Ss. Joseph and Cabrini Parish

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CNA Staff, Jul 31, 2025 / 15:05 pm (CNA).

A lawsuit filed in Massachusetts alleges that a Catholic student in a medical education program was dismissed from the school after she objected to having been forced to witness an abortion as part of her clinical studies.

The lawsuit, filed earlier this month in state court, alleges that Alina Thopurathu was taking part in Springfield College’s physician assistant program when, during clinical rotations, she was scheduled to see a dilation and evacuation, or D&E, a procedure commonly used for later-term abortions.

Thopurathu, identified in the filing as a practicing Catholic, wrote in evaluations that she had assumed the procedure was intended for a miscarriage and that she was “overwhelmed” at witnessing an actual abortion.

“In the future, I believe students should be asked if they are comfortable with seeing a D&E rather than being assigned the procedure without patient information,” she wrote in the evaluation.

The lawsuit says that after this write-up, faculty evaluations of Thopurathu “changed tone,” with advisers accusing her of negative performance in the program, though she had received praise beforehand.

Eventually her academic advisers presented her with a “remediation contract” placing her under academic probation, according to the suit; the school also designated her work in the OB-GYN rotation as “incomplete.” 

Thopurathu said she was “coerced” to sign the contract, the terms of which allegedly went beyond what was required in the student handbook. The school eventually dismissed her from the program, citing her alleged negative performance.

The suit claims that following her negative response to being forced to witness an abortion, the college “sought to dismiss [Thopurathu] for having personal values incompatible with those of the [school].” 

The lawsuit seeks monetary damages from the school, including $500,000 for “mental anguish, emotional distress,” and other injuries. 

Springfield College did not immediately return a request for comment on the suit on Thursday. 

The suit has drawn national support from pro-life advocates. Students for Life of America spokesman Michael Allers told the College Fix this week that the group “stands with all Catholics in the academic space that are discriminated against by the secular elite.”

Pope Leo XIV visits the historic telescopes located at the Vatican Observatory in Castel Gandolfo, 15 miles southeast of Rome, on July 20, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Jul 31, 2025 / 12:11 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Thursday appointed astronomer Father Richard Anthony D’Souza, SJ, as the new director of the Vatican Observatory.

D’Souza, who has worked at the Vatican’s astronomical research and educational institution since 2016, will start his new position on Sept. 19, according to the Holy See Press Office statement.

The Indian priest succeeds Brother Guy J. Consolmagno, SJ, whose 10-year mandate ends next month, as head of the observatory. Consolmagno will remain at the scientific institution as a staff astronomer.

Born in Goa in 1978, D’Souza joined the Society of Jesus in 1996 and was ordained a priest in 2011 after completing studies at the Jnana Deepa Institute of Philosophy and Theology in India.

He obtained a bachelor’s degree in physics from St. Xavier’s College, University of Mumbai, India, in 2002 and was awarded a master’s degree in physics by the University of Heidelberg, Germany, in 2005.

In 2016, he completed his doctorate in astronomy at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany, before moving to Italy to work with the Vatican Observatory in the same year. 

According to the Vatican Observatory website, D’Souza, whose area of specialized research is the formation and evolution of galaxies, is also the superior of the Jesuit community attached to the observatory in Castel Gandolfo, Italy. 

In 1891, Leo XIII issued the motu proprio Ut Mysticam (“As Mystical”) authorizing the construction of a new modernized observatory in Castel Gandolfo, approximately 15 miles southeast of Rome. 

The Church’s first observatory was founded in 1579 by Pope Gregory XIII, who entrusted the institution to the Society of Jesus.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster speaks with a police officer outside Westminster Cathedral in London, Nov. 9, 2021. / Credit: Mazur/cbcew.org.uk

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 31, 2025 / 11:41 am (CNA).

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, (CBCEW) said he is “delighted and thrilled” that Pope Leo XIV has announced that he will declare St. John Henry Newman to be a doctor of the Church.

Joining Nichols in a statement from the conference following Thursday’s announcement by the Holy See Press Office, Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham said of Newman that “it is remarkable that his writings, first as an Anglican and then as a Roman Catholic, but considered as one entire corpus of written work, have led to him being declared a doctor of the Church.” 

“This recognition that the writings of St. John Henry Newman are a true expression of the faith of the Church is of huge encouragement to all who appreciate not only his great learning but also his heroic sanctity in following the call of God in his journey of faith,” Nichols added.

Longley, who also serves as vice president of the CBCEW, said he is “immensely grateful to Pope Leo for declaring St. John Henry Newman as a doctor of the Church” and pointed out that Newman is “the third Englishman to be afforded this title,” after St. Bede the Venerable and St. Anselm of Canterbury.

Nichols noted that the request to recognize Newman as a doctor of the Church had been before the Holy See “for some time” and has been widely supported across the globe, especially by the bishops of the Church in England.

“This moment brings back vivid memories of thepapal visit in 2010 of Pope Benedict XVI to these countries when he declared the beatification of John Henry Newman,” Nichols continued. “That moment now reaches its fulfillment and gives great joy to all who strive to follow Christ today.”

The announcement by the Holy See Press Office stated that the decision was made during a July 31 meeting between Pope Leo and the Vatican’s prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Marcello Sameraro.

Oratorian Father Ignatius Harrison, co-actor of the Newman cause, joined in the celebration of the announcement, declaring: “The fathers and brothers of the Birmingham Oratory give praise and thanks to God that the Holy Father Pope Leo has today confirmed that the title ‘doctor of the Church’ will soon be bestowed on St. John Henry.” 

Harrison emphasized that “Newman’s wisdom and spiritual vision will now be of even greater relevance to the universal Church and indeed to all people of goodwill who seek God’s truth.”

Gavin Ashenden, a former Anglican bishop who was received into the Catholic Church in 2019, reacted with similar ebullience to the announcement, writing in a post on X: “This is the most wonderful news.”

Signs hanging in the office of papal charities in Vatican City show the different models of papal blessing certificates that can be ordered, Tuesday, July 29, 2025. / Credit: Hannah Brockhaus/CNA

Vatican City, Jul 31, 2025 / 10:41 am (CNA).

The Vatican has seen a boom in requests for blessings from the new pope, with at least a 30% increase during Leo XIV’s first month reflecting enthusiasm over the start of a new pontificate — and highlighting a traditional practice that combines devotion with fundraising for charitable works.

In June, the Vatican granted 20,000 papal blessing requests — up from the 12,000 to 15,000 parchments distributed in a typical month — something that “has never happened in history,” Cardinal Konrad Krajewski told CNA in an interview this week.

The Polish cardinal, who is responsible for the Vatican’s charitable activities and the granting of blessing certificates, said when the office reopened its doors in May after the papal interregnum and Leo’s election, a line formed a 10th of a mile long, winding out the building, down the street, and almost beyond the Vatican’s Sant’Anna Gate.

The papal charities office had to close online orders for around two weeks in June because they couldn’t keep up with requests, he noted. “Everyone wanted the blessing of the new pope.”

He added that the start of the new pontificate coincided with a popular time of year to receive sacraments, including confirmation, first holy Communion, and priestly ordination, contributing to the rise in demand.

The meaning of a blessing

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, blessings — of people, meals, objects, and places — praise God and pray for his gifts.

“In Christ, Christians are blessed by God the Father ‘with every spiritual blessing.’ This is why the Church imparts blessings by invoking the name of Jesus, usually while making the holy sign of the cross of Christ,” the catechism says.

For Catholics, Krajewski said, the blessing of the pope can hold a special significance, since he is their spiritual father.

“We want to ask for the blessing of the pope, which we hang in our home and which helps us to live through difficult times,” he said. It helps us to know “that there is someone who bears the name of Jesus, who comes under my roof and blesses me; this is something normal, something very human.”

People can receive the pope’s blessing during an in-person encounter or now, even through social media or the television. But having his apostolic blessing on paper, hanging in their home, helps people to feel “strongly united with the pontiff, who represents Our Lord,” the cardinal said.

He likened a blessing to a mother’s kiss on her child’s hurt knee: It does not necessarily take away the pain of suffering, but the expression of the pope’s closeness can give a lot of comfort as people are trying to live the Christian life.

How a blessing gets made

Since the late 19th century, the Vatican has granted signed and stamped certificates bestowing apostolic blessings on Catholics, usually for a special occasion such as a baptism, marriage, wedding anniversary, first holy Communion, or milestone birthday.

For a period, the Vatican authorized some souvenir and bookstores close to St. Peter’s Basilica to also sell the blessings, but that practice ended in 2014, and now, the only way to request the apostolic blessing parchment is online or in person at the papal charities office in Vatican City.

While online orders of blessings must fall under one of a limited set of categories and require only a personal declaration of eligibility, Krajewski explained that people can also make in-person requests for blessings for other reasons, such as illness. In these cases, the papal charities office requires a parish priest or an apostolic nuncio (the pope’s ambassador to a country) to pronounce on the suitability of granting the blessing.

The cardinal said this was to avoid any possibility that someone might try to acquire a blessing certificate for a scandalous purpose, such as for display in a hospital where abortions are performed. The doctors at that hospital need blessings and prayers, Krajewski underlined, but an apostolic blessing on the wall, with a photo of the pope, could falsely give an impression of papal approbation.

After a request for a blessing is received, it takes between two and three weeks to process the order, to create the “parchment” (actually thick paper), and to prepare it either to be picked up or to be mailed.

Part of the preparation includes hand-lettering the certificates — for which the office employs 11 calligraphers.

Krajewski said a few of the blessing parchments are still made by request entirely in calligraphy but that most people today desire the more legible print produced by a computer. But all of the papers contain some hand-drawn elements, such as the ornate first letter of certain words.

Where the proceeds go

The Vatican charges around $23 to $35 for each blessing certificate it distributes — but clearly states that the cost is a suggested donation, and every cent of the proceeds goes directly to aid people struggling from poverty, war, or disaster.

“We say that the real blessing is the alms,” Krajewski said. “Because every [donation] obtained from the blessings goes to the poor.”

Krajewski, who was appointed papal almoner by Pope Francis in 2013, emphasized the enormous help donations for blessings make to the charitable works his office carries out. He declined to provide exact figures, but said in 2024, most of the $8 million that his office spent on aid around the world came from the blessings.

“We are Pope Leo’s first aid,” he said. “When something happens in the world [we are the] first aid … the ambulance that runs to help.”

A recent project financed by the donations, he said, was support for those affected by the typhoon in Taiwan. Through the apostolic nuncio the Vatican is able to send money to a country in need sometimes in a matter of hours.

“The Holy Father reminds us that it is not enough to say ‘I’m sorry,’ ‘I’m united with you,’ but [we need to also] send concrete aid.”

Another recent gift from the Vatican’s charitable arm was a bread oven for the war-torn city of Kharkiv, Ukraine. Throughout the war, the Vatican has given food, medical aid, and even cash to people struggling in Ukraine, often delivered in a truck driven by the 61-year-old Krajewski himself.

“Pope Francis once told me if this money does not go to the poor, I will end up in hell,” the cardinal said. “Pope Francis was very, very direct. And then, he would always ask if our bank account was empty, because if our bank account was empty, it meant that we had helped a lot of people.”

“But the blessings help us to be sure of having resources to help and this is a beautiful thing,” he added.

A recent analysis of a controversial study confirmed that children raised by their intact, biological families fare better than children who were raised by same-sex attracted parents. / Credit: Kulniz/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 31, 2025 / 10:06 am (CNA).

A recent “multiverse analysis” by Cornell sociologists Cristobal Young and Erin Cumberworth demonstrated the accuracy of a controversial 2012 study that showed children of gay parents do worse than children who grow up with a married mother and father.

In a chapter of their book titled “Multiverse Analysis: Computational Methods for Robust Results,” Young and Cumberworth applied their multiverse analysis — by which they examined all the possible ways results of a study may produce varying outcomes depending on methodological choices — to a 2012 study by Mark Regnerus, a University of Texas at Austin sociology professor and president of the Austin Institute for the Study of Family and Culture.

In his study, “How Different Are the Adult Children of Parents Who Have Same-Sex Relationships?” Regnerus found that the children of same-sex-attracted parents were worse off socio-developmentally than those raised by their intact, biological families.

Young and Cumberworth noted that Regnerus’ article “is one of the most hotly-contested studies in 21st-century sociology.”

In a July 13 article in the Public Discourse, Father Paul Sullins, a senior research associate at the Ruth Institute, described the findings as “new vindication” for Regnerus, who Sullins said had faced an almost immediate “firestorm of ideological denunciation, personal vituperation, and political pressure” following the release of his study.

“We were surprised by the robustness of the Regnerus finding,” Young and Cumberworth wrote in their conclusion. “Prior to examining the data directly, we accepted the conclusions written by the critics and expected that a comprehensive multiverse analysis would drive their point home in a powerfully conclusive way.”

Regnerus expressed gratitude to Young and Cumberworth for their analysis of his study and its critics, telling CNA in an email statement: “I am not at all surprised by its results. What the multiverse analysis has done is demonstrate that unpopular research is not the same as erroneous research.”

He continued: “Unfortunately, the scholarly world has not seen such a wide and comprehensive look at outcomes in this domain since then, even while data quality and sample sizes continue to increase. The topic remains rife with intimidation.”

“This new analysis completely vindicates Dr. Regnerus,” Jennifer Roback Morse, founder and president of the Ruth Institute, told CNA. “In my opinion, however, he never needed ‘vindication.’ There was never anything wrong with his study. It was the best and most thorough of its type, during an era that was jammed with junk science.”

“The studies that claimed ‘no difference’ between same-sex parents and opposite-sex parents made sweeping universal claims based on unrepresentative samples,” she continued. “Dr. Regnerus collected his own data that was by far the most representative dataset anyone had used up until that time. He also survived multiple ideologically-motivated ‘investigations.’ In fact, the University of Texas ultimately promoted him to full professor.”

Ultimately, said Morse, who founded the Ruth Institute in 2008 as a means to defend traditional Christian sexual ethics, “the saddest thing about this whole ideologically distorted debate is that ordinary people are making life-altering decisions based on junk science.”

“Ordinary women are concluding that having children with another woman will be the same sort of experience as having children with a husband. When they figure out from experience that this is not really the case, it is too late to change course,” she said, adding: “They already have a child who really truly does need a father, which she is in no position to provide.”

St. John Henry Newman (1881). / Credit: Sir John Everett Millais/Public domain

Vatican City, Jul 31, 2025 / 09:36 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Thursday approved the decision to declare St. John Henry Newman the 38th doctor of the universal Church.

The decision to confer the title upon the 19th-century English saint — a former Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism — was confirmed during the pope’s morning meeting with Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints. 

According to the Holy See Press Office, the Holy Father accepted the “affirmative opinion” of dicastery members and the plenary session of cardinals and bishops regarding the founder of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in England.  

In the Church’s 2,000-year history, only 37 other saints, including four women, have been given the title of doctor. The title is granted in recognition of an already canonized saint’s significant contribution to advancing the Church’s knowledge of doctrine, theology, or spirituality.   

The Vatican has not yet confirmed the date of Newman’s formal proclamation as a doctor of the Church.

Born in London and baptized into the Church of England in 1801, Newman was a popular and respected Anglican priest, theologian, and writer among his peers prior to his conversion to Catholicism.

In 1845, Newman asked his friend Blessed Dominic Barberi, an Italian Passionist priest living in England, to receive him into the Catholic Church.

He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1847 and later made a cardinal by Pope Leo XIII in 1879. He chose the motto “Cor ad cor loquitur” (“Heart speaks to heart”) as an expression of his conversion in his own heart, through the heart of God.    

As a Catholic, Newman deepened and contributed to the Church’s teaching, thanks to his broad knowledge of theology and his keen insight into modern times, grounded in the Gospel.

His body of work includes 40 books and more than 20,000 letters.

Newman died in Edgbaston, England, in 1890. He was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI on Sept. 19, 2010, and canonized by Pope Francis on Oct. 13, 2019.

Attorneys general from 16 states wrote a letter urging Congress to take action against abortion shield laws. / Credit: Traci L. Clever/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Jul 31, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).

State attorneys general across the country are banding together to oppose “abortion shield laws” that they say enable abortionists to bypass pro-life state laws.

A July 29 letter to Congress signed by 16 Republican attorneys general described the shield laws as “blatant attempts to interfere with states’ ability to enforce criminal laws within their borders.”

At least 18 states and Washington, D.C., have enacted abortion shield laws, which vary in kind but are all designed to protect abortionists against pro-life laws in other states. Generally, states with abortion shield laws will refuse to extradite abortionists and won’t enforce judgments or penalties from another state.

Recently, abortion shield laws have clashed with pro-life laws that protect unborn children from chemical abortions in Texas, where a judge ordered a New York abortion provider to stop prescribing abortion pills to Texas residents. Because of New York’s shield laws, the abortion provider dodged the lawsuit and the $100,000 fine.

Addressed to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the letter, signed by attorneys general of Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, and other pro-life states, said that shield laws “raise serious constitutional concerns.”

In the letter, the attorneys general noted that since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and returned abortion legislation to the states, “different states passed laws purporting to ‘shield’ abortion providers from liability and prosecution for performing or aiding in abortions in other states.”

“By encouraging medical professionals in pro-abortion states to violate pro-life states’ abortion laws, shield laws are antithetical to the spirit of federalism and the Dobbs decision by not allowing each state to regulate abortion as it sees fit,” the letter read.

Kelsey Pritchard, political communications director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, praised the signees for “spreading awareness on unconstitutional shield laws.”

“These laws violate the state sovereignty of the 22 states that protect life at 12 weeks or sooner by protecting abortion pill mills over women and girls in this country,” Pritchard told CNA. “Blue states have no right to shield abortion drug distributors when they break the laws, harm women, and kill unborn children in pro-life states.”

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin said his state and others “have faced a problem of abortion pills such as mifepristone, which are taken to induce chemical abortions, being shipped into our state illegally.”

“The law is very clear on this issue, and regardless of how one feels about the law, it is vital that the law be upheld,” Griffin said in a post on X.

Kim Davis (at right) is pictured here in 2015, when she served as clerk of the courts in Rowan County, Kentucky. Citing a sincere religious objection, Davis refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in defiance of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. / Credit: Ty Wright/Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 31, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

A former county clerk in Kentucky who made national headlines in 2015 for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples is again asking the United States Supreme Court to hear her case 10 years later.

Kim Davis, who was the Rowan County clerk from 2015 through 2019, has petitioned the country’s highest court to reconsider the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, which legalized same-sex civil marriages nationally. 

That year, the court’s 5-4 decision found that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to legally recognized marriages under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

Davis’ filing also asks the court to consider her request to use a First Amendment defense against civil lawsuits that stemmed from her refusal to issue those marriage licenses. She was found liable for violating the constitutional rights of same-sex couples whose marriage licenses she refused to certify and ordered to pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars.

At the time, Davis had requested a religious accommodation that would have allowed her to continue her job without issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Gov. Matt Bevin, who assumed office in December of that year, signed an executive order accommodating Davis, which allowed clerks to remove their names from marriage licenses issued by the office.

Still, because Davis was denied civil immunity and denied the ability to use a First Amendment defense in court, she remains liable for those damages. She is represented in court by Liberty Counsel, a Christian legal nonprofit.

Liberty Counsel Chairman Mat Staver said in a statement that Davis’ ongoing case shows why the country’s Supreme Court “should overturn the wrongly decided … opinion” on same-sex marriage. He argued that the ruling “threatens the religious liberty of Americans who believe that marriage is a sacred union between one man and one woman.” 

“A person cannot stand before the court utterly defenseless while facing claims of emotional distress for her views on marriage,” Staver said.

“Yet, that is the result of Obergefell, which led these courts to strip Davis of any personal First Amendment defense,” he continued. “Obergefell cannot just push the First Amendment aside to punish individuals for their beliefs about marriage. The First Amendment precludes making the choice between your faith and your livelihood. The high court now has the opportunity to finally overturn this egregious opinion from 2015.”

The lawsuit argues that in the same way the First Amendment “provides a defense to private business owners … for refusing to violate their religious convictions” regarding same-sex civil marriages, the Supreme Court should recognize it “likewise provides an individual a defense to application of state laws that require her to speak a message concerning same-sex marriage that is inconsistent with her religious beliefs.”

It adds that there is “no sound constitutional basis” to treat a public official acting in his or her individual capacity any differently than a nonpublic official: “To do so would mean government officials surrender certain constitutional rights at their swearing-in ceremonies. That cannot be right.”

Although same-sex marriage has been the law of the land for the past decade, there have been some recent efforts to push back on the ruling. 

Just this year, lawmakers in at least five states introduced resolutions that called on the court to overturn its same-sex marriage ruling. Two resolutions passed their state’s lower chamber but did not get through their state’s senate. The other three failed earlier in the process. Lawmakers in at least four states introduced proposals to create a new category of a “covenant marriage,” which is reserved for one man and one woman.

A May Gallup poll found that 68% of Americans support same-sex civil marriages. This is down from a height of 71% in 2022 and 2023 after there was a slight decrease two years in a row. Only 41% of Republicans support same-sex civil marriages, which is down from highs of 55% in 2021 and 2022.

Several of the participants at the 2025 EWTN Summer Academy in Rome, an intensive program in religious journalism and digital storytelling, come from places where Catholics live their faith amid severe adversity. / Credit: Lemmy Ogbonnaya Ijioma/EWTN Summer Academy

Vatican City, Jul 31, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Mikhail Ajjan fled war-torn Syria and the terrors of ISIS with his family when he was 10. Now a university student in Sweden, the 21-year-old Catholic faces a vastly different challenge of living his faith in a secular environment and is honing his media skills to help spread the Gospel.

Ajjan is one of more than 40 young Catholics from 23 countries who have come together to train in the 2025 EWTN Summer Academy in Rome, an intensive program in religious journalism and digital storytelling, which coincides this year with the Catholic Church’s Jubilee of Youth.

Several of the academy participants come from places where Catholics live their faith amid severe adversity — from war zones to countries where cartel violence or religious persecution threaten Christian communities.

Among them is Nicolawos Hazboun, a multimedia officer from Bethlehem who works closely with Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa documenting life in the Holy Land for the Latin Catholic Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

On a recent afternoon, Hazboun, 26, paused to reflect on the current situation facing Palestinian Catholics in Bethlehem.

“It’s a blessing for us to be in the same place where Jesus was born,” he said. “My family is one of the biggest Christian families in Bethlehem. … We are in Bethlehem for more than 500 years … And we want to stay.”

But staying isn’t easy. “Nowadays we have a bad situation because of the war,” Hazboun said. “We don’t have any pilgrimage … groups from outside. The people of Bethlehem … depend on the tourists. We don’t have any income.”

Many Christian families in Bethlehem, he added, are leaving for Europe or North America. “We want the Christians of Bethlehem to grow and to increase in numbers, but unfortunately, the numbers of Christians in Bethlehem are getting low because of the situation.”

Hazboun hopes to bring the skills he learns at the EWTN Summer Academy back to Bethlehem and Jerusalem to help him better communicate the experience of Christians in the Holy Land. 

“People are always surprised that there are … Palestinian Christians,” Hazboun said. “I want them to know that we are a strong community.”

“There are still Christians in Bethlehem. … Not all Palestinians are Muslim.”

The EWTN Summer Academy, organized by the global Catholic media network EWTN, CNA’s parent company, is now in its fourth year of training aspiring communicators in skills ranging from video editing to narrative reporting. The academy is held at the Pontifical Urban University’s CIAM center with a panoramic view of Rome and the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica and is offered at no cost to participants.

“I feel close to heaven,” said Sister Mary Iyadunni Adeniyi, 27, a Nigerian member of the Congregation of Sisters of St. Michael the Archangel making her first pilgrimage to Rome to take part in the academy.

She recalls vividly the 2022 Pentecost massacre at St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo, Nigeria, where dozens of Catholics were killed.

“It feels bad that you just go out and you could get killed,” she said. “We pray that God will help our faith and God could restore peace in our country.”

Even so, Sister Mary remains committed to building a hopeful future. “The charism of my congregation is evangelization through inculturation,” she explained.

“Now, it’s a digital world … so we also have to use that for evangelization.” She edits videos, designs graphics, and believes strongly in the potential of online platforms to reach young hearts.  

“Where can you find the young people in the 21st century? In the media,” the sister said. 

In Vietnam, Tâm Nguyên Bùi, 31, works with the Vietnamese bishops’ conference and also volunteers for the local archdiocese in Saigon.

“Even though we are a minority in the population — about 7% of 100 million people in the country — we have profound experiences in family life… and devotion in the churches,” Nguyên said. 

“In the EWTN Summer Academy 2025, we are alongside 43 communicators from 23 countries. We come from different backgrounds, different experiences of faith also. I really learn when I speak with others about how they live their faith in their country. For some, it is freely and it’s very enjoyable, but sometimes with difficulties,” he said. 

Nguyên has translated some of the writings of St. John Paul II into Vietnamese and is a veteran of Catholic youth gatherings across Asia. He said that Catholics in Vietnam are hoping that Pope Leo XIV will visit Vietnam soon. “We try to pray that the relationship between Vietnam and the Holy See is better and gets better.”

For Ajjan, the Jubilee of Youth will be a continuation of the rewarding experience that he had at the last World Youth Day.

“I’ve been to the World Youth Days in Portugal and I got hooked. So I was like, ‘I’m going to the jubilee. I’m going to South Korea,” he said referring to the 2027 World Youth Day in Seoul. 

Ajjan has also found a way to serve his local Catholic community. With EWTN Sweden, he helps a young priest to produce a weekly homily video series.  

“In our city, we have a very good youth pastor,” he explained. “And we started to film a Sunday homily series with him. So each Wednesday we filmed the series, edited it, and then put it out on Sunday morning. … It was really, really fun.”

From Lebanon, Marguerita Kallassy is a trilingual journalist for ACI MENA, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner, also owned by EWTN. She has covered everything from street protests to massive religious processions. But her heart lies in telling Catholic stories.

“It was so magical to bring that part of the East that still believes … that still has a place for Jesus in their lives,” she said.

She wants to correct the common misperception that Christianity is all but vanished from the Middle East. 

“People never realize the scale [of Christianity] in the East. … They thought we have only Muslim community in Lebanon so I really need to tell people that this is the birthplace of Jesus. I mean — Jesus is not from New Jersey, you know?” she joked.

“My work with the EWTN inspired me so that I applied to the Sorbonne … in media studies,” she said. Kallassy will start her graduate studies in Paris in the fall.

Daniela Sánchez y Sánchez, 21, grew up in Puebla, Mexico, and is now studying journalism in Spain.

“Since I was a little kid, I always wanted to know … everything about everything,” she said. She began working with Radio María and the Archdiocese of Puebla to report the news of the local Church and bring a message of faith to a country torn by drug violence. 

The Church’s response, she said, has always been prayer — even for those committing violence. “[We] pray for all the victims, for all the priests who have been affected by this, and pray for those people … who are bad and want to do bad to our community,” she said. “We all need to have mercy and pray for them.”

Seated in view of St. Peter’s, Sánchez marveled at the experience. “If you’re into spreading God’s message throughout the world and journalism, this is the best opportunity God has given us.”

Catholic actor David Henrie in the new docuseries “Seeking Beauty.” / Credit: EWTN Studios

CNA Staff, Jul 31, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

EWTN Studios and Catholic actor David Henrie, known for his role as Justin Russo on Disney’s “Wizards of Waverly Place,” have partnered to bring a first-of-its-kind adventure documentary series that explores culture, architecture, food, art, and music that aims to point viewers to the beautiful — and ultimately to the divine.

“Seeking Beauty” is scheduled to be released in December.

The docuseries follows Henrie’s journey into the heart of Italy to explore what makes Italian culture one of the most beautiful in the world. It not only looks at the physical beauty of the country but also the spiritual richness of it as well. 

In a recent interview with EWTN News President Montse Alvarado, Henrie shared that he’s a big fan of travel shows and always wanted to take part in one, but one where “you kind of flip the script. Where it starts with what you don’t expect.”

“We want an experience, right? So we put the format on its head. We have someone who’s not an expert — which is me — inviting the audience to go on a journey with me and have fun,” he explained. “So, we go all over Italy and we meet with the experts, and I’m sitting down asking questions that maybe you at home would want to ask if you were sitting in front of this person and as I’m blown away, hopefully, you’ll be blown away, too, because we had some beautiful experiences.”

The actor emphasized that the common theme throughout the series is “that beauty has a capital B — that beauty is ultimately the language of the divine and a reflection of God.”

One moment that stood out for Henrie while filming the series was getting to watch an old Caravaggio painting be restored. He recalled being shown by artists doing the restoration some of the mistakes made in the painting that are only noticeable up close. Henrie called this experience “humanizing.”

“When you think of great artists before you, they’re almost so high that it’s like unreachable … and to get to see their works up close with a restorer was so cool to go, ‘Oh, this person was human. He completely painted over what he did. There was something he tried that didn’t work at all,’” he shared. “That was really cool to me to learn how human these artists were and that they were struggling with the same things that I struggle with, just in a different medium.”

Henrie’s production company, Novo Inspire Studios, aims to create entertaining, timeless, and meaningful content that the whole family can enjoy. The company’s work was recently nominated by the Television Critics Association Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Family Programming, which Henrie called a “massive honor.”

EWTN Studios was recently launched by EWTN as part of its new organizational restructuring, contininuing the media organization’s legacy of creating impactful content in the Catholic sphere in a way that reflects the changing nature of media and evolving technologies.