Tag: Christianity

The expectation that President-elect Donald J. Trump’s incoming administration will revoke the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s long-standing policy restricting the arrest of unauthorized immigrants at or near houses of worship has led faith leaders to protest what they say represents an impending threat to religious freedom.

Called a “sensitive locations” ban, the policy also stops the arrest of these immigrants at or near hospitals, schools, and even funerals and weddings.

On Dec. 28, 10 Arizona faith leaders — including Catholic Bishops Edward J. Weisenburger of Tucson and John P. Dolan of Phoenix — put their concerns in writing in an op-ed column published in the Arizona Republic, the state’s largest newspaper.

“Of special concern to us are reported methods of detention and deportation that might include raids on churches, houses of worship, hospitals, schools and other locations associated with meeting basic human needs,” the column read in part. “We find it unacceptable that undocumented persons might be intimidated from going to a church and thereby exercising their right to the practice of religion.”

In further comments emailed to OSV News Dec. 30, Bishop Weisenburger said, “The 10 signatory Arizona bishops — or equivalent faith leaders — acknowledge our nation’s right to humane and legal immigration enforcement. However, we also acknowledge that immigration enforcement efforts that violate basic human rights, or our nation’s Constitution, must not be undertaken or threatened.”

“Our nation’s founders recognized the free and unimpeded exercise of religion as a foundation upon which a Great Democracy would be built,” he continued. “Moreover, a host of international entities acknowledges that freedom of religion is a basic human right. Any attempted arrests at or near sensitive locations such as churches or schools would be an infringement not only on that basic human right of undocumented persons, but also would entail a violation of the rights of our own citizens.”

Bishop Weisenburger cited constitutional privileges — certain rights the U.S. Supreme Court has maintained apply to everyone living in America, whether U.S.-born, naturalized, or not.

“Our churches teach that our doors must be open to all who wish to embrace our religious practices — an essential element of our constitutional right to the free exercise of religion,” he explained. “To impede, or threaten to impede, our brothers and sisters from worshipping with us based solely upon their immigration status would entail a government interference in our own citizen’s religious practice, preventing our members from fulfilling their God-given mission.”

Bishop Weisenburger stressed the human dignity of both migrants and citizens.

“It is our hope that all those associated with immigration enforcement on the federal, state, or local levels will acknowledge the human dignity of those they encounter, observe their basic human rights, and undertake no efforts that violate the rights of United States citizens to the free exercise of our teachings and deeply-held religious beliefs.”

Throughout his campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to conduct the “largest deportation operation in American history,” aimed at removing the approximately 11 million unauthorized immigrants thought to currently reside in the United States.

Tom Homan was named to the role by Trump Nov. 11 and will not require Senate confirmation. He has endorsed deportation tactics such as the detention or separation of families with U.S. citizen children, aggressive enforcement of immigration laws in sanctuary cities, the possible prosecution of officials who “knowingly harbor” migrants in the country without legal authorization, and the withholding of federal funds from states that refuse to cooperate.

Homan has also proposed the deputization of local and military forces to apprehend these migrants, as well as the use of military bases to detain them and military planes to transport them out of the country.

Homan characterized such operations as a years-long project with “no price tag.”

“I applaud the Arizona bishops for strongly speaking out against a mass deportation policy and highlighting the potential violations of human dignity and religious freedom arising from it,” said J. Kevin Appleby, senior director of International Migration Policy at the Center for Migration Studies of New York and former director of migration policy and public affairs at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops from 1998-2016.

“Should the Trump administration follow through with its threats, parishes and Catholic agencies could become targets for immigration enforcement, infringing upon the religious practice of all Catholics, not just that of the undocumented,” Appleby told OSV News.

Dylan Corbett — founder and executive director of the Hope Border Institute, a faith-based research, advocacy and humanitarian action organization at the U.S.-Mexico border — agreed.

“The policies which recognize churches, schools and hospitals as places where immigration enforcement should not happen are longstanding and bipartisan,” he said. “These are places where people are often at their most vulnerable — turning to the church, worshipping God, picking children up at school and seeking out medical attention.”

The “sensitive locations” policy dates from 2011, and continued during the first Trump administration and the Biden administration, which issued further guidance in 2021, expanding areas that “require special protection.” ICE agents have, however, been allowed exceptions for national security or terror issues, the arrest of dangerous felons, and other special criminal considerations.

“Bishops and faith leaders across the country are right to point out the religious liberty implications, and our Catholic institutions need to prepare,” warned Corbett. “Our freedom to be the body of Christ is at stake — to be a place of welcome and healing, to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all persons, and to be a sign of reconciliation and mercy in a broken society.”

He also anticipates the coming months could be a defining era for the church’s witness.

“As the Catholic Church in the United States, we are entering a unique moral moment,” Corbett predicted, “when we will be called to oppose counterproductive and unjust deportation policies which indiscriminately target our fellow parishioners, the students in our Catholic schools, and those who receive services from our Catholic Charities agencies.”

At the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Dec. 29 wasn’t too early for a certain kind of New Year’s celebration. 

As bells rang and hundreds gathered around a stage in the Cathedral Plaza amid stubborn morning fog, the countdown was over: it was time to open the Jubilee Holy Year, celebrated every 25 years by Catholics around the world.

The event began in the Plaza with a special rite before 10 a.m. Sunday Mass, officially launching the “Jubilee of Hope” in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles days after Pope Francis did the same by opening the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

“This rite is for us the prelude to a rich experience of grace and mercy,” proclaimed Archbishop José H. Gomez, moments before leading nearly 3,000 Massgoers in procession into the Cathedral. “We are ready to respond always to whoever asks the reason for the hope that is in us, especially in this time of war and strife.”

The Catholic Church celebrates a Jubilee Holy Year every 25 years echoing the biblical tradition of setting aside a “year acceptable to the Lord” marked by the cancellation of debts, release from labor, and forgiveness among enemies.

Every Jubilee, said Archbishop Gomez later in his homily, “reminds us that we are all on pilgrimage.”

“Our life’s journey is now a journey of faith,” said the archbishop. “With Jesus at our side, walking by his Spirit, we are on pilgrimage to his Father’s house, to the heavenly kingdom, where we will discover the love that never ends.”

Outside of the 25-year cycle, there have been two recent, but slightly different, jubilees celebrated in LA.

One was the extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, unexpectedly called by Pope Francis in 2015 to emphasize the theme of mercy. The other was the local “Forward in Mission” jubilee year held in 2022-2023 to mark 250 years since the founding of Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first Catholic outpost in the Los Angeles area.  

But unlike those two jubilees, the 2025 one will have a key difference: no designated local “Holy Door” for Catholics to pass through in their local dioceses.

To obtain the plenary indulgence (which removes the temporal punishment due to sins already forgiven) traditionally associated with a jubilee, Pope Francis decreed that Catholics can either make a pilgrimage to one of five Holy Doors in Rome (including one at a prison) or choose from a few options closer to home, including performing an “extraordinary” work of mercy for someone in need.

In the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, there is the option of visiting the Cathedral or Ventura’s Mission Basilica San Buenaventura. Special local Jubilee events being planned include a six-mile walking pilgrimage from All Souls Church in Alhambra to the Cathedral on April 5. 

At the same time, “it’s not so much about a place, it’s a time of renewal, a time for us to get closer to God,” explained Father Juan Ochoa, director of the archdiocese’s Office of Worship and a lead planner of LA’s Jubilee celebrations. “God’s mercy cannot be limited to a place.”

Still, the packed pews at the Jubilee Mass — which coincided with the Feast of the Holy Family — suggested the Cathedral was the place to be on Sunday.

After the introductory rites in the plaza, Archbishop Gomez followed an ornate processional cross used 22 years ago during the dedication of the Cathedral.

Once it had reached the Cathedral sanctuary, the cross was installed near the choir area. It will remain there on display for veneration until the close of the Holy Year in 2026, a sign “that the cross of Christ is a firm anchor of hope.”

Visitors in need of that hope were not hard to find that morning.

After watching news coverage of Pope Francis opening the Holy Door in Rome, Janet Sanchez decided to make the drive from Ontario to be a part of something similar. She came with her 24-year-old daughter Emilyn, who suffers from multiple brain tumors that cause epileptic convulsions.

“I have more hope,” after hearing Pope Francis’ words on TV and coming to the Cathedral Mass, said Sanchez. “We’re praying a lot that she be healed.”

Sanchez said she’d begun to experience true hope in the suffering, noting that the illness has united her family and given them a sense of peace — even as they await the start of radiation treatment aimed at shrinking the tumors.

“We’re leaving everything in God’s hands, that his will be done,” said Sanchez. “Already we’re seeing doors open.”

Joel and Nadia Moreira, parishioners at Christ the King Church near Hollywood, saw the Jubilee Year as an opportunity to “grow in faith” and take the task of transmitting the faith to their four-year-old son more seriously.

“We want to raise our child the right way, with God’s love,” said Nadia. “Unfortunately, the things we’re seeing now, we weren’t really seeing when I was growing up, and now I really don’t want my son to be getting into bumps.”

Joel, a self-described “cradle Catholic” who says he only recently “discovered” his faith personally, sees a need to take the hope of Christianity to whoever needs it, including people in his life who have fallen away from the faith.

“It’s not just a New Year, it’s a Jubilee Year,” Joel told Angelus as he brought his family to venerate the processional cross after Mass. “We can take that hope and bring it to those who might, because of their past, not want to walk into a church. But God is a God of mercy, and he loves us all as his children.”

At the center of every Jubilee celebration, stressed Ochoa, is the chance to experience the forgiveness of our sins and “recognize that a new beginning is given to us,” even in the so-called “cancel culture” of modern society.

“It’s an opportunity for people to recognize that God does not cancel people, God cancels our sins,” said Ochoa. “This is the purpose of a Jubilee year.”

For information about 2025 Jubilee events in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, visit Hope.lacatholics.org/holy-doors.

In an eventful year for life issues — including abortion, assisted suicide, and immigration — advocates and opponents alike wrestled with outcomes, each other, governments, public opinion, and the ballot box.

Ultimately — according to various experts interviewed by OSV News — 2024 will perhaps be remembered as 12 months stocked with both mixed results and future uncertainties.

Natalie Dodson — a policy analyst at the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center — characterized the outgoing Biden-Harris administration as “radically pro-abortion” and “openly hostile to the unborn.”

“In 2024, Biden mandated taxpayer-funded coverage of abortion at veteran hospitals, required government employees to facilitate abortion for unaccompanied immigrant minors, and ignored existing abortion funding restrictions in the law,” she said.

Dodson noted that concurrently, the Biden-Harris administration ignored or eliminated conscience protections for medical professionals and employers.

Her advice to the incoming Trump-Vance administration?

“President-elect (Donald J.) Trump has stated that the abortion issue should be left to the states. To fulfill this promise,” Dodson suggested, “Trump should get the federal government out of the business of abortion by rescinding Biden policies that fund abortion, defund pro-abortion groups like Planned Parenthood, and robustly defend conscience and religious freedom protections in federal law.”

Abortion measures were a critical voting issue during the November elections, with a record-breaking 10 U.S. states featuring ballot measures to enshrine access to the procedure; seven out of 10 passed.

Since the June 2022 overturn of Roe v. Wade, American abortion rates have been trending upward. The Society of Family Planning’s #WeCount Report — issued Oct. 22 — found a slight but consistent increase; during the first six months of 2024, the monthly national abortion count averaged nearly 98,000, which exceeds the 2023 monthly average of 88,000. In 2022, the monthly average was 81,400.

Trump’s stated support of in vitro fertilization — and his proposed plan to widen IVF availability through federal government or private insurer coverage mandates — has also become a life issue of concern for Catholics.

IVF treatments — which fertilize an egg outside the body in a laboratory dish — are opposed by the Catholic Church because they frequently involve the destruction of human embryos, in addition to other ethical and moral issues.

Widespread attention was focused on the practice in 2024, after a February Alabama Supreme Court decision concluded human embryos in IVF clinics “are ‘children,’” regardless of “developmental stage, physical location, or any other ancillary characteristics.”

“It had obvious financial implications,” noted Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, “since it allowed parents to seek damages against IVF clinics when their embryonic children were lost or destroyed. When former President Trump weighed in on the matter to support the practice of IVF, the firestorm intensified.”

Which was actually beneficial in one sense, said Father Pacholczyk.

“Bringing the matter back into the public eye, nevertheless, helped many to begin to understand how IVF is not truly a pro-life technology,” he observed. “It is actually a two-edged sword, with the death-dealing edge of the sword becoming manifest at various points during the process, such as embryo screening for desired features, embryo freezing and abandonment, fetal reductions in utero, and the objectification and direct discarding of embryos that occurs in many IVF clinical settings.”

Other IVF obstacles were further cast into sharper relief by way of the headlines.

“It also raised anew the foundational question of whether it doesn’t violate our inherent dignity as humans to be manufactured in petri dishes and test tubes,” said Father Pacholczyk, “instead of being loved into existence as the fruit and consummate blessing of the marital act.”

At the opposite end of the life spectrum, Father Pacholczyk noted developments in assisted suicide and euthanasia when — during November — British lawmakers voted in favor of a medically-assisted suicide bill, which will receive further scrutiny in Parliament in advance of a final vote.

The bill — dubbed the “Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill” — seeks to allow those who are 18-plus and terminally ill to be given an “approved” substance to die, with some conditions.

“Central to virtually all efforts to legalize PAS (physician-assisted suicide) is the mistaken notion that ‘dying with dignity’ could ever mean ‘killing yourself’ or ‘encouraging a physician to kill you,’” said Father Pacholczyk. “Neither are dignified in any way. Both represent a colossal failure on the part of the medical establishment and the healing arts.”

Assisted suicide has increased in Canada, where it has been allowed since 2016. The 15,343 who did so in 2023 — a number that did not include over 2,900 individuals who died before their MAID request could be approved — accounted for 4.7%, or one in 20, of Canada’s 2023 deaths, according to government data. The country’s federal Health Canada agency announced the November rollout of a “national conversation” — which concludes in January 2025 — on the issue of advance requests for MAID. The province of Quebec, which in 2023 saw the highest number (36.5%) of Canada’s MAID applications, began accepting advance requests for MAID Oct. 30.

Medically assisted suicide is currently authorized in 10 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

“The sick and suffering should be precious to us,” emphasized Father Pacholczyk, “and they do not ever deserve an overdose or a lethal prescription. They deserve accompaniment, careful pain management, and being loved unconditionally until the end arrives.

“They deserve,” Father Pacholczyk added, “to have us hold their hand and journey with them, activities that require a much greater commitment of time and energy on our part than the quick-and-dirty option of passing out ‘kill pills.’”

The legal implications, said Father Pacholczyk, are also ethically objectionable.

“PAS and euthanasia are actually legalized forms of patient abandonment,” he declared, “conferring upon physicians a guarantee of non-prosecution whenever they prescribe toxins to their clients, or, heaven forbid, kill them outright, typically through lethal injection.”

Another life issue — immigration — became a political inferno during the 2024 U.S. elections. In results of a Reuters/Ipsos poll issued Nov. 7 — just two days after Americans voted — 25% of respondents said immigration should be Trump’s top initial priority. A full 82% of respondents expected Trump would order mass deportations, a position inconsistent with church teaching.

St. John Paul II’s 1993 encyclical “Veritatis Splendor” (“Splendor of Truth”) and 1995 encyclical “Evangelium Vitae” (“The Gospel of Life”) both quote the Second Vatican Council’s teaching in “Gaudium et Spes,” the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, which names “deportation” among various specific acts “offensive to human dignity” that “are a disgrace, and so long as they infect human civilization they contaminate those who inflict them more than those who suffer injustice, and they are a negation of the honor due to the Creator.”

Both the Biden-Harris administration — and the incoming Trump-Vance administration — have problematic immigration policies, said Dylan Corbett, executive director of the Hope Border Institute.

“The Biden administration has left a mixed record on immigration, making some headway in bringing order to the border and opening up legal migration pathways,” he said, “but also crucially failing to marshal a robust moral argument that migration enriches and benefits our country.”

Trump’s post-election immigration rhetoric has, however, stoked much higher tensions.

“We go into next year with a fair amount of deserved anxiety, knowing that the president-elect plans to initiate a campaign of deportations and shut down the border to the vulnerable,” noted Corbett. “Families in our parishes, students in our Catholic schools and universities, and our neighbors in communities across the country are living through a real moment of fear.”

On Dec. 11, Trump announced a decision immigration advocates such as Corbett have feared: the proposed scrapping of a long-standing “sensitive locations policy” of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, that previously prohibited the arrest of unauthorized immigrants — except under certain circumstances — at churches, schools, and hospitals.

Immigrants without legal authorization to live and work in the U.S. are estimated at 11 million to 13 million, although numbers may be higher. According to the American Immigration Council, they disproportionately work in “essential” areas of the American economy, including construction (13.7%), agriculture (12.7%) and hospitality (7.1%).

“The coming months will represent a moral moment for the Catholic Church in the United States,” predicted Corbett. “We will be called to put our faith into action in new ways, with effective solidarity, compassion and prophetic witness.”

Still, he remained hopeful.

“We will be tested in new ways and we will need to dig deep to offer a credible response rooted in faith. But we are ready to meet this moment,” Corbett asserted. “Our faith in Jesus Christ, our Catholic social teaching tradition and the example of Pope Francis offer us guideposts as we work for a more just and merciful society.”

    

Bethlehem, adorn your homes,
For Christmas draws near.

The hymns for the Vigil of St. Nicholas

“>St. Nicholas have already been sung:

“Bethlehem, adorn your homes, for the Virgin is coming, bearing Christ.
Magi, bring your glorious gifts; shepherds, sing the Thrice-Holy hymn.
Let everything that has breath praise the Almighty.”

Hearing these words, you might ask yourself two questions:

1. Why are we hearing fully Christmas-themed texts so early?

2. What do these calls, directed at the ancient city of Israel, the shepherds, and the Magi, have to do with me?

The answer to the second question is simple. It’s because we are not only remembering sacred events; we are called to be participants in them. This is why the words “this day” resound constantly in church hymns.

Today the Virgin draws nigh to Bethlehem.
Today, under the light of the star, the wise men hurry with their gifts.
And today—yes, today—it is my task to prepare within me the adornment of Bethlehem—my heart. This is the answer to the first question.

This is why, long before Christmas, we hear the calls:
“Adorn yourself, prepare, bring your gifts.”

We need time, for we have so much to do!

Theophan the Recluse

“>St. Theophan the Recluse writes:

The Lord will invisibly enter within you. Therefore, enter into yourself and set everything in order there—sweep away every speck of dust from idle and vain thoughts with sighs of repentance, and guard yourself with godly meditation. Wash away with your tears all impurity from sinful feelings and inclinations, and keep yourself in holy vigilance. Correct and restore everything broken and corrupted by falls through sincere repentance, and fortify yourself with holy zeal to fulfill the commandments.

Let more light in through the windows of sincere and unwavering faith, contemplating the mysteries of the divine economy of our salvation. Fill the temple of your heart with the fragrance of prayer and warm devotion to God. Above all, prepare a precious and pleasing dwelling place for Him with unfeigned, complete, and wholehearted love.

Having thus prepared yourself, withdraw even deeper within; wait for the Lord in reverent silence, with longing and fear, with fervent zeal and vigilant attention.

Shepherds, sing the Thrice-Holy hymn

These words might seem easy to dismiss—they don’t apply to me, right? Or do they?

Every time we turn to God in prayer, even the briefest one, we join the choir of heavenly hosts, worshiping the Creator and Lord alongside them. Too lofty a thought? Surely not about us, sinners?

In the life of the great ascetic Anthony, there is mention of a physician from Alexandria who gave his excess to the needy and daily sang the Thrice-Holy Hymn with the angels.

It’s hard to imagine a more demanding profession than that of a physician, especially in ancient Alexandria, where there was just as much noise and bustle as in our modern metropolises. This shows that it’s not the length of one’s prayer that matters, but… What, exactly?

Righteous St. John of KronstadtSt. John of Kronstadt

“>St. John of Kronstadt answers:

Read even a few prayers, but with understanding and with warmth in your heart. Above all, throughout the day, keep the memory of God—that is, a secret, inner prayer. I myself do not have time to attend long monastic services, but everywhere and always—whether I am walking, riding, sitting, or lying down—the thought of God never leaves me. I pray to Him in spirit, mentally standing before Him and beholding Him before me…

It’s worth trying to remember this call: “Sing the Thrice-Holy with the angels,” especially when beginning morning or evening prayers. It will certainly help increase our focus and attentiveness.

Magi, bring your glorious gifts

And finally, the Magi. As we know, they brought Christ gold, frankincense, and myrrh: gold as a gift to the King, frankincense as a gift to the High Priest and God, and myrrh (a resin used for anointing the dead) as a gift to the Mortal Man.

But what about me? What can I bring to Christ today?

Perhaps it’s time to address a particular fault I need to overcome or work on cultivating a virtue I ought to acquire.

Or maybe I could reflect on the symbolic meaning of the gifts.

For example, what kind of gold can we bring to Christ?

Father Vsevolod Shpiller wrote that the gold within the human heart is the creative, life-giving force that can manifest even in the smallest of things. Cooking a meal, for instance, can be done with love and creativity. And this love, this service to others, is simultaneously service to God, service to Christ—it is the fulfillment of God’s commandments.

The smallest grain of gold sparkles in the rays of the sun. So, too, every good deed done for the benefit of others, every kind word, every smile, becomes part of the gifts we offer to the Divine Infant. “By showing mercy to others, we serve God.”

Frankincense – it is often understood as prayer: focused, heartfelt, living, and attentive.

“Strive always to feel the presence of Christ, the Mother of God, and the saints, and behave as if they are here, beside you. This is how love for God grows and develops.” (St. Paisius of Mount Athos)

Myrrh—a symbol of love that death cannot conquer, a love stronger than death itself. This is the kind of love that we can bring to Christ:

“Die to your sins in order to gain the ability to live—to live with all the breadth, depth, and intensity to which we are called.” (Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh)

In truth, we are rich in opportunities. The Lord, who promised not to forget even a cup of water given in His name, will accept our gifts, no matter how small they may be. The key is not to let our hands fall, not to become lazy, not to sit idly by, but to keep going, not resting until we reach Bethlehem!

***

The hymn sung on the feast of St. Nicholas reminds us that at the Christmas service, each of us will receive what we have prepared for.

“At the Christmas service, each of us will receive what we have prepared. We eat the dish that we have cooked. We sleep in the bed we have made. We reap what we have sown. By God’s great love, a person is given exactly what he is ready for. The Lord always grants us what we desire. What we expect, we reap. Each one receives according to the readiness of his heart. One receives God, another receives the church hymns, a third receives the meaning of certain sacred texts, and a fourth—the Kingdom of Heaven,” writes Archimandrite Emilian (Vafidis)Emilian (Vafidis), Archimandrite

“>Archimandrite Aimilianos (Vafidis).

Prepare O Bethlehem, the Lord is already drawing nigh!

ROME — Looking back over the last 12 months on the Vatican beat, it’s tempting to call 2024 “tumultuous” — tempting, that is, but also superfluous. Since he ascended to the Throne of Peter in 2013, absolutely every year in the Pope Francis era has been tumultuous, so why should 2024 be any different?

In thinking about the year we’ve just witnessed, there was no shortage of drama, and therefore plenty of candidates for its most memorable moments. What follows is a rundown of my own choices for top five Vatican stories of 2024 … and, in keeping what we might call the “spirit of synodality,” the aim here is to start conversations, not end them.

5. A tale of one city, seen twice

Over the summer, Paris became a focus for Catholic outrage when a July 26 opening ceremony for the Olympics featured a segment with drag queens allegedly designed to celebrate diversity, but which many saw as an offensive parody of the Last Supper. The French bishops called the spectacle “a derision and mockery of Christianity,” and were quickly joined by other bishops and Catholic leaders from around the world.

Eventually the display drew protests from other religious groups as well, prominently including Muslim leaders. The Vatican was a bit late to the party, waiting a full week to speak out, but eventually condemned “the offense done to many Christians and believers of other religions.”

Yet five months later, the bad taste left by the Olympics controversy seemed washed away by a remarkable ceremony on Dec. 7 to reopen the famed Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, which had been devastated by a massive fire in 2019.

Presided over by Archbishop Laurent Ulrich of Paris, the ceremony was attended by French President Emanuel Macron, who described the rehabilitation of the cathedral within just five years’ as “proof that we can do great things, we can do the impossible.” Macron was joined by President-elect Donald Trump, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, and other dignitaries from across the globe.

“Notre Dame, model of faith, open your doors to gather in joy the scattered children of God,” Ulrich cried out in front of the cathedral’s central door, proceeding to strike it three times with his pastoral staff, which was made from a wooden beam of the cathedral that had survived the fire.

In 2024, Paris was twice the center of the Catholic world — and, for many, its second act largely redeemed the first.

4. Asian odyssey

Pope Francis, at the age of 87, undertook the longest and most demanding overseas trip of his pontificate Sept. 2-13, traveling to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and Singapore. All in, the trip logged more than 20,000 miles by air and saw the pope switch time zones almost as often as he did vestments.

At the level of content, the trip allowed Francis to move the ball of multiple pastoral and geopolitical concerns. In Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation, he deepened his outreach to Islam; in Papua New Guinea, he solidified his reputation as the “Pope of the Peripheries,” visiting one of the most rural nations on earth where small, isolated tribal communities speak 840 separate languages; in East Timor, he celebrated the faith in one of the most pervasively Catholic societies on the planet; and finally, Singapore gave the pope a platform to address neighboring China too.

Beyond that, the trip also had a significant impact in reframing impressions of the octogenarian pontiff’s health and resilience. Prior to the Asian outing, many commentators were focusing on his various ailments and occasional need to withdraw from certain events to suggest the end might be near; afterward, the consensus seemed Francis might be good to go for a while yet.

3. Election season

2024 brought two high-stake elections, first the race for the European Parliament in June and then the U.S. presidential race in November. Though the Vatican obviously took no formal position in either contest, it’s nonetheless fair to say that Pope Francis and his team likely weren’t entirely satisfied with either result.

In Europe, the main center-right faction, the European People’s Party of Ursula von der Leyen, won the most seats, enough to keep von der Leyen in power and the Euroskeptic faction at bay. Yet far-right populist parties, Francis’s political bête noire, made significant gains, while leftist, social democratic, and green parties took a drubbing.

Of course, Trump, whom Francis once famously described as “not a Christian” for his positions on immigration, also triumphed in the U.S., along with his running mate J.D. Vance, a convert to Catholicism, though not quite to the “social gospel” embodied by Francis.

In both cases, Catholics were partially responsible for the results. In the American election, Trump and Vance won the Catholic vote overall by roughly 56% to 41%, and they did even better among white Catholics. Meanwhile in Europe, seven nations now have far-right parties in their governing coalitions, and five of the seven are majority Catholic countries, meaning those parties had to have attracted significant Catholic support. (That list famously includes Italy, the pope’s own backyard.)

2024 confirmed, in other words, that Francis can lead, but that doesn’t always mean his flock will follow.

2. The fracas over Fiducia

While the issuance of Fiducia Supplicans (“Supplicating Trust”), the Vatican document authorizing blessings of persons involved in same-sex unions, technically occurred at the end of 2023, the firestorm it set off unfolded in 2024.

After a tit-for-tat cycle over a couple of weeks of one bishop or bishops’ conference praising Fiducia while another lamented it, things seemed to reach a sort of crescendo on Jan. 11, when the bishops of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of African and Madagascar released a joint statement.

“We African bishops do not consider it appropriate for Africa to bless homosexual unions or same-sex couples, because this would cause confusion,” they said.

The bottom line, according to the statement, is that there will be “no blessings for same-sex couples in the African churches.”

It was the first time that the bishops of an entire continent had ever flatly rejected a papally approved decree. Even more remarkable, Pope Francis basically countenanced the dissent, giving his consent to Ambongo to publish the SECAM statement when he presented it to the pontiff in a private audience.

The significance appears to be twofold.

First, the controversy over Fiducia seems to have created a de facto Catholic equivalent of jury nullification. If a significant enough cohort of bishops rises up and says no, the Vatican eventually will be forced to accept that dissent, effectively making the implementation of such decrees a matter of local option.

Second, the contretemps created a new papabile, or candidate to be pope, in Congo’s 64-year-old Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu. His deft handling of the situation, firmly asserting the position of the African episcopate but also showing deference to the pope by receiving his blessing before rolling it out, won admirers on both the Catholic right and left, and left some observers wondering if he might be able to bridge divides in a future conclave.

1. The sound of (synod) silence

Across the history of science, sometimes the most groundbreaking and consequential experiments actually produced negative results. The famous Michelson-Morley experiment at Case Western University in 1887, for example, disproved the notion of the “luminiferous ether,” long regarded by physicists as the medium through which light waves passed through the air. That finding paved the way for Einstein’s special theory of relativity in 1905.

In a similar fashion, the grand experiment of the Synod of Bishops on Synodality, which came to close in October after three years of consultations, listening sessions, surveys, round tables, and debates of all sorts, produced what one might term a negative result on its most hot-button topics. There was no ordination of women deacons, no revision of teaching on sexuality or marriage in outreach to the LGBTQ+ community, no married priests, no direct election of bishops — in effect, none of the revolutionary changes which some Catholics had ardently desired, and others dreaded.

Officially, the explanation is that the synod was always about process, not outcomes, and that its main fruit was to give rise to a new way of being church, one in which all constituencies have a place at the (round) table. Others might credit stronger than expected conservative resistance, or suggest that Pope Francis himself put on the brakes, shaken in part by the example of the Germany “synodal path” and its open defiance of Vatican pleas to slow down.

However one explains it, what didn’t happen as a result of the 2024 synod rates as the year’s biggest Catholic story. The question now is whether that negative outcome will have the positive results Francis obviously desires going forward.

Belyaevsky, Odessa Province, Ukraine, December 31, 2024

​Fr. Evgeny, Matushka Anna, and their first daughter. Photo: Facebook A priest of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church who was forcibly drafted a week and a half ago has been released.

On December 21, on his way home from visiting his wife in the hospital where she had just given birth to their second child, Fr. Evgeny Rozhdestvensky was taken from a mobile checkpoint to the local military recruitment center. Despite failing the medical examination, he was sent on for military training.

Six days later, his relative Archpriest Nikolai Karpenko reported that Fr. Evgeny had been released.

“This morning, the lawyer was able to get Fr. Evgeny from the military recruitment office. Perhaps your prayers contributed to certain amendments in legislation, as now clergy have exemption from conscription, and this also influenced the circumstances,” Fr. Nikolay wrote.

He expressed gratitude to all who have supported and prayed for Fr. Evgeny and his family, as well as to the legal department of the Odessa Diocese and the lawyer who fought for the priest’s release.

“May the Lord reward you for your prayers and care, granting you peace, prosperity, and blessing in all your endeavors,” Fr. Nikolai concludes.

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The week before Christmas I had the rare privilege to share an amazing story with the world: how the Lord had worked a miracle in the life of one of our new priests.

I ordained Father Juan Gutierrez just two years ago, and he serves now as associate pastor at St. John the Baptist Church in Baldwin Park.

In 2017, when he was a seminarian at our St. John’s Seminary, he suffered a serious leg injury while playing basketball with some other seminarians.

Facing a painful surgery, Father Juan prayed to Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, asking for his intercession. And he was healed.

His healing was a miracle. His doctors could not explain it. There are MRIs documenting what his leg looked like before his prayer and after his prayer.

Of course, “miracle” is a word that gets overused in our culture and is not well understood.

But the Scriptures tell us that Jesus worked miracles on earth: he gave eyesight to a blind man, made a lame man walk, and raised a young girl from the dead, to recall just a few.

And we believe that Jesus continues to work miracles from heaven, often through the intercession of the saints who are close to him in glory there.

We don’t pray to the saints, but we do ask the saints to pray for us. We believe that Jesus hears our prayers, but we also believe that he hears the prayers that the saints make for us.

We believe this because it’s true. The Book of Revelation gives us a glimpse of heaven and shows us the prayers of the saints burning like incense in golden bowls before the throne of God. 

Father Gutierrez notified officials in the Vatican that he had received a great favor through the intercessory prayers of Frassati.

The Vatican investigated his claim, interviewed the doctors, studied the medical evidence, and concluded that indeed, his healing was a miracle.

Pope Francis has now decided that, on account of this miracle, he will declare Frassati a saint in August 2025, during the Jubilee of Youth.

I encourage you to read all about the details in this issue of Angelus and watch our full press conference on our website.

Our God is a God of miracles. This story reminds us of that.

The Lord is still working in your life and mine. He created us, he loves us, and he will see us through. He hears our prayers and he goes with us in the journey of our life. And we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, by the saints and angels in heaven, including our guardian angels, who watch over and guide us.

At our press conference, Gutierrez said something I found moving: “To be part of this miracle has been like being on a roller coaster. … But at the end of the day, I am left with a heart filled with gratitude and awe at what God does in our lives.”

We have been truly blessed here in Los Angeles that God has raised up for us so many saints, just to name a few: Venerable Alfonso Gallegos, a priest and bishop, Venerable Maria Luisa Josefa of the Blessed Sacrament, Blessed María Inés Teresa Arias, and the great missionary St. Junípero Serra, founder of the Church in Los Angeles.

We have also been blessed with visits from many saints from across the universal Church, from St. Frances Xavier Cabrini to St. Pope John Paul II, St. Mother Teresa, and St. Dulce Lopes Pontes, known as “Irmã Dulce.”

Los Angeles is truly a city of the angels and also a city of saints. Now, we have a new saint who is watching over us from heaven.

And Blessed Pier Frassati truly is a saint for our times, a model for all of us, but especially for our young people.

He was a young man who loved life and enjoyed it to the full. He was a good friend to others, a good son, and a good brother. And he was a man of deep prayer who taught us to find Jesus in the holy Eucharist and in the face of the poor.

Some of his last words were these: “I will wait for them all in heaven.” And I am confident that through his prayers, Our Lord will lead many to follow him there.

Pray for me, and I will pray for you.

And let us ask our Blessed Mother Mary to help us to live in this new year, the Jubilee of Hope, with a greater sense of wonder at all God’s gifts and blessings.

Bishops worldwide celebrated the opening of the 2025 Holy Year Dec. 29 with Masses in their cathedrals and co-cathedrals to mark the jubilee, which is themed “Pilgrims of Hope.”

The Masses were celebrated with the Rite of the Opening of the Jubilee Year. In the Archdiocese of New York, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan began Mass at the back of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan with a prayer opening what he called “the Holy Year of Hope.”

The prayer called God “the hope that does not disappoint, the beginning and the end” and asked him to bless the “pilgrim journey this Holy Year.”

“Bind up the wounds of hearts that are broken, loosen the chains that hold us slaves of sin, and grant your people joy of the Spirit so that they may walk with renewed hope toward their longed-for destiny, Christ, your son, our Lord, who lives and reigns forever and ever,” he prayed.

That prayer was followed by a Gospel reading from John 14, in which Jesus explained to his disciples his relationship to God the Father, and then a reading from the papal bull announcing the Jubilee Year. Then, Archbishop Dolan said, “Hail, O Cross of Christ, our only true hope,” to which the congregation replied: “You are our hope. We will never be confounded.”

Jubilee prayers were repeated across the United States as bishops opened the Jubilee Year on the feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, which is celebrated on the Sunday after Christmas Day. In some dioceses, the opening rite preceded a procession of the faithful to or within the cathedral for Mass. The procession was to include a jubilee cross, a cross of significance for the local church designated for a special liturgical role during the Jubilee Year.

A jubilee or holy year is a special year in the life of the church currently celebrated every 25 years. The most recent ordinary jubilee was in 2000, with Pope Francis calling for an Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy in 2015-2016.

Jubilee years have been held on regular intervals in the Catholic Church since 1300, but they trace their roots to the Jewish tradition of marking a jubilee year every 50 years.

According to the Vatican website for the jubilee, these years in Jewish history were “intended to be marked as a time to re-establish a proper relationship with God, with one another, and with all of creation, and involved the forgiveness of debts, the return of misappropriated land, and a fallow period for the fields.”

On Dec. 24, Pope Francis opened the Holy Doors at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican to launch the holy year. Coinciding with other diocesan celebrations Dec. 29, Cardinal Baldo Reina, vicar general of the Diocese of Rome, opened Holy Doors at St. John Lateran, the pope’s cathedral.

Holy Doors will also open at Rome’s other two major basilicas, St. Mary Major and St. Paul Outside the Walls, Jan. 1 and Jan. 5, respectively. Pope Francis also opened Holy Doors Dec. 26 at Rome’s Rebibbia prison, which Vatican officials said was a papal first. Unlike the practice in the Year of Mercy, diocesan cathedrals will not designate their own holy doors.

At the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral Dec. 29, Cardinal Blase J. Cupich began his homily with an explanation of the origins of the jubilee year.

“It is rooted in the Book of Leviticus, in which the people come together and realized that they needed a fresh start. They needed an opportunity to begin again,” he said. “And so debts were forgiven, sentences were commuted, enemies who fought each other were asked not to engage in battle but in reconciliation — and the church has taken that same spirit and each 25 years proclaims a jubilee year because we all need a fresh start.”

“It’s kind of a religious mulligan,” he said, referring in golf to a second chance after a poor shot. “We get to start all over again. We get to have a fresh moment, a new beginning, in which we allow the mercy of God to uproot and invade our otherwise very human sense of justice that focuses on retribution rather than reconciliation. We need a fresh start, a new moment in life, and that is what this year is to be for us.”

Cardinal Cupich said that it is the “Holy Family themselves that give us an example of what it means to be those pilgrims of hope.”

“In the Gospels, the only time that we see the entire Holy Family together is when they’re going someplace, when they’re on pilgrimage. They’re defined by being pilgrims,” he said. “They are the ones who remind us that we always have to take another step in life. We can never become complacent about our faith, about becoming more human.”

In his homily, Cardinal Dolan focused on the “three families” established by God — the human family, the natural family into which each person is born, and the supernatural family of the church which is entered through baptism and includes the communion of saints.

As with natural families, members of the church may drift away from, get mad at or become embarrassed or hurt by their “spiritual family, the church,” he said.

“But that’s also true of our natural, earthly families, isn’t it?,” he asked. “Our identity as a member of this family, the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic church, cannot be erased.

“I’m as much a Catholic as I am a Dolan — as much as, at times, both of those family names might exasperate me,” he added with a smile.

Like a natural family, the church is also always a home ready to welcome its members, he said.

In Boston at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Archbishop Richard G. Henning also reflected on the gift of family and its central importance during the inauguration of the Jubilee Year, one of his first official acts as archbishop of Boston.

Lives shared with family and friends give people a sense of joy, contentment and hope, which is underscored both by the feast of the Holy Family and within the Jubilee Year, he said.

Living in communion with God and one another is where people can find hope, he said. In a world that is often violent and confusing, he added, hope and peace come “from God alone.”

“Maybe it was COVID that unveiled that truth for us most particularly: We need to be with one another. We need to be for one another,” he said. “And in a very real sense, God gives us the gift of each other.”

At the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey, Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin preached about the Holy Family’s journeys, their human dynamics, and the meaning of the Holy Year.

To receive the forgiveness and hope offered in the Holy Year, “we set off like pilgrims,” he said. “Pilgrims are people on (the) move. Pilgrims are not wanderers with no particular place to go. Pilgrims are people with destinations. They know where they are going, and therefore they know who they are. Their destination is the kingdom of heaven, where our hope in Jesus Christ will be vindicated.”

Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo celebrated the jubilee in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston at the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Houston, where he focused his homily on the day’s reading from the book of Sirach, the identity of Jesus, and the Gospel account of Jesus pointing to God the father when talking with his earthly parents after they found him at the temple.

“Pope Francis says we should be looking for Jesus and walking with him as Mary and Joseph did,” he said, stressing the role of Mary as the perfect disciple of hope.

“In this discipleship of hope, we should also be looking for those who are at the margins and are outcasts,” he continued, saying that they are people who would help us “to hear again and understand again the identity of Jesus.”

The cardinal also pointed out that the Texas archdiocese celebrated a second opening Mass at St. Mary Cathedral Basilica in Galveston that day.

He encouraged the faithful to share this hope in God. “Find one person who seems to be out of hope, maybe anxious, maybe despairing. Take their cause to yourself. Become friendly. Allow your sense of hope that you gained from your Christian faith, your Catholic understanding of faith, shine on them,” Cardinal DiNardo said.

At the Cathedral Basilica of St. Peter in Chains in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Archbishop Dennis M. Schnurr said that “in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus makes clear that his own mission is to bring jubilee.”

“In the synagogue at Nazareth, he reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor,” he said in his homily. “He states, ‘The spirit of the Lord has been given to me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, and recover of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’ After reading, Jesus announces, ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’”

“Jesus shows us what God’s kingdom of justice, compassion and freedom looks like,” Archbishop Schnurr said, “and he invites us to join him in making it a reality.”

In the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the jubilee cross that led the faithful into the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels was from its dedication in 2002. It was explained it would remain on display for veneration during the Holy Year as a “sign that the cross of Christ is the firm anchor of our hope,” and with the eyes fixed on Jesus, “we can weather the storms of life with the hope flowing from his resurrection.”

During his homily, Archbishop José H. Gomez talked about how fitting it was that the rite of opening the Jubilee Year in dioceses across the world took place during the feast of the Holy Family.

“Every jubilee reminds us that we are all on pilgrimage,” he said, pointing to the image of the Holy Family making their pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Passover. Hope, he said, “is born on Christmas in the child who comes to us in the silence of the night.”

During this Jubilee Year, the Lord is “again knocking on the door of our hearts” to be open to him, the archbishop said.

“And as children of God, we are called to grow in the image and likeness of our brother Jesus, every day more and more confirming our lives to his,” he continued. “This is the purpose and the goal of our earthly pilgrimage: That we become like Jesus is God’s plan for our life, for your life and my life. His will is that we be sanctified, that we become holy as Jesus is holy.”

Some Masses included the hymn “Pilgrims of Hope,” which the Holy See commissioned for the Jubilee Year.

More than 30 million pilgrims are expected in Rome over the course of the Jubilee Year, with many of them seeking a special indulgence offered in the Holy Year. However, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Divine Worship, the Jubilee indulgence may be obtained in Catholics’ local dioceses by visiting cathedrals or other churches or sacred places designated by the local bishop.

Some bishops offered the Holy Year’s plenary indulgence during the Dec. 29 Masses. The Holy Year will end at St. Peter’s Jan. 6, 2026, with diocesan celebrations ending Dec. 28, 2025.

Mt. Athos, December 27, 2024

Photo: ieramonopatia.gr     

The Sacred Community of Mount Athos has announced new measures regarding pilgrims’ access, which will come into effect from January 1, 2025.

The decision was made due to the increasing number of visitors, as well as to avoid disturbing the monastic life and prayer schedule, reports the Basilica News Agency.

According to the new rules, the maximum number of pilgrims that can be accommodated in the monasteries and monastic settlements of the Holy Mountain will be strictly limited as follows:

• For cenobitic holy sketes: maximum 200 pilgrims per month

• For kyriakon (central churches) of other sketes: maximum 50 pilgrims per month

• For holy cells and huts: maximum 20 pilgrims per month

• Invitations must be sent to the Pilgrims’ Office no later than 12:00 on the day before arrival

• Groups larger than 5 pilgrims are prohibited unless they are students, novices, or military personnel

• Pilgrims’ access will be permitted exclusively based on invitations. Moving and requesting accommodation at other cells or monasteries without an official invitation from them is strictly prohibited

Additionally, during major feast periods, temporary flexibility will be allowed, but only with approval from the Mt. Athos Pilgrimage Office.

To prevent overcrowding, all pilgrims must request and receive approval from the Pilgrimage Office at least one day before arrival, by 12:00.

The Sacred Community is the supreme administrative, legislative, executive, and judicial body of Mt. Athos, composed of 20 delegates from the 20 ruling monasteries.

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Jonathan Swift is best remembered today for writing “Gulliver’s Travels,” but he wrote other things that are still read by students of classic English prose. Prominent among these is a bitterly satirical work known by its shortened title, “A Modest Proposal.” Published anonymously as a pamphlet in 1729 in Dublin, where Swift was dean of the Anglican cathedral, the “proposal” purports to originate with a public-spirited citizen who wants to share a bright idea for solving Irish overpopulation and poverty.

How? The idea is to sell the babies of poor Irish couples to rich people, to be cooked and eaten as delicacies. Stewed, roasted, baked or broiled, the author assures his readers, a year-old child is “most delicious, nourishing and wholesome food.” The point of Swift’s grim mockery was that, morally speaking, England’s real-life policy toward Ireland was not much better than a grisly scheme for generating revenue by selling and eating Irish babies.

I thought of Swift while reading (re-reading really — it’s one of my favorite books) Evelyn Waugh’s short novel “The Loved One.” Before the story gets underway, Waugh cautions particularly sensitive readers that what follows may be a bit more than they can stomach. But as it turns out, the message underlying this seemingly ghastly book is profoundly different.

Let me explain.

Waugh published “The Loved One” in 1948 after a trip to Hollywood and a visit to a huge Los Angeles cemetery. The book is the result. On one level it’s an absurdist farce of courtship and rivalry enacted by three people: Dennis Barlow, a British poet and cheerful cynic, a celebrated embalmer called Mr. Joyboy (nowhere in the book does anyone use his first name), and a young mortuary cosmetician, Aimee Thanatagenos (the name means “Begotten by Death” in Greek), said to have “eyes greenish and remote, with a rich glint of lunacy.”

Besides these three, “The Loved One” features two cemeteries, both with central roles in the narrative. “Whispering Glades” is a human cemetery designed as an elaborately confected artifact where piped-in music is likely to be the “Hindu Love Song” but never the Dies Irae (“Day of Wrath”). The other cemetery is “Happier Hunting Ground,” where grieving pet owners splurge on their departed little friends.

As the story unfolds, a message of profound seriousness emerges. In a culture obsessed with death but entirely without faith, the difference between these two cemeteries is negligible. And one way to escape the implications of that unsettling state of affairs is by cosmeticizing death.

Whispering Glades is the temple of a kind of worldly mysticism in which fear of death and fascination with it come together in something unspeakably grotesque. It’s religious all right, but this religion bears no resemblance to Christianity. The ritualistic preparation of corpses, the lavish Slumber Rooms, and the elaborate pomposity of the cemetery grounds combine as setting for a monstrous secular paganism focused on death.

The message underlying “The Loved One” remains as fresh and lively now as it was three quarters of a century ago. But it’s important to understand that message. At a key moment in the story, a cab driver passing a Catholic cemetery casually remarks that Catholics have their own way of handling all that. It’s the sole apologetical remark Waugh allows himself — and especially appropriate at Christmas. For the horrors of secularization are not found in mortuary procedures but in a world without faith. Whereas true faith rejoices in knowing that the life we celebrate at the stable in Bethlehem is the real answer to death.