Jan 3, 2026 / 08:00 am (CNA).

For nearly 30 years, FOCUS has been known for its missionary work on college campuses. Earlier this year, the ministry began to expand its reach with a new branch — FOCUS Parish.

FOCUS Parish brings FOCUS missionaries into Catholic parishes to help revitalize the parish itself and the parishioners, and to form missionary disciples — laypeople who effectively spread the Gospel message in the local community and diocese.

Founder of FOCUS Curtis Martin and his son, Brock Martin, vice president of parish outreach at FOCUS, both agree that FOCUS Parish is a response to the need of sending missionaries to “where the people are.”

“If we’re trying to bring the Gospel to every man, woman, and child on the face of the earth, the vast majority of people don’t currently live on U.S. college campuses,” Brock told CNA in an interview. “The Catholic Church has amazingly already done this work — every inch of the globe is already mapped out into a parish structure. So, FOCUS’ move into parishes is really a response to the fact that we want to take this mission seriously. We need to send missionaries to where the people are.”

Curtis added: “Everybody lives in a parish, as Brock said, and evangelization takes root when there’s real transformation. It’s going to take place in families and in parishes. That’s where Catholics live. And so we want to be with them to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with them in the midst, as Brock said, in the midst of friendship.”

Parishes who take part in FOCUS’ new ministry will receive two full-time missionaries who become part of the parish’s leadership team, help advise and lead parish ministries, and work to create small communities where the Gospel message is shared and spread to all parishioners.

“These missionaries are imbedding into the parish culture,” Brock said.

FOCUS Parish is currently in 25 parishes and plans to expand to an additional 25 parishes in 2026.

When speaking to the fact that FOCUS Parish has become the fastest-growing part of the apostolate, Brock credited the current “landscape of the parish in the United States.”

“Right now there’s about 16,000 parishes [in the U.S.],” Brock said. “I think the number of parishes who are waking up, the number of pastors who recognize that business as usual is not working, we have to, with new ardor and new methodologies, try to figure out how to live the new evangelization. I just think there’s a unique moment where as pastors and finance councils become aware of the opportunity, we’re seeing more and more people start to raise their hand at a faster rate.”

Curtis highlighted the retention rate of FOCUS Parish missionaries leading to the success of the ministry.

“We’re seeing greater longevity with our missionaries because they’re not walking with 18- to 22-year-olds, they’re walking with people who are of their same age, maybe older, maybe younger,” he explained. “The retention rate for FOCUS missionaries in Parish last year was 100%. Nobody left. By way of comparison, probably 25% of the missionaries left on campus; that’s part of our cycle. And so to be able to recognize, we can grow because of the longevity.”

With the growth to 25 more parishes in the new year, FOCUS is looking to hire an additional 50 to 55 missionaries — considering both moving campus missionaries to parishes and hiring individuals who have never been FOCUS missionaries.

As for his hopes for the future, Brock said: “My deepest hope in FOCUS Parish is that this would be a simple and repeatable gift that we can offer to the Church.”

Curtis said: “My hope for FOCUS in the parish is actually hope. I think a lot of leaders in the Church are good people but they’re discouraged and they’re kind of managing a slow decline. And that’s not the way Christianity works. Christianity has grown in every generation since the time of Christ. We’re living in a very abnormal time, at least in the West. It’s shrinking. That’s not the way it should be.”

He added: “There’s a resurgence of faith — articles are being written about this all over the world — FOCUS is just participating in a little way. Millions of people awakening to Christ. We need to welcome them and to be able to recognize the Church ought to be growing. This can work. And when you have hope you start to make decisions based upon that and all of a sudden you see the Church should be a place of growth.”

Jan 3, 2026 / 07:05 am (CNA).

After U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Saturday, Pope Leo expressed deep concern over the situation. Global reactions to the developments are split.

• Pope speaks: Pope Leo XIV urged prayer and respect for human rights in Venezuela at Sunday Angelus, saying "the good of the beloved Venezuelan people must prevail over every other consideration."

• Global reactions split: European leaders stressed international law while China expressed "deep shock" and Russia condemns "aggression." Venezuelan bishops called for prayer as Maduro awaits Monday arraignment in New York.

• U.N. convenes Monday: Security Council will meet at 10 a.m. after Colombia requested emergency session, backed by Russia and China. U.N. chief calls U.S. operation "a dangerous precedent."

Jan 3, 2026 / 07:00 am (CNA).

The Christmas season in Ireland is marked by the return of family members living abroad and by the strong tradition of visiting family graves.

Those themes of returning home and respect for the deceased lie at the heart of the work of one of Ireland’s most remarkable and humane charities, the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust (KBRT). Since it was founded in 2013, the trust has brought home the bodies of more than 2,000 Irish people who have died abroad in sudden and tragic circumstances. The trust typically has three or four repatriations underway at any given time.

The trust was founded by Colin and Eithne Bell and their family in memory of their son Kevin, who was killed in a hit-and-run accident in New York on June 16, 2013. To help the Bell family with the substantial expense of repatriating Kevin’s body to his family, the local community in the town of Newry rallied around the family and raised over $202,000 toward the costs.

Colin Bell told CNA: “Kevin was 26 years old, who loved life, enjoyed travel. He had been in Australia and Thailand. He had gone to New York. He enjoyed everything about New York. He went out on a Saturday evening for some drinks, took a cab home, and when he got out of the taxi, he was struck by a speeding white van, which knocked him into the road, where he was struck by another vehicle. Both vehicles drove off.” He was killed instantly.

Colin added: “I suppose mercifully, Kevin would have known nothing about it.”

“And when Kevin came home, it was obvious that Newry too had lost a son with the reaction to the news that broke,” he continued. “I can only describe it as Newry came around us like a blanket. In the space of a week, 150,000 pounds [$202,000] was raised to bring Kevin home.”

Coincidentally, at this time, the son of a Belfast family, Steven Clifford, was killed in Thailand. “We contacted the family and said, ‘Look, we have this money; we’ll pay to bring your son home.’”

The following week, a young man from Sligo died in Las Vegas. “So again, we reached out to the family. Because we had 150,000 pounds, which really wasn’t ours. We thought we would use this to help other families who had been visited with the same devastation. We thought once the 150,000 pounds was gone, that would be the end of it. But the parents of another young man killed in Perth heard that we were doing this and they had something in the region of 75,000 pounds, which they gave us to continue our work.”

“We decided then that we would make this Kevin’s legacy,” Bell said.

Gaining charitable status in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland led to Irish embassies and consulates worldwide asking for details so that when a bereaved family contacts the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin, they are given the trust’s number.

The repatriation process is complicated and expensive. To bring somebody from Australia can cost 8,000 or 9,000 pounds ($10,500 to $12,000). From mainland Europe, it is generally in the region of 5,000 to 6,000 pounds ($6,700 to $8,000). Bringing a body from the U.S. to Ireland is anything up to to 10,000 pounds or more ($13,500+) depending on what part of the country the body is repatriated from.

The Bell family understands what bereaved families are experiencing.

“Obviously if you get a cold call and you are told that you’ve lost a son or a daughter in Sydney, for example, what do you do? Who do you turn to? How do you go about getting your loved one home? I think that’s probably the biggest part of the work that we do because when a family does contact us we’re able to say, look we’ll take it from here, you don’t have to do anything. We’ll organize it and we’ll get your loved one home.”

Bell further explained: “From a faith perspective, one of the corporal works of mercy is to bury the dead, and the spiritual works of mercy ask us to comfort the sorrowful, which the trust does. It doesn’t matter if you’re at home or abroad — loss is loss and pain is pain, but particularly Irish people want their loved ones home. To want to be able to give the family a way to see their loved one is most important. I know it was very, very important to us.”

Bell said he remembers when his son’s body arrived home and his coffin was carried into the house, there was “a sense of peace that came with knowing that he was home. That was so important to us, especially his mummy [who] was able to hold his hand and speak to him.”

Bell described the work as therapeutic, especially as it keeps his son’s name alive.

As far as he knows, KBRT is the only repatriation organization in the world. The trust’s logo is an image of a bird.

“The last Christmas before Kevin went away, the last present that he got for his mother was a bird table. As Eithne says, birds come home to nest or to roost,” Bell said.

And what might Kevin have made of this work of mercy done in his name?

“Kevin was a big character who loved life and always said that he would be famous. So in a way his name is out there and it’s well known throughout the world. I’m sure he’d be very pleased with that fact.”

CNA Staff, Jan 3, 2026 / 06:00 am (CNA).

In response to Maryland’s growing health care crisis, Mount St. Mary’s University is launching a physician assistant program later this month. 

The private Catholic liberal arts university, located in Emmitsburg, Maryland, is partnering with the Daughters of Charity — the religious order founded by St. Elizabeth Ann Seton — to bring more students into the field of health care.

Amid a staffing shortage, Maryland has had the longest emergency room wait times in the nation for nine years, averaging more than four hours. The number of serious medical mistakes that have resulted in death or severe disability for patients has risen each year in Maryland for the past four years, according to a report published in September 2025.

A recent projection found that Maryland needs to increase the number of primary physicians by 23% by 2030 to cover the gap in primary care providers.

The Maryland Department of Health has cited staffing shortages — among several causes of rising medical errors — as something that Mount St. Mary’s program hopes to mitigate.

The program — part of the college’s recent move into the health care arena — will welcome its inaugural class of 43 students on Jan. 20.

The school’s new program includes resources for students to prevent burnout through its Center for Clinician Well-Being.

CNA spoke with physician assistant program director Mary Jackson about the new program.

CNA: What inspired the launch of the new physician assistant program? 

Mary Jackson: The Mount made a very intentional decision to enter the health care education arena as another way to live out our mission. As a Catholic university, Mount St. Mary’s graduates ethical leaders who are inspired by a passion for learning and who lead lives of significance in service to God and others. 

Preparing future health care clinicians is a natural extension of this mission, one that allows our students to serve individuals, families, and communities at moments of greatest vulnerability. 

We chose to launch a physician assistant program because the PA profession consistently ranks among the top careers nationally, with strong student interest and growing workforce demand. 

With a growing health care shortage in Maryland, how do you hope this program will address this crisis?  

Maryland, like much of the country, is experiencing a significant health care workforce shortage, marked by long wait times, limited access in rural and underserved areas, and an aging population with increasing medical needs.

Physician assistants play a vital role in expanding access to high-quality care. By educating future PAs who are clinically excellent, compassionate, and mission-driven, our program aims to strengthen Maryland’s health care workforce and ensure that more patients receive timely, patient-centered care.

How does your mission as a Catholic university drive the physician assistant program? 

Our Catholic identity shapes every aspect of the physician assistant program. The Mount’s commitment to service, compassion, equity, and well-being calls us to prepare clinicians who go beyond transactional medicine.

We aim to form PAs who care deeply for all patients, especially those who are underserved, while also tending to their own well-being so they can flourish long term in their calling to health care.

How did Mount St. Mary’s work with the Daughters of Charity to build this program?   

The Daughters of Charity have been extraordinary partners in bringing this vision to life. Their legacy of caring for the poor and vulnerable has inspired the program’s mission and helped us ground our work in the values of humility and loving service.

The Daughters have generously provided both tangible and in-kind support, enabling our inspiring facility, helping fund our Care for America scholarships, and working with us as thought leaders in this work.

The Vatican Governatorate releases a new app offering the contents of its official website in a quick and intuitive way, making it possible to consult news, announcements, and official communications.

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Jan 3, 2026 / 02:50 am (CNA).

President Donald Trump announced early Saturday that U.S. forces have “captured” Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, flying them out of the country following a “large-scale strike” on the South American nation.

“The United States of America has successfully carried out a large-scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the country,” Trump wrote in a post shared by U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

Trump stated the operation was conducted “in conjunction with U.S. law enforcement” and announced a news conference for 11 a.m. ET at Mar-a-Lago.

Explosions and chaos

The announcement followed reports of multiple explosions rocking Caracas and other cities around 2 a.m. local time, accompanied by military aircraft flyovers.

“The explosions were so strong they made the windows of my house shake. When we looked outside, numerous plumes of smoke were rising over Caracas,” said Andrés Henríquez, a correspondent for ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. “There were many, countless. Then, videos and reports began to emerge of explosions in other cities.”

Amid the chaos and prior to the reported capture, Foreign Minister Yván Gil Pinto announced that the regime had declared a “State of External Commotion” — a constitutional emergency measure granting sweeping wartime powers.

Citing Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, Gil Pinto denounced the “extremely grave military aggression” and called on citizens to mobilize against an “imperialist attack.” It remains unclear who is currently commanding the regime’s forces.

Church context

The apparent fall of the socialist leader follows months of escalating tensions. The U.S. recently designated Maduro as the alleged leader of the “Cartel of the Suns” narco-terrorism ring.

The Venezuelan Bishops’ Conference (CEV) has long warned of the country’s “turbulent national reality.” In their recent Christmas message, the bishops cautioned that the “joyful experience” of the season was “overshadowed” by the country’s “generalized impoverishment.”

Tensions between the Church and the regime have spiked since the disputed July 2024 elections. The episcopate has repeatedly demanded the release of political prisoners — including minors — while Maduro recently accused Cardinal Baltazar Porras of conspiracy during the October 2025 canonization of Venezuela’s first saints.

Analysts told CNA recently that the Church would likely face “ more persecution” in 2026 as the regime becomes increasingly isolated.

This is a developing story. Updated Jan. 3, 2026, at 4:45 a.m. ET.

As Israel announces measures that could restrict Caritas Jerusalem’s ability to provide humanitarian aid, Caritas Italy’s deputy director expresses the Catholic aid agency’s support for the life-saving programs carried out by the Caritas network in Gaza and the West Bank.

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The capital of the Latin American country has been hit by a series of attacks that Venezuelan authorities have described as a “U.S. aggression.” US President Trump says President Nicolas Maduro has been captured together with his wife and flown out of the country.

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Bishop Jean-Marie Lovey of Sion, Switzerland, discusses the fire that broke out on the night of January 1 and caused more than 40 deaths and hundreds of injuries, emphasizing, “The Church is called to share the pain and to make itself present: families must believe in the possibility of light.”

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As the Church celebrates the Second Sunday of Christmas, Jenny Kraska offers her thoughts on the day's Gospel reading.

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