The Church of St. Luke

Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, the Holy See’s permanent observer to the United Nations in New York, speaks on Aug. 29, 2025, the International Day Against Nuclear Tests. / Credit: Holy See Mission to the United Nations

ACI Prensa Staff, Sep 5, 2025 / 15:06 pm (CNA).

The Holy See’s permanent observer to the United Nations in New York, Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, highlighted the Vatican’s concern about significant increases in military spending and nuclear arms development worldwide on the International Day Against Nuclear Tests.

In a speech during the high-level plenary session of the general assembly on Aug. 29, Caccia emphasized that the pursuit of “a world free of nuclear weapons” is not only a matter of strategic and vital necessity but also a profound moral responsibility.

“Instead of moving toward disarmament and a culture of peace, we are witnessing a resurgence of aggressive nuclear rhetoric, the development of increasingly destructive weapons, and a significant increase in military spending, often to the detriment of investments in integral human development and the promotion of the common good,” Caccia said.

According to Vatican News, the Holy See’s representative noted that since the first nuclear test, conducted on July 16, 1945, in the New Mexico desert, more than 2,000 nuclear tests have been carried out on land, in the atmosphere, underground, and in the oceans.

“These actions have affected everyone, particularly Indigenous populations, women, children, and the unborn. The health and dignity of many continue to be compromised in silence and, too often, without any kind of compensation,” he said.

“It is particularly worrying that, in the face of this important shared responsibility, the global response seems to be going in the opposite direction,” the prelate warned.

He quoted Pope Leo XIV when he emphasized in his speech the need to “reject the lure of powerful and sophisticated weapons as a temptation.”

Caccia said what is required is “a renewed effort toward multilateral dialogue and the resolute implementation of disarmament treaties as well as concrete support for communities that continue to suffer the long-term consequences of nuclear testing and weapons.”

The archbishop reiterated the importance of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and the full implementation of the International Monitoring System and its verification mechanisms.

The Holy See, he stated, reaffirms its “unconditional support” for this international commitment, calling for a “strengthening of the global norm against explosive nuclear tests as an essential step toward authentic and lasting peace.”

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

Father Mike Schmitz speaks at the revival session of the National Eucharistic Congress at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on July 18, 2024. / Credit: Jeffrey Bruno

CNA Staff, Sep 5, 2025 / 14:25 pm (CNA).

Popular podcasting priest Father Mike Schmitz — best known for the “Bible in a Year” podcast — is back at it planning a new podcast titled “Called.”

Inspired by the Scripture verse Matthew 25:40, the podcast will be made up of episodes featuring conversations with individuals who have answered God’s call to serve others. From teachers and entrepreneurs to parents and community leaders, the podcast aims to inspire the faithful to put their faith into action.

The Catholic Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to renewing the Church and serving those most in need, has partnered with Ascension to create the podcast. An official release date has not yet been announced.

“This ‘Called’ podcast is giving flesh to the fact that every one of us is called to be the hands and feet of Jesus,” Schmitz said in a video released Sept. 3 announcing the new podcast.

The priest began the video by retelling the parable told by Jesus in Matthew 25. In this parable Jesus welcomes into the heavenly kingdom those who fed him when he was hungry, gave him something to drink when he was thirsty, and clothed him when he was naked. However, for others who did not do these things, they are told to “depart from him.” Schmitz called this parable “one of the most convicting.”

“Every time I read through it, every time I hear it proclaimed, every time I even think of it, I think, ‘Well, here is Jesus — he’s giving us the answer to the test when it comes to the end of our lives,’” Schmitz explained.

He continued: “Jesus makes it very, very clear we’re not being judged on what did you believe — although that’s very important — but here in this parable he’s not highlighting that part, he’s highlighting what did you do? Not just what did you do in your life, but what did you do for the least of my brethren?”

Schmitz said one example of someone who lived this parable was Pier Giorgio Frassati, who will be declared a saint on Sept. 7 in Rome. He explained that the young man would often return to his home without shoes on because he would give them to someone who did not have a pair of shoes.

Therefore, the podcast aims to answer the question: How is God calling each of us to live this out in our daily lives?

“On this podcast ‘Called’ you’ll be able to see ‘Oh, here’s how people right now do this.’ So it takes out some of the mystery and actually gives you and me the strength and the vision and the direction to be able to say, ‘That’s how they live that out. I can totally live that out in my life right now,’” Schmitz said.

“This podcast isn’t just to highlight and spotlight the heroes among us. What it’s meant to do is inspire us, to give us that new vision of what this could look like in your life and in my life.”

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is backing a coalition of New Jersey pregnancy centers asking the U.S. Supreme Court (pictured) to halt a state investigation into their donor lists.  / Credit: Wolfgang Schaller/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Sep 5, 2025 / 12:30 pm (CNA).

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is backing a coalition of New Jersey pregnancy centers as they ask the U.S. Supreme Court to halt a state investigation into their donor lists and other sensitive documents.

First Choice Women’s Resource Centers is asking the high court to block a demand from New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin to turn over extensive donor lists with identifying information. The prosecutor is demanding the records as part of an investigation into compliance with “consumer protection” laws.

In their amicus filing at the Supreme Court, the USCCB argued that compelling the donor disclosures would negatively affect groups beyond the pregnancy centers, including churches. The bishops alleged it would hollow out the “long-established protection of religious autonomy” established by the high court.

Compelling donor lists would “pressure a church to change the way it raises funds and maintains its financial records” and would “reveal private information about a church’s internal operations,” the bishops said.

“Coercive tactics could be used against religious groups of all creeds, social views, and political persuasions,” the bishops wrote. “Wherever a particular group’s religious calling takes it outside the predominant ethic and mores of the day, it will be at risk of similar attempts to interfere, redirect, chill, or quash.”

The USCCB argued that financial donations constitute an “act of speech” and of religious expression. 

“When a state compels a religious organization to disclose its donor lists, it assails nearly every First Amendment right with a single blow,” it said.

The bishops urged the Supreme Court to block Platkin’s subpoena efforts and “affirm and strengthen its precedents protecting religious exercise and association.”

The U.S. bishops in their filing joined a broad coalition of advocacy groups and associations in opposing the state attorney general’s investigation, including the U.S. government, multiple members of Congress, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Democrats for Life, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the Second Amendment Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, the state of Florida, and the 2001-era internet trade association NetChoice.

Erin Hawley, a senior attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing the pregnancy centers before the Supreme Court, said in a press release that the legal group was “grateful for the diverse voices” coming out in opposition to the New Jersey prosecutor’s investigation.

“The Constitution protects First Choice and its donors from demands by a hostile state official to disclose their identities, and First Choice is entitled to vindicate those rights in federal court,” Hawley said.

null / Credit: Sora Shimazaki/Pexels

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 5, 2025 / 11:00 am (CNA).

A federal court has blocked the government from enforcing an abortion accommodation rule against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and other Catholic entities as a lawsuit over the provision plays out. 

The abortion rule, finalized by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in April 2024, forces employers to provide accommodations for workers to obtain or recover from abortions, surrogacy, and in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures, all three of which conflict with Catholic teaching.

Under the Sept. 3 court order issued by Judge David Joseph, the EEOC is prohibited from enforcing the final rule in any way that would force the bishops and the other Catholic entities to accommodate actions that are “in violation of their sincerely held religious beliefs.”

The order states that the EEOC cannot launch investigations against the bishops or the other entities based on a refusal to provide accommodations for procedures that conflict with Catholic teaching.

The block will remain in place until the lawsuit against the EEOC challenging the rule concludes.

Daniel Blomberg, vice president of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and lead attorney for the bishops in the case, told CNA the court order is in line with what the bishops had requested.

He said the EEOC had previously “agreed to not enforce the mandate” on the bishops and other Catholic entities but had not agreed to the court-ordered injunction. He said the injunction requested by the bishops and provided by the court “memorializes the agreement.”

CNA reached out to the EEOC for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

The bishops’ lawsuit continues

The EEOC imposed this rule as part of the regulatory framework for the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, adopted by Congress and signed by former President Joe Biden in 2024.

The law itself, which makes no mention of abortion, requires employers to provide workplace accommodations to women for limitations caused by pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions.

Under the Biden-era regulations that enforce the law, the EEOC determined that related medical conditions included “having or choosing not to have an abortion.” The regulation only provided religious exemptions on a case-by-case basis, which would be determined after accommodation requests were denied.

Blomberg pointed out that the bishops “were very supportive” of the law itself because they believed it would “protect [pregnant women] and lead to healthier moms and healthier babies.” 

Yet the EEOC “turned that protection for pregnant women into a mandate for abortion,” he said, and the bishops and many other organizations were forced to file lawsuits to maintain religious liberty protections threatened by the subsequent regulation.

The lawsuit to determine the legality of the mandate is still ongoing. The bishops’ challenge to the abortion accommodation rule is in front of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. The bishops’ challenge to accommodation rules related to surrogacy, IVF, contraception, and other practices that conflict with Catholic teaching are in front of a federal district court. 

Blomberg said the bishops are “challenging the understanding that the [law] itself requires any sort of accommodation for abortion.” 

“We think that’s completely not right,” he said.

If the law were enforced, Blomberg explained religious workplaces would need to change their internal policies. He noted that the rule would also prevent religious employees from promoting pro-life values in the workplace because “there can’t be any sort of pressure or coercion, even by other employee speech in the ministry.”

A violation would be treated the same as any other employment discrimination case, such as through court-ordered injunctions or forcing employers to pay monetary damage for refusing to accommodate abortions.

The Sept. 3 court order expands on a previous court order that had only blocked the EEOC from enforcing the abortion accommodation against the bishops when the abortion is considered elective. 

Under the previous order, the bishops would have still needed to accommodate abortions when justified by medical conditions that included “minor” anxiety, depression, nausea, and changes in hormone levels caused by the pregnancy.

Under the current order, however, bishops are now exempt from accommodating all abortions and other practices that violate Catholic teaching.

The bishops, Blomberg said, “are protected for the time being.”

Father Edwin Román (left) with Bishop Silvio Báez. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Father Edwin Román

ACI Prensa Staff, Sep 5, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).

Father Edwin Román talked about his life in exile in an interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, expressing his hopes for the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which is suffering persecution at the hands of the dictatorship of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo.

The priest, who is now parochial vicar at St. Agatha Parish in Miami, noted that Aug. 3 marked four years since he left Nicaragua to go into exile for being critical of the dictatorship.

“My plane ticket was for 10 days [abroad], but due to direct threats from Rosario Murillo and a pro-government journalist threatening to imprison me  — and after being the victim of much harassment — traffic stops on the highway — and efforts to defame me, I decided to stay and apply for asylum,” he said.

“Since then, I’ve been at St. Agatha Parish, welcomed by the pastor, Father Marcos Somarriba, and the community. I’ve also been supporting neighboring parishes,” said the 65-year-old priest, who was ordained Dec. 12, 1990, for the Archdiocese of Managua.

Somarriba recently spoke with the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, and expressed his concerns about the persecution of Catholics in Nicaragua and the Trump administration announcing it will deport thousands of his fellow Nicaraguans who have been in the United States for decades.

“My people, the Nicaraguan people, are dumbfounded. They don’t know where to go, what to do, and I think the regime is not going to be open to this. They disappear people; they put people in jail; they exile people and don’t let them come back into the country,” the priest said.

Parochial vicar at St. Agatha’s

On Aug. 17, Román thanked Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami on X for appointing him as parochial vicar of St. Agatha, the church where Bishop Silvio Báez, auxiliary bishop of Managua who went into exile in 2019, also celebrates Mass.

As parochial vicar, Román explained, he supports “evangelization with parish groups and lay leadership, celebrates the sacraments, assists in caring for the faithful in the office, and visits the sick.”

“It has been very difficult to adapt. The pain remains of not having said goodbye to my parish, nor the faithful to me, their pastor. Thank God, we have found priests and bishops who have opened the doors of their parishes to us. Bishops who, like good shepherds, have listened to us and opened their hearts, as Archbishop Thomas Wenski did for me,” the priest shared.

The persecuted Catholic Church in Nicaragua

When asked what he knows about the current persecution of the Catholic Church in his homeland by the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship, Román emphasized that “the Catholic faithful haven’t stopped going to Mass, filling their churches during Holy Week, the feast day of [the parish’s] patron saint, and Sundays. People continue to pray and have not lost hope for better times.”

All of this continues, the priest pointed out, despite “the harassment, parishes being infiltrated, prohibitions against the Prayer of the Faithful at Mass, and requirements that priests send their homilies to police stations for review. Processions and prayer group meetings in homes are also prohibited.”

The dictatorship of Ortega and Murillo in Nicaragua has banned more than 16,500 processions and acts of piety in recent years and has perpetrated 1,010 attacks against the Catholic Church.

This is all detailed in the seventh installment of the report “Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church” by exiled lawyer and researcher Martha Patricia Molina, which was released on Aug. 27.

Pope Leo XIV and Nicaragua

Pope Leo XIV received on Aug. 23 at the Vatican three Nicaraguan bishops in exile: Báez; Bishop Isidoro Mora of Siuna; and Bishop Carlos Herrera of Jinotega, president of the Nicaraguan Bishops’ Conference.

Báez recounted on X that he, his brother bishops, and Pope Leo XIV spoke “at length about Nicaragua and the situation of the Church in particular.”

The Holy Father, the prelate said, encouraged him “to continue with my episcopal ministry and confirmed me as auxiliary bishop of Managua. I sincerely thank him for his fraternal welcome and his encouraging words.”

Regarding the meeting between the bishops and Leo XIV, Román told ACI Prensa that “the pope expressed his closeness to the Nicaraguan people and to the Church. This visit has undoubtedly been a very encouraging one for us.”

“The pope is familiar with our Latin American reality” considering his many years as a missionary and bishop in Peru, Román said.

How can the faithful help the Church in Nicaragua?

Román told ACI Prensa that “one day someone told me: ‘Find a benevolent bishop.’ I have already found that bishop” in the archbishop of Miami, who has also warmly welcomed Báez.

“I thank the many Nicaraguans and people of other nationalities who have welcomed me and made me part of their families,” the priest added.

Asked how the faithful can help Catholics in his homeland, the priest responded: “By praying for this pilgrim Church in Nicaragua, including us in the prayers of the faithful in all parishes, and that Catholic and fair-minded media continue to denounce the injustice experienced by the Nicaraguan people and the persecution of the Church.”

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

The Ascensor da Glória funicular in Lisbon, Portugal, crashed on Sept. 3, 2025, killing 17 people and injuring at least 23. / Credit: Maragato1976 (CC BY-SA 3.0)

ACI Prensa Staff, Sep 4, 2025 / 15:03 pm (CNA).

The patriarch of Lisbon offered his prayers for the dead and injured in an accident involving the Elevador da Glória, an iconic funicular that crashed on Sept. 3.

null / Credit: Vatican Media

Rome, Italy, Sep 4, 2025 / 06:05 am (CNA).

The Godzone Project, launched in Slovakia, has drawn thousands of people to worship concerts across Central Europe.

The stamps of saints-to-be Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati will be worth 1.35 euros ($1.60) each. / Credit: Vatican Media

ACI Prensa Staff, Sep 4, 2025 / 04:10 am (CNA).

The young faces of Blessed Carlo Acutis and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati will be immortalized in special stamps issued on the occasion of their canonization.

St. Mary’s Cathedral in Valencia, Spain. / Credit: Pere López, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Madrid, Spain, Sep 3, 2025 / 05:15 am (CNA).

The Observatory for Religious Freedom and Conscience reported seven cases of vandalism and desecration against Catholic churches in Spain last month.

Blessed Carlo Acutis. / Credit: Diocese of Assisi

CNA Staff, Sep 3, 2025 / 04:30 am (CNA).

Who was Carlo Acutis? Was his body found incorrupt? Was he really a gamer? What did he play? Here are 12 things you should know about the soon-to-be saint.