Meeting with the delegation, the Pope challenged them to help individuals and communities live the Jubilee Year with a spirit of prayer and compassion.

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In a message to the 2025 World Economic Forum taking place in Davos, Pope Francis calls for the ethical and responsible use of artificial intelligence, which must help human beings for the good of all, and never violate human dignity for the sake of efficiency.

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Another government attack on ecclesiastical structures in the diocese located in the northern part of the Central American country. Thirty seminarians have been removed.

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CNA Staff, Jan 22, 2025 / 17:45 pm (CNA).

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under President Donald Trump this week rescinded Biden-era guidelines that previously required Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to seek their superior’s approval before arresting people at or near “sensitive locations” such as churches, hospitals, or schools.

The “sensitive locations” policy began in 2011 with a memo from then-ICE director John Morton. It precluded ICE agents from carrying out immigration enforcement actions in locations like hospitals, places of worship, schools, or during events such as weddings or parades unless there is an urgent need, such as a person who poses an imminent threat or if the agents have sought higher approval to do so.

The Biden administration later issued an expanded definition of “sensitive locations,” which added places like playgrounds, homeless shelters, emergency response centers, and domestic violence shelters.

The order was signed by Acting Homeland Security Secretary Benjamine Huffman, who is serving as head of the agency pending the confirmation of South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem.

“This action empowers the brave men and women in CBP [Customs and Border Protection] and ICE to enforce our immigration laws and catch criminal aliens — including murders [sic] and rapists — who have illegally come into our country,” a DHS spokesperson said Jan. 21.

“Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest. The Trump administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement and instead trusts them to use common sense.”

The possibility of the policy change had been telegraphed in December, when three unnamed sources stated that Trump planned to change the policy as soon as his first day in office as part of his broader immigration agenda. Trump on Monday signed a series of executive orders on immigration, including several that put into motion his campaign promises to close the border to asylum seekers and to carry out mass deportations of people residing in the U.S. illegally — a plan numerous Catholic leaders have criticized as unjust. 

Catholic and other Christian leaders had spoken out with “grave concern” over Trump’s plans to end the “sensitive locations” policy. The Catholic bishops of Arizona in December argued that raids at “sensitive locations” like churches would violate basic human rights, including religious freedom and the right to family unity, and undermine societal stability by discouraging undocumented immigrants from seeking essential services.

Commenting on the then-prospective change, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc. (CLINIC), a group launched by the U.S. bishops in 1988 to support community-based immigration programs and represent low-income migrants, said in December it is “deeply concerned about any changes that would undermine the safety and well-being of immigrants and their families.”

“Sensitive locations — such as houses of worship, schools, and hospitals — are sanctuaries where individuals seek solace, education, and critical care without fear of intimidation or detention,” Anna Gallagher, CLINIC’s executive director, said in a statement to CNA.

“This policy has long recognized the importance of these spaces for fostering trust and community stability. Rescinding it would not only disrupt families and communities but could also deter individuals from accessing essential services, such as education and health care, or practicing their faith freely … We call for the preservation of protections at sensitive locations to ensure immigrants and their families can live without fear and fulfill their basic needs, including the practice of religion.”

Lima Newsroom, Jan 22, 2025 / 17:15 pm (CNA).

The Sodality of Christian Life has reported that between May 2016 and December 2024 it provided reparations to 83 people who were victims of sexual, psychological, and power abuse through out-of-court settlements.

According to the report published Tuesday on its website, of the total number of cases given reparations, 15 were for the sexual abuse of minors between ages 11 and 17, 18 were for the sexual abuse of adults, and 50 were for other types of abuse.

The document was initially presented on Jan. 15 to the members of the general assembly of the apostolate held in Aparecida, Brazil.

The text indicates that the greatest number of cases that were given reparations were for abuse committed in the 1990s and 2000s, with 39 cases in the first period and 29 in the second.

The report also indicates that the reparations to which the victims agreed consist of academic and therapeutic support and financial compensation, and that the total amount is $5,348,000.

Of this amount, $336,000 was used for therapy and $5,012,000 for compensation.

In its report, the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV, by its Latin acronym) reiterates its request for forgiveness and affirms that “it is an institutional duty to take concrete actions to repair the damage caused, beyond what civil or canonical justice may determine.”

“Reparation aims to be an act of justice that seeks to contribute to the person who has experienced some type of abuse by a member or former member of the Sodalitium being able to heal the wound that his or her dignity suffered,” the report states.

On Monday, the SCV confirmed that it was dissolved by the decision of Pope Francis.

According to the Infovaticana portal, the dissolution decree “refers to the immorality of the founder, Luis Fernando Figari, as an indication of the nonexistence of a founding charism and, therefore, the lack of ecclesial legitimacy for the permanence of the institution.”

Figari was expelled from the SCV by Pope Francis in August 2024. The Holy See had already sanctioned him in 2017 and prohibited him from having contact with any member of this society after it was proven that he committed sexual and power abuse.

The full text of the dissolution decree is not yet known.

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

Lima Newsroom, Jan 22, 2025 / 16:45 pm (CNA).

The seminary of the Diocese of Matagalpa, Nicaragua, has been confiscated by the country’s dictatorship. The confiscation was first reported by the Nicaraguan newspaper Mosaico CSI. According to the outlet, at the time of the confiscation there were at least 30 students in formation at the seminary.

St. Aloyisius Gonzaga Major Seminary of Philosophy is located in the Diocese of Matagalpa, whose exiled bishop is Rolando Álvarez, who has been living in exile since January 2024 after serving almost one year in prison on the charge of treason.

In a post on X, researcher Martha Patricia Molina denounced that in addition to confiscating the seminary, the government of President Daniel Ortega has “also increased surveillance of priests in the diocese.” Molina accused the dictatorship of aiming “to completely stop priestly formation” and “annihilate and eliminate the Diocese of Matagalpa.” 

In addition to the seminary, the regime also confiscated on Jan. 16 the La Cartuja Pastoral Center of the Diocese of Matagalpa.

In a statement to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, Molina, the author of “Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church,” explained what she believes could happen with the confiscated seminary.

“I think the same thing will happen as happened with the rest of the properties that the dictatorship has confiscated from the Catholic Church: They will occupy them to convert them into a public building or they will sell the property, or they will convert it into a school. We don’t know what the ultimate goal of this occupation is.”

The truth, she warned, “is that the dictatorship continues to violate and persecute religious freedom in Nicaragua.”

After recalling that the chancery, Álvarez’s residence, has already been confiscated, the researcher in exile warned that in Matagalpa, the bishop is working only with 30% of his clergy,” who are also “under greater surveillance.”

“The priests live in fear of being “abducted and later expelled from the country. I believe that this is part of this whole diabolical plan of the dictatorship, of wanting to ‘atheize’ the country and then ‘satanize it,’” Molina charged.

“They want to uproot the faith of the Catholic people. The Diocese of Matagalpa, the laity, are very Catholic, they very much love the Catholic Church. And so [the regime] intends to completely eliminate the presence of the Church.”

Matagalpa and Estelí

Matagalpa is the diocese of Álvarez, who was arrested, kept under house arrest, and later sentenced to 26 years in prison in a questionable judicial process. He was deported in January 2024 to Rome, where he now lives in exile.

Estelí has ​​not had a bishop since mid-2021. Álvarez was then appointed apostolic administrator, and in his absence Father Frutos Valle was appointed as administrator “ad omnia,” allowing him to carry out all ordinary functions of pastoral governance except those reserved to a bishop. Valle has also been detained by the dictatorship.

Molina told ACI Prensa that Jan. 26 will mark six months since the priest has been confined to a formation house that he cannot leave. The reasons for his detention are not known, “although the dictatorship has no reason other than the fact that he is a Catholic priest in order to repress him.”

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

CNA Staff, Jan 22, 2025 / 16:15 pm (CNA).

The Vatican announced this week that Pope Francis has erected a new diocese in China and appointed Father Anthony Ji Weizhong as its first bishop.

The pope decided last October to suppress the Diocese of Fenyang in mainland China, which was originally erected in 1946 by Pope Pius XII, and at the same time erect the new Diocese of Lüliang.

Diocesan borders have been an area of dispute between the Vatican and China in the decades since the Chinese Communist Party came to power and started to redraw diocesan lines, seeking to bring them more in line with Chinese administrative boundaries.

Indeed, the territory of the newly-created Diocese of Lüliang conforms to the territory of the city of Lüliang, located about 400 miles southwest of Beijing in western Shanxi province. It will serve a total population of 3.3 million people, of whom approximately 20,000 are Catholics. A total of 51 priests and 26 religious sisters serve in the diocese. 

Pope Francis appointed Weizhong as bishop of Lüliang on Oct. 28, 2024, having approved Weizhong in the context of the “Provisional Agreement,” better known as the Vatican-China deal, which appears to give the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) some ability to choose episcopal candidates.

Weizhong, 51, was ordained a priest in 2001 for the Diocese of Fenyang. He studied in China and in Germany and served in Fenyang as deputy parish priest, head of the diocesan pastoral center, and as vicar general. He was ordained on Jan. 20 at the Cathedral Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The see of the Fenyang Diocese remained vacant after the death of Bishop Huo Cheng, who spent 14 years in prison during the Cultural Revolution and had led the Church of Fenyang in communion with the Holy See since 1991, AsiaNews reported.

Weizhong is the second Chinese bishop to be ordained since the Vatican in October renewed its “Provisional Agreement” with China on the appointment of Catholic bishops for an additional four years, until at least Oct. 22, 2028. Shortly after the Vatican renewed the deal last fall, Matthew Zhen Xuebin was consecrated as the new coadjutor bishop of Beijing, having been appointed in August. 

Originally signed in September 2018, the provisional agreement was previously renewed for a two-year period in 2020 and again in October 2022. The terms of the agreement have never been made public, though Pope Francis has said it includes a joint commission between the Chinese government and the Vatican on the appointment of Catholic bishops, overseen by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

The Holy See has acknowledged that China has several times violated the terms of the agreement by unilaterally appointing Catholic bishops in Shanghai and the “Diocese of Jiangxi,” a large diocese created by the Chinese government that is not recognized by the Vatican.

Chinese officials have reportedly ordered the removal of crosses from churches and have replaced images of Christ and the Virgin Mary with images of President Xi Jinping, according to a 2024 report from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).

USCIRF also reports that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “sinicization of religion” campaign has led to censored religious texts, clergy forced to preach CCP ideology, and the required display of CCP slogans in churches.

CNA Staff, Jan 22, 2025 / 15:45 pm (CNA).

The New York Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that a Nassau County law prohibiting men from competing in female sports at a county-run facility is constitutional.

State Supreme Court Judge Bruce Cozzens ruled against the Long Island Roller Rebels, a women’s roller derby league that had sought to block a Nassau County law banning men from participating in women’s sporting events at the county’s parks and recreational facilities.

In his decision, the judge wrote that he “does not find that Local Law 121-24 excludes transgender women and girls from the public facilities based on their gender identity, and the plaintiffs have not shown discrimination under the Human Rights Law and the Civil Rights Law.” 

Cozzens ruled that the law was not discriminatory as those who identify as transgender can still play in coed sports leagues. In the decision, Cozzens emphasized the risk of injury for women if men are allowed to play on their sports teams.

“The plaintiff is not only asking that transgender athletics be included on female teams but also that they not disclose the transgender identity,” Cozzens wrote. “Potentially that creates an even greater risk to the females since they would not even be aware (nor it is assumed would they be permitted to inquire) if a player was a biological male.” 

“Common sense requires weight classification for wrestling and boxing clearly to protect the safety of the individuals. Common sense requires the same here,” Cozzens continued. 

Gabriella Larios, staff attorney at the New York Civil Liberties Union, opposed the decision in a statement, calling it discriminatory. 

“This decision is an outlier among the many courts to have considered the same question,” Larios continued. “It is also inconsistent with long-standing state law, which makes clear that Nassau’s ban unlawfully discriminates against transgender girls and women, as well as the teams that welcome them.” 

“This ban leaves a lasting stain on the county’s government and legislature, which have been relentless in their efforts to shut trans people out of sports,” Larios said. 

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman welcomed the decision, calling it “common sense.” 

“I’m very happy that State Supreme Court Judge Bruce Cozzens ruled that Nassau County’s local law banning biological males from playing on female sports teams is constitutional and that we did abide by the law,” Blakeman said in a statement shared with CNA. 

“As we’ve said all along, it’s just common sense,” Blakeman said. “Biological males should not play in female sports. They have a competitive advantage. It’s unfair, and it’s also unsafe.” 

Earlier this month, a federal court blocked a Department of Education rule banning discrimination against a person’s self-asserted “gender identity.” In addition, the Nassau decision closely followed a recent executive order signed by President Donald Trump affirming the biological reality of sex.

Blakeman said he was grateful that federal courts recently ruled in a similar manner.

“The federal courts have recently ruled the same way, so we have the federal courts and the state courts saying that you can make this distinction,” Blakeman noted. “We’re very happy that both courts have agreed with us.” 

“I’m gratified that we were the first in America to do it, and I think we set the tone for the rest of the nation,” Blakeman said.

CNA Staff, Jan 22, 2025 / 15:15 pm (CNA).

The president of the U.S. bishops’ conference on Wednesday criticized some of President Donald Trump’s initial executive orders on key issues including immigration and capital punishment, warning that harm could be done to “the most vulnerable among us.”

Trump upon taking office on Monday signed a series of executive orders that included tough restrictions on immigration, a directive in favor of the death penalty, a withdrawal from a key global climate pact, and an order affirming the reality of biological sex.

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) president Archbishop Timothy Broglio on Wednesday said in a statement that he took issue with some of the orders, calling them “deeply troubling.”

“Some provisions contained in the executive orders, such as those focused on the treatment of immigrants and refugees, foreign aid, expansion of the death penalty, and the environment, are deeply troubling and will have negative consequences, many of which will harm the most vulnerable among us,” Broglio wrote.

Regarding the executive order on biological sex, Broglio expressed agreement with Trump.

“Other provisions in the executive orders can be seen in a more positive light, such as recognizing the truth about each human person as male or female,” Broglio said. 

Broglio stressed that neither the Catholic Church nor the USCCB is aligned with “any political party.” The Church’s teachings “remain unchanged” regardless of political leadership, he said. 

The prelate pointed to the 2025 Jubilee Year and said the U.S. bishops prayed that “as a nation blessed with many gifts, our actions demonstrate a genuine care for our most vulnerable sisters and brothers, including the unborn, the poor, the elderly and infirm, and migrants and refugees.”

“It is our hope that the leadership of our country will reconsider those actions which disregard not only the human dignity of a few, but of us all,” the archbishop said. 

The USCCB said it would publish further information on the executive orders on its website. 

Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord represented the second time the president has pulled the country from the global environmental pact; he first withdrew from the agreement in 2020. Then-President Joe Biden rejoined the agreement in 2021. 

Trump’s pro-death penalty order was largely seen as a rebuke of Biden’s earlier policies on the death penalty, including a 2021 moratorium on federal executions as well as Biden’s December 2024 commutation of 37 prisoners on federal death row.

Trump’s immigration orders, meanwhile, were the culmination of several years’ worth of political promises to crack down on illegal crossings at the southern U.S. border. The president has vowed to enact major deportations of illegal immigrants living in the U.S.

Earlier this month Pope Francis strongly condemned Trump’s mass deportation plans in the United States, saying “if this is true it is a disgrace.”

CNA Staff, Jan 22, 2025 / 14:45 pm (CNA).

Arlington Bishop Michael Burbidge on Wednesday urged Catholic families to offer a “heroic witness” to love by rejecting the practice of in vitro fertilization (IVF), which the prelate called “contrary to justice [and] replete with moral difficulties.”

In a pastoral letter released on Wednesday, Burbidge acknowledged the “natural desire for family” as well as the challenges faced by couples who are struggling with infertility. 

Yet the Virginia bishop said he has observed with concern the growing popularity of IVF both as a means of conceiving children and as a means to facilitate surrogacy. 

In the present day it “seems as if an extraordinary number of couples” have difficulty conceiving children, the bishop said. He acknowledged that the Catholic Church is supportive of numerous licit means of addressing infertility, including NaPro technology. 

IVF — which represented a “revolution of medicine” when it debuted in 1978 — nevertheless presents serious moral problems, Burbidge argued. 

Chief among them, the bishop noted, is how the procedure “both creates life and destroys life,” insofar as it often kills many human embryos even as it may produce one that goes on to grow through a full pregnancy.

“For every one of the more than 12 million children born by means of IVF since 1978, there are many tens of millions more missing brothers and sisters who have been either deliberately destroyed, experimented upon, or frozen in liquid nitrogen and denied their natural right to the fullness of their development,” the bishop said. 

The bishop stressed that children brought about from IVF possess “inalienable human dignity,” noting that that very dignity is what leads to the Church’s opposition to the practice. 

IVF, he said, “subverts human dignity by reducing human persons — man, woman, and child alike — into objects of a technical process.”

IVF technology, meanwhile, is further morally fraught in its “ability to bring about new life for individuals who desire children outside the context of the bond of marriage” through the practice of surrogacy. 

Surrogacy has increasingly come under fire in recent years from pro-life activists and critics who argue that it disrespects children and is exploitative of women. Italy has banned surrogacy since 2004 and last year banned its citizens from seeking it abroad. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has referred to the practice as “uterus renting.” In Europe, the practice is illegal in Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, and Spain as well. 

The Holy See, meanwhile, last year hosted a panel at the United Nations at which advocates stressed the need to regulate and eventually abolish surrogacy around the world.

Burbidge in his letter argued that it constitutes “a grave injustice to produce children who, from the start, are forcibly separated from their natural parents.”

Though the bishop warned against the possibility of a “federal IVF entitlement or mandate,” he also argued that the government could pursue “concrete ways to encourage earlier marriage and family formation” as well as support pregnancy and childbirth as a way to help families. 

The U.S. government, meanwhile, can take cues from Europe, he argued, where surrogacy is “recognized as exploitative and unjust and is almost universally impermissible.”

Burbidge further called on “all people of faith and goodwill to pray for those married couples experiencing infertility, for the efficacy of life-affirming fertility care, for an openness to God’s love and an ever-deeper experience of the virtues, and for the grace to accept whatever God’s will may be.”

The bishop released the letter on Jan. 22, the day the U.S. Catholic Church observes the Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children. It was also the day in 1973 in which the Supreme Court ruled in the case Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion throughout the United States. 

Roe was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022. In the nearly three years since, numerous U.S. states have enacted sweeping pro-life protections that had been illegal under Roe. However, many states have enacted broad pro-abortion statutes and passed pro-abortion ballot initiatives.