ACI Prensa Staff, Nov 24, 2025 / 17:41 pm (CNA).

The Catholic Church is facing a new wave of violence in Africa: In Nigeria, 265 students from a Catholic school remain captive after being kidnapped last week while an archbishop in Cameroon is threatening to close parishes if a kidnapped priest is not released.

In Nigeria, Bishop Bulus Dauwa Yohanna of Kontagora told Fides: “The kidnappers are almost certainly criminals seeking illicit gain by demanding a ransom.”

An official statement from the diocese, published on Nov. 23, reported that 50 minors managed to escape and reunite with their families after fleeing between Friday and Saturday following the attack. These developments were confirmed through visits and phone calls with their relatives, the statement said.

However, of the 315 people initially captured, “265 remain in the hands of the kidnappers, of whom 239 are children, 14 are high school students, and 12 are members of the school staff,” the diocesan statement specified.

The institution serves 430 primary school students (377 boarders and 53 day students) and 199 secondary school students, figures that, according to the diocese, “are important in helping the public understand the scale of the incident and the extensive efforts underway to account for every missing child and staff member.”

Cameroon archbishop demands release of kidnapped priest

The archbishop of Bamenda, Andrew Nkea Fuanya, announced that “if Father John is not released before Nov. 26, the churches in the deanery will be closed” as a measure to pressure for the release of parish priest John Berinyuy Tatah, who was kidnapped on Nov. 15 by armed men in northeastern Cameroon along with his vicar.

The faithful were informed of the possible closures in an official message read on Sunday, Nov. 23, in all parishes, the Vatican news agency Fides reported.

Nkea explained that if the priest remains in the hands of his captors by that date, the parishes, schools, and Catholic institutions of the Ndop deanery will be closed. “Priests will be evacuated for their safety, and the Blessed Sacrament will be removed from the churches.”

Furthermore, he warned that if the priest continues to be held captive on Nov. 28, the archbishop, the clergy, and lay faithful will march to the village of Baba I, where he is believed to be held, “and will either bring him back home or remain there until he is released,” Fides reported.

The prelate denounced the frequent kidnappings of priests and pastoral workers, stating that the perpetrators “have put us against the wall, and all of this must end immediately,” noting that many laypeople have also suffered torture, violence, and extortion.

According to Fides, the kidnapping was carried out by armed separatists who have proclaimed the so-called “Republic of Ambazonia” in the English-speaking northeast and southeast regions of the country. The rest of Cameroon is French-speaking.

Bishop Barron: ‘The persecution is real and we must react’

The situation in Nigeria has caused international outrage. The bishop of Winona-Rochester in Minnesota, Robert Barron, recently referred to the wave of attacks against Catholic communities, noting that what has happened is part of “an ongoing and long-standing persecution.”

“Over the last 10 years, I think 100,000 Christians have been murdered, tens of thousands of churches burned, [and there has been a] huge displacement of the Christian population,” he said on X.

After explaining that in the middle parts of the country the attacks on Christians may be motivated by a mixture of religious, tribal, or economic reasons, Barron said he did not want the appeal to mixed motives as an excuse for inaction.

“Are the motives of the persecutors mixed? Sure, I’ll grant you that. There are economic or tribal elements, of course. But my overall point is: Who cares? What matters here is that our brother and sister Christians are being brutally mistreated.”

Barron also appealed to the international Christian community: “Our connections in Christ to one another are deeper than our national identity.” Christians must pray, speak out, raise awareness, and ask our representatives to act, he said.

The bishop also emphasized that Nigeria today is “a flourishing Church” in vocations and vitality. “Am I surprised that that Church especially is undergoing a very vicious persecution? No. The more successful a Church becomes, the more on fire with Christ it becomes, the more it attracts the attention of the enemy.”

Call for calm and prayer

The Diocese of Kontagora assured that it is “fully committed to the safe rescue of those still in captivity” and reported that it continues to work with the police, authorities, and families.

It also asked the faithful to remain calm, continue praying, and support the ongoing efforts.

Meanwhile, in Cameroon, Nkea once again called on the authorities to stop the abuses against the population and demanded that the priest and all kidnapping victims be returned home as soon as possible.

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

EWTN News, Nov 24, 2025 / 16:08 pm (CNA).

Three German bishops have publicly distanced themselves from the German Bishops’ Conference’s new document on “diversity of sexual identities” for schools, further escalating the dispute over how Catholic education should address gender identity.

At the center of the controversy is the 48-page text “Geschaffen, erlöst und geliebt: Sichtbarkeit und Anerkennung der Vielfalt sexueller Identitäten in der Schule” (“Created, Redeemed, and Loved: Visibility and Recognition of the Diversity of Sexual Identities in the School”).

Published on Oct. 30 by the bishops’ conference’s Commission for Education and Schools, the document is intended to serve as an orientation aid for Catholic and other schools in Germany. Due to internal discussions last summer, the orientation text was initially withheld and revised.

Based on the premise that “the diversity of sexual identities is a fact,” the text urges schools to foster an environment free of discrimination for students, staff, and parents who identify as queer. The document calls on students to respect the self-identification and self-designation of classmates who identify as queer and to support initiatives that highlight their situation.

The English word “queer” is frequently used by some German organizations, including certain dioceses, as an umbrella term for people who identify as LGBT.

In his foreword, commission chair Bishop Heinrich Timmerevers of Dresden-Meissen stresses that the text does not claim to offer a full moral-theological evaluation. Rather, it is intended to provide school-pastoral and pedagogical guidelines rooted in contemporary human sciences.

Teachers are encouraged to use language that reflects “the diversity of sexual identities.” In religion classes, teachers should present disputed questions of sexual morality as such, allowing students to form their own judgments.

Bishop Stefan Oster of Passau issued the most detailed response. In an online commentary, he acknowledged concerns about vulnerable young people but said he “fully” distanced himself from the document’s presuppositions and its theological, philosophical, pedagogical, and developmental psychological approach.

Although the booklet is published under the name “The German Bishops,” Oster insists that it does not speak for him and warns that it promotes an anthropology that effectively desacralizes the Christian understanding of the human person.

Since then, Regensburg’s bishop, Rudolf Voderholzer, has aligned himself explicitly with Oster’s critique. His diocese republished the Passau text as a “critical analysis” of the central theses, and Voderholzer accused the bishops’ conference leadership of pushing the paper through almost unchanged despite requests for revisions in the Standing Council. The Regensburg response spoke of an “agenda” being pursued “in our name.”

The Standing Council is the German Bishops’ Conference’s governing body where all 27 diocesan bishops meet five to six times per year to handle ongoing business and coordinate between the less-frequent plenary assemblies.

The third critical response came from Cologne. The archdiocese, led by Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, released a statement rejecting all forms of discrimination in Catholic schools. Regarding the theological and anthropological assessment of “Geschaffen, erlöst und geliebt,” however, the archdiocese said it “aligns itself” with Oster’s commentary.

Other voices have contributed to the mixed reception. Thomas Maria Renz, the Rottenburg auxiliary bishop and vice chair of the school commission, welcomed the effort to protect vulnerable youth. However, he warned against a “naive” endorsement of every form of adolescent self-description during development. He called for a stronger focus on broader educational goals.

For now, the document remains officially in force as an orientation aid of the bishops’ conference. However, the open opposition of three diocesan bishops has turned it into a key issue in the broader struggle over the Church’s reform efforts in Germany, particularly with regard to sexuality and anthropology.

ACI Prensa Staff, Nov 24, 2025 / 15:38 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV stated that hope “does not mean having all the answers, but rather it calls us to put our trust in God.”

The pontiff made his remarks during an audience granted Nov. 24 at the Vatican to faithful from Latvia, who traveled to the Eternal City to commemorate the centenary of the first official Latvian pilgrimage to Rome.

After greeting Prime Minister Evika Siliņa, with whom he had met privately earlier, the Holy Father thanked the pilgrims for keeping the tradition alive and following in the footsteps “of your forebears in the faith.”

He then recalled that Rome “has always been a home for all Christians, since it is here that the great apostles Peter and Paul gave the supreme witness to the Gospel by becoming martyrs for the faith.”

The Holy Father also recalled Pope Francis’ visit to the country in 2018, on the occasion of the centenary of the nation’s independence, where he spoke “of the difficulties your country experienced in the past.”

“While the current conflict in your region may evoke memories of those turbulent times,” Leo said, “it is important for all of us to turn to God and to be strengthened by God’s grace when faced with such tribulation.”

Recalling Francis’ words, Leo emphasized the “vital role the Christian faith played in your country’s history.” He expressed gratitude for the bond between Latvia and the Holy See, whose relations have grown closer in recent years.

The Holy Father also affirmed that it is necessary to unite with hope “the virtue of faith in order to keep our eyes on the present and see the many ways that God is blessing us here and now.”

In this regard, he explained that a pilgrimage “has an important role in our life of faith for it gives us the time and space to encounter God more deeply.”

“It takes us away from the routine and noise of everyday life,” he added, “and offers the space and silence to hear God’s voice more clearly.”

Finally, he encouraged them to share what they experienced in Rome when they return home, because, he affirmed, “a pilgrimage does not end but its seeds should take root in your daily discipleship and bear fruit in your lives.”

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

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 24, 2025 / 15:08 pm (CNA).

The 2025-2026 Newman Guide will be available in December to help parents and students find reliable Catholic elementary, secondary, college, international, and graduate education programs.

The Cardinal Newman Society, which publishes a yearly guide on the most faithfully Catholic schools in the U.S., will release its new edition as both an e-book and a digest-sized print book. 

The Newman Guide has recommended colleges for Catholic families for 20 years, but the 2025-2026 edition is the first that will recommend elementary schools, secondary schools, colleges, and graduate programs. The new guide follows the recent announcements of St. John Henry Newman becoming a doctor of the Church and a patron saint of Catholic education. 

The guide gives families a path to a faithful Catholic education, which is growing more relevant, according to the Cardinal Newman Society, which reported a 55% decline in enrollment at Catholic schools in the last 50 years. Recognizing that Catholic education is the Church’s most effective means of evangelization and Catholic formation, the society says it continues to respond with tools, including the Newman Guide. 

“With so many Catholic colleges compromising their mission, the Newman Guide served as a trusted resource to identify schools committed to forming students intellectually and spiritually in line with Church teachings,” said Dominic Kalpakgian, a student who started attending a Newman Guide-recommended college in 2024.

“The guide’s endorsement carried significant weight with my parents, who trusted the Newman Guide schools to uphold the values and principles they had instilled in me,” Kalpakgian said.

“The Newman Guide was instrumental in helping my family locate a faithfully Catholic grade school when we were moving across the country,” said Molly Metzgar, a mother, teacher, and Cardinal Newman Society employee. “While subsequently teaching at my child’s school, I helped successfully navigate the Newman Guide application process.”

The guide reaches more than 75,000 families online each year and now plans to expand numbers with the additional print version. Since starting to approve schools beyond just colleges, 28 elementary schools and 55 graduate programs have become Newman Guide-recommended.

“Out of our 160+ graduates, those who attended Newman Guide colleges are the ones still practicing their faith,” said Derek Tremblay, the headmaster of Mount Royal Academy. 

How to become Newman Guide recommended

Since 2007, the Cardinal Newman Society has recognized Catholic colleges in the Newman Guide that have strong policies and standards and uphold Catholic identity within academics, athletics, faculty hiring, and campus life.

The key elements in faithful Catholic education, according to the society, is looking for salvation of souls, Catholic community, prayer, Scripture and sacrament, integral formation, and Christian worldview.

To be recognized in the Newman Guide, “a Catholic school must be committed to strong Catholic identity and model the ‘Principles of Catholic Identity in Education,’ use the Catholic ‘Curriculum Standards’ in whole or part, and align their school policies with standards promoted by the society which are derived from Church teaching.”

Catholic schools must have a curriculum that provides for the integral formation of the whole person and helps students know and understand objective reality, including transcendent truth.

The Newman Guide policy standards are derived from guidance from Church councils, popes, Vatican congregations, bishops conferences, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and other Church documents.

ACI MENA, Nov 24, 2025 / 11:05 am (CNA).

With the countdown underway for Pope Leo XIV’s first official journey outside Italy, excitement is building across Turkey’s Christian and wider faith communities. Ahead of the historic visit, EWTN News spoke with several individuals who shared their hopes, expectations, and reflections on what the pope’s presence could mean for the country.

Linda Tito, a 67-year-old Levantine from Izmir, is eagerly awaiting the visit. “I am happy to go to Istanbul to see the pope, because his visit is a sign of unity and hope for us Christians in Turkey. It is wonderful that he can also see us, know that we exist and that we love him. Meeting him in person is for me a gesture of faith and an opportunity to feel fully part of the universal Church.”

Bedri Diril, 40, a member of Istanbul’s Chaldean community, shared his opinion on the significance and importance of Pope Leo XIV’s visit in ecumenical terms. 

“Popes’ visits to Turkey always carry a significance beyond their symbolic meaning. Therefore, Pope Leo XIV’s visit is also of great importance to Christians living in these lands. Anatolia holds a very special and sacred place in the history of Christianity. Although Christians are a minority in these lands, they have continued to bear witness to their faith in Christ for centuries,” he said. 

Diril said he thinks Pope Leo’s visit will give “moral support and courage” to the minority communities living in Turkey. “On an ecumenical level, strengthening the pope’s ties with the ecumenical patriarchate will be an extremely positive step for the Christian world, and I believe this step will bear fruit in the future,” he said, adding: “Certain disagreements and differences of opinion between the Catholic and Orthodox churches, which stem from the past, will show significant progress towards unity in the near future thanks to such visits and dialogues. The most important element that will develop between the churches will undoubtedly be love. With this love, it will be possible to achieve the unity of the one church in Christ Jesus, as in the first centuries, which all true believers long for.”

Teodora Hacuni, 57, is one of the women from the small Greek community in Izmir. She believes this papal visit will be memorable.

“It is truly significant that His Holiness Pope Leo XIV is making his first official overseas visit to Turkey in the 1,700th year of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea. Church unity is only possible if we accept each other as brothers and sisters,” she said. “The message of unity that His Holiness the Pope and His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew will deliver here should be a guiding light for us Christians. Both churches are taking sincere steps in this direction, and granting the use of the Santa Maria Church in Izmir to Orthodox Christians is one of them. I am grateful to our Catholic brothers for these generous attribution.”

Meanwhile, the small town of Iznik is also buzzing with excitement, particularly one of its residents. Mesude Künen, a ceramic artist for 33 years who works with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, has spent two months completing a miniature depicting the historic sites and ramparts of Iznik. She said to multiple Turkish media stations she was very excited about the visit.

“The pope will soon be visiting our city of İznik. I have been working on a special project for him to highlight the historical sites and city walls of İznik. I would like to present him with this important work. I had already created a miniature version of this work, but it was purchased by a famous collector.”

This story was first published by ACI MENA, CNA's Arabic-language news partner, and has been translated for and adapted by CNA.

Indianapolis, Indiana, Nov 24, 2025 / 10:35 am (CNA).

The 2025 National Catholic Youth Conferences (NCYC) concluded with a nighttime Mass drawing around 16,000 teenagers.

After three days of prayer, community, sacraments, and a conversation with Pope Leo XIV, young Catholics packed into Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis to end the conference with Mass on Nov. 22. Archbishop Nelson Pérez told CNA it was “beautiful” to celebrate the Mass alongside 25 of his brother bishops and more than 240 priests. 

“It’s the Church in its splendor,” Pérez said. “Tonight, we experienced the Church in its splendor.” 

The final Mass was celebrated on the Saturday before the solemnity of Christ the King. In his homily, Pérez said: “When I think about a king, I think about palaces and big thrones and power and authority.”

“But when Jesus talks about king it’s … different,” Pérez said. “His throne is a cross. His crown is not made of gold and gems. It’s made of thorns. He doesn’t wear fancy, beautiful, priceless rings on his hands. He has nails.”

The “very mystery of the life and the death of Christ, the King, and all of our lives is actually a dying and a rising — dying to sin, dying to the parts of our humanity that might be warped and wounded, and rising to new life to renewal of our soul.”

Then “that process goes over and over over and over and over again until we die in Christ for the last time and then rise with him,” Pérez said. “How blessed, how filled with hope we are.”

Pérez reminds teens: ‘Christ loves you just as you are’

Pérez concluded his homily by tying his message back to what Pope Leo told the teens in his digital encounter with them on Nov. 21. Pérez told the teenagers Pope Leo spoke with them because he loves them.

Pope Leo has “gathered with youth all over the place, especially this summer, [during] the Jubilee of Youth,” Pérez said. The pope’s “message is profound, powerful, and simple at the same time: ‘Christ loves you just as you are.’”

Pérez reminded the crowd to listen to what the pope said to them. “Think of your closest friends. If they were hurting, you would walk with them, listen, and stay close,” the pope said. “Our relation with Jesus is similar. He knows when life feels heavy, even when we do not feel his presence, our faith tells us he is there.”

“To entrust our struggles to Jesus, we have to spend time in prayer … We can speak honestly about what’s in our hearts,” Pérez said, quoting the pope. “That is why daily moments of silence are so important, whether through adoration, reading Scripture, or simply talking to him.”

“‘Little by little, we learn to hear his voice, both from within and through the people he sends us. As you grow closer to Jesus,’ he said to us, ‘Do not fear what he may ask of you. If he challenges you to make changes in your life, it’s always because he wants to give you greater joy and freedom. God is never outdone in generosity.’”

“The pope’s digital visit was what made this NCYC epic, really epic and different from any other,” Pérez told CNA. The success was from “the excitement of our youth to welcome the Holy Father” and Pope Leo’s “generosity and willingness” to speak with them. 

Being a part of the conference and seeing so many young Catholics at Mass together made Pérez feel “hopeful,” he said. “In a world and a country that’s so divided right now and violent at times, after this, I’m just so full of hope. It’s almost like we’re going to be OK.”

“It’s incredible to see the young Church alive,” Pérez said. “It’s such a beautiful, beautiful gathering.”

The Diocese of Kontagora has confirmed that 50 students kidnapped from St. Mary’s Catholic School, Papiri, Agwara Local Government Area in Niger State, escaped their captors and have since returned to their families.

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CNA Staff, Nov 24, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

After a month and a half of walking an average of 17 miles a day, 67-year-old Father Gary Graf said he is starting to get “a little pain in one shin,” but his broken ribs are “getting much better.”

On Oct. 6, Graf, a Catholic priest from Chicago, began a journey on foot from Pope Leo XIV’s childhood home in Dolton, Illinois, to New York City to bring attention to the plight of immigrants amid the sometimes “inhumane” ways the Trump administration is treating them during its immigration enforcement actions.

He hopes to arrive at the Statue of Liberty on Ellis Island, where his own great-grandparents entered the country as immigrants, by Dec. 2.

A few weeks ago, when visiting a parish in Indiana, he was invited to ride a horse. He fell off as it galloped and broke several ribs, which led him to take one day off to recover. That day, friends walked in his stead.

Graf, the pastor of the mostly Hispanic Our Lady of the Heights Catholic Church in Chicago Heights and a longtime member of Priests for Justice for Immigrants, has committed his life to helping immigrants. Ordained in 1984, he spent five years as a priest in Mexico serving a people “with whom I fell deeply in love.”

He told CNA that after initially feeling helpless watching the raids taking place against his beloved community in his hometown of Chicago, he “felt a call that was directly from above” to start walking.

Within weeks, he was on the road. He first spoke to an old friend about his idea, who immediately connected him with Lauren Foley, the head of a public relations firm. She “immediately embraced the idea,” and between her help and that of some “young people who understand social media,” a website as well as social media accounts were set up to chronicle his journey and to share the stories of immigrant families.

Of the immigrants on whose behalf he is walking, Graf said: “I look to help people who get up every single morning to work and raise their families. If I can do this small gesture on their behalf, what a blessing it is, what a privilege.”

Asked about the most profound insight he has gained thus far, Graf said his long days walking through the wide expanse of rural America have helped him understand better the ways of people who did not grow up in a multicultural city like he did.

“We have to reverently appreciate and try to connect with those whose lives we’re passing through,” he said.

As he has spoken with people in diners along his path, Graf has developed “a greater sensitivity,” discovering that “there’s not a lot of animosity against the immigrant.”

Many of the people he has met simply do not know any, he said.

Along the way, he has also experienced unity with Christians from other denominations, as well as with those without religious faith, who all care about the humane treatment of human beings.

“I have seen so much goodness,” he said. “This has brought so many of us together: people from many different faith traditions, or none. This is an opportunity given to us.”

During his quiet walks through rural farmland, he has marveled at the amount of labor it took to build the many roads, bridges, and overpasses he has seen. 

“I’m sure the hands of many immigrants helped build these things,” he reflected.

Graf said he is delighted that both the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Pope Leo XIV addressed the immigration enforcement situation in the past week. 

The U.S. bishops issued a special message during its Fall Plenary Assembly two weeks ago, calling for “a meaningful reform of our nation’s immigration laws and procedures.” The bishops argued that “human dignity and national security are not in conflict. Both are possible if people of goodwill work together.”

The pope echoed the bishops’ message. On Nov. 18, he acknowledged to reporters that “every country has a right to determine who and how and when people enter.”

“But when people are living good lives, and many of them for 10, 15, 20 years, to treat them in a way that is extremely disrespectful, to say the least — and there’s been some violence, unfortunately — I think that the bishops have been very clear in what they said.”

“I think that I would just invite all people in the United States to listen to them,” the pope said. 

“Both the pope and the bishops used the word ‘indiscriminate’ to talk about the way people are being singled out and aggressively having their wrists zip-tied behind their backs as their faces are pushed to the ground in front of their children,” Graf said. 

“It is indeed indiscriminate. This reflects dishonesty on the administration’s part,” he said. “They said they were going after the ‘worst of the worst,’ criminals, but this isn’t the case, at least in Chicago. They’re grabbing people first and asking questions later.”

“The violent way many of these people are being treated is amoral and un-American,” he said.

Like the pope and the American bishops, Graf said he hopes the federal government will establish a more humane immigration system that respects the dignity of immigrants as well as the rule of law and the country’s right to regulate its borders.

“I am not a politician,” he said. “My job is to mediate, to speak up, in God’s name, in the united name of the Church. But can we look for a way for those who are fulfilling their responsibilities; for them to one day receive the rights of citizens?” 

The priest, who appeared on “EWTN News Nightly” in October, said he has been “impressed by the media” and is grateful his message is being spread. 

“If we don’t hear the whole truth, the incredible ignorance and darkness we live in can paralyze us, and keep us from doing what we ought to do,” he said.

Pope Leo XIV approves the publication of new Regulations of the Roman Curia, which implement the reform put in place by the Apostolic Constitution "Praedicate Evangelium."

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As the Christian community in Türkiye awaits Pope Leo XIV to commemorate the Council of Nicaea with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Cardinal Kurt Koch, Prefect of the Dicastery for Christian Unity, says he hopes that this joint commemoration will bear witness to Christian unity.

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