The Church of St. Luke

WASHINGTON - The National Catholic-Muslim Dialogue (NCMD) met on Sept 8-9 to continue its multi-year study entitled, “Journeying Together.” The dialogue is staffed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs. This year’s session featured presentations by Sr. Marianne Farina, CSC and Dr. Anas Malik on the ecological crisis in conjunction with the tenth anniversary of Pope Francis’ encyclical letter on ecology, Laudato si’ and the publication of Al Mizan, the foremost Muslim statement on the environment. 

The NCMD hosted an event at The Catholic University of America with keynotes by the Most Reverend John Stowe, OFM, Conv., Bishop of Lexington, and Imam Saffet Catovic, current Muslim Chaplain at Drew University and a member of the international writing team of Al Mizan. 

Reflecting on the purpose and importance of the NCMD, Catholic Co-Chairman of NCMD, Most Reverend Elias Lorenzo, OSB, Auxiliary Bishop of Newark, stated: “The NCMD strives to foster greater understanding, mutual esteem, lasting friendship and cooperation for the promotion of greater solidarity with the human family. We pursue these goals through collaborative study, the production of educational materials, and the coordination of public events to raise awareness and provide opportunities for mutual engagement.” Similarly echoing the need for continued engagement to uphold solidarity, the Muslim Co-Chairman of the NCMD, Imam Kareem Irfan, Esq., stated: “We convened our 2025 NCMD meeting in our nation's capital with a sense of urgent concerns - not just for the environmental crisis confronting the world, and the distressing realities in the Holy Land - but also given the polarized viewpoints and lines of division fracturing our nation.” 

The work of the NCMD will continue its work of interfaith study, reflection and the production of resources on ecology and the environment as well as several new topics, including the relationship between truth and artificial intelligence, faith in a secular culture, and spiritual communion between Catholics and Muslims.

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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Clerical sexual abuse continues to be "a real crisis," one that the Catholic Church still must learn to deal with, particularly in improving the way it helps survivors while also ensuring the rights of the accused are respected, Pope Leo XIV said.

"It would be naive for myself or for anyone" to think that dismissing the offender and giving the victim a financial settlement completely solves a case, "as if those wounds are just going to go away because of that," the pope said in an interview for a book by Elise Allen, a journalist.

For Allen's biography, "Leo XIV: Citizen of the World, Missionary of the XXI Century," Pope Leo spoke about a range of issues, including the abuse crisis, U.S. President Donald Trump, the war in Gaza, Vatican policy toward China, the church's openness to LGBTQ Catholics, the role of women in the church, and the celebration of the pre-Vatican II Mass in Latin.

Excerpts of Allen's July 30 interview, her second interview with the pope, were published Sept. 14, but the full transcript was released Sept. 18 in conjunction with the publication of the Spanish edition of the book by Penguin Peru.

Pope Leo said that while the church has enacted tougher laws and policies to prevent and punish abuse, it cannot say that the crisis is over.

"This will continue to take time because victims must be treated with great respect and with an understanding that those who have suffered very deep wounds because of abuse sometimes carry those wounds for their entire life," he said.

At the same time, he said, there is the "complicating factor" of ensuring that the rights of the accused are respected.

"Statistics show that well over 90% of people who come forward and make accusations, they are authentically victims. They are telling the truth. They are not making this up," he said. "But there have also been proven cases of some kind of false accusation. There have been priests whose lives have been destroyed because of that."

And even when the accusation is well founded, the pope said, the accused has a right to a presumption of innocence and due process.

"But even saying that at times is cause of greater pain for the victims," Pope Leo acknowledged. 

On the topic of President Trump, Pope Leo said he had not met the president nor spoken to him, although his brother Louis has and "has been very outspoken about his political views."

Trump "at times has made clear" his concern about questions of human dignity and promoting peace, the pope said. "In those efforts I would want to support him."

"The United States is a power player on the world level, we have to recognize that," he said, but "sometimes decisions are made more based on economics than on human dignity," such as the current immigration policy, and the church will continue to challenge that approach.

Pope Leo declined to get into "some of the things that have been said about the episcopacy in the United States and the relationship between church and politics." However, he said, "the fact that I am American means, among other things, people can't say, like they did about Francis, 'He doesn't understand the United States; he just doesn't see what's going on.'"

Regarding the war in Gaza, Pope Leo told Allen that "the word genocide is being thrown around more and more. Officially, the Holy See does not believe that we can make any declaration at this time about that. There's a very technical definition about what genocide might be, but more and more people are raising the issue, including two human rights groups in Israel."

On China, and most of the other issues the pope discussed in the interview, he said he would follow the basic path laid out by Pope Francis.

"I in no way pretend to be wiser or more experienced than all those who have come before me," Pope Leo said. 

However, before becoming pope he made several visits to China, and Pope Leo said he is "in ongoing dialogue with a number of people, Chinese, on both sides of some of the issues," particularly concerning cooperating with the government so the church can operate openly while showing respect for Chinese Catholics who have undergone oppression for their refusal to join the government-controlled church.

The pope said he also intends to continue Pope Francis' welcoming approach to LGBTQ Catholics while not changing church teaching, especially the Catholic vision of marriage as being between one man and one woman committed to each other for life and open to having children.

"What I'm trying to say is what Francis said very clearly when he would say, 'todos, todos, todos.' Everyone's invited in, but I don't invite a person in because they are or are not of any specific identity. I invite a person in because they are a son or daughter of God," he said.

He said he also would "continue in the footsteps of (Pope) Francis" by appointing women to leadership roles in the church, "recognizing the gifts that women have that can contribute to the life of the church."

Studying the question of ordaining women to the diaconate will continue, he said, but he did not expect church policy to change any time soon, especially since the permanent diaconate is still not valued throughout the church. "Why would we talk about ordaining women to the diaconate if the diaconate itself is not yet properly understood and properly developed and promoted within the church?" he asked.

On continuing requests for greater access to celebrations of the pre-Vatican II Mass, Pope Leo said the Mass has been caught up in "a process of polarization -- people have used the liturgy as an excuse for advancing other topics. It's become a political tool, and that's very unfortunate."
 

The J. Edgar Hoover FBI headquarters building in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Tony Webster, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 17, 2025 / 19:34 pm (CNA).

FBI Director Kash Patel said in a U.S. Senate hearing that there have been “terminations” and “resignations” of employees related to a 2023 anti-Catholic memo produced by Richmond, Virginia’s field office and the agency has made policy adjustments.

Patel made the comments during a Sept. 16 line of questioning from Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, who requested an update on the administration’s investigation into the memo and asked about the FBI’s efforts to combat anti-Catholic and anti-Christian violence and hate crimes.

He did not specify how many people were terminated or what their roles were in drafting the memo.

“We are doing our investigation simultaneously with Congress,” Patel said. “Just to put it in perspective, we provided 700 documents on the Richmond Catholic memo, specifically to this committee, whereas my predecessor provided 19 pages.”

The referenced 2023 memo detailed an investigation into “radical traditionalist” Catholics and purported ties to “the far-right white nationalist movement.” It suggested “opportunities for threat mitigation” through “trip wire or source development” within parishes that celebrate the Latin Mass and within “radical-traditionalist” Catholic online communities.

Immediately after the document was leaked to the public in February 2023, the FBI retracted the memo for not meeting the agency’s “exacting standards.” Although the FBI said at the time that the issue was isolated to one document in one field agency, an investigation by the House Judiciary Committee revealed coordination between multiple field offices and at least 13 documents that contained disparaging language about traditionalist Catholicism.

Under Patel’s leadership, the current FBI director told Hawley “we looked into how the source recruitment structure at the FBI was conducted during this time and we made adjustments and permanent fixes to ensure that sources are not put into houses of worship unless there is an actual ongoing criminal or international terrorism threat.”

“We will not use sources at this FBI to investigate and cull information just for the sake of culling information in houses of worship,” he said.

60 reports of anti-Catholic hate crimes under investigation

Hawley also asked Patel about threats of violence against Catholics and other Christians during the hearing, particularly in light of the shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis last month.

Patel said the FBI is currently investigating 60 reports of anti-Catholic hate crimes, including ones in Kansas City, Missouri; Louisville, Kentucky; Houston; Nashville, Tennessee; and Richmond, Virginia.

“Any ideologically-based attack against any faith, as a man of faith myself, will not be tolerated,” said Patel, who is Hindu. “The full resources of the FBI [are] committed to all of it.” He said the FBI will also look into ensuring that rewards of monetary value are offered for information on “all ideologically-based attacks.”

Regarding investigations into that violence, Patel said “we follow the money.” Whether it’s an attack based on people of faith or institutions of faith, he said, “someone’s paying for it.”

“We are reverse tracing those steps, we are not stopping at the perpetrator themselves,” he added. “We are reverse engineering to hold those accountable in our investigations to who funded them and knowingly funded them. We will [take] the appropriate steps against them.”

Hawley noted that there have been hundreds of instances in which houses of worship have faced direct violent action or threats, including arson, bomb threats, and shootings. He asked Patel whether the FBI would consider designating a senior official as a liaison to houses of worship.

“You’re speaking my language,” Patel said. “The private-public sector partnership on this specific issue, just like the other ones we’ve talked about, is equally transformative to finding those involved in these criminal activities. With your assistance, I would ask you if you’re able to identify someone who’s an expert in that area, we will work with them.”

In light of last week’s assassination of Christian and conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Hawley also asked Patel whether the FBI is investigating the attack as “part of this broader pattern of anti-religious, anti-Christian violence.”

“We are investigating Charlie’s assassination fully and completely and running out every lead related to any allegation of broader violence, and we’re producing results on that that we’ll disclose when appropriate,” Patel told him.

null / Credit: GBALLGIGGSPHOTO/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 17, 2025 / 16:49 pm (CNA).

A Cardus Health report said the legalization of medical assistance in dying in Canada has led to disproportionately high rates of premature deaths among vulnerable groups.

Pope Leo XIV on Sept. 16, 2025, expelled from the clerical state an Italian deacon who was convicted of sexual offenses against minors. / Credit: Freedom Studio/Shutterstock

ACI Prensa Staff, Sep 17, 2025 / 16:19 pm (CNA).

Italian permanent deacon Alessandro Frateschi, who was convicted of sexual offenses against minors, has been expelled from the clerical state by Pope Leo XIV.

View of the San Diego skyline. / Credit: russellstreet, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

CNA Staff, Sep 17, 2025 / 13:19 pm (CNA).

A deacon in San Diego told parishioners last week that he will voluntarily deport himself after his residency status was revoked by the U.S. government.

The deacon reportedly made the announcement at St. Jude Shrine of the West during Masses on Sept. 14. Local media reported that the clergyman came to the U.S. when he was 13 and “served the St. Jude community for roughly four decades.” He will reportedly be returning to Tijuana, Mexico.

Local reports did not identify the deacon. A diocesan representative indicated to CNA that the news reports were accurate, but the diocese said it could not identify the deacon himself and that he was handling the matter privately.

Representatives at St. Jude Parish did not respond to queries regarding the announcement.

The deacon’s self-deportation comes amid a wave of heightened immigration enforcement around the country as the Trump administration works to ramp up deportations of immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

Catholic and Christian advocates have criticized the elevated enforcement. Prior to his death, Pope Francis in February told the U.S. bishops that amid the deportations, the faithful “are called upon to consider the legitimacy of norms and public policies in the light of the dignity of the person and his or her fundamental rights, not vice versa.”

In the spring, meanwhile, religious leaders including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the National Association of Evangelicals lamented the potential impacts of mass deportations on Christian families in the U.S.

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,” the leaders said. 

In some cases priests have faced deportation or loss of legal status amid changing immigration rules. In Texas, a Mexican-born Catholic priest who served in the Diocese of Laredo, Texas, for nine years left the United States last month because his application for residency was denied and his religious worker visa was expiring.

Catholic advocates have repeatedly warned that changes to U.S. visa rules have brought about a looming crisis in which many U.S.-based priests will be forced to leave their ministries, return to their home countries, and remain there for lengthy wait times.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told EWTN News in August that the Trump administration is “committed” to addressing that issue. 

“We’ll have a plan to fix it,” Rubio said. Details of that plan have yet to be released.

null / Credit: Zolnierek/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 17, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).

An appellate court in Mississippi dismissed an employment-related lawsuit brought against an agency of the Southern Baptist Convention, ruling that a secular court cannot intervene in matters of religious governance.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi ruled 2-1 to dismiss Will McRaney’s lawsuit against the North American Mission Board (NAMB), which he first brought over eight years ago. The court cited the long-standing church autonomy doctrine.

McRaney was fired from his role in the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware (BCMD) in 2015 based on a dispute about how to implement the Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) between BCMD and NAMB.

According to the court ruling, McRaney was tasked with implementing the SPA’s evangelical objectives to spread the Baptist faith “through church planting and evangelism.” The ruling states the dispute was related to “missionary selection and funding, associational giving, and missionary work requirements.”

The BCMD ultimately voted 37-0 to fire him “because of his wretched leadership,” among other reasons, according to the court. Alternatively, McRaney alleged in his lawsuit that he was fired because NAMB defamed him by spreading “disparaging falsehoods.”

The three-judge panel did not rule on the merits of the dispute, but rather a majority found that resolving the claims would require the court “to decide matters of faith and doctrine,” which the courts do not have the authority to do because religious bodies have autonomy when handling such matters based on Supreme Court precedent related to the First Amendment’s protection of the free exercise of religion.

“The church is constitutionally protected against all judicial intrusion into its ecclesiastical affairs — even brief and momentary ones,” the court ruled.

“Can a secular court determine whether NAMB’s conduct was the ‘proximate cause’ of BCMD’s decision to terminate McRaney, without unlawfully intruding on a religious organization’s internal management decisions?” the judges wrote.

“And can a secular court decide it was ‘false’ that McRaney’s leadership lacked Christlike character?” they continued. “To ask these questions is to answer them: no. The SPA is not a mere civil contract; it is ‘an inherently religious document’ that is ‘steeped in religious doctrine.’”

Hiram Sasser, the executive general counsel for First Liberty Institute, which helped provide legal counsel to NAMB, said in a statement that the court’s ruling is consistent with the First Amendment.

“The First Amendment prohibits the government from interfering with the autonomy of religious organizations and the church,” Sasser said. “No court should be able to tell a church who it must hire to preach their beliefs, teach their faith, or carry out their mission.”

Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez dissented from the court’s majority, stating: “His secular claims against a third-party organization do not implicate matters of church government or of faith and doctrine.”

McRaney told Baptist News Global that he intends to petition the court for an “en banc” hearing, which would require the entirety of the appellate court to be present for a hearing. He told the outlet that NAMB “fooled the courts” and said the Southern Baptist Convention is “not a church” and he wasn’t employed by NAMB, which means it is not an internal church matter.

In 2023, a Texas judge dismissed a civil lawsuit from a Carmelite monastery against Fort Worth Bishop Michael Olson on similar grounds. The dispute was over a diocesan investigation into an alleged sexual affair between the monastery’s prioress and a priest.

The Carmelite Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity in Arlington, Texas, in this case ultimately entered into a formal association with the Society of St. Pius X, which is not in full communion with the Catholic Church. The bishop called this a “scandalous” act that was “permeated with the odor of schism.” The Holy See suppressed the monastery.

The original image of Our Lady of Guadalupe with the Mexican flag. / Credit: David Ramos/ACI Prensa

ACI Prensa Staff, Sep 17, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

The Mexican Bishops’ Conference offered a prayer on the county’s Sept. 16 holiday “to God and to our Most Holy Mother of Guadalupe”: “Long live Mexico!”

null / Credit: HQuality/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Sep 17, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

A new Lifeway Research study reveals that a slim majority of Americans believe it is morally acceptable for terminally ill individuals to request physician-assisted suicide, while more believe physicians should be allowed to help patients who want to end their lives.

The study, titled “American Views on Assisted Suicide,” found that 51% of respondents consider it morally acceptable for someone with a painful terminal disease to seek a physician’s assistance in ending their life. Slightly more, 55%, believe physicians should be legally permitted to assist patients who request help in ending their lives. 

However, the support is not robust, according to the study: Only 1 in 5 Americans said they “strongly agree” that it is morally acceptable for patients to ask for help to end their lives, while 30% say they “somewhat agree.” 

A slightly higher number of Americans surveyed, 1 in 4, say doctors should be allowed to help patients to end their lives.

The study also found that 32% found physician-assisted suicide morally unacceptable, with 17% saying they are unsure.

Regionally, support varies, with urban and coastal areas showing higher approval (up to 60% in some places) compared with rural or Southern states, where opposition often aligns with faith-based values, according to Lifeway. The Lifeway study, conducted via online panels, sampled 1,200 adults, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research, an evangelical Protestant research firm, noted: “Half of Americans seek their own comfort and their own way even in their death, but that doesn’t mean they don’t think twice about the morality of physician-assisted suicide.”

CNA also spoke about the survey’s results with Jessica Rodgers, coalitions director at the Patients’ Rights Action Fund, a nonsectarian, nonpartisan group whose purpose is “to abolish assisted suicide laws.” The organization calls such laws “inherently discriminatory, impossible to safely regulate, and put the most vulnerable members of society at risk of deadly harm.”

Waning support, growing opposition

Rodgers told CNA these poll numbers actually show a decrease in public support.

“I certainly don’t see momentum on their side,” she said.

Indeed, a Lifeway Research study in 2016 found that 67% of those surveyed said the practice was morally acceptable, while 33% disagreed.

Rodgers said that as people learn more about how dangerous the policies surrounding legalizing assisted suicide are, they tend to oppose the practice, and “opposition cuts across the political spectrum.”

In New York, where the state Legislature recently passed a bill legalizing the practice, Gov. Kathy Hochul has yet to sign the legislation into law. 

“She hears daily from diverse advocates from across the political spectrum asking her to veto,” Rodgers said. “In fact, some of the most passionate opposition to the bill has been Democratic leadership.”

“I see people all over the spectrum who agree on nothing else,” she said.

Disability advocates, health care personnel, and members of multiple religious groups have united in their opposition to the laws, saying legalizing assisted suicide is bad for their communities and bad for patients. 

‘Dying in pain or in peace’ is a false choice

“Proponents often frame it falsely as “Do you want to die in pain or do you want a peaceful death?’” according to Rodgers, who said the practice actually targets people with disabilities. 

“It puts our vulnerable neighbors at risk, and as people learn more about it, they tend to oppose it,” she said, citing that physician-assisted suicide is now the fifth-leading cause of death in Canada.

Since Oregon legalized physician-assisted suicide through the Death with Dignity Act in 1997, by 2025, 11 states and Washington, D.C., now permit the practice. Most legislation requires terminal diagnoses with six months or less to live, mental competency, and multiple doctor approvals. 

Physician-assisted suicide is different from euthanasia, which is the direct killing of a patient by a medical professional.

Voluntary euthanasia is legal in a limited number of countries including Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, and Portugal. In Belgium and the Netherlands, minors can be euthanized if they request it.

Where does the Church stand on assisted suicide?

The Catholic Church condemns both assisted suicide and euthanasia, instead encouraging palliative care, which means supporting patients with pain management and care as the end of their lives approaches. Additionally, the Church advocates for a “special respect” for anyone with a disability or serious health condition (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2276). 

According to the catechism, “intentional euthanasia, whatever its forms or motives, is murder” and “gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and the respect due to the living God, his Creator” (CCC, 2324).

Any action or lack of action that intentionally “causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator” (CCC, 2277).

Catholic teaching also states that patients and doctors are not required to do everything possible to avoid death, but if a life has reached its natural conclusion and medical intervention would not be beneficial, the decision to “forego extraordinary or disproportionate means” to keep a dying person alive is not euthanasia, as St. John Paul II explained in Evangelium Vitae.

This story was updated on Sept. 17, 2025, at 11:55 a.m. ET.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In an overly frenetic world, the Gospel teaches the importance of stopping, resting and trusting in the Lord, Pope Leo XIV said.

"We rush to produce, to prove ourselves, to keep up," the pope said during his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square Sept. 17.

"But the Gospel teaches us that knowing how to stop is an act of trust that we must learn to perform," he said, adding that "life does not always depend on what we do, but also on how we know how to take leave of what we have been able to do." 

The day also marked the feast of St. Robert Bellarmine, a 17th-century Jesuit theologian and cardinal, and the name day of Pope Leo, who was born Robert F. Prevost.

"I'd like to thank all of you for expressing your good wishes today on my name day. Thank you so much," he said at the end of the audience.

It was also just a few days after his 70th birthday Sept. 14, and several people in the audience shouted "happy birthday" to the pope when he rode by in the popemobile.

In his main talk, the pope continued his series of reflections on lessons of hope from the Gospel by looking at the mystery of Holy Saturday and Jesus lying buried in the tomb.

For Christians, it is a day of "great silence and joyful expectation," he said, in English. 

"Just as God rested after creating the universe, so did the Son rest after completing the work of redemption, having loved us to the end," he said. "We, too, are invited to find quiet and restful moments amidst the frenzy of our daily activity."

"In the tomb, Jesus, the living word of the Father, is silent," he said in Italian. "But it is precisely in that silence that the new life begins to ferment like a seed in the ground, like the darkness before dawn."

Therefore, the pope said, even when people experience moments that are empty, still, unproductive or "useless," they can turn them into a time of grace and resurrection "if we offer it to God."

"God who lets things be done, who waits, who withdraws to leave us freedom -- he is the God who trusts, even when everything seems to be over," he said.

People should "learn that we do not have to be in a hurry to rise again; first we must stay and welcome the silence, let ourselves be embraced by limitation," he said. 

"At times we seek quick answers, immediate solutions," he said. "But God works in the depths, in the slow time of trust."

"When it seems to us that everything is at a standstill, that life is a blocked road, let us remember Holy Saturday," Pope Leo said. "Even in the tomb, God was preparing the greatest surprise of all."

"If we know how to welcome with gratitude what has been, we will discover that, precisely in smallness and silence, God loves to transfigure reality, making all things new with the fidelity of his love," he said.

Pope Leo: Embrace silence, trust God

A look at Pope Leo's general audience Sept. 17, 2025. (CNS video/Robert Duncan)