Northwoods Catholic Churches -- St. Anne, Boulder Junction; St. Mary, Sayner; St. Rita, Presque Isle

Asylum seekers wait for their CBP One appointments with U.S. authorities before crossing through El Chaparral port in Tijuana, Baja California state, Mexico, on Jan. 20, 2025. / Credit: GUILLERMO ARIAS/AFP via Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 2, 2025 / 16:31 pm (CNA).

Catholic and evangelical leaders are urging Christians to consider the “sobering” effects of mass deportation efforts by the government, arguing that ongoing aggressive immigration enforcement will be felt beyond those who are being deported. 

Church leaders with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Association of Evangelicals, World Relief, and the Center for the Study of Global Christianity in their report “One Part of the Body” highlight the potential impacts of mass deportations on Christian families in the U.S.

“In the United States,” the leaders write in the report, “immigrants from various countries form integral parts of the body of Christ. Most, of course, are lawfully present, whether as naturalized citizens, lawful permanent residents, resettled refugees, or others with permanent legal status.”

“But,” the report argues, “a significant share of the immigrants who are a part of our body are vulnerable to deportation, whether because they have no legal status or their legal protections could be withdrawn.”

“That has long been true, but it is of increased urgency given President Trump’s repeated pledge to carry out ‘the largest deportation in U.S. history,’” they write.

The report includes what the leaders call “sobering” statistics that reveal how broadly this situation may affect Christians. 

Currently, 80% of all individuals at risk of deportation are Christians, according to the report. The majority of this group is Catholic at 61%, greatly surpassing the 13% of evangelicals and 7% of other Christian denominations.

About 1 in 12 Christians are vulnerable to deportation or live with someone who is, specifically immigrants in the U.S. who entered “unlawfully” or “on a temporary nonimmigrant visa,” the report says. 

The report specifies that of these Christians, 1 in 5 are Catholic.

The leaders state that people in the U.S. who have been granted temporary protected status could have their status “withdrawn by the executive branch, without the need for congressional approval.” More than half of those individuals are Catholics.

Those who hold temporary status “are physically present in the U.S. as of a particular date when the conditions in their country of origin make it unsafe for them to return for reasons such as war, conflict, a natural disaster, or a public health epidemic,” according to the report.

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients are also primarily Catholic, making up 73% of the group. The DACA program was originally created to allow deferred deportation for young adults who were brought to the U.S. as children, but the report argues that this program is at risk along with its Christian recipients.

Individuals who have been granted DACA status will be at risk “if the Trump administration (or any subsequent presidential administration) would follow the appropriate processes to terminate DACA or if the U.S. Supreme Court would agree with the lower courts that the program was created illegally and, as a result, invalidate the policy.”

Lastly, the statistics reveal that 58% of immigrants who came to the U.S. as asylum seekers are Catholic. These individuals “could be at risk of deportation after the final disposition of their immigration court proceedings, if they are not granted asylum or other relief by an immigration judge.”

The report states that “nearly 7 million Christians who are U.S. citizens live in households with someone at risk of deportation,” arguing that this issue does not affect only immigrants but also their families and other Christians.

“Our prayer is that the president and his administration as well as the Congress will take these stark realities into consideration as they pursue immigration policies,” the religious leaders say.

“Just as importantly,” they continue, “we pray that the whole of the American church, including the 11 out of 12 Christian households not at risk of losing a family member to deportation, will recognize that this suffering that is likely to affect many parts of the body of Christ actually impacts them as well.”

Participants speak at the conference “Jews and Catholics on Ethics: A Light to the Nations” at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome on April 1, 2025. / Credit: Kristina Millare/CNA

Vatican City, Apr 2, 2025 / 14:38 pm (CNA).

The Vatican in collaboration with the Camille and Sandy Kress Project launched the first in a series of conferences titled “Jews and Catholics on Ethics: A Light to the Nations” this week, highlighting the significance of faith traditions in the world today.

The April 1–2 conference in Rome brought together Catholic and Jewish scholars from around the world to the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, also known as the “Angelicum,” to deepen the theological foundations of Jewish-Catholic dialogue as proposed by Pope Paul VI in his 1965 declaration Nostra Aetate.

In a message to conference participants, Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, said joint reflection on ethics is more urgent now than in the past as both religions — “which have their common origins in revelation” — face being undermined in societies that “marginalize our moral values.”

“As Pope Francis stated: ‘Jews and Christians share a rich spiritual heritage which allows us to do much together. At a time when the West is exposed to a depersonalizing secularism, it falls to believers to seek out each other and cooperate in making divine love more visible for humanity,’” Koch said in his April 1 message.  

Both conference guest speakers — Shira Billet, assistant professor of Jewish thought and ethics at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and Judith Wolfe, professor of philosophical theology at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland — said the shared belief that each person is made in the “image of God” provides Catholics and Jews a foundation for common ethics, norms, and values.     

“Beloved is the human being who was created in the image of God,” Billet said, commenting on the writings of Rabbi Akiva, a first-century Jewish scholar and martyr. “God loves human beings insofar as human beings are created in the image of God.” 

“When God said to Noah and his sons, ‘In the image of God, the human being was created,’ the verse is a prohibition against murder,” Billet added, citing Genesis 9:6. 

“God also spoke the moral norm that follows from it, which is, you cannot destroy the image of God in another human being,” she continued.

Describing the love of a trinitarian God that “already defines the divine life in itself; the love between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” that draws human beings to participate in “that divine life of love,” Wolfe said Christians are called to express “the plenitude and generosity of God” toward others.

“The entire ethic propounded in the Sermon on the Mount speaks to this directly … [of] holding the other cheek, of going the extra mile, of giving your tunic,” Wolfe said, commenting on Chapter 5 of St. Matthew’s Gospel.

“All of those actions, in a sense, can only be performed out of a profound conviction that there is enough [and] that we can give all those things away and yet God’s love and plenitude will suffice.” 

Having received the command by God to be a “light for the nations,” both Billet and Wolfe said Jews and Christians hold a responsibility to be witnesses of their religious beliefs, particularly in a world in which scarcity, competition, and conflict are dominant forces.

As part of the Vatican’s three-year collaborative project with the Camille and Sandy Kress Project, the Angelicum will host two additional conferences in 2026 and 2027 to foster Jewish-Catholic dialogue on theology, anthropology, and ethics.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols of the Archdiocese of Westminster. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 2, 2025 / 14:02 pm (CNA).

The president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales is urging U.K. Catholics to contact their members of Parliament (MPs) and express their opposition to an assisted suicide bill making its way through the legislative process. 

“Every MP, and government, has a solemn duty to prevent such legislation reaching the statute book,” Cardinal Vincent Nichols wrote in an April 1 pastoral letter. “So I appeal to you: Even if you have written before, please make contact now with your MP and ask them to vote against this bill not only on grounds of principle but because of the failure of Parliament to approach this issue in an adequate and responsible manner.”

Members of Parliament voted in favor of advancing the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on Nov. 29, 2024, in a 330-275 vote after the bill’s five-hour second reading debate in the House of Commons. The last time members voted on the issue, in 2015, the bill was voted down at the second reading and progressed no further. 

The bill is set to have its third reading on April 25. 

“This will be a crucial moment and I, together with all the bishops of England and Wales, am writing to ask your support in urging your MP to vote against the bill at that time,” Nichols said.

The bishop stressed that MPs have not taken enough time to deliberate over the bill before voting and that the committee charged with its review is overwhelmingly composed of its supporters. The bill’s flawed process, he said, leaves numerous questions unanswered, including whether proper safeguards would be able to ward off human rights violations as well as protect conscientious objectors and the vulnerable from coercion. 

“In short, this is no way to legislate on such an important and morally complex issue,” he stated, adding that he believed it to be a “sad reflection on Parliament’s priorities that the House of Commons spent far more time debating the ban on fox hunting than it is spending debating bringing in assisted suicide.” 

Nichols concluded his letter asserting that instead of pushing for the legalization of assisted suicide, “what is needed is first-class, compassionate palliative care at the end of our lives,” a resource that is currently in “short supply and underfunded.”

“No one should be dispatched as a burden to others,” he wrote. “Instead, a good society would prioritize care for the elderly, the vulnerable, and the weak. The lives of our families are richer for cherishing their presence.”

Recent reports have said the controversial assisted suicide bill’s passage could be delayed another four years amid a growing climate of concern about the viability of the practice.

null / Credi: cinemavision/Shutterstock

Vatican City, Apr 2, 2025 / 13:28 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis on Wednesday said Jesus continues to go out in search of those who are lost or without hope in a catechesis titled “Jesus Christ Our Hope.” 

In his written catechesis, released by the Vatican on April 2, the Holy Father described Jesus’ encounter with Zacchaeus — a man “who seems irredeemably lost” — as having a “special place” in his own spiritual journey.  

“Perhaps we too feel this way at times: without hope,” he wrote, reflecting on the scene in St. Luke’s Gospel. “Instead, Zacchaeus will discover that the Lord was already looking for him.”

Like Zacchaeus, the pope said Jesus continues to go out in search of those who seek God even when faced with personal limitations, struggles, or uncertain circumstances.

“When he comes to know that Jesus is passing through the city, Zacchaeus feels the desire to see him,” he said. “But when you have a strong desire, you do not lose heart. You find a solution.” 

While commending Zacchaeus’ courage and simplicity for not being intimidated by those who excluded him because he was the chief publican “who collects taxes from his fellow citizens for the Roman invaders,” the Holy Father noted that it is Jesus who takes the first step to start a conversation with the man “despised by everyone.”

“Jesus asks Zacchaeus to come down immediately, almost surprised to see him in the tree, and says to him, ‘Today I must stay at your house!’ (Lk 19:5),” he wrote. “God does not pass by without looking for those who are lost.”

Reflecting on Zacchaeus’ reaction to Jesus’ openness toward him, the pope said: “It is the joy of one who feels that he has been seen, acknowledged, and above all forgiven.”

After welcoming Jesus into his home, the Holy Father remarked that it is the merciful gaze of God that inspired Zacchaeus to transform his life and “imitate the One by whom he felt loved.”  

“He gets up to make a commitment: to return four times what he has stolen,” he said. “He does so because he understands that this is his way of loving.” 

Concluding his catechesis with an invitation to take “practical steps” forward so as to welcome Jesus and his forgiveness into our own lives, the Holy Father said: “Let us allow ourselves to be found by the mercy of God, who always comes in search of us, in whatever situation we may be lost.”

Reconstruction of the face of St. Teresa of Ávila as she would have appeared at approximately age 50. / Credit: Courtesy of the Order of Discalced Carmelites, Iberian Province

Madrid, Spain, Apr 2, 2025 / 12:23 pm (CNA).

A scientific reconstruction of what would have been the face of St. Teresa of Ávila when she was 50 years old was presented recently in Alba de Tormes, the town in Salamanca province in Spain where the Carmelite nun died and where she is buried. 

The reconstruction was based on an anthropomorphic and forensic study, historical evidence, and contemporary descriptions. The work was directed by Professor Ruggero D’Anastasio of D’Annunzio University in Chieti-Pescara, Italy, and carried out by Professor Jennifer Mann, a specialist at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine at Monash University in Australia.

The presentation of the scientifically reconstructed head is the result of the canonical recognition of the tomb of the reformer of the Carmelite order, authorized last August by the Vatican.

Mann explained in a statement released by the Iberian Province of the Discalced Carmelites that, in addition to scientific data, her work was based on other important sources such as “a portrait by Friar Juan de la Miseria and a detailed description of St. Teresa written by Mother Mary of St. Joseph, who lived with the saint.”

To obtain the final result, the skull was first reconstructed with clay, “correctly positioning the jaw,” reconstructing missing teeth, and using “a combination of forensic facial approximation methodologies used in the United States and the United Kingdom.”

The main muscles were molded with soft, oil-based clay, and the soft tissues (eyes, nose, lips) were estimated using formulas based on head measurements and studying the X-rays.

Other formulas allowed for the calculation of the length, width, and angle of the nose as well as a proportional orientation for the placement of the eyes in the sockets of the skull.

“With the consent of the father postulator general of the Discalced Carmelites, I sculpted St. Teresa of Jesus at around the age of 50, reflecting her plump appearance, as described by Mother Mary of St. Joseph,” the specialist explained.

Furthermore, “the veil, headdress, and habit of St. Teresa of Jesus were inspired by specific paintings, following the advice of Father Miguel Ángel González.”

“This sculpture may be the most accurate representation of what St. Teresa of Jesus really looked like during her lifetime,” Mann said.

At the time of the first reformed convent 

St. Teresa turned 50 on March 28, 1565, and the reconstruction work represents her at that age. It was around that time that St. Joseph convent in Ávila was founded, the first of those reformed by the Spanish mystic. She lived there between August 1562 and 1567.

The saint noted in the “Book of My Life,” known as the “Autograph of El Escorial,” that she lived there “the happiest and most restful years of my life, whose peace and quiet my soul often misses sorely.”

In a text by González, Carmelite prior of Alba de Tormes, it is noted that during these times, St. Teresa lived “under high spiritual tension. These were years of ecstatic tension in her mystical life. She was crossing her sixth mansion, with great impetus and a great surge of love, with forebodings of imminent arrival at the port of the other life.”

“Mansions” refers to the stages of spiritual growth detailed in her book “The Interior Castle.” 

During those years, she wrote her well-known “The Way of Perfection” and the constitutions for her new way of understanding of cloistered life, a reform that she quickly extended. On Aug. 13, 1567, she left the monastery of Ávila for Medina del Campo, where she began the second of her 17 foundations throughout Spain, geographically distributed from north to south, from Burgos to Seville.

Mummified remains in an ‘extraordinary state of preservation’

The medical and scientific team that made possible the reconstruction of the saint’s face also submitted a 53-page document to the Order of Discalced Carmelites offering a comprehensive summary of the research conducted by anthropologist Luigi Capasso.

The summary of the report details that all of the saint’s remains examined (distributed between Spain and Italy) have been naturally mummified and are in an “extraordinary state of preservation.”

The report notes that on her face, “the scalp is preserved, with many traces of brown hair, the left auricle, the right eye, which still retains its eyelids, the dark iris, the three-dimensionality of the eyeball, all the soft tissues of the nasal pyramid, including the nostrils and the apex of the nasal cartilages.”

The “relaxed facial muscles still convey the sense of serenity with which the saint shows she faced the moment of her death.”

Anthropometric calculations determine that the probable height of St. Teresa was 156.8 centimeters (a little over 5 feet), and an examination of her bones suggests that she suffered from osteoporosis. 

She also had an anterior curvature of the neck and trunk, which gave her “a forward-leaning appearance, with her head tilted downward, which also made her take a forced and uncomfortable supine position, with her head unable to rest on the pillow when lying down.”

The saint also suffered from bilateral knee osteoarthritis, “very severe on the left and milder on the right,” and a bone condition below both heels associated with pain, according to the study.

Regarding her mouth, of which only three teeth remain, it is deduced that she suffered, among other ailments, from “severe dental caries [advanced tooth decay], severe tooth wear, and obvious tartar deposits.”

On her right arm, an injury can be seen that could be a result of her writing habits.

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

The Basilica of the Holy Trinity at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima in Portugal. / Credit: Vitor Oliveira from Torres Vedras, PORTUGAL, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Rome Newsroom, Apr 2, 2025 / 10:52 am (CNA).

While a Catholic shrine in Lourdes, France, announced on Monday it is covering mosaics by alleged abuser Father Marko Rupnik on the doors to one of its basilicas, another of the world’s most popular sites of Marian devotion said it is not considering removing its own Rupnik artwork.

A spokesperson for the Fátima shrine in Portugal told the Portuguese news outlet 7Margens via email this week that the international shrine is not taking down the mosaic installation but has stopped using its image in any distributed materials.

The Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima, which receives over 6 million visitors a year, is located on the site of the Virgin Mary’s apparitions to three shepherd children in 1917.

The back wall of the shrine’s largest and most modern worship space, the Basilica of the Holy Trinity, is covered in an enormous, floor-to-ceiling work by Rupnik and several of his artist collaborators.

The approximately 33-by-164-foot gold mosaic was installed in 2007 and features the paschal lamb at the center flanked by saints and angels.

“We are not considering removing it. However, since we became aware of the accusations against Father [Marko Ivan] Rupnik, we have suspended the use of the image, the entire work, and its details in our dissemination of materials,” the shrine’s communications department told 7Margens.

Echoing a similar statement made to OSV News in July 2024, the shrine said it “strongly repudiates the acts committed by Father [Marko Ivan] Rupnik,” and it “has already expressed its solidarity with the victims.”

Rupnik, a native of Slovenia, was expelled from the Jesuits in June 2023 for disobedience following the public revelation that he was accused of the sexual and psychological abuse of dozens of women under his spiritual care in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The priest is currently under canonical investigation by the Vatican.

The abuse accusations sparked an enormous debate about whether to remove the hundreds of religious artworks created by Rupnik and his collaborators through his Rome-based art and theology center, the Centro Aletti.

At least 230 religious sites around the world feature Rupnik’s distinctive mosaics, from some of the biggest international shrines to smaller chapels and churches, including the Redemptoris Mater chapel in the Vatican.

Victims of sexual abuse and organizations that support them have called for the works to be removed or covered, especially since some of the accusations against Rupnik allege he committed abuse in the context of the creation of his art.

In July 2024, the bishop who oversees the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France said he had received opposition to the idea of removing the Rupnik mosaics on the facade of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary but that, as a first step, they would no longer be lit up at night.

On March 31, Bishop Jean-Marc Micas of Tarbes and Lourdes announced a further step — the covering of the main entrances to the basilica, which also feature mosaics by Rupnik.

In the United States, the Knights of Columbus announced July 10, 2024, that it would cover the Rupnik mosaics located in the two chapels of the National Shrine of St. John Paul II in Washington, D.C., and in the chapel in the Knights’ headquarters in New Haven, Connecticut.

The documentation of Mary’s case was submitted to the Solanus Casey Center. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Diocese of Lansing

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 2, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Many Catholics credit prayers of intercession to Blessed Solanus Casey for curing and helping people who suffer from illnesses. Mary Bartold of DeWitt, Michigan, is now among the many who do so after her two tumors vanished with no medical intervention but after continuous prayers to Casey, whose ministry was built upon healing and compassion.

Mary’s unexpected health issues began almost a year ago in late April 2024, the Detroit Free Press reported. Mary was a sophomore at Lansing Catholic High School in Michigan when she began to experience severe abdominal pain while at school. Mary and her family could not pinpoint what the problem was.

Mary’s parents, Susan and Rick Bartold, took her for a CT scan and ultrasound of her abdomen. The images revealed two masses on each of her ovaries: one was 7.3 centimeters large and the other was 1.5 centimeters. At just 16 years old, Mary began to worry about losing the potential to have children and all the implications the tumors could have on her health.

The Bartolds subsequently took their daughter to University of Michigan Health to work with Catholic physicians and determine a course of treatment. Susan said they chose Catholic practitioners specifically to ensure that they “understood what was happening” and “were making moral decisions that weren’t led by secular belief.”

The doctors determined the masses were tumors, both teratomas that needed to be surgically removed. The doctors scheduled the surgery for Aug. 2.

As the date approached, Susan and Rick decided to go on a pilgrimage to Blessed Solanus Casey’s tomb in Detroit to pray for their daughter. Susan even put together a novena, a nine-day period of prayers, in Blessed Solanus Casey’s name that her family, friends, and church community participated in.

Susan said she had longed prayed to Casey. She felt a sense of familiarity with him since he also resided in Michigan, where he became a Capuchin friar and worked as a porter at St. Bonaventure Monastery in Detroit.

He also helped start the Capuchin Soup Kitchen in Detroit to help those in need. Susan and Rick shared that they often wonder if Casey ever directly helped their own fathers who lived just down the street from the kitchen during a time they were both facing poverty. 

Susan told the Diocese of Lansing that Casey’s life “is an inspiration” to her, which led her to also ask others to pray to him for her daughter’s healing. 

After weeks of prayer and anticipation, Mary went to the doctor on July 30 for a pre-surgery MRI scan to get updated images. The date coincidentally happened to be Casey’s feast day. 

On the drive there, Susan prayed: “Solanus, this is your feast day. I am doing this for you. I know you have big news.”

The day after the scan, Mary and her parents received a call from her doctors that the surgery could be canceled. It was determined there was no sign of the tumors after multiple radiologists and doctors looked over the images. They were completely gone.

Mary said her first thought was that “it was a mistake,” but six months later, follow-up scans continued to reveal no evidence of any masses or tumors. 

“We forget about the power of prayer,” Susan said, “and this is just a testimony to the power of prayer.”

On the day Mary’s surgery was supposed to take place, she and her parents traveled back to Casey’s tomb, this time to give thanks for their answered prayers. 

While the family was there, they submitted documentation of Mary’s case to the Solanus Casey Center so it can be considered as a miracle to help further Casey’s path to sainthood.

Pope Francis acknowledged a previous miracle by Casey in 2017. A woman with a genetic skin condition prayed at Casey’s tomb in Detroit and was miraculously healed. If another miracle is recognized by the Vatican, it would further propel Casey to canonization. 

Mary’s family strongly advocates that he receives that standing. Mary told the Diocese of Lansing that she would be “honored” if her story was what led Casey to become a saint. “He deserves to be canonized,” she said.

In 1984, Pope John Paul II met in Rome with 300,000 young people from all over the world in a meeting that laid the foundations for today’s World Youth Day. / Credit: Gregorini Demetrio, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Vatican City, Apr 2, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

Now 20 years since Pope John Paul II’s death on April 2, 2005, one of his closest collaborators says the Polish pontiff lives on in the hearts and memories of the many people who still feel connected to him today.

Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, John Paul II’s personal secretary for nearly four decades, told EWTN News during an interview in Krakow that visitors to the saint’s tomb in St. Peter’s Basilica “don’t go to the dead pope, they go to the living pope. He lives in hearts, he lives in memories.”

“There is still this dialogue between the pope and the people and the people with him. This is how I feel,” the 85-year-old cardinal and former archbishop of Krakow said. “He departed but at the same time remained with us. … People cling to him, study him again.”

Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami, who has Polish parents, said John Paul II changed Poland and the world.

“The world that we live in today is in the shape it’s in, at least in some aspects, because of John Paul’s witness,” Wenski told EWTN News in Miami, “especially when he went to Poland in 1979 and inspired the people by saying ‘Be not afraid’ and asking the Holy Spirit … to change the face of this land, this Polish land.”

Dziwisz echoed this sentiment, noting that “many things changed in the Church and in the world under the influence of John Paul II and his activities. … In Rome itself and in the Church, there was a belief that the future belonged to Marxism. And the pope said that the future belongs to human rights, to the human person, to human freedom, and not to the enslavement that Marx gave.”

‘We want to be with him’

“I also remember his departure wasn’t a departure to history, to the archives,” Dziwisz said. “He works and you can see it. People run to God thanks to him and receive different graces.”

The cardinal remembered how emotional everyone was when they said goodbye to the Polish pope in the days leading to his final breath on Saturday, April 2, 2005: “How they approached the pope, crying, to kiss his hand and say goodbye.”

“It was only in the afternoon, on Saturday, the day of his departure and death, that the pope asked to have the holy Scripture read to him,” Dziwisz said, recalling that a priest there in his room “read the Gospel of St. John, nine chapters. And [the pope] followed, he didn’t say anything, he just followed and listened to the Gospel. He prepared [for death] simply, by reading the holy Scripture, consciously knowing he’s leaving.”

Then a priest, Dziwisz had been at John Paul II’s side as his personal secretary since 1966, when the future pope was the new archbishop of Krakow. He said he and others “opened the window discretely” of John Paul II’s apartment where he lay dying so he could hear the voices of the thousands keeping vigil in St. Peter’s Square outside.

“So that he could have the satisfaction [of knowing] that there are people with him,” Dziwisz explained. “There was this big, quite large youth group who had been camping for the second day [in St. Peter’s Square]. I said to them: ‘You are going home.’ They said: ‘He was with us, so now we want to be with him.’ And indeed, they were. The youth did not abandon him to the end.”

Umberto Civitarese, a longtime employee of Vatican Radio (now Vatican News) who covered up close John Paul II’s papacy, including many of his international trips, said the pope “never gave up, he didn’t give up, he managed everything until the end and he was trying in every way to be present.”

Civitarese told EWTN News he remembered an Angelus one Sunday in which John Paul went to the window but he couldn’t speak, but “that was enough” for his flock waiting below. People “didn’t expect anything else, it was enough just to see him,” he added.

Even when he was sick, he was active, Dziwisz said. “He had perfect awareness until the end, until the last day and hour.”

The retired Polish cardinal emphasized that even in suffering, John Paul II never complained: “What I know is what he said, that suffering has meaning. That’s how he approached it.”

‘A man united with God in prayer’

“Very early on, we, not only me, had the impression that we were dealing with a saint,” Civitarese said about his and his colleagues’ experience with the pontiff. “Because the example he set on a daily basis, in my opinion, remained inimitable.”

“So many times one asks but what does one have to do to become a saint? And I know, I understood — seeing him, yes, from following the example that he set … the commitment he put into his role, putting the meaning of being pope first,” he noted.

Dziwisz said John Paul II’s “holiness was because he was a man united with God in prayer.”

Civitarese saw this commitment to prayer in action on the pope’s many international trips, when, after a very long day, the first thing he would do is go to the chapel of the nunciature he was staying at to pray.

“While the others [traveling with him] maybe were refreshing, there were those who were eating, those who were phoning, those who were resting, he instead put prayer first,” the radio technician said, adding that these are the memories that have stuck with him and left a lasting impression.

“The thing I remember most strongly about him was this magnetism that he had,” he said. “When you are in contact with a personality like that I think it changes your life a little bit.”

Livia Tossici-Bolt is awaiting a verdict in her case in which she was charged with violating a “buffer zone” that restricts pro-life speech near abortion clinics. / Credit: Photo courtesy of ADF International

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 1, 2025 / 17:56 pm (CNA).

A bureau of the United States Department of State announced it is “monitoring” an arrest of a pro-life advocate in the United Kingdom who was charged with violating a “buffer zone” that restricts pro-life speech near abortion clinics.

In a post on X, the State Department Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor confirmed that Senior Adviser Sam Samson met with Livia Tossici-Bolt, a pro-life advocate charged with breaching a buffer zone by standing near an abortion clinic and holding a sign that read, “Here to talk, if you want.”

The verdict for Tossici-Bolt, who was charged with breaching a public spaces protection order, is expected to be handed down on Friday by District Judge Orla Austin — the same judge who delivered a guilty verdict to pro-life advocate Adam Smith-Connor for silently praying outside an abortion clinic in October 2024.

“We are monitoring her case,” the bureau’s post on X read. “It is important that the U.K. respect and protect freedom of expression.”

The post referenced comments made by U.S. Vice President JD Vance in Munich earlier this year in which he chastised the deterioration of free speech and religious freedom within Europe. Vance specifically criticized the British enforcement of “buffer zone” laws and the conviction of Smith-Connor.

“U.S.-U.K. relations share a mutual respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms,” the post read. “However, as Vice President Vance has said, we are concerned about freedom of expression in the United Kingdom.”

Tossici-Bolt said in a statement that she is “grateful” the State Department is interested in her case, adding that “Great Britain is supposed to be a free country, yet I’ve been dragged through court merely for offering consensual conversation.”

Her statement was sent out by Alliance Defending Freedom International, which is representing her in court.

“Peaceful expression is a fundamental right — no one should be criminalized for harmless offers to converse,” she added. “It is tragic to see that the increase of censorship in this country has made the U.S. feel it has to remind us of our shared values and basic civil liberties.”

Tossici-Bolt expressed gratitude to President Donald Trump’s administration “for prioritizing the preservation and promotion of freedom of expression and for engaging in robust diplomacy to that end.”

“It deeply saddens me that the U.K. is seen as an international embarrassment when it comes to free speech,” she continued. “My case, involving only a mere invitation to speak, is but one example of the extreme and undeniable state of censorship in Great Britain today. It is important that the government actually does respect freedom of expression, as it claims to.”

“Today we run the risk that our organizations, so dependent on the welfare state ... could be easily confused with a very bureaucratic NGO [nongovernmental organization],” said Archbishop Luis Argüello, president of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference. / Credit: Spanish Bishops’ Conference

Madrid, Spain, Apr 1, 2025 / 17:24 pm (CNA).

The president of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference (CEE, by its Spanish acronym), Archbishop Luis Argüello, opened the conference’s 127th plenary assembly this week with a deep analysis of Spain’s growing secularization, noting that the time has ended when one could say “I am Catholic because I was born in Spain.”

“The time has passed, settled for centuries, when we said: I’m Catholic because I was born in Spain,” Argüello said, noting that the Church can no longer take for granted that people are converted or initiated in the Catholic faith in today’s society.

During his talk, the archbishop of Valladolid noted the worrying situation that while there are 23,000 baptismal fonts distributed over the country’s 22,921 parishes, many of them “have no water” due to lack of Christian community that can “help the Holy Spirit engender new Christians” and in more populated areas there is “a very weak awareness of the responsibility entailed in having a baptismal font.”

This panorama represents a “large, quantitative and qualitative challenge” that requires discernment, especially considering that in numerous rural parishes it is no longer possible to celebrate the Sunday Eucharist, while in large cities there is a remarkable contrast of schedules and celebrations according to the neighborhoods.

The difficulty of ‘transforming emotion into virtue’

Given the situation, the archbishop of Valladolid added that “it has never been possible to be a Christian alone” and therefore the task of promoting communities “where living the integral formation of the heart” becomes especially important.

In this regard, he emphasized the role of various retreat movements and apostolates such as Emmaus, Ephphatha, Bartimaeus, the Conjugal Love Project, Life in the Spirit, Hakuna, etc. that “make an impact along with the invitation to continue” in the Christian life but that are faced with the difficulty of “transforming an emotional experience into virtue, of finding specific ways to grow that go beyond recreating the the initial impact.” 

Regarding the social and charitable work of Catholic organizations, Argüello warned that “today we run the risk that our organizations, so dependent on the welfare state, its rules, and subsidies for the third sector [nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and nonprofits], might offer in a weak way the novelty of Christian love and could be easily confused with a very bureaucratic NGO.”

“The same thing could happen to us in our educational or communications endeavors,” he added.

A farewell to the apostolic nuncio

At the beginning of his address, Argüello offered words of recognition to Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the outgoing nuncio, thanking him for “the work he has done during these five years in Spain,” emphasizing that “many of us here have received, through his mediation, the episcopal commission that the Holy Father has bestowed upon us.”

These words, along with the expression of best wishes in his new role as nuncio to the European Union, drew the only applause during Argüello’s talk.

Auza expressed his gratitude for the farewell remarks and said during his address that he has shared “the joys and sorrows of Spanish society and the Church” and that, over the course of five and a half years, “with the desire to always know and serve you, in the name of the Holy Father, I have strived to do my best wherever I have been called.” 

Regarding his time in the various Spanish dioceses, “from Covadonga to Granada,” he emphasized that the brotherhoods and confraternities remind him “how Andalusian the Church in the Philippines is, especially during Holy Week.”

Protest over the resignification of the Valley of the Fallen

During Monday’s assembly, a group of about 50 people gathered outside CEE headquarters in Madrid, protesting that the conference is collaborating with plans to “resignify” the Valley of the Fallen, a monumental war memorial built as a final resting place for combatants from both sides of the Spanish Civil War.

The memorial was commissioned by Francisco Franco, Spain’s longtime head of state and leader of the winning Nationalist side in the bloody conflict with leftist Republican forces.

The leftist governing coalition in Spain considers the memorial a monument to Franco and his dictatorship.

The controversy over the monument is colored by the fact that Franco supported the Catholic Church, which was caught in the middle and was severely persecuted by elements of the Republican side.

Some of those present outside CEE headquarters carried banners with the slogan “Cobo Judas,” referring to the archbishop of Madrid, Cardinal José Cobo, who is involved in the resignification process.

Near CEE headquarters, a wall was tagged with graffiti with slogans such as “CEE traitors,” “The valley is not to be touched,” “Bishops, you sell Christ for 30 [pieces of silver],” and “Betrayal of the martyrs.”

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