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

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CNA Staff, Nov 3, 2025 / 11:37 am (CNA).

The Catholic Diocese of Alexandria, Louisiana, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Friday, Oct. 31, making it the 41st U.S. diocese to seek court-supervised reorganization in the wake of clergy sexual abuse claims.

Bishop Robert Marshall Jr., who has led the 50-parish diocese in central Louisiana since 2020, announced the petition in a letter and video posted to the diocese’s website. 

“As your bishop, I apologize to abuse survivors for the harm, pain, and suffering they experienced and continue to experience in their lives,” Marshall wrote. “This action is occurring because some past priest-perpetrators sexually abused minors, actions that are evil, sinful, and go against everything the Church and the priesthood represent.”

Eighty-five survivors have already filed claims, according to the diocese, with more expected after the court sets a bar date. More than half the allegations date to the 1970s or earlier; nearly every named perpetrator is deceased. 

A 2021 Louisiana law temporarily lifted the statute of limitations, triggering the surge in claims. The law allows victims to pursue civil damages indefinitely for abuse occurring on or after June 14, 1992, or where the victim was a minor as of June 14, 2021, with a three-year filing window (which ended June 14, 2024) for older cases.

The diocese lists $16.7 million in assets and $9.5 million in liabilities. It pledges $4 million plus limited insurance proceeds to a victim compensation trust. “The diocese believes it can contribute $4 million to a plan trust that will be used to compensate abuse survivors,” according to the frequently asked questions section of the diocese’s website.

Chapter 11 will freeze all pending lawsuits and funnel them into one court-supervised settlement. “Without a structured process of this kind, funds would be exhausted in the first settlements or cases that go to trial, leaving nothing for all the other claims waiting to be heard,” the diocese explained.

Parishes, which are separately incorporated from the diocese, remain untouched by the bankruptcy filing. Restricted donations, including the annual diocesan appeal and seminarian funds, are protected, and daily Masses, parish schools, and charities continue uninterrupted.

The bankruptcy filing comes as the diocese, experiencing declining numbers of priests, seminarians, and Mass attendance, is in the midst of a reorganization plan launched in 2024 titled “Together as One Church: Embracing the Future of Hope.” The plan will entail “closures and reconfigurations” of parishes and missions, according to the diocese.

In this context, Marshall, after consulting the priest council, finance council, and the Vatican, called the Chapter 11 filing “the most prudent course.”

The case, filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Louisiana, is projected to last 18 to 24 months and cost $1 million to $2 million in fees — far less than larger dioceses.

In 2019, the diocese published names of credibly accused clerics and has adopted the U.S. bishops’ safe environment policy. “We remain committed to transparency,” Marshall said.

The Alexandria filing follows the Archdiocese of New Orleans’ $230 million settlement last week.

Pope Leo XIV leads the Church’s commemoration for his papal predecessor and 142 other bishops who died in the past year on Nov. 3, 2025, in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Nov 3, 2025 / 11:04 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Monday presided over a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica in suffrage for the late Pope Francis and for deceased cardinals and bishops.

One day after celebrating Mass for all the faithful departed at Verano Cemetery in Rome, the Holy Father led the Church’s commemoration for his papal predecessor and 142 other bishops who died in the past year.

In the presence of members of the Roman Curia and hundreds of Catholic faithful, the pope said his first Mass commemorating the Church’s deceased cardinals and bishops had the “savor of Christian hope” because their ministry had guided many “on the path of the Gospel.”

“Dear friends, our beloved Pope Francis and our brother cardinals and bishops for whom we offer the Eucharistic sacrifice today have lived, witnessed, and taught this new paschal hope the Lord called them to,” Leo said in his Nov. 3 homily.

“The Lord called them and established them as shepherds of his Church,” he said. “Through their ministry they — to use the language of the Book of Daniel — have led many to righteousness.”

Though saddened by their deaths, Leo said their guidance and teaching helped transmit Christ’s “wisdom, justice, sanctification, and redemption” to the Church’s faithful spread throughout the world.

“We are saddened, of course, when a loved one leaves us,” he told the congregation. “As Christians, we are called to bear with Christ the weight of these crosses.”

“But we are not saddened like those without hope, because even the most tragic death cannot prevent Our Lord from welcoming our soul into his arms and transforming our mortal body, even the most disfigured, into the image of his glorious body,” he said.

Entrusting the souls of Pope Francis and the deceased prelates to God, Leo prayed for their intercession and “spiritual encouragement” for Christians “who are still pilgrims on earth.”

Using the Book of Psalms, Leo at the end of his homily prayed: “Hope in God; I will still praise him, the salvation of my face and my God.”

The outside of the reconstructed Basilica of St. Benedict in Norcia, Italy, is lit up with lights in celebration of its reopening on Oct. 30, 2025. / Credit: Archdiocese of Spoleto-Norcia

Rome Newsroom, Nov 3, 2025 / 10:00 am (CNA).

The Basilica of St. Benedict in Norcia, Italy, reopened for worship this weekend after a four-year project to rebuild the 13th-century edifice leveled by an earthquake in 2016.

Archbishop Renato Boccardo of Spoleto-Norcia dedicated the newly rebuilt church on Oct. 31, the eve of All Saints’ Day. The basilica marks the birthplace of St. Benedict, the founder of the Benedictine order and the father of Western monasticism. He is also a co-patron saint of Europe.

Nine years ago on Oct. 30, a 6.6-magnitude earthquake — the last in a series of deadly earthquakes to hit central Italy between August and October 2016 — almost completely destroyed the basilica, leaving only the facade standing.

An adjoining monastery of Benedictine monks, who were the caretakers of the basilica at the time, was also destroyed in the October 2016 earthquake.

The reconstruction of the basilica and crypt began in December 2021 and used as many of the original materials as possible while incorporating earthquake-resistant design and handicap accessibility. The project cost 15 million euros (about $17 million).

“The restoration of this important monument, of great historical and artistic value as well as a vibrant center of Benedictine spirituality, represents the visible sign of the demanding journey of religious rebirth undertaken in recent years by the entire diocesan community,” Pope Leo XIV said in a message sent for the basilica’s dedication.

In his homily at the Oct. 31 dedication Mass, Boccardo said: “The doors of the basilica open today to welcome all who come here to draw light and strength for the journey of Christian life.”

“As believers, we are well aware that a splendid building is not enough to make it God’s house among the homes of men,” he said. “Only a community that, as each day passes, passionately lives a sincere search for what is true, good, and just in his eyes will be able to have the Lord close to it.”

“Woe to us,” he continued, “if we limit ourselves to offering him the beauty of this church if it does not correspond to the beauty of a people who are built around the Word and the Eucharist, who build fraternal relationships, who are committed to a more welcoming and merciful society toward all, who tirelessly seek the wisdom that distinguishes good from evil, who separates what builds from what destroys, what remains from what passes away, and who engage in a daily exercise of Christian love.”

A Benedictine monastery was built in Norcia in the 10th century but was shuttered by the Napoleonic Army in the 1800s. A group of American monks refounded the community in Norcia in 1999.

Following the 2016 earthquake, the monastic community moved to a former Capuchin monastery approximately 1.5 miles east of the town. They completed the rebuilding of the earthquake-damaged property outside of Norcia in mid-2024, and the community was elevated to the status of an abbey.

The Abbey of San Benedetto in Monte is known for its beer brewing and for being a vibrant center of Benedictine spirituality in the central Italian region of Umbria.

St. Martin de Porres. / Credit: AnonymousUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

CNA Staff, Nov 3, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

On Nov. 3, the Catholic Church celebrates the feast of St. Martin de Porres, a Peruvian Dominican brother who lived a life of humble service and charity and became the first Black saint of the Americas.

Here are seven fascinating facts about this inspiring saint:

1. His father refused to acknowledge him.

De Porres was born in Lima, Peru, in 1579. He was the son of a Spanish nobleman and former Panamanian Black slave. His father, Don Juan de Porres, refused to publicly acknowledge the boy as his own because Martin was Black, like his mother. Being biracial would prove challenging for Martin de Porres throughout his life. 

2. He started practicing medicine before he was 13.

De Porres served as an apprentice to a doctor, and before the age of 13 he began to learn the practice of medicine. He would eventually become a barber, which at the time performed minor medical and surgical procedures like pulling teeth or emptying abscesses. 

3. He faced discrimination as a Dominican.

De Porres entered the Dominican order in 1603. Becoming a Dominican brother proved to be challenging for de Porres because a Peruvian law at the time prevented people of mixed race from joining religious orders. Therefore, he lived with the community and did manual work, earning himself the nickname “the saint of the broom” for his diligence in cleaning the Dominicans’ quarters.

Eventually he was allowed to enter the order, despite the law, and worked in the infirmary tending to the sick and among the impoverished of Peru. “I cure them, but God heals them,” de Porres would say when curing the sick. He also had the task of begging for alms that the community would use to clothe and feed the poor. He also established an orphanage and planted an orchard from which those in need could freely take a day’s supply of fruit. 

4. He levitated and bilocated.

De Porres was deeply prayerful, so much so that many of the brothers witnessed him levitating in intense prayer and embracing the crucified cross. De Porres reportedly also had the gift of bilocation, and some of his contemporaries said they encountered him in places as far off as Japan even as he remained in Lima. Some claimed he had appeared to them supernaturally behind locked doors or under otherwise impossible circumstances. 

5. He refused to eat meat.

De Porres loved animals. He refused to eat meat and ran a veterinary hospital for sick animals that seemed to seek out his help. Portrayals of the saint often include cats, dogs, and even the rats to whom he showed compassion.

6. He is the patron saint of multiple manual labor occupations.

De Porres was known for the various assignments he carried out and which earned him the title of patron saint of barbers, the sick, and street cleaners. On the 50th anniversary of St. Martin de Porres’ canonization, Father Juan Anguerri, director of the St. Martin de Porres Home for the Poor, said: “These are often thankless tasks, but yet through his humble service, St. Martin sent a message to revitalize these jobs.”

7. He was canonized more than 300 years after his death.

Martin de Porres died on Nov. 3, 1639, at age 60. He was canonized by Pope John XXIII on May 16, 1962. At his canonization Mass, John XXIII called him “Martin of Charity.” 

This story was first published on Nov. 3, 2021, and has been updated.

Pope Leo XIV celebrates Mass commemorating the faithful departed at Rome’s Verano Cemetery on Nov. 2, 2025. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/EWTN News

ACI Prensa Staff, Nov 2, 2025 / 12:40 pm (CNA).

Celebrating Mass for the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed at Rome’s Verano Cemetery, Pope Leo XIV invited Catholics to contemplate death “not so much as a recollection of the past but above all as a hope for the future.”

The pope said the Christian vision of death is not one of despair or nostalgia but of confident expectation rooted in the resurrection of Christ. “Our Christian faith, founded upon Christ’s paschal mystery, helps us to experience our memories as more than just a recollection of the past but also, and above all, as hope for the future,” he said in his homily.

He encouraged the faithful not to remain “in the sorrow for those who are no longer with us” but instead to look forward “towards the goal of our journey, towards the safe harbor that God has promised us, towards the unending feast that awaits us.”

“This hope for the future brings to life our remembrance and prayer today,” the pope continued. “This is not an illusion for soothing the pain of our separation from loved ones, nor is it mere human optimism. Instead, it is the hope founded on the resurrection of Jesus who has conquered death and opened for us the path to the fullness of life.”

Pope Leo emphasized that love is the key to this journey. “It was out of love that God created us, through the love of his Son that he saves us from death, and in the joy of that same love, he desires that we live forever with him and with our loved ones,” he said.

He urged Christians to anticipate eternal life by practicing charity in their daily lives. “Whenever we dwell in love and show charity to others, especially the weakest and most needy, then we can journey towards our goal, and even now anticipate it through an unbreakable bond with those who have gone before us.”

“Love conquers death,” he said simply. “In love, God will gather us together with our loved ones. And, if we journey together in charity, our very lives become a prayer rising up to God, uniting us with the departed, drawing us closer to them as we await to meet them again in the joy of eternal life.”

Concluding his homily, the pope invited those mourning loved ones to turn to the risen Christ as their sure source of comfort and promise. “Even as our sorrow for those no longer among us remains etched in our hearts, let us entrust ourselves to the hope that does not disappoint,” he said. “Let us fix our gaze upon the risen Christ and think of our departed loved ones as enfolded in his light.”

“The Lord awaits us,” he added. “And when we finally meet him at the end of our earthly journey, we shall rejoice with him and with our loved ones who have gone before us. May this promise sustain us, dry our tears, and raise our gaze upwards toward the hope for the future that never fades.”

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

Pope Leo XIV leads the faithful in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican in reciting the Angelus on Nov. 2, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media

ACI Prensa Staff, Nov 2, 2025 / 10:50 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV issued urgent appeals for peace and humanitarian access in Sudan and Tanzania on Sunday, decrying escalating violence that has left civilians dead and aid blocked in parts of Africa.

“With great sorrow I am following the tragic news coming from Sudan, especially from the city of El Fasher in the war-torn region of North Darfur,” the pope said after leading the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square on Nov. 2. He condemned “indiscriminate violence against women and children, attacks on unarmed civilians, and serious obstacles to humanitarian aid,” and called for an immediate ceasefire and the opening of humanitarian corridors.

“I renew my heartfelt appeal to all parties involved to agree to a ceasefire and to urgently open humanitarian corridors,” he said, urging the international community “to act with determination and generosity” to support relief efforts.

Turning to Tanzania, the pope expressed sadness over deadly clashes following recent elections, encouraging citizens “to avoid all forms of violence and to follow the path of dialogue.”

The pope also greeted pilgrims from Italy and abroad, including youth and religious groups, and said he would celebrate Mass that afternoon at Rome’s Verano Cemetery in remembrance of the faithful departed.

“In spirit, I will visit the graves of my loved ones, and I will also pray for those who have no one to remember them,” he said. “Our heavenly Father knows and loves each of us, and he forgets no one.”

Earlier, before the recitation of the Angelus, the pope reflected on the meaning of All Souls’ Day, telling the faithful that “the resurrection of the crucified Jesus from the dead sheds light on the destiny of each one of us.”

Quoting from the Gospel of John, he said: “This is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me but raise it up on the last day.” From this, the pope explained, “the focus of God’s concerns is clear: that no one should perish forever and that everyone should have their own place and radiate their unique beauty.”

He linked this hope to the previous day’s feast of All Saints, calling it “a communion of differences that extends God’s life to all his daughters and sons who wish to share in it.” Citing Pope Benedict XVI, he described eternal life as “being so immersed in an ocean of infinite love that time, before, and after no longer exist.”

Concluding his reflection, the pope invited Christians to live this day as a remembrance filled with hope. “Let us commemorate, therefore, the future,” he said. “We are not enclosed in the past or in sentimental tears of nostalgia. Neither are we sealed within the present, as in a tomb.”

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

St. Peter’s Basilica. / Credi: cinemavision/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Nov 2, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

The Vatican on Saturday named St. John Henry Newman a doctor of the Church. The 19th-century English saint — a former Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism — joined 37 other saints who have been given the same honor.

Born in London and baptized into the Church of England in 1801, Newman was a popular and respected Anglican priest, theologian, and writer among his peers prior to his conversion to Catholicism in 1845. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1847 and later made a cardinal by Pope Leo XIII in 1879.

As a Catholic, Newman deepened and contributed to the Church’s teaching, thanks to his broad knowledge of theology and his keen insight into modern times, grounded in the Gospel. His body of work includes 40 books and more than 20,000 letters.

He died in Edgbaston, England, in 1890. He was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI on Sept. 19, 2010, and canonized by Pope Francis on Oct. 13, 2019.

What is a ‘doctor of the Church’?

The title “doctor of the Church” recognizes those canonized men and women who possessed profound knowledge, were superb teachers, and contributed significantly to the Church’s theology.

Traditionally, the title has been granted on the basis of three requirements: the manifest holiness of a candidate affirmed by his or her canonization as a saint; the person’s eminence in doctrine demonstrated by the leaving behind of a body of teachings that made significant and lasting contributions to the life of the Church; and a formal declaration by the Church, usually by a pope.

While their teachings are not considered infallible, being declared a “doctor” means that they contributed to the formulation of Christian teaching in at least one significant area and this teaching has impacted later generations. 

Not quite half of the saints revered as doctors in the Catholic Church are also honored in the Orthodox church since they lived before the Great Schism in 1054.

The most recent doctor of the Church to be named was St. Irenaeus of Lyon, with the title “doctor unitatis” (“doctor of unity”), in 2022. Pope Francis had previously in 2015 named as a doctor of the Church St. Gregory of Narek, a 10th-century priest, monk, mystic, and poet beloved among Armenian Christians.

Other notable saints who are doctors of the Church include St. Teresa of Ávila, St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, St. Anthony of Padua, and St. Francis de Sales, among others.

This story was first published on Aug. 1, 2025, and has been updated.

The Sister Servants of Mary hold a procession with the statue of Our Lady of the Assumption at Mary Health of the Sick Convalescent Hospital in Newbury Park, California. / Credit: Photo courtesy of the Servants of Mary, Ministers to the Sick

CNA Staff, Nov 2, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

When a 93-year-old Catholic father from New Orleans had a stroke, he knew he was prepared to die.

Clinton Jacob attended adoration and Mass daily and was “rarely without a prayer book or rosary in hand,” according to his daughter, Kim DeSopo.

“[He] never spoke of death with fear or sadness,” she told CNA. “He would simply say, ‘I’ll be going home.’”

But not everyone feels prepared for death.

The Servants of Mary, Ministers to the Sick, is a Catholic community of sisters who dedicate their lives to caring for the sick and dying in New Orleans and around the world. As nurses, they are at the bedside of the dying through the long nights, whether their patients are lifelong Catholics or have never thought about religion.

The sisters often encounter patients as well as family members who are struggling to accept “an illness or imminent death,” Sister Catherine Bussen, a Servant of Mary, told CNA.

“Many times, there is a need for reconciliation within the family, for a return to their faith, for acceptance of their condition, etc.,” Bussen said.

As medical professionals, the sisters provide physical treatment, but they also walk with their patients throughout their illnesses, encouraging patients and families “always with the hope of eternal life,” Bussen said. 

DeSopo, Jacob’s daughter, called the sisters for support. The next day, Bussen arrived at their doorstep, and every night for two weeks, she sat at Jacob’s bedside. 

Bussen’s presence was “a gift,” DeSopo said. “Sister Catherine brought peace and calm into a time filled with stress and sorrow.”

“Her prayers, patience, and care provided comfort not only to my father but also to my mother, who could finally sleep knowing someone trustworthy and compassionate was by his side,” DeSopo said, recalling Bussen’s “selfless dedication” and “unwavering faith.” 

Bussen was with Jacob when he died on Sept. 26, 2024. She prepared his body, cleaning him and sprinkling him with holy water, and then prayed with his wife and daughter.

“I will never forget the care and dignity she gave him, even after his final breath,” DeSopo said.

Mary at the foot of the cross 

“I was sick and you visited me.”

This Scripture verse, Matthew 25:36, summarizes the charism of the Servants of Mary, according to Bussen. 

When they care for the sick, they care for Christ.

The sisters will care for anyone in need, preferably within the sick person’s own home. In those who are suffering, the sisters “discover Jesus carrying his cross,” Bussen explained. 

“By caring for the sick, we believe that we are caring for Christ himself, who still suffers today in the suffering mystical body of Christ,” she said.

Founded in Madrid, Spain, in the 1800s, the sisters care for the sick and dying in Louisiana, Kansas, and California as well as throughout Central and South America, Spain, France, England, Italy, Cameroon, the Philippines, and Indonesia. They run a hospital for the poor in Bamenda, Cameroon, as well as two missionary houses in Oaxaca, Mexico.

The sisters look to Mary as an example as they accompany those who are suffering.

“Although we are not able to take away someone’s cross, we are present to them, offering all to the Father, like Mary did at the cross of Jesus, that all suffering may be redemptive and fruitful,” Bussen said.

“Every one of us sisters would tell you that it is an absolute privilege to be able to enter into the intimacy of a family’s home, listening to the dying, praying with them, and encouraging them on the final stage of their journey as their soul passes into eternity,” she said.

“Our Catholic Christian faith is a beautiful comfort during these times because it is all about looking forward to the promised life to come, the whole goal of our lives, eternal life,” Bussen said.

One woman from New Orleans received news no one wants to hear — she had a terminal illness. Though she was not religious, she knew she needed help and did not know who else to turn to, so she called the Servants of Mary.

As they cared for her and helped her deal with her terminal diagnosis, the sisters learned the woman was “completely alone in the world,” said Bussen, who took care of her. Other people from the surrounding Catholic community volunteered to stay with her.

During that time, the woman found a home in the Catholic Church and received the sacrament of baptism.

Her “anxiety was transformed into peace,” said Bussen, who was with her as she died.

“As the end drew near, she had a new faith family,” Bussen said. “She was no longer alone.”

Remembering the dead 

The life of a sister Servant of Mary is “contemplative in action.” 

The sisters unite “our prayer life with our work — going about what we are doing, in all the business of daily life, in a prayerful spirit,” Bussen said.

The sisters have time set aside for prayer and work, “but these two aspects cannot be separated from one another,” she continued. “The grace and light received in prayer flows into our work and ministry, and everything we experience in our ministry is taken to prayer.”

Throughout the year, the sisters take special care to remember the dead. 

In November especially, Bussen said the sisters “remember all our patients who have died with us by placing their names in our chapel and offering Masses for their eternal happiness.”

“Even after a patient has passed,” she said, “and they no longer need physical care, our ministry continues by praying for their soul.”

Scene from Nov. 1, 2025, Mass outside the Broadview facility near Chicago where immigration advocates allege federal authorities inhumanely treat detainees. / Credit: Kathleen Murphy/CNA

Chicago, Illinois, Nov 1, 2025 / 17:29 pm (CNA).

Auxiliary Bishop Jose María García-Maldonado celebrated a Mass on Nov. 1 outside the Broadview facility near Chicago where immigration advocates allege federal authorities inhumanely treat detainees.

Maldonado, an auxiliary bishop in Chicago, and a group of eight spiritual leaders sought to bring holy Communion to detainees and were not admitted. Mass organizers said they followed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s guidelines to obtain access and submitted the request weeks in advance.

An estimated 2,000 Catholics attended the outdoor Mass including Sister JoAnn Persch, 91, a Sister of Mercy and longtime advocate for immigrant rights in the Chicago area.

Persch said in previous years she was granted access to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and brought Communion to detainees, but access has ceased. Obtaining access initially took time when she first began visiting the facility decades ago, she said.

“Our motto is peacefully, respectfully, but never take no for an answer, so we kept working with ICE,” Persch said. “Finally, we got inside.”

Father David Inczauskis, SJ, who worked with the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership and Broadview, Illinois’ mayor to request access, said: “On a day of All Saints, people should be able to receive Communion. That’s a reasonable request to make, fitting with our Constitution and with the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.”

A full slate of information about who is inside the facility is lacking, he said. But family members of detainees say their loved ones are inside desiring Communion, he said. Authorities cited “safety reasons” for denying the group access, Inczauskis said.

“The Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith. It’s such an important thing for people to be able to receive Communion. To be denied that right, that opportunity, as Catholics, is devastating,” Inczauskis said.

Michael Okinczyc-Cruz, executive director of the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership, cited media reports saying people are being kept at the Broadview facility for days, sleeping on floors, having medications withheld, with no showers.

The American Civil Liberties Union and MacArthur Justice Center sued the federal government Oct. 31, saying migrants are housed in inhumane conditions at Broadview and denied their right to access counsel. The Department of Homeland Security has vigorously denied the allegations of subprime conditions.

Alexa Van Brunt, director of the MacArthur Justice Center’s Illinois office and lead counsel on the suit, said in a statement: “Community members are being kidnapped off the streets, packed in hold cells, denied food, medical care, and basic necessities, and forced to sign away their legal rights. This is a vicious abuse of power and gross violation of basic human rights by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security. It must end now.”

The suit alleges ICE agents at Broadview deny detainees sufficient food, water, hygiene, and medical care. The suit also alleges detainees are deprived of sleep, privacy, menstrual products, and the ability to shower.

President Donald Trump expanded use of deportations without a court hearing this year and ramped up federal law enforcement efforts to identify and arrest immigrants lacking legal status. The administration set a goal of 1 million deportations this year.

Genin De la Peña is a Chicago resident who said she attended the Mass at Broadview “because others cannot, I want to support,” she said.

Displaced Sudanese who fled El-Fasher after the city fell to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) arrive in the town of Tawila in war-torn Sudan’s western Darfur region on Oct. 28, 2025. / Credit: AFP via Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 1, 2025 / 12:58 pm (CNA).

Graphic evidence emerged Friday of large-scale massacres of civilians in Sudan, including satellite imagery of bodies and bloodstained ground taken outside a hospital in Darfur.

More than 460 patients and their family members were reported shot and killed in the Saudi Maternity Hospital in El Fasher on Tuesday after the Sudanese army surrendered the city to paramilitary fighters on Sunday following an 18-month siege.

The government’s forces remain in control of the capital city of Khartoum, according to news reports.

The massacre is the latest tragedy in the conflict that has consumed the western Darfur region since full-scale civil war broke out in 2023.

The war between rival military factions — the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — has claimed the lives of an estimated 150,000 people and displaced as many as 14 million, according to the Council on Foreign Relations’ Global Conflict Tracker.

UN: It’s the world’s ‘most devastating’ humanitarian crisis

In January, the U.S. State Department declared that the RSF had committed genocide against non-Arab ethic groups in Sudan. The United Nations has described the situation in Sudan as the “most devastating humanitarian and displacement crisis in the world.”

Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this year said that “men and boys — even infants — on an ethnic basis” had been killed and that the RSF fighters “deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence,” CNN reported.

The atrocities that have taken place in Sudan constitute ethnic cleansing, according to Human Rights Watch, which in its 2024 report said “crimes against humanity and widespread war crimes were committed in the context of an ethnic-cleansing campaign against the ethnic Massalit and other non-Arab populations.”

The Republic of Sudan, in northeastern Africa, has a population of about 50 million people, 90.7% of whom are Muslim, with Christians forming the largest minority. In 2019, a revolution toppled President Omar al-Bashir, ending decades of authoritarian rule. Two years later, military leader Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and paramilitary commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo ousted civilian leaders and seized power. Their forces turned on each other in April 2023, plunging the country into war.

In September, Pope Leo XIV called on Sudan’s warring leaders to end the violence in the country in order to get much-needed humanitarian assistance to the 260,000 people said to be trapped in camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) in el-Fasher. 

“Dramatic news is coming from Sudan, particularly from Darfur,” Pope Leo said. “In el-Fasher many civilians are trapped in the city, victims of famine and violence. In Tarasin, a devastating landslide has caused numerous deaths, leaving behind pain and despair. And as if that weren’t enough, the spread of cholera is threatening hundreds of thousands of people who are already exhausted.”

“I make a heartfelt appeal to those in positions of responsibility and to the international community to ensure humanitarian corridors are open and to implement a coordinated response to stop this humanitarian catastrophe,” the pope said.

“It is a forgotten war because the people are really forgotten,” Bishop Christian Carlassare of Bentiu in South Sudan told OSV News.

“Unfortunately, it’s a forgotten war for the international community, but it’s not forgotten for the weapon merchants, who are making a lot of profits out of this war,” he told the outlet.

According to the United Nations, Sudan is becoming “the world’s largest hunger crisis in recent history.” As many as 24.6 million people — more than half the population — are “food insecure,” according to the U.N.

In February, Catholic Relief Services and Caritas agencies warned that the Trump administration’s freezing of assistance through U.S. Agency for International Development would exacerbate an already dangerous situation.

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