St. James the Apostle Roman Catholic Church

Thirty states have adopted some version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) first signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1993. / Credit: Leigh Prather/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 21, 2025 / 17:56 pm (CNA).

Protections for religious freedom in the U.S. have grown in recent years with multiple states adopting laws to strengthen the constitutional right to freely exercise one’s religion.

As of 2025, 30 states have adopted a version of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) or similar legislative protection for religious freedom. 

The most recent states to adopt those protections for state-level laws were Georgia and Wyoming in 2025 and Iowa, Utah, and Nebraska in 2024. West Virginia and North Dakota adopted them in 2023 and South Dakota and Montana did the same in 2021.

RFRA was first adopted in 1993, when then-President Bill Clinton signed it into law to expand religious freedom protections. Under the law, the federal government cannot “substantially burden” the free exercise of religion unless there is a “compelling government interest” and it is carried out in the “least restrictive” means possible.

Congress passed the law in response to the 1990 Supreme Court decision in Employment Division v. Smith, which asserted that the First Amendment was not violated as long as a law was “neutral and generally applicable.” The law was intended to provide a stronger safeguard for the free exercise of religion than what was provided by the highest court. 

Bipartisan consensus gone, but opposition weakening

When RFRA was adopted at the federal level in the 1990s, the protections had overwhelming bipartisan support. In the 2010s, that bipartisan consensus waned as most Democrats voiced opposition to the protections.

Tim Schultz, the president of the 1st Amendment Partnership, told CNA that in 2013, two states adopted RFRA with nearly unanimous support from Republicans and about two-thirds support from Democrats. However, the law became more divisive after the 2014 Supreme Court ruling in favor of exempting Hobby Lobby from a mandate to provide abortifacient drugs based on RFRA.

“That [bipartisan support] seems like a million years ago,” Schultz said. “Now I would say Republican support is about the same as it was then. Democratic support is under 5%.”

Although Schultz did not express optimism that bipartisan support could return any time soon, he credited some cultural shifts for the strong success in Republican-leaning states over the past four years.

From 2014 through 2020, he said business groups and LGBT groups “were working together very strongly … in opposition to religious freedom bills” because they saw them as threats to certain anti-discrimination laws related to workplace policies from religious employers.

However, post-2020, he said, “the politics of RFRA are far more favorable,” and he noted there has been “far less opposition from business groups.”

One reason for this change, according to Schultz, was the widely-published story of NCAA championship swimmer Lia Thomas, a biologically male swimmer who identified as a transgender woman and competed in women’s sports. This led polling to “change on every issue related to LGBT,” he noted.

Another reason, he argued, was the response to transgender-related policies by Target and the Bud Light ads, which led to “consumer anger at both of them.” He noted the money lost by the corporations “made business groups say ‘we are not going to have the same posture.’”

In spite of the partisanship that fuels the current debate, Schultz noted RFRA has been used to defend religious freedom on a wide range of issues, some of which have pleased conservatives and others that have pleased progressives.

Although RFRA has been used to defend religious freedom on issues related to contraception, abortion, gender, and sexuality, it has also been used to defend religious organizations that provide services for migrants. 

“[RFRA is] not politically predictable,” Schultz said.

Sister Reji Varghese began her three-year term as head of the Daughters of Charity of the Most Precious Blood for the United States after her recent installation. / Credit: Joe Gigli/Diocese of Paterson

CNA Staff, Oct 21, 2025 / 17:26 pm (CNA).

Sister Reji Varghese began her three-year term as head of the Daughters of Charity of the Most Precious Blood for the United States after her recent installation presided over by Bishop Kevin Sweeney of Paterson, New Jersey, on Oct. 13.

Varghese will be the delegate for the Daughters in the U.S., leading three missionary communities that live out their charism by “caring for the youth and the elderly while reflecting in the day-to-day life that same sacrificial love that impelled Christ shed his blood for our salvation,” according to the statement from the Daughters.

The superior general of the congregation, who is based in Rome, appointed Varghese as the new delegate, an act that “renewed” the U.S. delegation, according to the Daughters. 

The Daughters of Charity of the Most Precious Blood serve across the U.S., including in New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut. 

Originally founded in Italy, the community is found throughout Italy as well as in Brazil, East Timor, India, Nigeria, and the Philippines. The congregation ministers to orphans, vulnerable children, the sick, and the elderly as well as educating youth. 

In 1873, Father Thomas Maria Fusco, now a “blessed” in the Catholic Church, moved by the plight of an orphaned street girl, founded the Daughters of Charity of the Most Precious Blood in Pagani, Italy. 

Beginning with the seven orphans at their founding, the three original sisters had a “mission of spreading the devotion of the charity of the precious blood of Christ by which God’s infinite love for us is revealed,” the Daughters told CNA in a statement. 

The sisters continue the founding legacy “by engaging in works of mercy through different apostolates such as assisting the poor, the sick, and the elderly as well as educating the children and young people, especially the most vulnerable,” the congregation said. 

In Paterson, the Daughters operate a residential home for senior women called St. Joseph’s Rest Home as well as a day care for young children. 

Sweeney celebrated the installation Mass on Oct. 13 along with five other priests including the sisters’ chaplain, Father Charles Waller. 

Varghese in response to her installation said she is relying on the grace of God in her new role. 

“As our father founder said: ‘To love God, great talents are not necessary ... it is enough to have a heart capable of loving,’” she told CNA. 

“I know my limits, but by the grace of God and Blessed Thomas Maria Fusco, and with the cooperation of all the sisters, God’s will shall be done,” she said.

“I am very happy for our sisters’ ongoing support, friendship, and prayers during these days,” Varghese continued. “My wish is that in whatever we do and say may the charity of the blood of Jesus keep us always united.”

Archbishop Bernard Hebda of St. Paul-Minneapolis. / Credit: Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 21, 2025 / 16:56 pm (CNA).

Archbishop Bernard Hebda of St. Paul-Minneapolis delivered letters from victims of the Annunciation School shooting to Pope Leo XIV during a recent visit to Rome. 

The letters from students and their family members thanked Leo for his prayers in wake of the deadly shooting that claimed two lives and injured dozens more on Aug. 27, according to a newsletter posted by Hebda on Oct. 20. 

Hebda said the opportunity to deliver the letters to Leo had made their first meeting Oct. 2 “particularly meaningful” for him. 

“Our prayers for the victims of the tragic shooting during a school Mass in the American state of Minnesota,” Leo had said on Aug. 31 after leading the weekly Angelus prayer from a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square.

“The loss of life on that occasion was horrific and the impact on students, teachers, and their families traumatizing,” Hebda said, adding: “I asked Pope Leo for his continued prayers for Sophia Forchas and the other survivors who continue their recovery, and especially his prayers for those who might find it difficult to return to Annunciation Church or even to the celebration of Mass.”

Forchas, 12, was shot in the head during the attack and remains in an inpatient rehabilitation program after having been moved from critical care in September, according to an update from her parents on their GoFundMe. 

“Most of us would agree that the horror of the Aug. 27 shooting was magnified by the fact that it took place in the context of Mass, that most sacred of gatherings for our Catholic community,” Hebda continued. “It’s at the Mass where we come together to join in Jesus’ offering of himself to the Father and where we have the opportunity to be nourished by God’s word and the Eucharist. Like all of our churches, Annunciation is sacred because it has been set apart for divine worship. That’s clear from the very inscription we find on the façade: ‘This Is the House of God and the Gate of Heaven.’”

Hebda’s meeting with Leo took place during the archbishop’s visit to Rome for the ordination of two seminarians as deacons. 

St. Paul Seminary posted a video of the archbishop with Leo, writing: “Our very own shepherd Archbishop Hebda had the great honor to meet Pope Leo XIV during his recent visit to Rome!”

Hebda can be seen in the video holding a folder while speaking with the Holy Father in St. Peter’s Square. 

The archdiocese did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Father Robert Spitzer, SJ, founder of the Magis Center, delivers the opening keynote address at the inaugural Wonder Conference on Jan. 13, 2023. / Credit: Word on Fire/Screenshot

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 21, 2025 / 16:26 pm (CNA).

Magis Center released this week an artificial intelligence (AI) app designed to provide instant, science-based answers to questions about the Church and Catholic moral teachings.

MagisAI was announced Oct. 20 by the Magis Center, an organization created by philosopher and author Father Robert Spitzer, SJ, to explore the relationship between science, philosophy, reason, and faith. The free app draws information from Spitzer’s 20 books including “Christ, Science, and Reason” and “Science at the Doorstep to God.”

The app provides spoken answers to users’ questions accompanied by the text and reference. If the answer is too technical or confusing, the app can provide simplifications as needed, the Magis Center reported.

“Whether you’re a teacher helping students navigate secular questions, a parent guiding your family, or anyone seeking clarity on faith, magisAI equips you with instant, credible answers grounded in reason, science, and Church teaching,” the organization wrote.

MagisAI covers a wide range of topics within the Church including Catholic doctrine, Christian life and morality, and Scripture and history. It provides evidence for God and Jesus with explanations rooted in science, philosophy, and history, the organization wrote. It also answers science-based questions from quantum cosmology to evolution.

Through its question-and-answer format, magisAI says it addresses “the real challenges Catholics face in today’s secular environment.” It combats issues including cultural pressure, faith formation gaps, accessibility of knowledge, and language barriers by offering answers in 40 different languages.

MagisAI follows a number of new Catholic AI tools created to provide prompt and accurate information to those hoping to further their understanding of Church teaching, including Longbeard, Magisterium AI, and Truthly.

While Catholic companies are working to use the technology for good, it is important that Catholics remain aware of the harms of AI and potential threats to human dignity, the Vatican said. As AI has become a controversial topic, Pope Leo XIV has said that addressing the challenges of the technology will be a theme of his teaching.

In a September explanatory note on media, the Vatican wrote: “As Catholics we can and should give our contribution, so that people — especially youth — acquire the capacity of critical thinking and grow in the freedom of the spirit.”

“The challenge is to ensure that humanity remains the guiding agent,” the note said. “The future of communication must be one where machines serve as tools that connect and facilitate human lives rather than erode the human voice.”

A view of the Vatican Apostolic Library in 2021. / Credit: Franco Origlia/Getty Images

CNA Staff, Oct 21, 2025 / 15:56 pm (CNA).

Reports circulating in media outlets and on social media in October 2025 allege that the Vatican has opened a prayer room for Muslims in the Apostolic Library.

Claim: The Vatican Library has opened a prayer room for Muslims.

CNA finds: The library does allow Muslim scholars a room in which to pray while they are on site doing research in the Vatican’s extensive archives.

Breakdown: In mid-October 2025, sensational news coverage rocketed around internet media outlets and social media feeds: The Vatican is “allow[ing]” a “designated Muslim prayer room” in its Apostolic Library (National Review); the library has “add[ed] a Muslim prayer room” (The Dallas Express); the Vatican has “[set] up [a] dedicated Muslim prayer room at [the] heart of [the] pope’s 500-year-old library” (GB News); the Holy See has “open[ed]” a “Muslim prayer room in [the] Apostolic Library” (EuroWeekly News).

The headlines are not technically inaccurate. But they appear to suggest a sort of proactivity on the Vatican’s part, as if the Holy See opened up a Muslim prayer room in order to cater to Rome’s Islamic population. And readers could be forgiven for thinking the endeavor is more significant than it appears to be. 

Indeed, the reports generated passionate criticism online; one deacon, for instance, claimed the prayer room constitutes “a total betrayal of Our Lord Jesus Christ,” while the news outlet Zenit noted the policy had sparked a “quiet storm” in response.

The truth appears to be somewhat more mundane. The prayer room’s existence became widely known after the Oct. 8 publication of an interview between the Italian newspaper La Repubblica and the priest Father Don Giacomo Cardinali, the vice prefect of the Vatican Apostolic Library.

In the wide-ranging interview, Cardinali described the library as a “universal institution” and “the most secular of the entire Holy See.”

“Our interlocutors are research centers, public universities, the Louvre, the Metropolitan, NASA,” the priest told the newspaper. “They don’t really know what a priest is, much less how to distinguish him from a bishop or a cardinal.” 

Asked if “scholars of other religions” ever come to the library, the priest responded: “Of course.”

“Some Muslim scholars asked us for a room with a carpet to pray, [so] we gave it to them: We have incredible ancient Korans,” the priest said. 

“We are a universal library,” he added. “There are Arabic, Jewish, Ethiopian collections, unique Chinese pieces. Years ago we discovered that we have the oldest medieval Japanese archive that exists outside the Rising Sun.”

The verdict: The Vatican Apostolic Library does indeed allow Muslims a room for prayer. But, importantly, it does not appear to be a generally accessible Islamic prayer space but rather one designated for the “Muslim scholars” that may be on site at the time. Further, it was only opened at the request of scholars themselves.

And though it is understandable that a Muslim prayer room in the Holy See may inspire a bit of cognitive dissonance, the vice prefect of the Vatican Apostolic Library describes the space as nothing more than “a room with a carpet.”

Amid the sensational news coverage, Britain’s Daily Mail may have said it best when it reported, simply: “The Vatican has granted Muslim scholars’ request for a prayer room.”

We rate this claim true, with important context.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin speaks at the release of Aid to the Church in Need’s “Religious Freedom in the World Report 2025” at the Vatican on Oct. 21, 2025. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA

Vatican City, Oct 21, 2025 / 14:07 pm (CNA).

Authoritarian regimes are among the main drivers of religious discrimination and persecution in 52 countries, according to an Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) report. 

The pontifical foundation, alongside Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, released the Religious Freedom in the World Report 2025 at the Vatican on Tuesday, highlighting the need for the Church to bear witness to the millions of people who face threats of persecution and violence.

The cardinal decried the “year on year” increase of violations affecting more than 5.4 billion people worldwide at the report’s launch and stressed the need for governments to acknowledge religious freedom as an “inalienable right,” as asserted by both the Second Vatican Council document Dignitatis Humanae and Article 18 of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“Men and women everywhere deserve freedom from any form of compulsion in matters of faith — whether that be subtle social pressures or overt state mandates,” Parolin said at the Oct. 21 report launch at the Augustinian Patristic Pontifical Institute in Rome.

The 2025 biennial report, which provides a global overview of the state of religious freedom affecting all faith communities in 196 countries from January 2023 to December 2024, found that governments in 52 countries employ “systematic strategies to control or silence religious life.”

“In China, Iran, Eritrea, and Nicaragua, authorities use mass surveillance technologies, digital censorship, restrictive legislation, and arbitrary detention to suppress independent religious communities,” the ACN press release stated. 

During the report launch, ACN Editor-in-Chief Marta Petrosillo said that authoritarian regimes present in parts of Latin America and Asia have attempted to “erase religious identity” by shutting down churches, preventing or banning religious education, and even renaming entire villages.  

“In North Korea, the regime criminalizes all belief, punishing worship with imprisonment, torture, or even execution,” she said.

“In Nicaragua, the government has taken extreme measures to silence the Church — a religious group has lost its legal status, and public worship and religious services have been banned,” she added.

Other key factors driving religious freedom violations identified in the report include jihadism and religious nationalism across Africa and Asia, and armed conflicts, forced migration, and organized crime affecting countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas.

ACN also noted the erosion of religious freedom in Europe and North America, reporting increased incidences of attacks on places of worship, assault of clergy, and disruption of religious services in France, Spain, Italy, Greece, and the U.S.

Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, meets with reporters in Baltimore on Nov. 15, 2022. / Credit: Joe Bukuras/CNA

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 21, 2025 / 13:37 pm (CNA).

The U.S. Army is reexamining its handling of religious contracts after Archbishop for the Military Services, USA, Timothy Broglio lamented that cuts strained Catholic ministry to the armed forces.

Broglio criticized the cancellations of chapel contracts for religious educators, administrators, and musicians. He wrote in a letter to Congress that the contracts were essential to assisting Catholic priest chaplains in their duties.

A March memorandum by the U.S. Army Installation Management Command directed the cancellation of the chapel contracts, Broglio said. In his Oct. 17 letter, the archbishop wrote that he was assured directors of religious education and religious affairs specialists would “cover down” on the work of contractors, but “that has not happened” and is “impossible” because there are no requirements for workers on those contracts to be Catholic or have catechetical training.

Broglio said Catholics are disproportionately affected because only 137 of the over 2,500 Army chaplains are Catholic, despite Catholics accounting for about 20% of soldiers.

Four days after Broglio published the letter, a spokesperson for the Army told CNA that the Army will be reexamining its contract support for directors of religious education and religious affairs specialists “to mitigate any potential impact during this period.“

“These roles are vital in supporting the spiritual well-being of our community,” the spokesperson said on Oct. 21.

“The Army remains deeply committed to providing for the religious needs of all personnel, regardless of their faith background,” the statement continued. “We recognize the importance of religious support in maintaining morale, fostering resilience, and promoting the overall well-being of our force.”

The spokesperson added: “The Army is committed to ensuring the continued provision of comprehensive religious support for all our service members and their families.”

The Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, did not immediately reply to a request for comment. 

French Police officers seal off the entrance to the Louvre Museum after a jewelry heist on Oct. 19, 2025, in Paris. / Credit: Kiran Ridley/Getty Images

Paris, France, Oct 21, 2025 / 13:07 pm (CNA).

The Louvre Museum in Paris became the scene of a meticulously planned daylight heist on Sunday morning, Oct. 19. Four helmeted men broke into the Galerie d’Apollon — home to France’s Crown Jewels — and stole eight pieces of jewelry described by Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez as being of “inestimable heritage value.”

Among the stolen items was Empress Eugénie’s “reliquary” brooch, which reminded the world of the fervent Catholic faith of Napoleon III’s wife, now better known as a pioneer of modern luxury.  

The robbers, who arrived in a truck on Quai François Mitterrand — the riverside avenue that runs along the Seine just below the Louvre’s main facade in central Paris — used a furniture lift to reach a first-floor window, broke into the gallery, and escaped on scooters within minutes. One jewel — Empress Eugénie’s crown — was later found broken near the museum, while the thieves remain at large.

Crafted in 1855 by court jeweler Paul Alfred Bapst, the brooch combined imperial splendor with intimate symbolism.

Experts at the Louvre noted that the term “reliquary,” associated with the brooch since the sale of the Crown Diamonds in 1887 and engraved on its fastening pin, has long intrigued historians. The jewel contains no visible chamber to hold a relic.

However, because it can be dismantled, curators suggest it may have been designed to allow the insertion of an intermediate element that could later contain one. On the back of its case lies a small compartment that may have served this purpose — a detail consistent with Empress Eugénie’s noted personal devotion.

The jewelry piece was set with 94 diamonds, including three of extraordinary provenance. Two — known as Mazarin 17th and 18th — were part of the legendary set of 18 gems bequeathed to Louis XIV by Cardinal Jules Mazarin in 1661, while the central stone — once a button on the Sun King’s doublet and later an earring of Marie-Antoinette — linked three centuries of French history.  

Historian Éric Anceau, an expert of France’s Second Empire, called the theft “a catastrophe.”

“A piece of our heritage forged over three centuries has disappeared,” he wrote.

The heritage association Sites et Monuments echoed this sentiment, describing the brooch as “a brief summary of French history” and warning that its jewels “are likely to be dismantled and recut to facilitate their resale.”

Empress Eugénie’s reputation as a fashionable sovereign has often overshadowed her deep personal piety. Contemporary witnesses describe her as charitable and devout, even excessively so in the eyes of her detractors. She prayed daily, supported religious orders, and personally oversaw imperial donations to hospitals, parishes, and relief funds — efforts sometimes referred to as her “Ministry of Charity.”

Her faith was also recognized by the Church. At the baptism of the imperial prince in Notre Dame de Paris, June 1856, Pope Pius IX sent her a Golden Rose — the highest papal distinction to reward piety or services rendered to the Church.

Two years later, she intervened to reopen the grotto of Lourdes to pilgrims after her son’s healing, as highlighted by Aleteia, which also mentions that during the cholera epidemic of 1865, she visited the sick in person, bringing comfort to the afflicted.

The Fondation Napoléon today preserves some of Empress Eugénie‘s devotional objects, including a rosary gifted by Trappist monks in Algeria in 1865 and a prayer book on which she recorded with a handwritten note the date of Napoleon III’s death in 1873. 

The reliquary brooch embodied the continuity between monarchy and empire, between power and faith. By way of its reused royal diamonds and historicist design of gilded silver and floral motifs, the brooch reflected both France’s artistic genius and Christian heritage. Its disappearance therefore marks the vanishing of a tangible link between France’s temporal grandeur and soul as the eldest daughter of the Church.

French authorities have opened an investigation for “organized theft and criminal conspiracy to commit a crime,” led by the Paris Judicial Police’s AntiCrime Brigade. Sixty investigators are currently assigned to the case.

According to TF1/LCI, a promising lead emerged on Oct.  21: The furniture lift used in the break-in was traced to a carjacking in the nearby town of Louvres, where several men posing as buyers allegedly stole the machine after threatening an employee nine days before the heist.

Investigators later discovered that the lift’s license plate and identifying markings had been altered, adding to the growing body of evidence left behind by the thieves — including two angle grinders, a glove, a blowtorch, a blanket, a walkie-talkie, and a can of gasoline.

null / Credit: Antonio Salaverry/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 21, 2025 / 10:00 am (CNA).

Instagram updated restrictions on teen accounts to be guided by PG-13 movie ratings to prevent teenage users from accessing mature and inappropriate content.

In 2024, Instagram introduced Teen Accounts to place teens automatically in built-in protections on the app. Last week, the social media platform announced additional updates to the accounts to only show teenagers content “similar to what they’d see in a PG-13 movie.”

Teens under 18 will be automatically placed into the updated setting and will not be allowed to opt out without a parent’s permission. The new restrictions ban users from searching inappropriate words and from following or messaging accounts with mature content.

Father Michael Baggot, LC, professor of bioethics at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome, said “any change to help empower parents, protect their children, and restrict age-inappropriate content from them is a positive step forward.”

“However, I am concerned because there is quite a difference between static content like a movie that can be thoroughly reviewed by a committee and very dynamic conduct that is performed in social media,” Baggot said in an Oct. 20 interview on “EWTN News Nightly.” 

Social media platforms include forms of cyberbullying, online predators, and artificial intelligence (AI) companions. “Those kinds of dynamic relationships are not necessarily regulated fully with a mere label,” Baggot said.

The updates follow feedback from thousands of parents worldwide who shared their suggestions with Instagram. After hearing from parents, Instagram also added an additional setting that offers even stricter guidelines if parents want more extensive limitations. 

“Parents have a unique responsibility in constantly monitoring and discussing with their children and with other vulnerable people the type of interactions they’re having,” Baggot said. “But I think we can’t put an undue burden on parents.”

Baggot suggested additional laws that hold companies accountable for “exploitative behavior or design techniques,” because they can “become addictive and really mislead guidance and mislead people.”

AI in social media 

Since Instagram recently introduced AI chatbots to the app, it also added preventions on messages sent from AI. The social media platform reported that “AIs should not give age-inappropriate responses that would feel out of place in a PG-13 movie.”

AI on Instagram must be handled with “great vigilance and critical discernment,” Baggot said. AI platforms “can be tools of research and assistance, but they can also really promote toxic relationships when left unregulated.”

Measures to restrict AI and online content are opportunities for parents and users “to step back and look critically at the digitally-mediated relationships that we constantly have” and to “look at the potentially dangerous and harmful content or relationships that can take place there.”

“There should be healthy detachment from these platforms,” Baggot said. “We need healthy friendships. We need strong families. We need supportive communities. Anytime we see a form of social media-related interaction replacing, distracting, or discouraging in-personal contact, that should be an … alarm that something needs to change and that we need to return to the richness of interpersonal exchange and not retreat to an alternative digital world.”

Artist Raúl Berzosa works on the portrait of St. Peter To Rot. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Raúl Berzosa

ACI Prensa Staff, Oct 21, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).

Malaga, Spain-born artist Raúl Berzosa has painted portraits of popes for the Vatican, and his works have graced the covers of booklets at Vatican ceremonies and even the Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum. However, as he himself confessed on X, none had ever hung on the façade of St. Peter’s Basilica.

That honor came this week with the portrait of St. Peter To Rot, which Berzosa painted for the saint’s canonization ceremony on Oct. 19. The Vatican commissioned the Catholic artist to paint the official portrait, which has been displayed since Oct. 17 on the façade of St. Peter’s Basilica. Berzosa considers the work to be a fruit of grace and the culmination of a life dedicated to reflecting the light of faith in art.

Peter To Rot, who was born in Papua New Guinea, served as a catechist and died a martyr for the faith in 1945. He was canonized on Oct. 19 along with six others. 

In 1995, during his trip to Papua New Guinea, St. John Paul II described To Rot’s life as “a beacon shining bright, a signal fire leading you to hold aloft the noble ideals which inspired him: faith in God, love of family, service of neighbor, and unswerving courage in the face of trials and sacrifice.”

Berzosa, 46, renowned worldwide for his realistic style and religious themes, explained to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, that with his work depicting the Papuan saint, he sought to convey the inner light of which the Polish pope spoke.

“If the portrait manages to convey some of Peter To Rot’s bright inner light and helps others strengthen their faith, then the work will have fulfilled its true function,” the Spanish painter said.

“I hope that the faithful see in his gaze not only a martyr but a man full of peace, love for his family, and fidelity to the Gospel,” he added.

For Berzosa, To Rot’s essential witness lies in the conviction that holiness “can be lived out in everyday life, even in the midst of suffering, as in his case.”

The artist said he wanted the lighting effects in the portrait “to emerge from within the face itself, something serene that engages the viewer and seeks to convey hope.” Berzosa also noted that the “light blue and green brushstrokes” create a warm atmosphere, with the color and the overall composition seeking to accompany “this luminous message.”

The challenges of painting the first Papuan saint

“The main challenge was to approach Peter To Rot’s image itself with respect and accuracy. To achieve this, I had some black and white photographs as well as a color portrait based on one of the photographs. All of this helped me create my painting,” he said.

In Berzosa’s portrait, To Rot is dressed in the traditional attire of local catechists: a white shirt and a type of blue wrap.

“When the Japanese threatened the catechists and prohibited any apostolic activity, the vast majority — out of fear — hid the cross. Peter To Rot was the only catechist who continued to proudly display the white cross that identified him as a catechist,” Berzosa noted.

“In one hand he holds a Bible and in the other [open hand he shows] two rings, a reference to his defense of marriage. A cross hangs from his neck,” the artist explained. To Rot wanted to die wearing that cross, which would later be key to identifying his mortal remains. Behind the figure of the saint, the countryside of his native land at the time can be seen.

For the most accurate depiction, the painter researched photographs, traditional clothing, and other local references. 

“Throughout this work, I was assisted by Father Tomás Agustín Ravaioli, vice postulator of the cause,” Berzosa explained.

Portraying a martyr

The artist noted that the lives of martyrs, although often short, are “full of meaning, dedicated out of love and fidelity to the Lord.” He said he always seeks to convey the serenity of these witnesses to the Gospel in the most decisive moment of their lives.

“I try to understand that mixture of strength and peace of someone who gives his life for Christ,” he said.

“When I paint portraits of martyrs, there is a special respect for the person portrayed. Their witness transcends cultures and eras,” he noted.

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