St. James the Apostle Roman Catholic Church

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State | Credit: Vatican Media

Jan 19, 2026 / 13:02 pm (CNA).

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin confirmed Saturday that the Holy See attempted to mediate to avert U.S. military intervention in Venezuela, which culminated Jan. 3 with the capture of Nicolás Maduro.

“We had tried precisely — as, among other things, has appeared in some newspapers — to find a solution that would avoid any bloodshed, trying perhaps to reach an agreement even with Maduro and with other figures in the regime, but this was not possible,” Parolin told reporters on the afternoon of Saturday, Jan. 17, outside Rome’s Domus Mariae church.

Parolin had just celebrated Mass there for the public veneration — for the first time — of relics of St. Pier Giorgio Frassati.

In remarks reported by, among others, the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Parolin — who served as apostolic nuncio to Venezuela from 2009 to 2013 — said the Vatican has “always supported a peaceful solution,” adding: “But we, too, find ourselves faced with a fait accompli, a de facto situation.”

He described Venezuela’s current moment as “a situation of great uncertainty.”

“We hope it evolves toward stability, toward an economic recovery — because the economic situation is truly very, very precarious — and also toward the democratization of the country,” the cardinal said.

Parolin declined to provide further details about a Jan. 9 Washington Post report stating that the Holy See had attempted to help facilitate Maduro’s departure from Venezuela by offering asylum in Russia.

After that report was published, the Holy See Press Office confirmed that the conversation took place during the Christmas period, while adding that it considered it “disappointing that parts of a confidential conversation are published without accurately reflecting its content.”

Pope Leo XIV has referred to the Venezuelan crisis on several occasions, most recently Jan. 9 in his address to diplomats accredited to the Holy See, when he called for respect for the will of the Venezuelan people and for peaceful solutions free of “partisan interests.”

The pope also received Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado on Monday, Jan. 12 — three days before her meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, whom ACI Prensa identified as a 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Speaking afterward at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., Machado said the Holy Father “knows very well what is happening in Venezuela,” adding that he is “fully aware of what the Catholic Church is experiencing, due to the persecution and pressure on our bishops and priests.” She also said the pope is “not only concerned, but is helping and actively supporting” efforts toward a peaceful transition.

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

Members of law enforcement work the scene following a suspected shooting by an ICE agent during federal law enforcement operations on January 07, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Credit: Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

Jan 19, 2026 / 09:34 am (CNA).

Winona-Rochester Bishop Robert Barron has called on federal immigration officials to focus on deporting only serious criminals while also urging U.S. protesters to "cease interfering" with the work of immigration agents.

The bishop's plea comes amid heightened national tensions in response to mass deportations and the killing of a U.S. citizen in Minneapolis.

Barron issued the statement on Jan. 18 via X. A native of Chicago, he was made bishop of the southern Minnesota diocese in 2022.

The prelate made the remarks as officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continue enhanced deportations of immigrants in the country illegally. The mass deportation effort is a major part of U.S. President Donald Trump's domestic policy in his second term.

Tensions were heightened greatly on Jan. 7 when an ICE officer shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good in Minneapolis as she apparently engaged in a protest of ICE enforcement in the city.

Good had partially blocked a street with her car and was approached by ICE agents, who ordered her out of the vehicle; when she attempted to speed away she allegedly struck ICE agent Jonathan Ross with her car. Ross shot and killed her in response. The killing generated national outrage and major protests throughout the country.

'There is a way out'

Barron, who regularly weighs in on Catholic and other issues in the public sphere, said on X that his "heart is breaking" over the "violence, retribution, threats, protests, deep suspicion of one another, political unrest [and] fear" that has spread throughout Minnesota in recent weeks.

Offering "a modest proposal" for resolving "this unbearable state of affairs," Barron urged immigration officials to "limit themselves, at least for the time being, to rounding up undocumented people who have committed serious crimes."

"Political leaders should stop stirring up resentment against officers who are endeavoring to enforce the laws of the country," he continued. "And protestors should cease interfering with the work of ICE."

Americans, meanwhile, "must stop shouting at one another and demonizing their opponents."

"Where we are now is untenable. There is a way out," the bishop said.

Minneapolis is only the latest flashpoint in ongoing national unrest over the federal government's immigration actions, one that has touched the U.S. Catholic Church in numerous ways.

Multiple U.S. bishops have issued dispensations from Mass for those who are afraid of being arrested and deported, including the Archdiocese of New Orleans, the Diocese of San Bernardino, and numerous others.

In December of 2025 ICE agents arrested a Catholic church employee in Minnesota, after which they surveilled the parish, with the church pastor claiming the agents were "terrorizing" locals "just by their presence."

Church leaders have regularly attempted to reach out to immigrants who have been targeted for deportation by ICE. In November of 2025 Denver Archbishop Samuel Aquila and Auxiliary Bishop Jorge Rodriguez led the Stations of the Cross at an ICE detention facility in Aurora, while prelates such as Lincoln Bishop James Conley have urged the government to allow pastoral access to detained immigrants.

At their November 2025 plenary assembly, the U.S. bishops declared their opposition to the indiscriminate mass deportation of immigrants in the country illegally. The bishops urged the government to respect the dignity of migrants as well.

Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, Mexico. | Credit: Eduardo Berdejo/ACI Prensa

Jan 19, 2026 / 07:00 am (CNA).

The Catholic Church in Mexico will bring together more than 1,000 leaders from various fields for the second edition of the National Dialogue for Peace to be held Jan. 30–Feb. 1 at the campus of ITESO Jesuit university in Guadalajara, Jalisco state.

A statement by the Mexican Bishops’ Conference, (CEM, by its Spanish acronym) indicated that 1,370 people will participate in the event, including bishops, priests, and Catholic laypeople; victims of violence, university students, business leaders, government officials, intellectuals, experts, and people of different religious faiths.

The National Dialogue for Peace, in addition to the CEM, is sponsored by the Bishops’ Commission for the Laity, the Conference of Major Superiors of Religious Orders in Mexico, and the Jesuits of Mexico.

The statement emphasized that this edition of the National Dialogue for Peace will not simply be “an event” but “the beginning of a decisive decade for Mexico.”

The urgent need for this dialogue became clear after the murder of Jesuit priests Javier Campos and Joaquín Mora, who were trying to protect tour guide Pedro Palma in Cerocahui, Chihuahua state, in June 2022.

According to the statement, the incident “added to hundreds of thousands of murders and disappearances in the country [and] triggered the largest listening movement in Mexico’s recent history: more than a thousand forums throughout the national territory that documented more than 20,000 testimonies of victims, Indigenous communities, young people, business leaders, academics, churches, and civil organizations.”

“This process gave rise to the National Peace Agenda, the most comprehensive and participatory assessment of the violence crisis in Mexico, which revealed extensive territories where the state no longer governs and where violence has become the only law,” the statement explained.

As part of the process, the press release noted, participants emphasized that “without truth and justice for the victims, there is no peace for anyone.”

“Mexico is not condemned to violence. Peace is possible, it is measurable, and it must begin today,” the CEM affirmed.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language news service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

The Walk for Life West Coast in its 22nd year and previously has drawn crowds as large as 50,000. | Credit: Francisco Valdez

Jan 19, 2026 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Thousands are expected at this year’s Walk for Life West Coast, which will be held in the streets of downtown San Francisco on Saturday, Jan. 24. The event is in its 22nd year and previously has drawn crowds as large as 50,000.

Major features of the event include a rally at the City’s Civic Center Plaza beginning at 12:30 p.m. followed by a 1.8-mile walk to Embarcadero Plaza beginning at 1:30 p.m. 

Rally speakers include filmmaker and podcaster Jason Jones, Spokane pregnancy center director Glendie Loranger, pro-life advocate and convert to the pro-life cause Elizabeth Barrett, and Baptist pastor Clenard Childress. 

“This is an effort to bequeath to our children a civilization of love and life,” said Jones, who is attending the walk for the second time and his first as a speaker.

Jones’ motivation to join the pro-life movement, he explained, dates back to his “irreligious” teen years when, at age 16, he learned he had impregnated his girlfriend. 

He joined the U.S. Army upon turning 17 as a way to support his child, only to learn that his girlfriend, due to pressure from her father, had had a late-term abortion. He recalled: “It was insane. Even as an uneducated high school dropout, I could see that abortion was unspeakably evil.”

Jones began his pro-life activism while stationed in Hawaii, later becoming a prominent pro-life advocate in the media and participating in the production of pro-life films such as “Bella” in 2006. His chief activities today include serving as president of The Vulnerable People Project, through which he defends “the most vulnerable across the globe, from the unborn to persecuted minorities in war zones.”

Jones said he is excited about the progress the pro-life movement has made in recent years, particularly after the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court Dobbs decision that overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision striking down the nation’s anti-abortion laws. 

“The abortion establishment is a billion-dollar industry fighting for its life. They’re at the end of their rope,” he said. “The pro-life movement, conversely, is vibrant, lively, spirited, and diverse.”

He lamented that the pro-life movement “lacks the political power it should have” but noted that much of the efforts of pro-lifers are directed at operating pro-life pregnancy centers at the local level. Their work, he said, is “the biggest untold story in American history.”

Today, Jones is a Catholic convert living in Texas and is married with seven children. Of his faith, he remarked: “I’m so glad I’m Catholic. Whether it be dehumanizing ideologies that lead to abortion or other evils, our faith inoculates us and enables us to see the truth.”

Catholic schools and parishes

Participating in the walk annually are groups from Catholic schools and parishes. Among the most prominent participants are students from Thomas Aquinas College (TAC) in Santa Paula, California, which this year will turn out over 250 walkers. These include senior Patrick Daly, a regular walk participant during his college years. 

“It’s really cool to see the number of people who make the trip to San Francisco from long distances, especially high school students,” Daly said. “The younger generation tends to lead the walk, which gives it a lot of energy.”

Daly also said each time he walks the experience is “eye-opening” and “rekindles the fire against abortion.”

He noted that unlike many political demonstrations that can be loud, vulgar, and violent, in contrast the West Coast Walk for Life is peaceful and joyful, with participants singing the “Salve Regina” or praying the rosary. 

“It’s a beautiful experience. We’re not there to fight or to yell. We humbly walk and ask God to intervene on behalf of our nation, that we develop a greater respect for human life,” he said.

Daly acknowledged that the political culture of San Francisco is at odds with the pro-life beliefs of Catholics, but added: “We’re bringing a Christian influence on an evil city. It is a special walk in a broken place.”

TAC sophomore Basil Gutch is another repeat walker, annually participating because “it is a way to share my beliefs in a community setting.”

“Abortion is a modern-day holocaust. It hits close to home when I realize that a third of my generation has died by abortion. Also, the abortion industry is corrupt, selling dead fetuses for experimentation. When we walk, we wrestle with its grave evil and pray for it to end," he said.

Gutch noted that in last year’s walk residents approached his group seeking to dialogue about abortion — both from curiosity and trying to convert his group to a pro-choice view. He continued: “While there were people who were yelling pro-choice slogans at us as we walked by, these conversations were surprisingly civil.”

Other activities

Other activities for the Walk for Life West Coast include a Silent No More Awareness Campaign led by Georgette Forney and Frank Pavone of Priests for Life from 10:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. The event precedes the rally and features testimonies of individuals harmed by abortion. There will also be an Info Faire on the Civic Center Plaza, in which pro-life groups share information about their activities.

Additionally, there will be a series of events on the Friday before the walk and the day of the walk. Friday events include a Walk for Life prayer vigil at St. Dominic’s Church at 5 p.m. followed by Mass, a Holy Hour, and confessions, and adoration for life at Sts. Peter and Paul Church from 8 to 10 p.m. 

Saturday events include a Walk for Life Mass with San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone at St. Mary’s Cathedral at 9:30 a.m. and a Traditional Latin Mass at the Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi at 5 p.m. Star of the Sea Parish will host a barbecue and all-night adoration for life beginning at 5 p.m. For a complete list of activities, visit the event website at www.walkforlifewc.com.

Organizers request that participants register for free on the website. The site includes helpful information on such topics as parking, public transportation, and accommodations, as well as a code of conduct for the walk.

We March with Selma event. | Credit: Via Flickr CC BY NC 2.0

Jan 19, 2026 / 04:00 am (CNA).

Sister Mary Antona Ebo was the only Black Catholic nun who marched with civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama, in 1965.

“I’m here because I’m a Negro, a nun, a Catholic, and because I want to bear witness,” Ebo said to fellow demonstrators at a March 10, 1965, protest attended by King.

The protest took place three days after the “Bloody Sunday” clash, where police attacked several hundred voting rights demonstrators with clubs and tear gas, causing severe injuries among the nonviolent marchers.

Sister Mary Antona Ebo died Nov. 11, 2017, in Bridgeton, Missouri, at the age of 93, the St. Louis Review reported at the time.

After the “Bloody Sunday” attacks, King had called on church leaders from around the country to go to Selma. Archbishop Joseph E. Ritter of St. Louis asked his archdiocese’s human rights commission to send representatives, Ebo recounted to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2015.

Ebo’s supervisor, also a religious sister, asked her whether she would join a 50-member delegation of laymen, Protestant ministers, rabbis, priests, and five white nuns.

Just before she left for Alabama, she heard that a white minister who had traveled to Selma, James Reeb, had been severely attacked after he left a restaurant and later died from his injuries.

At the time, Ebo said, she wondered: “If they would beat a white minister to death on the streets of Selma, what are they going to do when I show up?”

In Selma on March 10, Ebo went to Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, joining local leaders and the demonstrators who had been injured in the clash.

“They had bandages on their heads, teeth were knocked out, crutches, casts on their arms. You could tell that they were freshly injured,” she told the Post-Dispatch. “They had already been through the battleground, and they were still wanting to go back and finish the job.”

Many of the injured were treated at Good Samaritan Hospital, run by Edmundite priests and the Sisters of St. Joseph, the only Selma hospital that served Blacks. Since their arrival in 1937, the Edmundites had faced intimidation and threats from local officials, other whites, and even the Ku Klux Klan, CNN reported.

The injured demonstrators and their supporters left the Selma church, with Ebo in front. They marched toward the courthouse, then were blocked by state troopers in riot gear. She and other demonstrators knelt to pray the Our Father before they agreed to turn around.

Despite the violent interruption, the 57-mile march drew 25,000 participants. It concluded on the steps of the state capitol in Montgomery with King’s famous March 25 speech against racial prejudice.

“How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” King said.

King would be dead within three years. On a fateful April 4, 1968, he was shot by an assassin at a Memphis hotel.

He had asked to be taken to a Catholic hospital should anything happen to him, and he was taken to St. Joseph Hospital in Memphis. At the time, it was a nursing school combined with a 400-bed hospital.

There, too, Catholic religious sisters played a role.

Sister Jane Marie Klein and Sister Anna Marie Hofmeyer recounted their story to The Paper of Montgomery County Online in January 2017.

The Franciscan nuns were walking around the hospital grounds when they heard the sirens of an ambulance. One of the sisters was paged three times, and they discovered that King had been shot and taken to their hospital.

The National Guard and local police locked down the hospital for security reasons as doctors tried to save King.

“We were obviously not allowed to go in when they were working with him because they were feverishly working with him,” Klein said. “But after they pronounced him dead we did go back into the ER. There was a gentleman as big as the door guarding the door and he looked at us and said, ‘You want in?’ We said yes, we’d like to go pray with him. So he let the three of us in, closed the door behind us, and gave us our time.”

Hofmeyer recounted the scene in the hospital room. “He had no chance,” she said.

Klein said authorities delayed the announcement of King’s death to prepare for riots they knew would result.

Three decades later, Klein met with King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, at a meeting of the Catholic Health Association Board in Atlanta where King was a keynote speaker. The Franciscan sister and the widow of the civil rights leader told each other how they had spent that night.

Klein said being present that night in 1968 was “indescribable.”

“You do what you got to do,” she said. “What’s the right thing to do? Hindsight? It was a privilege to be able to take care of him that night and to pray with him. Who would have ever thought that we would be that privileged?”

She said King’s life shows “to some extent one person can make a difference.” She wondered “how anybody could listen to Dr. King and not be moved to work toward breaking down these barriers.”

Klein would serve as chairperson of the Franciscan Alliance Board of Trustees, overseeing support for health care. Hofmeyer would work in the alliance’s archives. In 2021, both were living at the Provinciate at St. Francis Convent in Mishawaka, Indiana.

For her part, after Selma, Ebo would go on to serve as a hospital administrator and a chaplain.

In 1968 she helped found the National Black Sisters’ Conference. The woman who had been rejected from several Catholic nursing schools because of her race would serve in her congregation’s leadership as it reunited with another Franciscan order, and she served as a director of social concerns for the Missouri Catholic Conference.

She frequently spoke on civil rights topics. When controversy erupted over a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer’s killing of Michael Brown, a Black man, she led a prayer vigil. She thought the Ferguson protests were comparable to those of Selma.

“I mean, after all, if Mike Brown really did swipe the box of cigars, it’s not the policeman’s place to shoot him dead,” she said.

Archbishop Robert J. Carlson of St. Louis presided at her requiem Mass in November 2021, saying in a statement: “We will miss her living example of working for justice in the context of our Catholic faith.”

A previous version of this story was first published on Catholic News Agency on Jan. 17, 2022.

Keynote speakers at “The Beauty of Truth: Navigating Society Today as a Catholic Woman” conference, held Jan. 9-10, 2026, in Houston (left to right): Erika Bachiochi, Mary Eberstadt, Angela Franks, Pia de Solenni, and Leah Sargeant. | Credit: Photo courtesy of the University of St. Thomas

Jan 18, 2026 / 10:26 am (CNA).

This past week, nearly a quarter of U.S. states sued the federal government for defining biological sex as binary, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments for and against legally allowing males to compete against females in sports, and a Vatican official called surrogacy a “new form of colonialism” that commodifies women and their children.

These are just the latest legal and cultural effects of a “mass cultural confusion” surrounding the meaning and purpose of the human body, and particularly women’s bodies, according to Leah Jacobson, program coordinator of the Catholic Women’s and Gender Studies Program at the University of St. Thomas in Houston.

On Jan. 9–10, the program sponsored a symposium titled “The Beauty of Truth: Navigating Society Today as a Catholic Woman,” which brought together a group of Catholic women who have used their gifts of intellect and faith to serve as what Jacobson calls an “antidote” to the “chaos and confusion” of the cultural moment.

The speakers presented on a wide range of topics concerned with the beauty, truth, and necessity of the Church’s teachings on human sexuality, while also acknowledging how difficult living according to those teachings can sometimes be.

‘Each of these acts is an act of human subtraction’

In one of the first talks, writer Mary Eberstadt argued that the question “Who am I?” became harder to answer due to the widespread use of the birth control pill, which has led to huge increases in abortion, divorce, fatherlessness, single parenthood, and childlessness.

“Each of these acts is an act of human subtraction,” Eberstadt said. “I’m not trying to make a point about morality, but arithmetic.”

“The number of people we can call our own” became smaller, she said.

While she acknowledged that not everyone has been affected equally, “members of our species share a collective environment. Just as toxic waste affects everyone," she said, the reduction in the number of human connections “amounts to a massive disturbance to the human ecosystem,” leading to a crisis of human identity.

This reduction in the number of people in an individual's life, she argued, resulted in widespread confusion over gender identity and the meaning and purpose of the body.

Eberstadt also attributed the decline in religiosity to the smaller number of human connections modern people have.

“The sexual revolution subtracted the number of role models,” she said. “Many children have no siblings, no cousins, no aunts or uncles, no father; yet that is how humans conduct social learning.”

“Without children, adults are less likely to go to church,” she said. “Without birth, we lose knowledge of the transcendent. Without an earthly father, it is hard to grasp the paradigm of a heavenly father.”

‘A love deficit’

“Living without God is not liberating people,” she continued. “It’s tearing some individuals apart, making people miserable and lonely.”

When the sexual revolution made sex "recreational and not procreative, what it produced above all is a love deficit,” Eberstadt said.

At the same time, secularization produced “troubled, disconnected souls drifting through society without gravity, shattering the ability to answer ‘Who am I?’”

“The Church is the answer to the love deficit because Church teachings about who we are and what we’re here for are true,” she said.

She concluded with a final note on hope, saying “it is easy to feel embattled, but we must never lose sight of the faces of the sexual revolution’s victims,” she said, “who are sending up primal screams for a world more ordered than many of today’s people now know; more ordered to mercy, to community and redemption.”

The Church’s teachings were ’truly beautiful’ but 'very, very hard to live'

Erika Bachiochi, a legal scholar and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center who has taught a class for the graduate program, shared her experience as a mother of seven who tried to live according to the Church’s “difficult” teachings.

As her children began to arrive at “a breakneck pace” and each pregnancy was “a bit of a crucible,” Bachiochi said being a mother was “very hard” for her, partly due to wounds from her youth (among other troubles, her own mother had been married and divorced three times), and partly because of a lack of community.

Echoing Eberstadt’s “arithmetic” problem, Bachiochi described having very few examples of Catholic family life and a very small support system.

Bachiochi said she believes God heals us from our wounds through our “particular vocations,” however.

Of motherhood, she said: “I think God really healed me through being faithful to teachings that I found quite hard, but truly beautiful. I was intellectually convinced by them and found them spiritually beautiful, but found them to be very, very hard to live.”

“Motherhood has served to heal me profoundly," she said, encouraging young mothers to have faith that though it might be difficult now, there is an “amazing future” awaiting them.

“It’s really an incredible gift that Church has given me ... the gift of obedience,” she said.

She also said by God’s grace, she was given an “excellent husband” and has found that “just as the Church promises, that leaning into motherhood, into the little things, the daily needs, the constant requests for my attention, has truly been a school of virtue.”

The Catholic Women’s and Gender Studies Program is a new part of the Nesti Center for Faith and Culture at the University of St. Thomas, a recognized Catholic cultural center of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education.

Pope Leo XIV waves to crowds in St. Peter's Square after praying the Angelus on Jan. 18, 2026. | Credit: Vatican Media

Jan 18, 2026 / 09:44 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Sunday urged prayers for peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as violence in the country’s east continues to drive families from their homes and across borders.

“Many have been forced to flee their country – especially to Burundi – due to violence, and they are facing a serious humanitarian crisis,” the pope said after praying the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square on Jan. 18. “Let us pray that dialogue for reconciliation and peace may always prevail among the parties in conflict.”

Leo also assured those affected by severe flooding in southern Africa of his prayers.

The pope also marked the start of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

“During these days, I invite all Catholic communities to deepen their prayers for the full, visible unity of all Christians,” Leo said, recalling that “the origins of this initiative date back two centuries,” and noting that Pope Leo XIII “greatly encouraged it.”

The theme for this year’s observance is drawn from St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling” (4:4). The prayers and reflections, the pope said, were prepared by “an ecumenical group coordinated by the Armenian Apostolic Church’s Department of Interchurch Relations.”

In his reflection before praying the Angelus, Leo connected the call to peace and unity with a warning against what he described as a culture of appearances, urging the faithful to follow the example of St. John the Baptist, who stepped aside once he had pointed others to Christ.

The day’s Gospel reading (Jn 1:29-34), the pope noted, shows John identifying Jesus as the Messiah: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (v. 29). John’s humility remains a needed witness, Leo said, because “approval, consensus and visibility are often given excessive importance, to the point of shaping people’s ideas, behaviors and even their inner lives.”

“This causes suffering and division, and gives rise to lifestyles and relationships that are fragile, disappointing and imprisoning,” the pope said.

Instead of chasing what he called “substitutes for happiness,” Leo said Christians should remember that “our joy and greatness are not founded on passing illusions of success or fame, but on knowing ourselves to be loved and wanted by our heavenly Father.”

Leo emphasized that God’s love is not about spectacle but about closeness and compassion: “The love of which Jesus speaks is the love of a God who even today comes among us, not to dazzle us with spectacular displays, but to share in our struggles and to take our burdens upon himself.”

He concluded by urging believers to resist distractions and cultivate prayer and simplicity: “Let us not waste our time and energies chasing after appearances,” he said, encouraging Catholics to make time each day, when possible, for silence and prayer — “to withdraw into the desert,” in order to meet the Lord.

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

Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington and Bishop Barry Knestout of Richmond. | Credit: Katie Yoder/EWTN News; photo courtesy of the Archdiocese of Washington

Jan 18, 2026 / 08:00 am (CNA).

The Virginia Catholic bishops on Friday spoke out against an abortion amendment that would remove state protections for unborn children, calling the measure “extreme.”

The Virginia General Assembly passed a proposed amendment that would add a fundamental right to abortion to Virginia’s constitution, if voters approve it this November.

The proposed abortion amendment would establish a “fundamental right to reproductive freedom, including the ability to make and carry out decisions relating to one’s own prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, contraception, abortion care, miscarriage management, and fertility care.”

Bishops Michael Burbidge of Arlington and Barry Knestout of Richmond called the move “shocking to the conscience,” noting that lawmakers quickly moved the proposed amendment through both chambers in the early days of its 60-day session.

“The extreme abortion amendment, which will proceed to a referendum for voters to decide later this year, would go far beyond even what Roe v. Wade previously allowed,” the bishops said in the Jan. 16 statement. “It would enshrine virtually unlimited abortion at any stage of pregnancy, with no age restriction.”

The bishops cautioned that the amendment would “severely jeopardize Virginia’s parental consent law, health and safety standards for women, conscience protections for health care providers, and restrictions on taxpayer-funded abortions.”

“Most tragically of all, the extreme abortion amendment provides no protections whatsoever for preborn children,” the bishops continued.

“Most importantly, human life is sacred,” the bishops said. “The lives of vulnerable mothers and their preborn children must always be welcomed, cared for, and protected.”

“Parental rights and the health and well-being of minors must be defended,” the bishops said. “So too must religious liberty. No one should ever be forced to pay for or participate in an abortion. Health and safety should be enhanced, not diminished.”

In addition, the bishops urged Virginia voters to oppose a measure that would repeal a 2006 provision defining marriage as between one man and one woman. The bishops also expressed support for a measure that would restore voting rights to those who have completed prison sentences.

“We will be deeply engaged in the work of helping to educate voters on these proposed amendments and will fight the extreme abortion amendment with maximum determination,” the bishops concluded.

The joint statement followed a statement by Burbidge, who on Jan. 15 urged Catholics to “to pray, fast, and advocate for the cause of life” amid the “looming threat” of the abortion amendment.

“Prayer opens our hearts to God’s wisdom and strengthens us to act with courage and charity,” Burbidge wrote. “Fasting makes reparation for sin and reminds us that true freedom is found not in self-indulgence but in self-gift. Advocacy allows us to bring our convictions into the public square with respect, clarity, and perseverance.”

“Our response as Catholics — and as citizens committed to justice — must be rooted in faith, truth, and love,” he continued.

Burbidge also reminded Catholics of the mercy of the Church. 

“It is essential to reaffirm a truth that lies at the very center of the Church’s pro-life mission: The Church is a loving mother,” Burbidge continued. “To any man or woman who carries the pain, regret, or sorrow of participation in abortion, know this clearly — you are not alone, and God awaits you with love and mercy. The Church desires to walk with you on a journey of healing and hope.”

“May we together pray fervently, act courageously, and serve generously,” Burbidge said. “May our witness help build a culture in Virginia — and beyond — that recognizes every human life as sacred, every person as beloved, and every moment as an opportunity to choose life.”

Archbishop Dabula Mpako of the Archdiocese of Pretoria. | Credit: Photos courtesy of Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference (SACBC)

Jan 18, 2026 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Archbishop Dabula Mpako of South Africa’s Catholic Archdiocese of Pretoria has issued a canonical decree requiring a group of parishioners who reportedly incited a series of protests at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in the archdiocese to undergo a “rehabilitative process” or be penalized — including the possibility of excommunication.

In the decree circulated on Jan. 11, Mpako described the events of December 2025 in which some parishioners of the cathedral are said to have organized demonstrations, inciting other parishioners to participate in them. He said that they disrupted Mass to protest a pastoral decision that was made by the bishop concerning “a pastor of the archdiocese.”

The actions of Dec. 7 and Dec. 28, Mpako said, “seriously harmed ecclesial communion and the good name of the Church” as well as the freedom of the archbishop in the legitimate exercise of his pastoral office.

He said that penalties will include possible excommunication that “is reserved for those who, after due warning, persist in the schismatic behavior of inciting revolt against the lawful authority of the bishop.”

Parishioner protests

On Dec. 7, a group of approximately 42 parishioners are said to have unlawfully assembled in front of the cathedral and conducted a public protest “denouncing the diocesan bishop for a legitimate pastoral decision concerning the pastor.”

The group is said to have made false and defamatory public assertions regarding the reasons for the bishop’s decision and to have incited opposition, resistance, and hostility against the bishop.

Mpako said the protesters caused public scandal and disturbance to the ecclesial order. He claimed that prior to the Dec. 7 event, the same group “instrumentalized” the celebration of Mass by engaging in coordinated protest actions during the sacred liturgy, thereby gravely violating the sanctity of divine worship and the reverence owed to the Eucharistic celebration.

Afterward, the individuals are said to have disseminated photographs and videos of the demonstration through social media platforms, further propagating false accusations and aggravating scandal among the faithful.

The same group reportedly wrote and sent letters of appeal to certain Church authorities based on what the bishop claims are false and defamatory public assertions regarding his decision.

The parishioners are said to have encouraged others to attach their digital signatures to the allegations.

On Dec. 28, a smaller number of the same individuals reportedly staged another protest at the conclusion of Pretoria’s jubilee year celebration.

Mpako said these actions seriously harmed the reverence owed to sacred worship and that in their conduct, the parishioners violated 11 canon laws, including failure to preserve communion with the Church.

He said the parishioners also violated the law that speaks about “illegitimate and harmful expression of opinions contrary to reverence toward pastors and the common good of the Church.”

Among the canonical penalties that may be given, the archbishop highlighted interdict, meaning that protesters may be barred from receiving the sacraments and sacramentals, and from participating in liturgical actions as ministers.

The other penalty falls under Penal Remedies and Penances, and includes public reprimand, withdrawal of permission to hold ecclesiastical office, and the imposition of pious or charitable works.

Other penalties include suspension from ecclesiastical offices, excommunication, as well as “just penalties for sacrilege” given the sacrilegious abuse of the Mass the parishioners reportedly may have committed.

The archbishop, however, proposed a corrective and rehabilitative process, saying that he desires “the conversion, reconciliation, and pastoral restoration of the offenders.”

The process he suggested includes a public retraction and apology requiring those responsible to retract the false accusations made publicly; remove scandalous content from social media; and issue an apology “in a manner determined by the diocesan authority.”

He also advised that for a determined time, participants in the protests may be barred from liturgical ministries, leadership roles, and public ecclesial functions. The parishioners are also to refrain from organizing or participating in public demonstrations related to ecclesiastical governance.

Mpako further directed mandatory participation in sessions on ecclesiology, the theology of episcopal authority, the nature of obedience and communion, as well as the sacredness of the liturgy.

As for “spiritual rehabilitation,” the archbishop said the protesters must engage in mandatory spiritual direction, acts of penance, and prayers for ecclesial unity, as assigned. “If any step is refused or neglected, the ordinary will proceed to impose canonical penalties as warranted.”

Further, he added: “This decree takes effect immediately upon notification and is to be communicated to the individuals concerned in the most expedient manner.”

This story was first published by ACI Africa, the sister service of EWTN News in Africa.

A woman receives a baby shower at her local church through Embrace Grace. | Credit: Embrace Grace

Jan 18, 2026 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Amy Ford was 19 years old when she found herself with an unplanned pregnancy. Scared and thinking her life and dreams were over, she attempted to get an abortion but was unable to go through with it.

Ford and the baby’s father turned to their church for support and received none. The experience led her to create Embrace Grace, a nonprofit that provides support and community through local churches for pregnant mothers in need.

The story behind the ministry

Ford told EWTN News that she thought “my life was over, my dreams were over, that my parents were going to hate me.” She said she thought she would end up homeless.

“The father of the baby felt the same way and we just thought we could have an abortion and maybe that’s a quick fix and we’ll just deal with the consequences of a broken heart later. And even though we grew up knowing abortion was wrong, we just kind of went into this mode of trying not to feel anything,” Ford recalled.

So, she went to an abortion clinic. As the nurses explained what they were going to do during the procedure, Ford began to hyperventilate and passed out. She was told she was “too emotionally distraught” to make a decision and that she could go back to the abortion clinic another day.

As she walked into the waiting room, she told the baby’s father that she was still pregnant. At that moment, the two decided they would keep the child. The high school sweethearts knew they wanted to get married one day; they just didn’t expect to have a child before marriage.

The two went to an evangelical pastor whom they knew personally to ask him if he could marry them.

“He said, ‘No, I’m sorry, because you sinned I will not bless this marriage,’” Ford shared.

The couple found another pastor to marry them and got married when Ford was 16 weeks pregnant. They tried going back to their church after that but it was “the elephant in the room” — others changed how they interacted with them and they decided to stop attending church for a period of time.

Ford and her husband welcomed their son — who is now 27 years old and also works in the pro-life movement — and have been married for 27 years, welcoming three more children after their firstborn.

Helping women

Looking back at her experience, Ford felt called to help women who found themselves in these situations, not sure where to go, and weren’t aware of the resources available to them. So she started a small group at her church for women who were experiencing an unexpected pregnancy.

Ford admitted that back then she didn’t know what a pregnancy center was or what the pro-life movement was.

“If someone would have said, ‘I work in the pro-life movement,’ I would have assumed that meant picketing because that’s the only thing the media shows,” she admitted. “I didn’t know what a pregnancy center was even when I started Embrace Grace, the group. I didn’t know anything about it. So, I never thought, ‘I’m starting a pro-life group.’ That wasn’t even on my mind. I just wanted to start a small group for women that have unexpected pregnancies.”

In 2008 Ford hosted her first group, which was made up of three women who met at a local church in the Dallas-Forth Worth area. After meeting for 12 weeks as a group, “they didn’t even seem like the same person by the end of it,” Ford recalled.

“They had completely transformed. They were empowered as women to be the moms that God created them to be.”

After the first group, Ford held another Embrace Grace session, and another and another. With each passing session, more and more young women were attending and slowly more and more churches were getting involved.

Today, Embrace Grace is in over 1,200 churches across the country — mostly in evangelical, Baptist, and Catholic churches.

A woman who joins an Embrace Grace group goes through a 12-week curriculum that aims to help her experience healing and remind her of who God made her to be as a daughter of God and a mother. Additionally, the church hosting the group throws each woman a baby shower.

Embrace Grace also has two other programs: Embrace Life and Embrace Legacy.

Embrace Life is a 20-week program that teaches the women more practical skills in terms of parenting, the newborn phase and postpartum, how to manage finances, and more. Embrace Legacy is a 12-week program aimed at new or single fathers.

Ford hopes that Embrace Grace serves as a tool of “courage and the bridge to get them actually going to church and raising their kids in the church and being a part of a spiritual family.”

The nondenominational nonprofit also works in partnership with local pregnancy centers that are within a 30-mile radius of a church that hosts an Embrace Grace group by giving them what they call “Love Boxes” to give women who find out they are pregnant and are seeking support. The Love Box contains a onesie with the words “Best Gift Ever,” a book called “A Bump in Life” — which contains 20 testimonies from women who chose life — a journal, a handwritten letter encouraging a new mother, and an invitation to join the local Embrace Grace group.

“Because most pregnancy centers have sonogram machines, that means they’re medical, which means they have HIPAA laws that they have to abide by. So, they can’t just give the church the girl’s name,” Ford explained. “So these Love Boxes are kind of a way, another touch, for the mom to find out more … and that there’s a church that wants to walk alongside you.”

Embrace Grace recently reached a milestone by giving out 150,000 Love Boxes since its launch in 2018.

Looking ahead, Ford’s goal is to be in 23,400 churches. If that number sounds specific, that’s because it is. By using different tools, Ford and her team concluded that if they want every woman who finds herself in an unplanned pregnancy to be able to turn to a church for support, Embrace Grace needs to be in “23,400 churches strategically placed around the United States … so that no mom would ever have to walk alone.”

“We are just putting it out there, trying to partner with as many churches as possible, so that we can make that happen,” she said. “That is our big dream. That that’s what the world would look like — that no mom would have to walk alone and that she would have a church to turn to in her local area.”

“I believe in leading Embrace Grace, we have front-row seats to miracles.”