St. James the Apostle Roman Catholic Church

A group set fire to the office of the country’s top Bangla newspaper, Prothom Alo, late on Dec. 19, 2025, to protest the killing of Sharif Osman Hadi, a front-line leader of a 2024 uprising in Bangladesh. / Credit: Dipu Malaker

Dhaka, Bangladesh, Dec 19, 2025 / 13:24 pm (CNA).

Catholic leaders in Bangladesh have condemned arson attacks on the offices of two of the country’s top newspapers and the homes of ousted Awami League leaders in protests of the killing of a frontline leader in a 2024 uprising.

Sharif Osman Hadi, 32, was shot in broad daylight on Dec. 12 and died in Singapore on Dec. 18.

“We condemn this attack and we are very concerned about the upcoming elections,” said Father Liton Hubert Gomes, secretary of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference in Bangladesh.

The announcement of Hadi’s death prompted thousands of people, especially young, to take to the streets of Dhaka to protest and demand justice for Hadi’s killers. Some protesters claim that the accused in Hadi’s shooting have fled to India and say the protests will continue until the Indian government returns them.

A number of protesters attacked the offices and residences of the Indian High Commission in Khulna and Chittagong, vandalized and set fire to the Dhaka headquarters of Prothom Alo, a leading Bangle newspaper, and the Daily Star, a top English newspaper. Protestors also vandalized and set fire to the offices of the cultural organization Chhayanat, the Indira Gandhi Cultural Center, and several other establishments.

Gomes, a Holy Cross priest, said the government has the responsibility to protect these establishments but has failed, so he wonders how this government will protect the people’s right to vote.

“There must be freedom for any newspaper and without that, no pillar of the nation will be good. Therefore, we have to stop this mob justice,” he told CNA.

In July 2024, the student-led uprising in Bangladesh led to the eventual overthrow of dictator Sheikh Hasina and her subsequent exile in India. Sharif Osman Hadi was the front-runner in the uprising. He later announced that he would contest the upcoming elections from Dhaka.

Hadi had always questioned and criticized Indian hegemony to Bangladesh and was a staunch critic of Hasina. Since August 2024, Bangladesh has been run by an interim administration led by Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

The government is calling on all citizens of Bangladesh to remain firmly vigilant against all forms of violence perpetrated by a few isolated extremist groups. 

A statement by the government said: “We strongly and unequivocally condemn all acts of violence, intimidation, arson, and destruction of life and property. The nation has witnessed your courage and tolerance even in the face of terrorism. Attacks on journalists are attacks on the truth. We assure you of full justice.”

null / Credit: New Africa/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Dec 19, 2025 / 12:54 pm (CNA).

Massachusetts will no longer require prospective foster parents to affirm gender ideology in order to qualify for fostering children, with the move coming after a federal lawsuit from a religious liberty group. 

Alliance Defending Freedom said Dec. 17 that the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families “will no longer exclude Christian and other religious families from foster care” because of their “commonly held beliefs that boys are boys and girls are girls.”

The legal group announced in September that it had filed a lawsuit in U.S. district court over the state policy, which required prospective parents to agree to affirm a child’s “sexual orientation and gender identity” before being permitted to foster. 

Attorney Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse said at the time that the state’s foster system was “in crisis” with more than 1,400 children awaiting placement in foster homes. 

Yet the state was “putting its ideological agenda ahead of the needs of these suffering kids,” Widmalm-Delphonse said.

The suit had been filed on behalf of two Massachusetts families who had been licensed to serve as foster parents in the state. They had provided homes for nearly three dozen foster children between them and were “in good standing” at the time of the policy change. 

Yet the state policy required them to “promise to use a child’s chosen pronouns, verbally affirm a child’s gender identity contrary to biological sex, and even encourage a child to medically transition, forcing these families to speak against their core religious beliefs,” the lawsuit said. 

With its policy change, Massachusetts will instead require foster parents to affirm a child’s “individual identity and needs,” with the LGBT-related language having been removed from the state code. 

The amended language comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month that aims to improve the nation’s foster care system by modernizing the current child welfare system, developing partnerships with private sector organizations, and prioritizing the participation of those with sincerely held religious beliefs. 

Families previously excluded by the state rule are “eager to reapply for their licenses,” Widmalm-Delphonse said on Dec. 17.

The lawyer commended Massachusetts for taking a “step in the right direction,” though he said the legal group will continue its efforts until it is “positive that Massachusetts is committed to respecting religious persons and ideological diversity among foster parents.”

Other authorities have made efforts in recent years to exclude parents from state child care programs on the basis of gender ideology.

In July a federal appeals court ruled in a 2-1 decision that Oregon likely violated a Christian mother’s First Amendment rights by demanding that she embrace gender ideology and homosexuality in order to adopt children.

In April, meanwhile, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed legislation that would have prohibited the government from requiring parents to affirm support for gender ideology and homosexuality if they want to qualify to adopt or foster children.

In contrast, Arkansas in April enacted a law to prevent adoptive agencies and foster care providers from discriminating against potential parents on account of their religious beliefs. 

The Arkansas law specifically prohibits the government from discriminating against parents over their refusal to accept “any government policy regarding sexual orientation or gender identity that conflicts with the person’s sincerely held religious beliefs.”

Bishop Edward Scarfenberger. / Credit: Photo courtesy of the Diocese of Albany

National Catholic Register, Dec 19, 2025 / 12:24 pm (CNA).

A retired New York bishop has filed for personal bankruptcy protection in federal court after a state jury verdict found him, along with other officials, personally liable for the collapse of a Catholic hospital pension fund that left about 1,100 retirees without the lifetime monthly payments they were expecting.

It’s not clear whether a Catholic bishop in the United States has ever previously filed for personal bankruptcy protection.

Bishop Edward Scharfenberger, 77, who served as bishop of Albany from April 2014 until his retirement in October, is seeking protection from creditors for his assets valued at between $100,001 and $500,000, according to a filing Tuesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of New York.

The seven-page filing does not list the bishop’s assets but states that he has between 100 and 199 creditors and debts totaling between $1,000,001 and $10 million.

Last week, a jury found Scharfenberger 10% liable in a $54.2 million judgment in a civil lawsuit over the failed pension plan once provided by St. Clare’s Hospital in Schenectady, a Catholic hospital that operated from 1949 until 2008, according to The Evangelist, the diocese’s newspaper.

The verdict and judgment, issued Dec. 12, cover compensatory damages — the amount a court finds is owed to plaintiffs for harm they have suffered — but not punitive damages, which may be added in cases of recklessness, malice, or fraud. The bankruptcy filings by the bishop and another defendant in the state lawsuit over the pension plan failure forced a pause in a punitive damages hearing earlier this week, according to WNYT Channel 13 in Albany.

The National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, was unable to reach Scharfenberger before the publication of this story. A lawyer representing the bishop acknowledged a request for comment Dec. 17 but did not immediately provide one.

A rare personal bankruptcy

In recent decades, bankruptcies have occurred regularly in the Catholic Church in the United States. Between 2004 and November 2025, 39 of the country’s dioceses have filed for bankruptcy, almost all to protect assets from clergy sex-abuse lawsuits, as the Register reported last month. One of those is the Diocese of Albany, which filed for bankruptcy in March 2023. 

But those diocesan cases were filed under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, which allows a corporation, partnership, or sole proprietorship to reorganize and continue operating while developing a court-approved plan to repay creditors.

Scharfenberger filed under Chapter 13, which allows an individual with regular income who cannot pay debts to keep certain assets while working out a repayment plan. 

“The rules in Chapter 13 permit a debtor to keep property and confirm a plan with payments to creditors based on the debtor’s ‘disposable income,’” said Marie Reilly, a bankruptcy expert and law professor at Penn State Dickinson Law, in an email. “If the debtor commits his disposable income to paying creditors for the term of a three- to five-year plan, he gets a discharge (forgiveness) of the unpaid balance.”

Reilly, who has researched several dozen diocesan bankruptcies for The Catholic Project, a lay initiative of The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., told the Register that the bankruptcy filing does not necessarily solve all of the bishop’s money problems.

“There are exceptions — some debts don’t get discharged. Creditors can object to the plan if it does not meet the statutory requirements,” Reilly said. “And, it is possible that the pension fund creditor may move to dismiss the bishop’s Chapter 13 case as having been filed ‘in bad faith.’”

$50 million shortfall 

St. Clare’s Hospital was originally run by the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor. The Diocese of Albany maintains that it never owned the hospital and that the bishop of Albany merely provided “canonical oversight” to make sure the hospital met “its mission to serve all in accord with Catholic moral standards,” according to an August 2025 statement from the diocese.

Last week, the jury found that the Diocese of Albany has no liability for the pension failure, instead holding the hospital corporation and certain officers and board members accountable. 

In addition to Scharfenberger, the jury found two deceased employees of the diocese liable, according to The Evangelist: Former Albany Bishop Howard Hubbard (1938–2023), who led the diocese from 1977 to 2014, was found 20% liable; and Father David LeFort, a former vicar general of the diocese who died in August 2023, was found 5% liable. 

Also found liable were St. Clare’s Corporation (20%), St. Clare’s president Joseph Pofit (25%), and former St. Clare’s president Robert Perry (20%), according to The Evangelist.

The judgments stem from a pension plan that operated for about 60 years. 

In 1959, the hospital began offering employees a defined-benefit plan that provided a lifetime monthly pension after retirement.

Church plan exempt from ERISA

Like most plans operated by Catholic institutions, the pension plan had a religious exemption from the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (known as ERISA), which sets minimum funding requirements for most nonreligious pension plans and also enables the federal government to step in and make payments to retirees of failed plans, using a fund financed by covered pension plans.

When the hospital closed in 2008, the officers of St. Clare’s “determined that the corporation would continue to exist for purposes of administering the pension plan,” according to a complaint filed in state court in Schenectady County by the New York attorney general’s office in May 2022. 

“They also chose to continue treating the pension plan as a ‘Church plan’ — which it could do only if the corporation’s former employees and pensioners were designated as employees of the Church. This was all in order to avoid the contribution and insurance requirements of ERISA, and the duties imposed by ERISA upon corporation directors and trustees as fiduciaries,” the complaint states.

The bishop of Albany was automatically a member of the hospital’s board and served as its honorary chairman, and had authority to appoint most of the directors on the board, according to the state attorney general’s complaint.

The attorney general’s office alleged that St. Clare’s Corporation failed to make contributions to the pension fund “for all but three years from 2001 to 2019” and concealed from retirees “the insolvency of the pension plan.”

In 2018, the St. Clare’s board terminated the pension plan effective Feb. 1, 2019, because of an approximately $50 million shortfall. More than 1,100 employees lost retirement benefits, including about 650 who lost all pension payments and about 450 who received a lump-sum payment “equal to 70% of the value of their vested pension,” the complaint states. The retired employees include “nurses, lab technicians, social workers, EMTs, orderlies, housekeepers, and other essential workers” who worked at the hospital “between 10 and 50 years,” the complaint states.

Testimony and reaction

On Dec. 9 during the civil trial, Scharfenberger testified that during his tenure no boards he sat on ever discussed the hospital’s pension plan, according to The Times-Union of Albany. 

In a written statement issued in August, when Scharfenberger still led the Diocese of Albany, the diocese said the bishop “has actively sought ways to help the pensioners” while denying that the diocese ever “exercised any control over St. Clare’s Hospital operations or its pension.” 

“He hosted a listening session with pensioners at Siena College to identify issues and consider ways to help those in need. He also reached out to the Mother Cabrini Foundation to try to secure funding for the pensioners, but that effort was unable to move forward once the pensioners filed the lawsuit,” the statement said. 

“The diocese is eager to see the case move forward and promptly resolved,” the August statement continued. “Our prayers continue for all who are struggling in any way, and as we stated previously, our offer to connect those in need with services that can help, stands. No one should walk alone.”

His successor, Bishop Mark O’Connell, who was installed as bishop of Albany on Dec. 5, told reporters shortly before the verdict was announced last week: “I care deeply about their hurt [and] not having their pensions,” according to The Evangelist.

During the Dec. 12 press conference, when a reporter asked O’Connell what the diocese would do if the jury found the diocese liable for the pension fund collapse, the bishop noted that the diocese is already in the midst of a bankruptcy process.

“If we are liable, then we’ll do what we can to make amends, given that they are one creditor as a group among many people accusing the Diocese of Albany,” O’Connell said, according to WAMC Northeast Public Radio. “And that’s what bankruptcy process is. We obviously cannot pay a billion dollars. Right? So that’s what Chapter 11 is all about, to figure out what’s fair. And since you have a bankruptcy judge and mediators, it’s not up to us.”

Later that day, the jury found the diocese not liable in the pension fund collapse lawsuit. The diocese issued a written statement, according to The Evangelist, that said: “As grateful as we are for the jury’s informed decision, we are still very much aware of the hurt felt by the St. Clare’s pensioners who cared for the sick and the poor throughout the long history of St. Clare’s Hospital. This does not mean that we will turn our backs to the pensioners, for as Bishop O’Connell has noted, they are a part of our flock; they are still in need of healing.”

That same day, lead plaintiff Mary Hartshorne, who worked in the hospital’s radiology department for about 28 years, told WNYT Channel 13 in Albany that she and other hospital retirees were pleased with the jury’s verdict but did not feel they would be made whole.

“We’ve been playing this game for seven and a half years, and I think my question I ask everybody is: How do you get that back? You don’t,” she said.

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

Colorado state capitol in Denver. / Credit: Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Dec 19, 2025 / 11:52 am (CNA).

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, a coalition of Catholic families, and numerous other advocates are petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to rule in favor of Catholic schools seeking to be included in Colorado’s universal preschool funding program. 

The religious liberty law group Becket said in a Dec. 18 release that the Catholic schools’ advocates — including numerous religious groups, legal organizations, and public policy groups — are urging the high court to rule against Colorado’s “discriminatory exclusion” of the faith-based schools. 

The Archdiocese of Denver and a group of Catholic preschools asked the Supreme Court in November to allow them to access the Colorado program after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit ruled in September that the state may continue to exclude the preschools from the education fund. 

The state has barred those schools from the funding pool because they require teachers and families to sign a pledge promising to uphold their religious mission, including teachings on sexuality and gender identity.

In an amicus filing this week, the U.S. bishops said the Colorado rule “denies Catholic preschools access to a state-run tuition assistance program solely because those schools adhere to Catholic doctrine about human sexuality.”

Allowing the rule to stand will offer a “roadmap” for other governments to violate the First Amendment rights of religious Americans around the country, the bishops argued. 

Permitting the schools’ exclusion “will impair the ability of Catholic organizations and other faith-based service providers to partner with state and local governments to serve the public,” the prelates said, arguing that the “resulting harm to the nation’s social support infrastructure would be immense.”

In another filing, a coalition of Catholic families said it regards Catholic schools as “essential partners” in their mission to impart the Catholic faith to their children. The Colorado rule, however, would force the Catholic schools to operate in a manner “inconsistent with their religious beliefs and mission.” 

Multiple families in the filing — all of whom have four or more children — testified to the formative role that Catholic preschools have played for them. The families said they “want their children to embrace the Catholic Church’s teachings on the nature of the human person” and that the state rule impedes their ability to do so through Catholic schools. 

Numerous other amicus filers include the Thomas More Society, the Center for American Liberty, and Concerned Women for America as well as religious groups representing Lutherans, Evangelicals, Jews, and Muslims.

Archdiocese of Denver School Superintendent Scott Elmer said via Becket that the archdiocese is “humbled” by the showing of support. 

“Our preschools aren’t asking for special treatment, just equal treatment,” he said, expressing hope that the Supreme Court “takes this case and upholds the promise of universal preschool for every family in Colorado.” 

The Supreme Court has not yet ruled on whether it will hear the case. Becket said the high court will likely decide whether or not to hear it “in early 2026.”

Pope Leo XIV celebrates Mass for the Jubilee of Prisoners in St. Peter’s Basilica on Dec. 14, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Dec 19, 2025 / 11:05 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV has written the preface to a new Vatican edition of the book “The Practice of the Presence of God,” a spiritual work he says is “one of the texts that has most shaped my spiritual life.”

“The Practice of the Presence of God” is a 17th-century spiritual classic written by the Carmelite friar Lawrence of the Resurrection.

The pontiff shared the personal importance of this work during the return flight to Rome at the end of his first international trip to Turkey and Lebanon earlier this month.

“It’s a very simple book, by someone who doesn’t even give his last name — Brother Lawrence — written many years ago,” he said at the time.

“But it describes, if you will, a type of prayer and spirituality where one simply gives his life to the Lord and allows the Lord to lead.”

The book that has ‘shaped my spiritual life’

In a preface to “The Practice of the Presence of God,” published by the Vatican Publishing House (LEV) in Italian, the pope goes deeper into this personal experience and places the work within his own journey of faith.

“As I have had occasion to say, together with the writings of St. Augustine and other books, this is one of the texts that has most shaped my spiritual life and has formed me in what the path for knowing and loving the Lord can be,” he writes.

Leo emphasizes that the small book by Brother Lawrence places at the center not merely the experience but a true “practice” of the presence of God, lived in everyday life.

It is, he explains, a path that is “simple and arduous at the same time. Simple, because it requires nothing other than “constantly calling God to mind, with small, continual acts of praise, prayer, supplication, adoration, in every action and in every thought, with him alone as our horizon, source, and end.”

It is demanding because it requires “a journey of purification, of ascetic discipline, of renunciation and conversion of the most intimate part of ourselves — of our mind and our thoughts, even more than of our actions,” he explains.

In this context, the pontiff cites St. Paul’s exhortation to the Philippians: “Have in you the same sentiments as Christ Jesus” — to underscore that “it is not only our attitudes and behaviors that must be conformed to God, but our very sentiments, our very way of feeling.”

Making daily tasks ‘easy and light’

In the preface, Leo underscores that this spiritual path, in which the presence of God becomes “familiar and occupies our inner space,” is where “graces and spiritual riches blossom, and even daily tasks become easy and light.”

The pope situates Brother Lawrence’s message in the context of today’s world. The writings of this Carmelite, who lived with luminous faith through a century marked by conflicts and violence — “certainly no less violent than our own” — can, he affirms, “also be an inspiration and a help for the lives of us men and women of the third millennium.”

Beyond ‘moralism’

The writing of Brother Lawrence shows us “that there is no circumstance that can separate us from God, that each of our actions, each of our occupations, and even each of our mistakes acquires infinite value if lived in the presence of God, continually offered to him,” the Holy Father says.

The pope adds that the whole of Christian ethics “can truly be summed up in this continual calling to mind of the fact that God is present: He is here.”

“This remembrance, which is more than a simple memory because it involves our feelings and affections, overcomes all moralism and every reduction of the Gospel to a mere set of rules, and shows us that truly, as Jesus promised us, the experience of entrusting ourselves to God the Father already gives us a hundredfold here on earth,” he explains.

“Entrusting ourselves to the presence of God means tasting a foretaste of paradise,” Leo writes.

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

Servant of God Enrique Shaw. / Credit: Acdeano, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

ACI Prensa Staff, Dec 19, 2025 / 10:35 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV has approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of Venerable Enrique Shaw, an Argentine layman, husband, father, and businessman who died in 1962 at the age of 41.

The prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, made the announcement Dec. 18 when he promulgated the decree, which came two days after the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints gave its “favorable opinion” on the canonization process.

The miracle 

The miracle attributed to Shaw’s intercession is the inexplicable healing of a 5-year-old boy who, in June 2015, suffered a very serious head injury from being kicked by a horse. His family, who had ties to the Christian Association of Business Leaders — co-founded by Shaw — began to ask for prayers, trusting in his intercession. As the days went by, the prayer chain united thousands of people in different countries, according to the news outlet Infobae’s account of the testimony of Fernán de Elizalde, administrator of the cause.

Following five surgeries and 45 days in critical condition, doctors decided to implant a permanent drainage valve in the boy’s brain. However, just before the surgery, the surgeon discovered something unexpected: The fluid was draining spontaneously, and the intracranial pressure had normalized, making the valve implantation unnecessary.

The boy’s recovery was rapid: Within a few days he was extubated and showed neurological improvement. Fifteen days later, he was already in rehabilitation. “He recovered completely, without neurological sequelae, without cognitive damage, and without visible deformities. Today, as a teenager, he leads a normal life. No one would imagine what he went through, except for those who know his story,” De Elizalde told Infobae.

‘Great joy for the Argentine Church’

Upon learning of the decree approving the miracle, Bishop Santiago Olivera, military ordinary of Argentina and vice postulator of the cause, told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, that “today is a day of great joy for the Argentine Church.”

Regarding the news, the bishop said: “We expected it, but we were surprised by how quickly it happened, and we are certainly grateful to God, and to all those who have worked for so many years and made this possible.”

“We must always be very grateful to those who prayed, to those who started [the process], to the first postulator, to Cardinal [Jorge María] Mejía, and to all those who continue to work on the cause today,” he added.

Mejía was one of the initiators of the cause and the one who created the Enrique Shaw Commission.

Fruits of causes are God’s answers to prayer

Olivera especially thanked those who pray, “because the fruits of these causes, which serve as models and examples, are also God’s answers to the praying people who confidently ask for this grace.”

Finally, he thanked the family of the healed child, “because we also owe this grace to their faith, and we not only have to thank God for the life of the child (now an adolescent) but also because the family’s faith made it possible for the entire Church, and Argentina in particular, to rejoice in this news today.”

Upon learning of the approval of the miracle through Shaw’s intercession, the Christian Association of Business Leaders, petitioner for the case, and Catholic Action of Argentina, a co-petitioner in the beatification and canonization process, issued a joint statement expressing “immense joy” and celebrating this “decisive step” on the path to sainthood.

They recalled that Shaw was “a businessman who understood that industry was not only a productive mechanism or a means of accumulating capital but also a true community of people called to grow together.”

In the same statement, the president of the Christian Association of Business Leaders, Silvia Bulla, said that “the beatification of Enrique Shaw will give the world the first businessman recognized as an example of holiness” while also serving as “an urgent invitation to humanize the economy, work for the common good and the dignity of labor.”

Who was Enrique Shaw?

Shaw was born on Feb. 26, 1921, and at the age of 4, his mother died. Fulfilling his wife’s request, his father entrusted his son’s education to a priest.

In 1943, he married Cecilia Bunge, and they had nine children. After retiring from the Navy in 1945, he chose to pursue a career in business, a path that would yield great fruits.

He was the managing director of Rigolleau Glassware and one of the founders and the first president of the Christian Association of Business Leaders, which promotes a humane approach to work.

A businessman with the heart of a worker

When he fell ill with cancer and needed blood transfusions, his own workers volunteered to donate blood for him. He died on Aug. 27, 1962, at the age of 41.

In April 2021, Pope Francis authorized the promulgation of the decree recognizing the heroic virtues of the businessman, faithful layman, and father.

After the miracle attributed to his intercession passed the medical review in January of this year, the Commission of Theologians also unanimously approved it on June 17.

The next step is his beatification, the date of which has not yet been announced.

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

A new animated film titled “David” tells the story of King David — from his humble beginnings as a shepherd boy to his battle against Goliath. / Credit: Sunrise Animation Studios

CNA Staff, Dec 19, 2025 / 10:00 am (CNA).

A new animated film called “David” tells the story of King David, from his humble beginnings as a shepherd boy to his battle against Goliath. Created by Sunrise Animation Studios, the film aims to bring the story of David to life for both children and adults. 

Released in theaters Dec. 19, the film features popular Christian singers including Phil Wickham and Lauren Daigle. 

Brent Dawes, the writer and director of the film, told CNA in an interview that the inspiration for the film came 30 years ago when the founders of Sunrise Animation Studios first created the studio. 

“The studio was started by a guy and his wife, Phil and Jacqui Cunningham, and one of the reasons they started a studio was because Phil had a desire to make a movie on David over 30 years ago,” said Dawes, who has been working with the Cunninghams for 25 years. “So it’s been a vision for more than 30 years for him.” 

Originally planned to be a live-action film, Cunningham approached Dawes 11 years ago about making the film animated instead. 

He said he thought making the film this way would “open the audience up hugely because families can watch it, kids can watch it, and it just allows so many more people to access it.”

“David, as you might know, is not the most PG-friendly story in the Bible. So if you’re going to do a live-action version it’s going to be pretty R-rated and pretty much for adults,” Dawes explained. “So, making it an animation allowed us to sort of turn it back a little bit, still tell the story authentically, but tell it in a sort of gentler way so it meant it could just reach a much wider audience, which is wonderful.”

Dawes pointed out that faith-based media, such as films like this one, are important to make, especially for children, because “Hollywood doesn’t tell stories from the heart anymore, and it tells it from a board room. Also, so many movies are told with an agenda, whether it’s political, whether it’s belief, all sorts of things.”

He added: “So telling a story like this, obviously we’re coming from a Christian point of view, but it was important for us that we tell this movie for a world audience. We also don’t want to alienate people who don’t believe. We believe this is a truly accessible story, whether you believe or not.”

“We’re not telling the audience, ‘You have to believe what our character believes,’ but our story is based 3,000 years ago, and this is what he believed, and this is how he lived his life. So, let us tell you that story. And however you want to engage with that, that’s up to you.”

Dawes shared that during all the time working with the story of David, he has learned several things from the famous king, specifically that “when a challenge comes up, it’s something to be faced with confidence, not with nervousness or fear — like David when he faced Goliath … He had a faith and a confidence and a childlike faith at that.”

Dawes said he hopes viewers will not only be entertained but also left inspired. He hopes the  film “speaks to each individual where they are in their life.”

Bishop Richard Moth, a former bishop of Britain’s military ordinariate, was appointed as the 12th archbishop of Westminster on Dec. 19, 2025. / Credit: Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

London, England, Dec 19, 2025 / 09:26 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV has appointed Bishop Richard Moth, a former bishop of Britain’s military ordinariate, as the 12th archbishop of Westminster, succeeding Cardinal Vincent Nichols, who is retiring at the age of 80. 

A canon lawyer, Moth, 67, has served as bishop of Arundel and Brighton in southern England for the past decade. He is best known for his work on prisons, criminal justice, and life issues, and is regarded by those who know him as sound on doctrine.   

As archbishop of Westminster, the leading Catholic see of England and Wales, he is expected to be elected president of the bishops’ conference and be elevated to cardinal as were all his predecessors since the see was established in 1850.    

Until Moth’s installation at Westminster Cathedral on Feb. 14, Nichols will serve as apostolic administrator of the metropolitan archdiocese, a Dec. 19 diocesan statement said.

On hearing of his appointment, Moth said he was “moved greatly by the trust that Pope Leo has placed in me.”

He expressed his gratitude to Nichols for his support and service to the diocese, and said the cardinal “will be missed greatly.” He also thanked the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton, which he said had given him the “wonderful opportunity” to share the Church’s mission with lay faithful and clergy.

Moth said his first task would be “to get to know the priests and people of Westminster, and I look forward, now, to serving them.”  

He added: “With them, and building on the firm foundations that have been laid by so many down the years, I look forward to continuing the great adventure that is the life of the Church and witness to the Gospel.” 

Nichols said he was “delighted at this news,” adding that the archbishop-designate “will bring to our diocese many gifts and considerable episcopal experience” to the position.  

Born in 1958 in Chingola, Zambia, and raised as an only child in Edenbridge, southeast England, Moth felt called to the priesthood at age 11 or 12 and entered St. John’s Seminary, Wonersh, at age 18. Moth was ordained for the Archdiocese of Southwark in 1982.  

As a priest he served at St. Bede’s Parish in Clapham Park, London, before pursuing studies in canon law at St. Paul’s University, Ottawa. He returned to London in 1987 to serve as assistant priest at St. Saviour’s in Lewisham, during which time he was also a Territorial Army chaplain.  

After serving nine years as judicial vicar in the Archdiocese of Southwark and as private secretary to then-Archbishop Michael Bown, in 2001 he was appointed vicar general and chancellor of the diocese. In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him bishop of the armed forces before Pope Francis nominated him bishop of Arundel and Brighton in 2015.

Within the bishops’ conference, he has served as lead bishop for prisons, overseeing and promoting chaplaincy and pastoral care in the criminal justice system. In that role he has consistently stressed that prisons must be places of reform and growth, rather than simply punishment, and has stressed the importance of prisoners having access to worship. 

He has also been involved in pro-life work, contributing to episcopal statements on assisted suicide, abortion, and the protection of the vulnerable. In 2023 he was one of three bishops to speak at the annual March for Life in London.

Moth chairs The Plater Trust, an organization dedicated to the support of projects across England and Wales that put into practice the principles of Catholic social teaching.  

Friends and associates describe Moth as a “good fellow,” genial, friendly, a hard worker and a “safe pair of hands.” He is not regarded as an academic but a loyal and faithful priest, and faithful to the Holy See. Those who knew him from seminary days regarded him as a “model student” and a popular young priest who liked the outdoors, making him a good fit to be bishop of the armed forces. He is a keen horse-rider and likes hiking.

Moth has been a frequent retreatant over the years to the Carthusian monastery at Parkminster in Sussex and for several decades has been a Benedictine oblate of Pluscarden Abbey — considered to be a traditional abbey without being “traditionalist.”

The archbishop-designate is not regarded as a proponent of the traditional Roman rite, but he allowed Masses in the “vetus ordo” to continue in the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton in the years since Pope Francis’ 2021 motu proprio Traditionis Custodes that restricted the Traditional Latin Mass. He also allowed and took part in a traditional requiem Mass celebrated earlier this year for Father Raymond Blake, a popular priest in his diocese.  

“He is sound on doctrine and has been sympathetic to those who want to have the traditional Mass, and not an enemy of it at all,” a parishioner of the diocese told the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner. 

In his statement, Nichols said he was “very much looking forward” to Moth’s installation, noting it will take place on St. Valentine’s Day as well as the feast of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, co-patrons of Europe. 

He also recalled being present — also in Westminster Cathedral — at Moth’s episcopal ordination as bishop of the armed forces in 2009: “So today I can say: ‘Welcome back, dear Bishop Richard,” Nichols said. “You are most welcome indeed.’”

Eight-year-old Yamen Abu Hilal lies on a bed as a woman sits beside him in a hospital room in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, on Nov. 24, 2025. His condition has sharply worsened amid the collapse of Gaza’s health care system, which has been unable to provide diagnostic tools, medication, or equipment since no medical supplies have entered the Strip following the ceasefire. / Credit: Doaa Albaz/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 19, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

Here is a roundup of Catholic world news from the past week that you might have missed:

Jerusalem churches advocate for Gazan children to have cancer treatment in Israel

Church leaders in Jerusalem have called on the Israeli government to allow children in Gaza with leukemia to be allowed into Israel to receive treatment at Augusta Victoria Hospital on the Mount of Olives. 

The Dec. 17 statement was addressed to “the responsible authorities” in Israel and signed by the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem, who said they were appealing on “humanitarian grounds” to be allowed to facilitate swift treatment of the disease.

“The treatment for this disease is not available in Gaza, and it has the potential to transform the lives of those afflicted with it,” the statement said. “There will be no burden on the government for any cost, since it will all be borne by the hospital.”

Thousands of Christians gather for India’s largest Christmas music festival

More than 25,000 Christians and people across other faith backgrounds descended upon India’s capital city of Mumbai for the country’s largest Christmas music festival, UCA News reported. 

“Jesus is not just the Prince of Peace; he is peace himself,” said Cardinal Oswald Gracias, archbishop emeritus of Bombay, at the 60th edition of the ecumenical celebration on Dec. 14 at a beachfront called Girgaon Chowpatty in South Mumbai. Since its conception, Gracias said, “the event has become a beacon of unity and joy, bringing together people from all walks of life.” 

The event’s theme this year was “Peace and Hope to All in a World in Turmoil” and included a wide-ranging musical celebration that featured hymns in several different Indian languages, according to the report. 

Award-winning investigation spotlights ‘forgotten’ churches in Sudan 

An award-winning investigative report is drawing fresh attention to the damage sustained by churches in Sudan’s ongoing conflict, more than two and a half years after fighting erupted in April 2023, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner, ACI MENA, reported. 

The investigation, produced in partnership between Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) and the Mountain Media network, documents harm to 23 churches and one monastery across Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant communities, amid what it describes as limited regional and international coverage. 

Reported violations range from shelling and arson to looting and the misuse of religious properties. The investigation cites eyewitness testimony, explosive engineering expertise, satellite imagery, and analysis linked to Yale University to support its claims, and argues that actions by both major warring sides contributed to the destruction, raising the possibility that some incidents could meet thresholds associated with war crimes or crimes against humanity under international legal frameworks.

Melbourne church to host archdiocesan synod

The Archdiocese of Melbourne has launched preparations for an archdiocesan synod in 2026, Archbishop Peter Comensoli announced in a letter addressed to the faithful on Dec. 14. 

The synodal process will operate under three key themes: young discipleship, missionary leadership, and formation and participation. “These three themes have not arisen in isolation,” Comensoli said. “They have emerged consistently and clearly through all the listening, discernment, and consultation undertaken in recent years across the archdiocese, including the plenary council process, the global synod, and our local pastoral initiatives.” 

South American countries continue missionary rosary tradition 

Catholics in Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Bolivia are celebrating their second year of being united in prayer through the Pontifical Mission Societies’ online missionary rosary. The prayer initiative was shared on the feast of St. Francis Xavier, patron saint of missions, and broadcast live on Facebook by the Pontifical Mission Societies in all the countries, according to Fides News Agency. 

Brother Giancarlo Chirinos Barrera, national secretary of the Peruvian Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith, said during the event, which drew hundreds of participants of all ages from each country: “We are all called to be missionaries, and it is truly beautiful to do so accompanied by the Virgin Mary.” 

Calls to curb hate speech after vandalism at a Christian cemetery in Iraq

In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, the vandalism of a recently established Christian cemetery in Shaqlawa, where crosses and grave markers were damaged, has renewed concerns about recurring attacks on Christian sites as Christmas and the new year approach. The cemetery reportedly contains 33 graves, and the incident follows other recent cases involving a Christian cemetery in Armota and a church in Duhok province.

Local officials said the suspect was identified and arrested with the help of surveillance cameras and an investigation is underway to determine motives and any links to similar acts in the area. The episode has prompted renewed appeals for stronger deterrence against hate speech, with community representatives warning that repeated incidents, even if carried out by individuals, can signal deeper societal problems and fuel fear among minority communities.

Pakistan hosts its first government-sponsored Christmas rally 

The first-ever government-sponsored Christmas rally in Pakistan drew thousands of participants this week in the country’s Punjab province, according to a UCA News report. 

The rally, sponsored by Punjab’s minister for minority affairs, Sardar Ramesh Singh Arora, took place on Dec. 15 and processed from Sacred Heart Cathedral for a little over four miles to a roundabout in downtown Lahore. Catholic and Protestant clergy joined the minister in leading the procession, during which participants sang Christmas carols and rode on buses and trucks decorated with festive balloons. Arora said the procession was aimed at countering “forces engaged in negative propaganda against Pakistan.”

Palm Beach Bishop-designate Manuel de Jesus Rodriguez. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Diocese of Palm Beach

CNA Staff, Dec 19, 2025 / 07:30 am (CNA).

The Holy See said on Dec. 19 that Pope Leo XIV had made two new episcopal appointments in the United States, with the Vatican announcing a new bishop for the Diocese of Palm Beach, Florida, as well as an auxiliary bishop for the Diocese of Phoenix.

Father Manuel de Jesus Rodriguez will lead the Palm Beach Diocese after the resignation of Bishop Gerald Barbarito, the Vatican said. At 75, Barbarito has reached the customary age at which bishops retire.

Bishop-designate Rodriguez is currently a priest in the Diocese of Brooklyn, where he serves at Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Queens.

Born Jan. 15, 1974, in the Dominican Republic, Rodriguez studied at the Pontifical University Madre y Maestra in that country, receiving philosophy and law degrees there before obtaining several other degrees and certificates, including a doctorate in legal studies from the Pontifical Salesian University in Rome and a licentiate in canon law from The Catholic University of America.

Admitted to the Salesians of Don Bosco in 1993, he made his final profession to that religious order in 2002 and was ordained on July 3, 2004. He was incardinated in the Diocese of Brooklyn in 2012.

Rodriguez became a U.S. citizen in 2018. He has served multiple roles in Brooklyn, including as pastor and administrator of several churches as well as defender of the bond at the diocesan tribunal. The bishop-designate speaks English, Spanish, Italian, and French. 

Outgoing Palm Beach Bishop Barbarito said in a Dec. 19 statement that the diocese will be ”greatly blessed” by Rodriguez’s ministry and that he has “shown himself to be a deeply spiritual and exceptional priest.”

Vicar for clergy appointed auxiliary bishop in Phoenix

The Holy See also announced on Dec. 19 that Pope Leo XIV has appointed Monsignor Peter Dai Bui as an auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Phoenix. 

Bishop-designate Bui is currently the diocesan vicar for clergy for the Phoenix Diocese. A native of Vietnam, he entered the Legion of Christ novitiate in 1989 and made his first profession in 1991. He attended the Pontifical Athenaeum in Rome, where he earned degrees in philosophy and theology and a licentiate in philosophy.

He was ultimately ordained for the Legionaries of Christ on Dec. 24, 2003. 

Bui served for several years as the chaplain of a private Catholic school in Venezuela, where he organized international mission trips. Incardinated in the Phoenix Diocese in 2009, he has served as pastor at multiple parishes and since 2022 as the vicar for clergy. 

The bishop-designate speaks English, Vietnamese, Spanish, Italian, and German.

Bui said in a Dec. 19 statement that he was “honestly in shock” when Apostolic Nuncio Cardinal Christophe Pierre called him with the news. 

“I even forgot he couldn’t see me nodding through the phone!” he joked. He expressed a “profound gratitude to God” for the appointment. 

“I just want to be a good priest, now called to serve in a new way,” he said. 

Phoenix Bishop John Dolan, meanwhile, said he was “deeply grateful” to the pope for the appointment. 

“As one of the largest and most rapidly growing dioceses in the nation, Phoenix faces increasing pastoral and administrative complexity, and Bishop-elect Bui’s experience in governance, his deep care for priests, and his commitment to accompaniment will be invaluable,” the bishop said.