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.”

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WASHINGTON – Pope Leo XIV has appointed as Bishop of Monterey, the Most Reverend Ramón Bejarano, currently Auxiliary Bishop of San Diego. The appointment was publicized in Washington, D.C. on December 17, 2025, by Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

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

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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In today's fast-paced world with pressures for results and efficiency, Pope Leo XIV said many have been stripped of their serenity and ability to live.

"The authentic approach of the heart 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 pope said in the Dec. 17 weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square.

Furthermore, he said one can feel restless despite completing countless tasks, "because we are not machines, we have a 'heart'; indeed, we can say that we are a heart."

In the final weeks of the Jubilee year, he spoke facing the 82-foot-tall decorated Christmas tree and newly unveiled Nativity scene near the obelisk in the center of the square. Because of the unpredictable weather, sick children and their families, along with elderly and disabled people, sat in the Paul VI Audience Hall where Pope Leo greeted them individually before arriving in the popemobile and waving to the crowd in the square. 

Continuing his series of audience talks on "Jesus our hope," the pope focused on turning toward God and his love as the answer to this restlessness. Jesus' incarnation, passion, death and resurrection give us a foundation of hope, the pope said.

"Dear friends, 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," the pope said. "No one can live without a meaning that goes beyond the contingent, beyond what passes away. The human heart cannot live without hope, without knowing that it is made for fullness, not for want."

To overcome the "vortex that overwhelms us," Pope Leo pointed to St. Matthew, saying that life's true treasure is the heart rather than achievements or the goods of this world. 

"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 in his main catechesis in Italian.

He went on to refer to St. Augustine, who said that hearts will remain restless until they are with the Lord.

"That restlessness is not arbitrary and disordered; it is oriented toward heaven, whose doors are open to us thanks to the incarnation, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ," the pope said in his English-language remarks. "If we enter into the dynamism of his love and grace, he will be victorious in us -- not just at the hour of our death, but also today, right now and every day hereafter."
 

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EWTN News, Dec 17, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

In a strongly secular European Union, the Balkans’ complex religious reality plays an important role as officials and diplomats gather on Wednesday to discuss the membership plans for six nations.

The EU-Western Balkans summit on Dec. 17 brings together European Union representatives and their counterparts from six Western Balkan nations: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia.

As officials discuss EU enlargement and current challenges, religious leaders and analysts underscore that the churches — deeply woven into the region’s national identities, geopolitics, and social fabric — will be crucial to the success of both European integration and regional stability.

The EU considers itself the main trading partner, investor, and donor for the Western Balkans and provides substantial assistance and financial support to the region. However, the religious landscape — marked by Orthodox majorities, significant Muslim populations, and Catholic minorities — reflects complex historical, ethnic, and political tensions that shape the region’s future.

“We hope that the trend of the enlargement is still serious and that it will be confirmed,” Serbia’s ambassador to the Holy See, Sima Avramović, told CNA.

Currently, there is a concern about “Russian influence, especially in Serbia, so the EU will try to discuss how to stabilize this area,” Lucio Caracciolo, founder and director of the Italian geopolitical magazine Limes, said in a conversation with CNA. At the same time, he warned of “the lack of the political will and funds to support” these countries before they are accepted to the 27-member EU.

Religious landscape

There are many ethnic groups and three main religious communities in the Western Balkans: Orthodox, Muslim, and Catholic. Albania and Kosovo are mostly Muslim, with the latter at more than 90%. Half of Bosnia and Herzegovina is Muslim. Almost three-quarters of the population in Montenegro belong to the Orthodox Church.

On the contrary, around half of the population in North Macedonia is Orthodox, followed by Muslims and other Christians. The biggest country in terms of inhabitants and area is Serbia, with more than 80% Orthodox believers, followed by other minorities.

The “Religious Freedom in the World Report 2025” by the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) appreciated positive prospects for religious freedom in Albania and North Macedonia. It sees mostly difficulties in others; for instance, “the promotion and protection of religious freedom in Kosovo is fragile,” whereas in Montenegro, “persistent ethno-religious tensions typical of the Balkans are felt,” but ACN recognized efforts made to overcome them.

While Albania was an isolationist communist nation, the other Balkan states were part of the more liberal communist country of Yugoslavia. After the federation’s collapse in 1991, Slovenia and Croatia proceeded toward European integration, becoming EU and NATO members.

Relations among the churches and religions

The Orthodox churches are important in the countries where they represent a majority religion also for their role “in the nation-building process and in the consolidation of the local nation-states,” expert on Orthodox Christianity Daniela Kalkandjieva from the Sofia University of St. Kliment Ohridski in Bulgaria told CNA.

At times, they are unable “to exert significant influence on their local society.”

Recently, the Orthodox churches have diverged in opinions “to such political and socio-economic challenges as the refugee crisis, the anti-COVID vaccination, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” she explained.

The spread of the “Russian World” concept and “holy war” are “new challenges to the very ethos of Eastern Orthodoxy as a Christian denomination and provoked tensions and disunity among the adherents of this religious tradition.”

On this note, Caracciolo said that some of these churches are “certainly connected to some powers in Russia and also in the Balkans, which are often in conflict with each other.”

However, the secretary of the Holy Synod of the Macedonian Orthodox Church — Archdiocese of Ohrid (MOC-AO), Bishop Kliment, said that they “cultivate sisterly relations” with the churches of “closest neighboring peoples.”

In a statement sent to CNA, the bishop emphasized that we “build bridges of trust among us, prioritizing solidarity and unity in faith” through Eucharistic communion, mutual visits and joint services, cooperation in education, and the like.

Catholic-Orthodox relations are also complex. Though “there is always a room for more cooperation,” with Catholics, there are “good relations, mutual support, and understanding.” He mentioned the traditional annual meeting held for more than half a century in Rome in honor of Sts. Cyril and Methodius and Pope Francis’ visit to North Macedonia in 2019.

Whereas some Orthodox churches collaborate and pray with Catholic representatives, “others find such interactions incompatible with the Orthodox doctrine and maintain mostly diplomatic relations with the Holy See,” explained Kalkandjieva, who also lectures at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome.

Along the same line, Avramović underscored that the religious leaders in Serbia “meet on different occasions and discuss important social, religious, and other significant issues.”

There are seven traditional churches and religious communities in his homeland, including the Slovak Evangelical Church, the Jewish community, and the Muslim community.

View of the EU

When it comes to the EU, the local Orthodox churches perceive the Union “as an important factor in the lives of their believers” and some have representation offices in Brussels, where many EU institutions are based. Nonetheless, this official dialogue and collaboration are little known in their home countries, Kalkandjieva stressed.

The MOC-AO, which represents the largest religious institution and community in North Macedonia, respects the will of the majority of its citizens and its faithful, who support European integration, Kliment underscored. We “attentively follow the complex internal challenges of the EU,” he added. The Orthodox bishop underlined that it should be “a platform for political and economic stability, fully respecting religious freedoms and the rule of law.”

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The social media post sparked backlash not only from Serbia but also from European politicians who called Picula’s statement disturbing and highly politically dangerous.

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