond Arroyo on “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo” on Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025. / Credit: EWTN News

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 8, 2025 / 12:38 pm (CNA).

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration is “committed” to fixing an ongoing backlog in religious worker visas.

“We’ll have a plan to fix it,” Rubio said in an Aug. 7 interview with Raymond Arroyo on EWTN News’ “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo.”

The interview comes after U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services released a report showing widespread fraud in its permanent residence program for unaccompanied minors, which led to the backlog in issuance of visas to migrant priests and religious.

Rubio said the administration is currently working to create a “standalone process” for religious workers, separate from other competing applicants — such as from the juvenile program — to the employment-based fourth preference (EB-4) category of visas. 

“​​In many cases, what you were finding is you had [a certain] number of people you were going to allow a year, [and] you prioritized people that were coming here from a different migration [background] and it came at the price of some of these others,” he said of the category.

“I’ve been in touch with a number of our cardinals here in the United States and bishops about that as well,” Rubio continued, “and it’s not only the Catholic Church — I mean there are other places that are being impacted, but we’re trying to streamline that process.”

Each year, Congress decides how many green cards — visas that grant permanent residence in the U.S. — may be made available per year. 

These green cards are divided into categories based on various factors, including employment or relationship status to U.S. citizens. The EB-4 category can distribute approximately 7.1% of all employment-based visas. 

Typically, religious workers enter the U.S. on R-1 visas, which have a five-year limit. In the meantime, religious workers hoping to stay in the U.S. apply for visas in the EB-4 category. 

Since juveniles were added to the category in 2023, the wait time for green card applications has been extended to at least five years and seven months, meaning some religious workers face the possibility of having to return to their home country before their application is processed. 

When asked whether he would be in favor of extending R-1 visas for religious workers while their green card applications are pending, Rubio said the administration is “looking at every option.” 

“We don’t want to read headlines that some Catholic church had to close because it couldn’t get their priests here or some order closed because some nun couldn’t get here,” he said. “We’re not interested in that, and that’s not really the aim here.” 

“We know it’s an issue and we’re committed to fixing it,” he concluded. 

Federal lawmakers have introduced a bipartisan bill, the Religious Workforce Protection Act, to prevent U.S.-based priests from being forced to leave the country. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has urged the government to pass the bill. 

USCCB President Archbishop Timothy Broglio described the measure as “desperately needed to ensure communities across our nation can continue to enjoy the essential contributions of foreign-born religious workers who lawfully entered the United States on a nonimmigrant religious worker (R-1) visa.” 

Pope Leo XIV waves to pilgrams gathered in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican for his Wednesday general audience on Aug. 6, 2025. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

ACI Prensa Staff, Aug 8, 2025 / 12:08 pm (CNA).

The Prefecture of the Papal Household announced that Pope Leo XIV will travel to Albano, Italy, on Sunday, Aug. 17, to celebrate Mass with the poor.

At 9:30 a.m. local time, the Holy Father will arrive at the Shrine of Santa Maria della Rotonda in Albano, a municipality located 35 kilometers (about 22 miles) from the Vatican and bordering Castel Gandolfo, to celebrate Mass with a group of people who receive assistance from Caritas.

After Mass, he will head to Castel Gandolfo to preside over the Angelus prayer at noon from Liberty Square.

In addition, according to the Diocese of Albano, he will later share lunch with 100 low-income people at Borgo Laudato Si’, an ecological and social project inspired by Pope Francis’ encyclical.

According to Vatican News, the bishop of Albano, Vincenzo Viva, said he was “full of joy” at the return of Pope Leo to the diocese, where he spent his summer vacation from July 7–22.

He also stated that the Holy Father accepted Caritas’ proposal to have lunch with the group. “This is the first time that Leo XIV will meet with the poor during his pontificate, and we are very happy that he is beginning this journey with our diocese,” Viva stated.

On Friday, Aug. 15, the Holy Father will also travel to Castel Gandolfo to preside over Mass for the solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Pontifical Parish of St. Thomas of Villanova. After Mass, he will also lead the Angelus from the iconic Piazza della Liberdade (Liberty Square).

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

Pope Francis greets Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn at the Vatican during the USCCB’s Region II ad limina visit on Nov. 15, 2019. / Credit: Vatican Media

CNA Staff, Aug 8, 2025 / 10:54 am (CNA).

A U.S. Catholic bishop is sharply criticizing a large payout to his accusers even after the Holy See said it had found no evidence to support allegations of abuse against him.

Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston-based lawyer who has represented numerous Catholic abuse victims, said in a press release this week that two accusers of Brooklyn Bishop Emeritus Nicholas DiMarzio had received separate six-figure payouts to settle their abuse claims.

The two accusers claimed DiMarzio had abused them in the 1970s and early 1980s when the prelate was then a priest in New Jersey. The men went public with the allegations in 2019 and 2020.

Both accusers filed suits against DiMarzio and the Archdiocese of Newark in 2021. Later that year, what was then the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith found that the allegations did not have “the semblance of truth.”

DiMarzio himself has repeatedly and strongly denied the allegations. In a statement this week the retired bishop reaffirmed those denials. “As I have said from the very beginning, in my 50+ year priesthood, I never abused anyone,” he said. 

The prelate pointed out that an “exhaustive two-year canonical investigation” cleared his name and further that he “took a lie detector test and passed it.”

“I did not authorize these settlements because I did not abuse anyone,” DiMarzio said this week. 

The bishop’s lawyer, Joseph Hayden, noted in a statement that the investigation that cleared DiMarzio was led “by independent firms headed by a former federal prosecutor and former FBI director.” They were conducted under the Vos Estis Lux Mundi guidelines promulgated by Pope Francis, he said. 

In a statement this week a Newark spokeswoman said the archdiocese “chose to settle the lawsuits to avoid the costs of litigation and help bring resolution to painful matters for everyone involved.”

Hayden described the payments as “a business decision.” 

“Bishop DiMarzio did not authorize or approve the settlements, nor did he participate in any settlement negotiations,” the lawyer said. 

“In fact, he did not sign the settlement agreements, nor did the settlement agreements admit liability on the part of the archdiocese or Bishop DiMarzio,” he added. 

‘A charade of an investigation’

In a statement to CNA, meanwhile, Garabedian disputed the results of the Vatican’s 2021 conclusions regarding the abuse allegations. 

Describing the inquiry as a “charade,” Garabedian claimed that investigators did not directly query one of the accusers about whether he had been abused by the bishop. 

The Vatican’s ruling was “not surprising given the cover-up the Catholic Church has been practicing when investigating clergy sexual abuse over the decades,” the attorney claimed.

DiMarzio resigned from his post as bishop of Brooklyn in 2021, shortly after the Vatican cleared him of the abuse claims.

The Vos Estis Lux Mundi guidelines under which DiMarzio was investigated were first promulgated by Pope Francis in 2019 before being made permanent in 2023. 

The revised norms established obligatory reporting for clerics and religious, required that every diocese had a mechanism for reporting abuse, and put the metropolitan archbishop in charge of investigations of accusations against suffragan bishops.

Francis at the time stressed that sex abuse crimes “offend Our Lord, cause physical, psychological, and spiritual harm to the victims and harm the community of the faithful.”

Statues of St. Michael and St. Florian. / Credit: Office of Mayor Thomas Koch

National Catholic Register, Aug 8, 2025 / 10:00 am (CNA).

A Massachusetts mayor is going to bat for including statues of two Catholic saints on the city’s new public safety building, saying he picked them because of their importance to police and firefighters and accusing opponents of harboring “‘negative attitudes’ toward Catholicism.”

But lawyers for local residents who object to the planned 10-foot-high bronze statues of St. Michael and St. Florian say the mayor is making non-Catholics “feel like second-class citizens” because of the statues, which they say violates the Massachusetts Constitution by favoring one religion over another.

The two sides exchanged pointed arguments in court papers filed recently in a state lawsuit brought earlier this year by the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.

Thomas Koch, a practicing Catholic and the mayor of Quincy, a city of about 100,000 just south of Boston, wants to install on the façade of a forthcoming $175-million, 120,000-square-foot public safety building statues of St. Michael the Archangel (the patron saint of police officers) and St. Florian (the patron saint of firefighters). The statues are expected to cost about $850,000.

“I selected the statutes of Michael and Florian for installation on the public safety building due to their status as symbols in police and fire communities worldwide. The selection had nothing to do with Catholic sainthood but rather with an effort to boost morale and to symbolize the values of truth, justice, and the prevalence of good over evil,” Koch said in an affidavit filed last month.

“If Michael and Florian did not have significance in the police and fire service, respectively, I would not have selected them for installation,” the mayor added.

The mayor is asking a judge to dismiss the lawsuit, which was filed May 27 in Norfolk County Superior Court in Dedham.

But lawyers for the plaintiffs, who are 15 residents of Quincy who object to the mayor’s plan, described the statues earlier this week as “icons with unmistakable religious significance,” noting: “Saints in general, and patron saints specifically, are prominent within certain sects of Christianity, especially Catholicism.”

An “objective observer,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers argued, would see the statues as “permanent installations that will invoke and convey, on an ongoing basis, the city’s preference for Catholic religious doctrine.”

“The primary effect of the statues will be to advance religion over non-religion, and Catholicism over other Christian and non-Christian sects and denominations,” a motion filed Aug. 4 states.

The plaintiffs are seeking an injunction from the state Superior Court judge preventing the city from installing the statues when the public safety building opens, which is scheduled for October.

A court conference in the case has been scheduled for Aug. 12.

A question of Massachusetts law

The legal wrangling is over the Massachusetts Constitution, not the U.S. Constitution. Residents who object to the statues have appealed primarily to state law.

During colonial times and in the early decades of independence, the Massachusetts government favored the Congregational Church over other denominations, forcing property owners to support their local Congregationalist minister with their property taxes whether they belonged to the church or not.

In 1833, the state disestablished the Congregational Church, declaring in an amendment to the state constitution approved by a state constitutional convention that “no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law.”

On occasion, disputes over that language make it to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, as the Quincy statues’ case might.

In 1979, the state’s highest court upheld the ability of both the state Senate and state House of Representatives to hire and pay a part-time chaplain for each chamber — both of whom at the time happened to be Catholic priests — in a case called Colo v. Treasurer & Receiver General. 

In that same case, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court adopted for the state the so-called Lemon test after a 1971 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court stated three standards for determining whether a law that affects religious entities passes constitutional muster: whether it has “a secular legislative purpose,” whether “its principal or primary effect … neither advances or inhibits religion,” and whether it fosters “excessive entanglement between government and religion.”

In June 2022, after years of expressing skepticism about the Lemon test, the U.S. Supreme Court formally disavowed it in a case involving prayers offered by a high school football coach in Washington state called Kennedy v. Bremerton School District.

In the Quincy statues case, the city solicitor, James Timmins, argued in court papers filed July 30 that since the U.S. Supreme Court has disavowed the Lemon test, “that test can no longer govern in Massachusetts, either.”

But the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which is the ultimate interpreter of the state constitution, hasn’t heard a case on that point since then.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs in Quincy argue in court papers that since the state’s highest court hasn’t walked away from the Lemon test, then lower state courts must apply it — plus a fourth standard the state Supreme Judicial Court added in the 1979 Colo case: whether a “challenged practice” has “divisive political potential.”

Under those criteria, the plaintiffs’ lawyers argue, the state Superior Court judge must deny the city’s motion to dismiss and issue an injunction preventing the statues from being installed.

However the Superior Court judge rules, if the Quincy case makes the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on appeal, it will provide the justices a chance to revisit the Lemon test, including how the state constitution applies to disputes involving religion.

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

St. John Henry Newman near the end of his life, in 1887. / Credit: Babouba, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

ACI Prensa Staff, Aug 8, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

According to Father Francisco Javier Calvo, Pope Leo XIV’s recent announcement that St. John Henry Newman will be declared a doctor of the Church represents “enormous hope,” because his figure is called to “illuminate the paths of the Church in the 21st century.”

Calvo is a member of the research committee of the John Henry Newman Chair at the Catholic University of Ávila in Spain.

The expert told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, that it is no coincidence that Pope Leo XIV decided to name him a doctor of the Church, since St. Augustine was the prime source of the English saint’s theology.

“It is very significant that he is the first doctor of the Church proclaimed during his pontificate. As an Augustinian, Leo XIV recognized in Newman one of his own. Both share a spirituality centered on an interior encounter with God, on conscience as the place of dialogue with the Lord,” he explained.

St. John Henry Newman, Calvo noted, was a great scholar of the Church Fathers, especially St. Augustine.

In fact, the best-known aspect of Newman’s theological and philosophical work is his commitment to a “moral and upright conscience, which he defines as the natural sphere of encounter with the voice of God and is one of the central themes of his theology.”

“This connects deeply with the Augustinian tradition, from the “Confessions” to the “Soliloquies,” he noted.

Calvo also lauded Newman as a man “of profound truth and profound faith,” whose conversion to Catholicism in 1845 was the result of a journey marked by docility in the light of the Holy Spirit.

“Everything he did in his life — including his journey of conversion — he lived with absolute moral integrity. He himself said that he asked the Lord not for light for his entire life but for the next step, and the strength to take it,” the priest emphasized.

This attitude of constant discernment, Calvo added, is particularly inspiring in a time like the present, where there is an urgent need to recover a spirituality guided by listening to God and not by one’s personal pet projects. 

After his conversion he was viewed by Catholics as an ‘infiltrator’

Following his conversion, St. John Henry Newman faced both misunderstandings from the Anglican world and misgivings in the Catholic world, where he was even seen as an “infiltrator” or “a kind of Trojan horse.” Despite this, “Pope Leo XIII dispelled those suspicions by appointing him a cardinal,” Calvo explained.

One of Newman’s greatest legacies was his firm commitment to the formation of the laity. As rector of the Catholic University of Ireland in Dublin, he promoted not only the training of good professionals but, above all, of “good Christians who would bear witness to their faith in their environment,” the expert explained. This vision, which seems obvious today after the Second Vatican Council, was profoundly innovative at the time.

Newman was also ahead of his time and had to face the challenge of responding to rationalist schools of thought and English empiricism, represented by figures such as Hume and Locke. “He knew how to respond from a deeply reasoned faith, taking up the philosophical presuppositions of modernity, but rooted in Augustinian spirituality,” Calvo emphasized.

But beyond his intellectual brilliance, Newman was, above all, a witness to holiness. “Being a Christian is a personal encounter with Christ that transforms one’s entire life. Newman understood it that way, drawing inspiration from the radical commitment of the early Christians, the witness of the martyrs, and the example of the saints,” he noted.

In this regard, Calvo recalled Newman’s motto, “Cor ad cor loquitur” (“Heart speaks to heart”), and said: “Faith is transmitted from person to person, through the attractiveness of a person’s life. It is not treatises but witnesses that evangelize.”

Newman’s proclamation as a doctor of the Church not only recognizes his holiness but also proposes his thought as a sure guide for believers today.

“We learn from his life, but also from his writings,” Calvo noted. “His intellectual journey, his theological and philosophical discernment, are a clear light for Christians to grow in their faith in this complex world, which so desperately needs authentic teachers and true saints.”

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

A Jesuit priest fluent in 13 languages, Father Mitch Pacwa hosts several programs on EWTN, including “EWTN Live.” / Credit: EWTN

Birmingham, Ala., Aug 8, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Edith Stein, the Jewish woman who would become St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, was murdered in the gas chamber at the Auschwitz concentration camp on Aug. 9, 1942. How did a brilliant Jewish philosopher not only manage to find Christ but also become a Discalced Carmelite nun, a martyr, and possibly — if the Carmelite order has its way — a doctor of the Church?

Find out when EWTN premieres “The Paths of Edith Stein: Father Mitch Pacwa’s Investigation” at 7 p.m. ET on Friday, Aug. 8, and 9 a.m. ET on Saturday, Aug. 9.

Pacwa’s half-hour program is followed by Father Charles Connor’s one-hour program “Edith Stein: St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross,” which airs at 2 p.m. ET on Saturday, Aug. 9, and 2 a.m. ET on Sunday, Aug. 10.

The journey begins as Pacwa shows viewers around the city of Wroclaw, Poland, and explains the significance of different venues to the life and spiritual journey of this intriguing woman. Viewers learn that Stein’s father died when she was just 2 years old, leaving behind his wife and 11 children, with Edith being the youngest.

Viewers also learn that Mrs. Stein was able to keep and even improve the family business because she was not only a strong and intelligent woman who had worked with her husband but also because she truly loved him.

To drive home the latter point, Pacwa shows viewers a photo of the Stein family and challenges the audience to find the oddity. Looking closely, viewers see that the photo of Mr. Stein has been cut out of another picture and pasted into the family photo. That’s because Mr. Stein had died years before the family photo was taken.

Pacwa concludes that while Edith learned from her mother that she had to show her family that she could take care of them after their father’s death, she also wanted them to see that he was still part of the family. Pacwa notes that Edith had a romantic desire for a love like her mother and father, but she found it in Christ.

Both Pacwa and O’Connor also discuss the love that mother and daughter had for each other and explain the life-changing impact that Edith’s “chance” reading of St. Teresa of Ávila’s autobiography had on the budding saint, who, after reading it in one sitting, famously declared: “This is the truth.”

Pacwa notes that even after her conversion, Edith Stein joined her family at synagogue to pray and to observe the great fast of Yom Kippur. He says: “This has been my experience with a number of other Jewish people who became Catholic. They didn’t see their Catholicism as a rejection of Judaism. … They found … they could understand their Judaism even more in the light of Jesus Christ.”

But that doesn’t mean this wasn’t hard for her mother. O’Connor says Edith was aware that while her mother hugged her newly Catholic daughter warmly as she left the house, she didn’t come to the window as she customarily did to watch her depart.

O’Connor tells viewers that Edith would spend eight years living with Dominican nuns in Speyer, Germany, where she taught at St. Magdalena’s. While that meant she put aside the rigors of her scholarly life, it gave her an intimate knowledge of convent life “and she began to grow more and more attracted to the idea that she might someday give herself to … religious life.”

While the future St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross never lost her love for St. Benedict, as evidenced by the religious name she took in Carmel, it was her love of St. Teresa of Ávila, and later St. Thérèse, that attracted her to the Carmelite order.

O’Connor then shares something about Edith’s journey that can help anyone who is struggling to make a decision.

“[Edith’s] desire to enter Carmel was growing with each passing day, but she was very much concerned with the effect that it would have on her mother and on her family. But finally, she thought to herself, ‘While I’m very concerned with it, I cannot wait the rest of my life. I have to make a decision … I have to do something.’ She was 42 years old. She knew that life did not go on forever. If she was going to make this move … she had better do it, and she had better do it soon, and so she decided that she would indeed enter Carmel.”

Her conviction that she shouldn’t put her decision off forever was somewhat prescient, since the Nazis murdered the saint on Aug. 9, 1942, at the age of 50.

“St. Dominic of Guzman” by Claudio Coello, circa 1685. / Credit: Claudio Coello, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Rome Newsroom, Aug 8, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

The first image to greet visitors to the basilica containing the tomb of St. Dominic in Bologna, Italy, is a mosaic of the saint next to a dog carrying a flaming torch in its mouth.

This is not a depiction of a pyromaniacal game of fetch but a reference to a dream that foretold the 13th-century preacher’s mission in the world — to be the bearer of divine fire across Europe, illuminating the darkness of heresy and sin with truth and charity.

“When St. Dominic’s mother, Blessed Jane of Aza, was pregnant, she had a dream of a dog with a torch in its mouth running around the world and setting everything on fire. She went to the monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos and asked a monk what it meant. He replied that the child in her womb would be a great preacher who would set the world ablaze with the fire of his words,” Dominican Father Ezra Sullivan, professor at the Angelicum University in Rome, told CNA.

“In fact, the word ‘Dominican’ is a play on the Latin, Domini canes, which means ‘dogs of the Lord,’” Dominican Father Thomas Petri, former dean and vice president of the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., explained.

Throughout history St. Dominic has been depicted in paintings and statues standing beside a canine companion.

“One source recounts that the dog Blessed Jane saw in her vision was a greyhound. That seems right to me,” Petri said. “St. Dominic should be associated with breeds that are fast and useful for herding.”

“Imitating Christ himself, St. Dominic is a hound nipping at your heels to bring you to God,” he added.

“In the early 13th century, the Church was experiencing increasing devotion among the lay faithful that was unmatched by the clergy. At a time when bishops, priests, and monks were living extravagantly and rarely preaching, St. Dominic came to see that the Church needed priests who lived in poverty but who were also preachers of grace and truth, especially in the face of heretical cults that were leaching the faithful away from the Church of Jesus Christ,” Petri explained.

St. Dominic Guzman was born in Caleruega, Spain, on Aug. 8, 1170. Throughout his life, he is said to have converted some 100,000 people through his preaching missions. He spread the devotion to the rosary and played a key role in doctrinal debates combating the Albigensian heresy, a revival of Manichaeism, which had taken hold in southern France.

Dominic founded the Order of Preachers — known as the Dominicans — in France in 1216, adapting the Rule of St. Augustine in obedience to the pope with an emphasis on study and community life in poverty. He died in Bologna, Italy, after several weeks of illness on Aug. 6, 1221.

Pope Benedict XVI said in February 2010 that St. Dominic “reminds us that in the heart of the Church, a missionary fire must always burn.”

“St. Dominic was given the grace not only to have a fervent zeal and love for Jesus Christ, especially Christ crucified, but also the wisdom to preach the Gospel with force and conviction,” Petri said.

Sullivan noted: “It was also said that ‘he always spoke either about God or to God,’ and therefore his words were like fiery darts that always hit their targets.”

St. Catherine of Siena, a third order Dominican, is frequently quoted as saying: “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”

However, Petri explained that a more accurate translation of what St. Catherine wrote in a letter in her dying days is: “If you are what you ought to be, you will set fire to all Italy, and not only there.”

She wrote this to her follower Stefano Maconi because she was “concerned that he was tepid in his devotion and pleaded with him to go to Rome to light the fire of divine charity there amid the turmoil of schism and infidelity the city was experiencing,” Petri said.

St. Catherine of Siena spoke of cultivating the “divine fire” as “cultivating the charity of God in one’s soul,” he explained.

“The way we cultivate charity is by committing ourselves to be with Christ in prayer, in study, at work, in the home, and at every other moment in our day,” he said.

“Most especially, however, such communion with Christ is nourished and strengthened by receiving the sacrament of charity — the holy Eucharist — in which the One who is charity itself comes into us and lights our souls aflame in love for him and for our neighbor.”

This story was first published on Aug. 8, 2019, and has been updated.

At a Catholic symposium on disability ministry, attendees gather for a talk by Dr. Miguel Romero as part of a theological engagement on disability. The symposium, “Recognizing the Body of Christ: A Theological Engagement on Disability” was held at The Catholic University of America on Nov. 9, 2019. / Credit: Photo courtesy of the NCPD

CNA Staff, Aug 7, 2025 / 16:19 pm (CNA).

There’s a category of Catholics in the United States who are often underserved, and one Catholic ministry is trying to remedy that.

Catholics with disabilities experience unique and varied needs that go beyond wheelchair ramps or braille signs. A Catholic with autism might need sensory-friendly liturgies; a Catholic with a developmental disability might need special guidance for catechesis.

But many parishes might not know how to meet their needs or what those needs even are.

By offering a variety of resources — including a conference this weekend — the National Catholic Partnership on Disability (NCPD) is teaching parishes how to fully integrate people with disabilities into parish life.

“From the rise in mental health concerns to the growing number of families navigating autism, parishes across the country are searching for guidance, training, and connection,” NCPD Executive Director Charleen Katra told CNA.

Ignorance can be damaging. Katra said she frequently receives calls from Catholics with disabilities who are denied sacraments — a move that goes against the Church’s teaching.

The U.S. Catholic bishops in recent years have reaffirmed the Church’s teaching that “all forms of the liturgy be completely accessible to persons with disabilities.” The bishops explained that accessibility extends far beyond “physical alterations to parish buildings.”

“Persons with disabilities have the same baptismal rights to be educated in the faith, to celebrate sacraments, and to respond to God’s call,” Katra explained.

The good news: Catholics from across the United States want to get better at serving people with disabilities. Almost 200 Catholic ministers, leaders, and laypeople are gathering in Salt Lake City for the National Catholic Disability Ministry Conference from Aug. 7–9.

Designed to help parishes and ministries fully integrate people with disabilities into  parish life, the conference centers on the 2025 Jubilee theme, “Pilgrims of Hope.”

The goal? Every parish should feel like home.

Inclusion and belonging are “crucial,” but they are just the beginning, Katra explained.

“They open the door for something greater and more important — advancing the full participation of persons with disabilities and striving toward communion — a kinship we experience because we are loved by God and saved by his son, Jesus Christ,” she explained. 

A highlight of the conference will be a panel of people with disabilities who will discuss what Katra called a “powerful message” by the late Pope Francis. 

In 2021, on the U.N.’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities, Pope Francis told people with disabilities: “The Church is truly your home.”

“Persons with disabilities are not simply on the outskirts of the Church seeking to be invited in,” Katra said. “Rather, the Church is already their home, and their presence and participation are integral to the Church community.”

Designed to “equip Catholics to value the gifts and respond to the needs of persons with disabilities,” conference sessions will address “mental health, autism, sacramental preparation, inclusive Catholic education, sensory-friendly liturgies, public policy, and more,” Katra said. On the last day of the conference, participants will gather for a sensory-friendly Mass.

Keynote speakers include Bishop Brendan Cahill of Victoria, Texas; Mary O’Meara, executive director of the Archdiocese of Washington’s Office of Deaf and Disabilities Ministry; and National Eucharistic Congress President Jason Shanks, who will share a personal testimony of raising a child with a rare genetic condition.

From clergy to catechists to people with disabilities, 180 attendees are gathering for the conference at Hilton Salt Lake City Center. This year, those who can’t attend in person may attend virtually in English or Spanish.

The ministry is not an annual event, but Katra has high hopes for the future.

“This is not currently a recurring event, but we hope it will become one,” she said.

Katra said she hopes the conference will give people a network, fresh perspectives, and “a deeper understanding of disability from a Catholic perspective,” as well as the latest resources and best practices for disability ministry.

“We are all pilgrims of hope — called to walk together in faith and love,” Katra said. “This includes persons with disabilities, whose presence and participation enrich the life of the Church.”

Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in San Salvador, El Salvador. / Credit: Bobbycharks, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

ACI Prensa Staff, Aug 7, 2025 / 15:36 pm (CNA).

On Aug. 6, the day El Salvador celebrates the solemnity of the Divine Savior (Salvador) of the World and this year the 500th anniversary of the founding of the city of San Salvador, the Catholic Church strongly criticized a recent constitutional reform that allows current President Nayib Bukele and his successors unlimited presidential terms.

The archbishop of San Salvador, José Luis Escobar Alas, celebrated Mass in the cathedral of the country’s capital. The bishops of the Salvadoran Bishops’ Conference concelebrated, with priests, nuns, and laypeople from all of El Salvador’s dioceses in attendance.

In his homily, Escobar addressed a message directly to the Salvadoran legislators, urging them to “reconsider the constitutional reforms recently approved by this legislative plenary session without consultation.”

“For a constitutional reform to be legitimate, the people must be consulted,” he declared. The prelate said his appeal is made “with no interest other than the good of our people.”

On July 31, El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly approved and ratified a series of changes to five articles of the constitution. These amendments will now allow for unlimited presidential reelection, extend the presidential term from five to six years, eliminate the runoff election, and shorten the current term of Bukele so that all elections for public office nationwide take place on the same date. 

The legislative body is composed of 60 representatives, 54 of whom belong to the ruling Nuevas Ideas (New Ideas) party. Two seats are held by the National Concertation Party and one by the Christian Democratic Party, both allies of the current government. The remaining three seats belong to opposition parties.

Advocates for environment, migrants

In front of thousands of people, Escobar also demanded that legislators “fulfill the debt they owe to this people” and reinstate “the law they repealed, the one that protects the environment, the life and health of people, animals, and plants,” referring to the ban on metal mining, recently revoked by the Legislative Assembly.

The archbishop also called on U.S. authorities to stop going after unauthorized Salvadoran migrants while demanding respect for their human rights.

The prelate called for “not criminalizing their status simply because they are undocumented. They are noble, good, hardworking people who have done much for that country and who deserve decent treatment.”

Finally, Escobar denounced “the scourge of poverty” that drives thousands of Salvadorans to emigrate, stating that it is the product of “economic policies that, to date, have not resolved the most urgent needs of the vast majority of impoverished people.”

He concluded his homily with a call to the faithful to ask the Divine Savior of the World to be able to “transfigure us and transfigure El Salvador, so that we may all live according to his sacred will, as true children of God.”

Massive procession for the Divine Savior of the World

The celebrations for the solemnity of the Divine Savior of the World began on Aug. 5 with thousands of faithful participating in the solemn procession with the image of the Divine Savior of the World in San Salvador. The procession departed from Sacred Heart of Jesus Basilica and passed through the main streets of the capital until reaching the Metropolitan Cathedral of San Salvador.

In the plaza in front of the cathedral, a moving reenactment of the Transfiguration of the Lord was presented in which the image of Christ, dressed as a Nazarene, was elevated and symbolically transformed into the glorious Christ amid music and fireworks.

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