Dhaka, Bangladesh, Dec 17, 2025 / 11:32 am (CNA).

Recent attempts to sabotage Catholic churches, threats to Catholic educational institutions, and the current political context of the country mean the upcoming Christmas will be a time of concern for Catholics in Muslim-majority Bangladesh.

“There is a sense of fear among us and from that point, all our parish priests have been warned,” Bishop Sebastian Tudu of the Dinajpur Diocese told CNA.

The prelate said that in recent weeks there have been crude bomb explosions targeting churches and church-run institutions in Dhaka and threats to Catholic educational institutions through letters. It is natural to be concerned, he said.

However, he noted that local law enforcement agencies have been active much earlier than in other years and are investigating various church institutions.

“We have already had a meeting with the law enforcement agencies here about Christmas security and they are working on it. However, we are in a state of panic and have instructed every parish priest not to hold Christmas programs until late at night,” Tudu said.

Christians make up less than 1% of the 180 million people in this Muslim-majority South Asian nation.

On Nov. 7, two crude homemade bombs were thrown at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Dhaka, one of which did not explode. The next day, the jubilee was celebrated at the cathedral, attended by 600 people from all over the country. A few hours later, a bomb exploded at the gate of St. Joseph’s Higher Secondary School and College, just a few miles from the cathedral.

Exactly a month before this incident, on Oct. 8, a similar bomb exploded at the gate of Holy Rosary Church in a Christian-dominated area of Dhaka.

On Dec. 2, a letter written in Bengali under the name Tawhidee Muslim Janata (“faithful Muslim people”) was sent to two of Bangladesh’s most prestigious colleges: Notre Dame College, run by the Holy Cross Fathers, and Holy Cross College, run by the Holy Cross Sisters, threatening them over alleged conversions.

Raju Biswas, 37, who works in a factory in Dhaka, goes to his village in the southern Satkhira district every year on Dec. 23 to celebrate Christmas with his family, and he plans to go this year as well.

“Since I have children, a wife, and parents at home, I will go to the village to celebrate Christmas with them. However, this time, there is panic; the political situation in the country is not good, and there was an incident of throwing bombs in front of the church,” Biswas told CNA.

He said the government should strengthen security in every church for at least four days, from two days before Christmas to the day after Christmas.

On Dec. 15, to discuss security measures for the upcoming Christmas, a delegation led by Bangladesh Christian Association President Nirmal Rozario and St. Mary’s Cathedral parish priest Father Albert Thomas Rozario of the Dhaka Archdiocese met the home affairs adviser of the interim government.

“The archbishop and we are not seeing Christmas this year as normal as other times. We are more worried and scared this time and have raised the recent security concerns with the home affairs adviser,” Father Rozario told CNA.

They have taken serious note of our concerns and have said that the government will take measures so that Christians can celebrate Christmas in a peaceful and joyful atmosphere, Father Rozario added.

Strict security measures have already been adopted at the archbishop’s house. There are instructions to install CCTV cameras in every church, archways at the gates, metal detectors, and manual checks.

“There are more meetings with the country’s police administration within a few days, where we will again raise our concerns and appeal to the government for security,” Father Rozario said.

Vatican City, Dec 17, 2025 / 10:18 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV has appointed Bishop Ramón Bejarano, currently auxiliary bishop of San Diego, as the next bishop of Monterey in California. The appointment was publicized on Dec. 17 by the Holy See Press Office at the Vatican and by Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

Bejarano succeeds Bishop Daniel E. Garcia, who led Monterey before being appointed bishop of Austin, Texas, on July 2 and installed there on Sept. 18.

Bejarano was born July 17, 1969, in Laredo, Texas, and completed ecclesiastical studies at the diocesan seminary in Tijuana, Mexico, and at Mount Angel Seminary in Oregon, the Vatican said. He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Stockton on Aug. 15, 1998.

Named titular bishop of Carpi and auxiliary bishop of San Diego on Feb. 27, 2020, he received episcopal consecration on July 14, 2020.

The Diocese of Monterey is comprised of 21,916 square miles in California and has a total population of 1,042,464, of which 368,150 are Catholic, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Vatican City, Dec 17, 2025 / 09:58 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV has chosen Bishop Ronald Hicks of the Diocese of Joliet, Illinois, to be the next archbishop of New York — the most consequential U.S. episcopal appointment of Leo’s pontificate thus far.

The appointment was confirmed by EWTN News with two independent sources with direct knowledge of the appointment.

Hicks, 58, will succeed Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who has led New York, the second-largest U.S. archdiocese by population — with 2.5 million Catholics — since 2009.

The choice of Hicks for one of the most important U.S. archdioceses is likely to be heavily scrutinized for the insight it may give into the direction Pope Leo wishes to take the Church in the U.S.

A native of Illinois, Hicks has led the Joliet Diocese since September 2020. He was an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Chicago from 2018 to 2020, following three years as the archdiocese’s vicar general from 2015 to 2018.

Hicks was born on Aug. 4, 1967, in the town of Harvey, Illinois, south of Chicago, and grew up in South Holland, one suburb over from Dolton, where Pope Leo XIV grew up.

“I recognize a lot of similarities between [Pope Leo] and me,” Hicks told WGN in an interview in May. “So we grew up literally in the same radius, in the same neighborhood together. We played in the same parks, went swimming in the same pools, liked the same pizza places to go to.”

Ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1994, Hicks’ priestly ministry included time as an associate pastor and pastor, and dean of formation as St. Joseph College Seminary.

In 2005, he began a five-year term as regional director of Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos (NPH) in Central America. Based in El Salvador, he oversaw the care of more than 3,400 orphaned and abandoned children in nine Latin American and Caribbean countries.

He returned to Chicago in 2010 to serve as dean of formation at Mundelein Seminary before Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago appointed him vicar general of the archdiocese on Jan. 1, 2015.

As bishop, Hicks serves on the Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life, and Vocations for the U.S. bishops’ conference, and as the conference liaison to the Association of Ongoing Formation of Priests and the National Association of Diaconate Directors.

The Archdiocese of New York serves Catholics in the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island, and in seven counties to the north.

ACI Africa, Dec 17, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).

Uganda’s defense authorities have confirmed that a priest serving the Catholic Diocese of Masaka, whose disappearance earlier this month sparked concern and prayers from the bishop, is in the custody of security forces over alleged criminal activities.

In a Dec. 12 statement, the acting director of defense public information, Col. Chris Magezi, said Father Deusdedit Ssekabira was arrested in connection with what the military says is “involvement in violent subversive activities against the state.”

Magezi added that Ssekabira is being held as investigations continue. “Reverend Father Deusdedit Ssekabira is currently in lawful custody to assist with further investigations into the matter,” the Ugandan defense official further said.

According to Magezi, the case will proceed through formal judicial channels. “He will be produced in the courts of law and charged accordingly,” he said in his one-page statement but did not provide further details on the alleged activities or the duration of the investigation. 

The confirmation of the priest’s detainment follows days of uncertainty after Bishop Serverus Jjumba of the Masaka Diocese reported that Ssekabira, who is the assistant pastor of Bumangi Parish and the director of Uplift Primary School, had been taken on Dec. 3 at about 1 p.m. from his office in Katwe, Masaka City.

In response to his disappearance, the bishop directed special prayers, including a rosary triduum (praying the rosary for three consecutive days), calling on the people of God in his diocese to pray for Ssekabira as well as for the Church and the nation.

Jjumba said that efforts to locate the priest had been unsuccessful and he called for intensified prayers and legal efforts following what he called a kidnapping by men wearing “Uganda Army uniform, with a drone.”

In his Dec. 13 statement, Jjumba stated: “All efforts to locate him have so far been fruitless.” He described the incident as “a grievous wound inflicted on Masaka Diocese, the entire Catholic Church, and Father Ssekabira’s family.”

He said his diocese was pursuing every available avenue to secure Ssekabira’s safe return. “Masaka Diocese together with our lawyers are still doing whatever is in our means to get back our priest unharmed,” Jjumba stated. 

The Masaka Diocese is yet to issue a response following the statement on Ssekabira’s arrest by the Ugandan defense official. 

As the case moves toward the courts, attention is expected to focus on due process, the specific charges to be brought against Ssekabira, and the implications of the case for Church-state relations in Uganda.

This story was first published by ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa, and has been adapted by CNA.

CNA Staff, Dec 17, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

When a pregnant woman at an abortion facility heard distant carolers singing “Silent Night,” she got up and left.

The mother, back in 2003, decided to keep her baby after a pro-life group’s first Christmas caroling event outside a Chicago abortion clinic struck her heart.

“The memories of Christmases past stirred in her and she decided she couldn’t go through with the abortion and kept her child,” said Matthew Yonke, a spokesman for the Pro-Life Action League, the group that coordinates these events. 

She would be the first of many women who chose life after hearing carols. Now, the tradition extends across the nation — and babies continue to be saved. 

As Christmas Day approaches, nearly 100 caroling groups across the U.S. are gathering at various abortion facilities to sing. 

Through the nationwide “Peace in the Womb” caroling effort, the group hopes “to bring the Christmas message of peace and joy to the darkness of abortion clinics,” according to a press release shared with CNA. 

It’s a “simple call for an end to the violence of abortion,” according to Yonke.

“At the time of Christmas, the whole world tries to put aside differences and pursue peace, so we’re asking folks to make a connection to the womb, which should be a place of peace, but which is turned into a place of violent unrest in every abortion,” Yonke continued.

Saving lives 

The carolers had already packed up after singing their final song outside an abortion site when a couple approached the remaining pro-lifers in Downers Grove, Illinois, on Dec. 13. 

The couple, Yonke said, “told the sidewalk counselors still there that they had decided to keep their baby after hearing our carols.” 

“Stories like this go all the way back to the first year,” Yonke said. “We’re thrilled when God can use these beloved songs that touch the hearts of even non-Christians to do his work in the world.”

This was one of two rescue stories so far this December that the league heard about, according to Yonke. 

“Please don’t kill your baby at Christmas,” one caroler called out to a young woman in the back seat of a car that was driving into an abortion clinic.

It was a Saturday in Milwaukee, and a group of carolers had gathered to sing outside the abortion clinic on St. Paul Avenue. 

The car drove into the abortion center parking lot. But minutes later, the car turned around with the young woman still in the back seat — she never even entered the abortion clinic.  

Salvation came through an unplanned pregnancy

Pro-Life Action League invites local pro-lifers to work with them to organize their own caroling groups. 

On Sunday, Dec. 14, one such caroling group sang outside an abortion facility in Renton, Washington. 

“This was a fantastic event and I think every Catholic church should do this in their community,” said local pro-life activist Richard Bray, who organized the caroling with the Respect Life Ministry at a local Catholic parish, St. Stephen the Martyr.

While every event organized with the league has a “Peace in the Womb” banner, Renton’s organizer would have something special — a handmade manger.  

An 88-year-old parishioner at St. Stephen’s built an empty manger that the carolers brought to the event, according to Bray. 

The empty manger not only symbolizes that Christ is coming at Christmas — but it also represents how a crib is empty after an abortion, according to Bray.

“It’s particularly sad to think of someone getting an abortion during the Christmas season,” Bray told CNA. “So we gather to sing carols and remind abortion-bound mothers and our community that the salvation of the world came through an unplanned pregnancy.”

Vatican City, Dec 17, 2025 / 07:30 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV said Wednesday true satisfaction is found not in the accumulation of money or things, or by “too much doing,” but by returning to Jesus Christ, the source of hope, love, and joy.

“We are absorbed by many activities that do not always leave us satisfied … We have to assume responsibility for many commitments, solve problems, face difficulties,” the pope said at the general audience in St. Peter’s Square on Dec. 17. 

“Yet,” he added, “we often perceive how too much doing, instead of giving us fulfillment, becomes a vortex that overwhelms us, takes away our serenity, and prevents us from living to the fullest what is truly important in our lives.”

In his catechesis, the pontiff stressed that the true value of life is not measured by “days full of activities” or economic success.

“It is therefore in the heart that true treasure is kept, not in earthly safes, not in large financial investments, which today more than ever before are out of control and unjustly concentrated at the bloody price of millions of human lives and the devastation of God’s creation,” he said.

Leo warned that this logic of accumulation ends up emptying life of meaning even for those who, from the outside, seem to have achieved success: “It is important to reflect on these aspects, because in the numerous commitments we continually face, there is an increasing risk of dispersion, sometimes of despair, of meaninglessness.”

“Human life is characterized by a constant movement that that drives us to do, to act,” he acknowledged, adding that Jesus’ resurrection can give us insight into this human experience.

“When we participate in [Christ’s] victory over death, will we rest? Faith tells us: Yes, we will rest,” the pope said. “We will not be inactive, but we will enter into God’s repose, which is peace and joy. So, should we just wait, or can this change us right now?”

The true destiny of the heart

Leo noted that many people, despite having so much, feel empty at the end of the day.

The answer, according to the pontiff, is “because we are not machines, we have a ‘heart’; indeed, we can say that we are a heart.”

He turned to the Gospel of St. Matthew to underscore the centrality of the heart, citing the words of Jesus: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Mt 6:21).

He also cited the beginning of St. Augustine’s “Confessions,” where the bishop of Hippo wrote: “Lord, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

St. Augustine, with the adjective restless, “helps us understand the human being’s yearning for fulfillment.”

“The authentic approach of the heart,” he continued, “does not consist in possessing the goods of this world, but in achieving what can fill it completely; namely, the love of God, or rather, God who is Love.”

The Holy Father explained that this treasure is found only by “loving the neighbor we meet along the way: brothers and sisters in flesh and blood, whose presence stirs and questions our heart, calling it to open up and give itself.”

But in order to love one’s neighbor, Leo pointed out that it is necessary to “slow down” one’s pace, to “look them in the eye, sometimes to change our plans, perhaps even to change direction.”

“Here is the secret of the movement of the human heart: returning to the source of its being, delighting in the joy that never fails, that never disappoints. No one can live without a meaning that goes beyond the contingent, beyond what passes away,” he concluded.

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

ACI Prensa Staff, Dec 17, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Although “papal fashion,” meticulously crafted down to the smallest detail, has evolved over time, the popes’ attire still holds profound symbolism that continues to capture the attention of many.

Proof of this is the recent naming of Pope Leo XIV as one of the 55 best-dressed people of 2025 by Vogue magazine, one of the most prestigious and recognized fashion and beauty publications in the world.

Pope Leo XIV shares this distinction with athletes, actors, singers, politicians, and models, including Rosalía, Rihanna, Bad Bunny, actress Jennifer Lawrence, and tennis player Venus Williams.

The American magazine, founded in 1892, highlights in its annual ranking that Leo XIV has broken “with the humble tastes of his predecessor,” Pope Francis, preserving “the papal legacy of impeccably crafted liturgical vestments.”

As the “best outfit of 2025,” the magazine cites his first appearance as pope on May 8 in the central loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica, wearing a red satin mozzetta and a wine-colored stole, embroidered in gold and with a pectoral cross held by a golden silk cord.

The mozzetta is an elbow-length cape that falls over the shoulders and is worn over the rochet as a sign of authority, while the chasuble is the outer liturgical vestment worn over the alb and stole, and its color changes according to the liturgical season. Historically, the liturgical garment represents the “yoke of Christ” and is a symbol of charity.

Pope Francis chose not to wear these garments after his election in 2013, a gesture of simplicity that marked his pontificate and was recognized at the time by Esquire magazine, which also included him on its list of “best-dressed men,” highlighting his understated style.

The Italian Filippo Sorcinelli has established himself as one of the leading designers for recent popes, starting with Benedict XVI. Furthermore, the tailoring of the papal liturgical vestments is entrusted to the historic Gammarelli tailor shop, located near the Pantheon in the heart of the Eternal City.

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

Dublin, Ireland, Dec 17, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

A U.K. Supreme Court ruling has found that Christian religious education taught in schools in Northern Ireland is unlawful. 

In its judgment, the court found that the current approach lacks an “objective, critical, and pluralistic” framework and leans more toward indoctrination than fostering a diverse understanding of beliefs.

Responding to the ruling, which does not apply to Catholic schools, Bishop Alan McGuckian, SJ, of the Down and Connor Diocese firmly challenged the idea that Christianity should be given no priority in all schools, stating that anyone seeking to do so is “cutting off their nose to spite their face.”

The landmark ruling follows a case brought by an unnamed father and his daughter who attended a non-Catholic state-controlled primary school in Belfast. The girl received nondenominational Christian religious education and took part in Christian worship. 

The Supreme Court ruling upheld the earlier 2022 high court judgment that “the teaching of religious education under the core syllabus and the arrangements for collective worship in the primary school attended by the child breached her and her father’s rights under European human rights legislation.”

One of the issues referenced in the ruling was the child saying grace before meals at home. This, she told her nonreligious parents, was what they did at school. 

The ruling raises critical questions about how religious teachings are delivered in schools and the implications for students’ broader educational experiences.

In the Northern Ireland system, Catholic schools are governed differently from state schools. The Supreme Court judgment clearly states that denominational religious education and collective worship are not prohibited in Catholic-maintained schools.

McGuckian pointed out that the legislative significance of the ruling will in due course have implications for the development of the religious education core syllabus and wider engagement with religious practice and ethos within all of Northern Ireland’s schools.

While noting the Catholic exemption, McGuckian said: “Many people have asked me, while it is explicitly noted in the judgment that this ruling applies to a controlled grant-aided primary school and does not apply to Catholic schools, what difference is this Supreme Court ruling going to make to the provision of religious education across NI schools more widely? Is religion being driven out of schools? More specifically, some are asking, ‘Is Christianity being driven out of schools?’”

McGuckian noted: “I want to challenge the principle that people of a secular mindset assert, namely that Christianity should be given no priority in all schools. That principle is simply ungrounded, unreasonable, and illogical.”

“Christianity and the Judeo-Christian worldview provides the value-based foundation for all that is good in Western society and is deeply embedded within human rights legislation. The idea of the rights of the individual to be free from coercion, all the freedoms contained in the various charters of human rights, are based on and stem from the biblical teaching that every single person is created in the image and likeness of God.”

He continued: “Enlightenment thinkers of a more secular viewpoint have built on that ‘fundamentum,’ and, in many ways, they have served us well, but they grounded and built their insights on underlying Christian values that protect the dignity of every human person.”

“Those who seek to have Christianity sidelined in our shared society are cutting off their noses to spite their face,” he said.

McGuckian added that world religions should also be respected, and they also have a contribution to make in an increasingly diverse multicultural and multi-faith society. He continued: “However, it should be recognized that Christianity, centrally and uniquely, has provided the framework of values that underpin Western society.”

“In schools across the Western world, Christianity should, indeed, be given priority in our educational systems and everybody, including those of other faiths and none, should recognize and welcome this because of its foundational importance.”

While the ruling does not apply to worship and prayer in Catholic schools, it will impact and influence the religious education curriculum taught in schools, which is determined by school education authorities. The current curriculum has been in place since 2007, and its content was determined by the four main churches in Northern Ireland, which include Catholicism. 

Speaking to the BBC, the Catholic bishop of Derry, Donal McKeown, said he is positive about the need for a new religious education core curriculum and is quite open to where this goes.

“I’m looking forward to the next stage of the journey, I don’t see it as a negative thing,” he said. “There are many points to be clarified — this is an opportunity for all of us to be involved in renewing the [religious education] curriculum to enable us to create a healthy, forward-looking society.”

Aid workers say heavy rainfall is causing widespread suffering in Gaza.

Read all

 

Vatican Media’s headquarters holds a launch event for a new book by Chinese author Chiaretto Yan, entitled “My Chinese Dream: Dialogues and Encounters with Christianity”

Read all