As Pope Leo XIV prepares to depart on his first Apostolic Journey, which takes him to Türkiye and Lebanon on November 27 to December 2, our Editorial Director explores the visit as a sign of unity and peace for the Middle East.

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The Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, Maximino Caballero Ledo, explains the Holy See’s 2024 Financial Statements, saying they show “significant progress in consolidating the Holy See’s economic situation.”

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The Secretariat for the Economy publishes the Consolidated Financial Statements for 2024, revealing a possible financial turning point that will require confirmation in the future.

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At the General Audience, Pope Leo XIV reflects on his upcoming Apostolic Visit to Türkiye and Lebanon, calling them two countries “rich in history and spirituality.”

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The Catholic Church in Thailand has begun coordinating rapid relief efforts after days of historic rainfall inundated Hat Yai and nearby districts, triggering a widening state of emergency across the South.

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Pope Leo XIV encourages theologians to apply their reflection to all other sciences, so that people may better understand how to confront the challenges that face the Church and humanity.

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At the Wednesday General Audience, Pope Leo XIV reflects on the mystery of life, and recalls that God’s love gives our lives meaning as we participate in giving life to others.

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As Pope Leo XIV prepares to visit Türkiye and Lebanon, Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin emphasizes the importance of the Apostolic Journey for ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, as well as his role as a sign of hope and peace.

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ACI Prensa Staff, Nov 25, 2025 / 18:01 pm (CNA).

Nils de Jesús Hernández, 56, has lived in the United States for 36 years, far from his native Nicaragua. Forced to leave the country in 1988 in the midst of the civil war, he serves a parish in Iowa where he ministers to the Hispanic community and speaks out for the Nicaraguan people.

Hernández, known as the “vandal priest” for having led a student strike and supporting the 2018 protests in Nicaragua, is now the parish priest at Queen of Peace Church in Waterloo, Iowa, in the Archdiocese of Dubuque.

“Vandal priest” was the defamatory, derisive label the dictatorship gave to him for his role in the protests, but the title has now turned into a sort of badge of honor.

The pain of leaving Nicaragua

After being declared a target of the government at the age of 19 when he was a candidate for the priesthood, Hernández said in an interview with “EWTN Noticias,” the Spanish-language broadcast edition of EWTN News, that leaving the country “meant that I was never going to return to Nicaragua. Leaving my parents, my family, everything that was familiar to me: my language, my culture, my food, everything; that is, everything that is one’s own ... that was the cruelest thing I was experiencing.”

The priest said he inherited his fighting spirit from his mother, who also helped with the student protests at the time.

“In the 1980s, I was also fighting against those [the Sandinistas] who promised us that everything was going to be fine, and everything turned into a dictatorship, a government that was repressing the Nicaraguan people,” Hernández told “EWTN Noticias.”

The priest traveled to Guatemala, then on to Tijuana, Mexico, and continuing to San Diego. He spent six years in Los Angeles before being sent to Iowa.

Having already obtained U.S. citizenship, he was ordained a priest in 2004 for the Archdiocese of Dubuque, and now in his parish he serves Mexicans, Guatemalans, Venezuelans, Chileans, Hondurans, and, of course, members of the Nicaraguan diaspora.

“I have organized marches here against laws that are very aggressive against immigrants under this administration of President Donald Trump,” the priest said. “This has also been my battleground here to continue denouncing the dictatorship of [Nicaraguan Vice President Rosario] Murillo and [President] Daniel Ortega,” he added.

The persecution against the Catholic Church in Nicaragua

“I believe that the persecution against the Church in Nicaragua is becoming much more aggressive, with confiscations [of Church property] that they have carried out and continue to carry out,” the priest lamented.

According to Hernández, the dictatorship wants to “eradicate the Church.”

“But I always say the following: They will steal all the buildings, they can close all the churches they want to close … but they cannot take away the faith from the hearts of every Nicaraguan, because wherever there is a Nicaraguan in Nicaragua, even though they are being repressed and oppressed, there is the Catholic faith, because all of us Nicaraguans are devoted to Mary and we trust in the will of God.”

“We also have great faith that the Lord will prevail and will be victorious, because the Lord triumphed on the cross and overcame death with his resurrection,” he said.

“We will be returning to Nicaragua triumphantly, because we will indeed return to Nicaragua, because this dictatorship will not last forever. They’re old and they’re not going to continue [in power] for all eternity,” he predicted.

Silence of the Church in Nicaragua and reality in Venezuela

“The silence in Nicaragua is due to the repression that exists. The people are silent,” Hernández pointed out. “But that doesn’t mean the people are content. The silence reflects the discontent of the people, because when the drums sound, Nicaragua will roar. That’s a very Nicaraguan saying,” he explained.

“The Nicaraguan people, when they muster the courage, overthrow any dictatorship. This silence is a preparatory silence for what could happen at any moment in Nicaragua,” the exiled priest continued.

“If Nicolás Maduro falls [in Venezuela], the Nicaraguan and Cuban dictatorships will also fall. So the silence on the part of the Church is out of prudence, but here in the United States there are voices that are trying to make people aware that the repression in Nicaragua is not good. We have Bishop [Silvio] Báez, who is a prophetic and very strong voice: He continues to speak very consistently about all the deception that this dictatorship is engaging in,” Hernández told EWTN.

Pope Leo XIV, Nicaragua, and the award to Bishop Silvio Báez

The priest also referred to the meetings that Pope Leo XIV has held with the bishops of Nicaragua, first with bishops Silvio Báez, Carlos Enrique Herrera, and Isidoro Mora; and later with Rolando Álvarez, all of whom are in exile.

In his opinion, these meetings “are a slap in the face to the dictatorship. That’s what grieves them the most, that the Holy Father is saying, ‘Catholic Nicaragua, persecuted Church, your mother is with you. The Holy Father loves you and you are not alone.’”

“That is a very powerful message that the Holy Father is giving to the Nicaraguan people and also to the Church, and that is the most wonderful thing that we must understand. Nicaraguan people, you’ve got to have a lot of courage, because this is not going to continue forever. Once again, these old men are going to die,” he emphasized.

Hernández also shared that it was he who nominated Báez for the 2025 Pacem in Terris Award for peace and freedom — which has also been awarded to Martin Luther King Jr. and St. Teresa of Calcutta and which was presented to him in July of this year in Davenport — to recognize “the role that the prelate has played in the struggle in Nicaragua and from exile” at St. Agatha Parish in Miami.

“My dream for the Nicaraguan Church is that we continue praying for the unity of all the opposition, so that there may be authentic and genuine unity, that they set aside all their political agendas, and that we all unite to fight to overthrow the dictatorship,” he said.

The priest finally emphasized that for him it is “a great source of pride to be the ‘vandal priest,’ because I continue to denounce this criminal dictatorship for crimes against humanity, because they will not escape God’s justice. They will escape human justice, but not God’s justice.

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 25, 2025 / 17:31 pm (CNA).

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued his own state’s housing agency for rules that allegedly restrict Christian and other religious organizations from receiving public funds to serve homeless and low-income people. The lawsuit alleges that rules established by the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA) only allow organizations to receive federal and state funds for homeless and low-income housing programs if they agree those programs will be entirely secular and will not include any religious activities.

According to the lawsuit, those rules violate religious liberty protections in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and in Article 1, Sec. 6-7 of the Texas Constitution because they put restrictions on religious entities for participation in public programs in which secular entities can freely participate.

“State agencies have no authority to force Christians and other religious organizations to censor their beliefs just to serve their communities,” Paxton said in a Nov. 24 news release.

“Constitutionally protected religious liberty must be upheld in Texas and across the country,” he added. “These TDHCA’s provisions within certain programs, which deter funding from going towards churches and religious organizations, must be struck down.”

The lawsuit challenges TDHCA rules for two programs.

It states the homelessness program prohibits funds from being used for “sectarian or explicitly religious activities such as worship, religious instruction, or proselytization.” It similarly states the Bootstrap Loan Program blocks funding that supports “any explicitly religious activities such as worship, religious instruction, or proselytizing” and requires recipients to enshrine the prohibition in its official policies.

The lawsuit argues that the government must maintain neutrality on religious matters, adding: “It cannot exclude religious organizations from public benefits because of their faith, nor may it condition participation on theological choices about worship, instruction, or proselytization.”

Paxton is asking the district court of Travis County to issue an injunction that blocks TDHCA from enforcing those rules, which he argues are discrimination against religious entities.

TDHCA did not respond to a request for comment from CNA.

Less than two weeks ago, Paxton sued the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board over similar concerns. The lawsuit argues that three university work-study programs exclude religious organizations and students receiving religious instruction.

In a Nov. 14 statement, he said: “These anti-Christian laws targeting religious students must be completely wiped off the books.”

Paxton is on the opposite side of another lawsuit related to religious freedom that began in February 2024. In that lawsuit, the attorney general is trying to shut down Annunciation House, a Catholic nonprofit that provides assistance to migrants.

The attorney general accused Annunciation House of “alien harboring,” which it denies. The nonprofit argues it has never violated state law and that its charitable activities are rooted in its religious mission.