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CNA Staff, Jun 16, 2025 / 14:19 pm (CNA).

The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered the New York Court of Appeals to revisit Diocese of Albany v. Harris, a case challenging a 2017 New York state mandate requiring employers to cover abortions in health insurance plans.

The order follows the court’s unanimous ruling on June 5 in Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission, which upheld First Amendment protections for religious organizations.

A coalition of religious groups, including the Dioceses of Albany and Ogdensburg, the Sisterhood of St. Mary (Anglican/Episcopal nuns), First Bible Baptist Church, and Catholic Charities, sued New York state in 2017, arguing the mandate forces them to violate their belief in the sanctity of life by forcing them to fund abortions.

In 2017, the New York State Department of Financial Services mandated that employer health plans cover “medically necessary” abortions. Initially, the state proposed exempting employers with religious objections, but abortion activists pressured the state for a narrower exemption that would apply only to religious groups that primarily teach religion and serve or employ only those of their own faith. 

This excluded many faith-based ministries that serve all people regardless of religious affiliation like the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm who run Teresian Nursing Home for all elderly and dying, and Catholic Charities, which offers adoption and maternity services.

Without relief, the groups face millions in fines or will have to eliminate employee health plans. 

In 2017, represented by religious liberty law group Becket and law firm Jones Day, the coalition challenged New York’s mandate. After state courts upheld it, the Supreme Court in 2021 reversed those rulings, citing Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, a Becket victory protecting Catholic foster care agencies.

However, New York’s Court of Appeals reaffirmed the mandate in May 2024, claiming Fulton was inapplicable and ignoring the Supreme Court’s ruling. At the time, Dennis Poust of the New York State Catholic Conference called the mandate “unconstitutional and unjust.” Becket and Jones Day appealed again on Sept. 17, 2024.

In the Catholic Charities ruling in early June, the Supreme Court rejected Wisconsin’s denial of a tax exemption to Catholic Charities for serving all without proselytizing, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor calling it a “textbook” First Amendment violation of the free exercise and establishment clauses, as it favored certain religious practices over others.

“New York wants to browbeat nuns into paying for abortions for serving all in need,” said Eric Baxter, Becket’s vice president. “For the second time in four years, the Supreme Court has made clear that bully tactics like these have no place in our nation or our law. We are confident that these religious groups will finally be able to care for the most vulnerable consistent with their beliefs.”

Noel J. Francisco of Jones Day added: “Religious groups in the Empire State should not be forced to provide insurance coverage that violates their deeply held religious beliefs.”

The case mirrors the Little Sisters of the Poor’s fight against a 2011 federal contraceptive mandate, where the Supreme Court ruled three times that religious groups cannot be forced to facilitate practices against their beliefs.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has defended the mandate as essential for women’s health care, labeling the plaintiffs “extremists.”

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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 16, 2025 / 13:49 pm (CNA).

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles will close its Center for Transyouth Health and Development and its transgender surgical program in July, citing federal and state-level funding pressures.

The hospital told families in an email that there was “no viable alternative” to closing the clinic, one of the nation’s largest, citing “the increasingly severe impacts of federal administrative actions and proposed policies,” including an executive order issued by President Donald Trump earlier in the year.

The center’s last day of operation will be July 22, according to the email, which was signed by clinic leaders including Paul Viviano and Kelly Johnson.

Earlier this year several hospitals in the United States suspended their child transgender programs after Trump’s order “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” which moved to halt the “maiming and sterilizing [of] a growing number of impressionable children” due to transgender ideology.

The executive order directed that medical institutions that receive federal research or education grants must not participate in the “chemical and surgical mutilation of children.”

The clinic leaders in their letter this week further cited directives from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and inquiries from federal authorities regarding quality standards at the children’s hospital as well as a May review on medical protocols from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Those factors, along with the FBI’s solicitation of tips to report hospitals performing transgender procedures on children, “strongly signal this administration’s intent to take swift and decisive action, both criminal and civil, against any entity it views as being in violation of the executive order,” the letter states.

The leaders said they would be hosting meetings in the coming days to discuss the looming closure.

According to a CDC study published last year, 3.3% of all U.S. high schoolers “identify as transgender,” with a further 2.2% of high schoolers “questioning” their “gender identity.”

Numerous U.S. states have moved lately to limit transgender procedures for minors, including surgical procedures and chemical prescriptions such as puberty blockers.

Last December the United Kingdom similarly made permanent its ban on children receiving puberty-blocking drugs meant to facilitate “gender transition.”

Smoke billows from an explosion in southwest Tehran on June 16, 2025. Iran’s state broadcaster was briefly knocked off the air by an Israeli strike and explosions rang out across Tehran on June 16 after a barrage of Iranian missiles killed 11 people in Israel on the fourth day of an escalating air war. / Credit: ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images

Vatican City, Jun 16, 2025 / 13:19 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV renewed the Church’s calls for nuclear disarmament and peaceful dialogue one day after Israel launched missile strikes on Iran.

The Holy Father spoke of his growing concerns for the Middle East on Saturday, shortly after delivering a catechesis to pilgrims attending the June 14–15 Jubilee of Sport.

“The situation in Iran and Israel has seriously deteriorated,” the pope told pilgrims inside St. Peter’s Basilica. “At such a delicate moment, I wish to strongly renew an appeal to responsibility and reason.”

“Our commitment to building a safer world free from the nuclear threat must be pursued through respectful encounters and sincere dialogue,” he insisted. 

Leo XIV said it is the “duty of all countries” to initiate “paths of reconciliation” and promote solutions — founded on justice, fraternity, and the common good — to build lasting peace and security in the region.

“No one should ever threaten another’s existence,” he said. 

Open warfare between the two Middle East nations entered its fourth day on Monday after Israel launched the initial deadly attack on June 13, just hours after Iran announced plans to activate its third nuclear facility, the Associated Press reported.

Both religious and political leaders have urged Israel and Iran to end the increasing military violence, impacting thousands of civilians, and enter into dialogue. 

Bishop A. Elias Zaidan, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace, echoed Pope Leo’s calls for peaceful solutions in the region. 

“We urge the United States and the broader international community to exert every effort to renew a multilateral diplomatic engagement for the attainment of a durable peace between Israel and Iran,” Zaidan said on Monday.

“The further proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, as well as this escalation of violence, imperils the fragile stability remaining in the region,” he added.

In May, the U.N. censured Iran for not complying with nonproliferation obligations after the International Atomic Energy Agency warned the nations had increased its nuclear stockpile in its latest report.

António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, said on X on Saturday: “Israeli bombardment of Iranian nuclear sites. Iranian missile strikes in Tel Aviv. Enough escalation. Time to stop. Peace and diplomacy must prevail.”

The number of deaths, injuries, and the displaced in Iran and Iraq are expected to rise as both countries continue to launch ongoing missile strikes and retaliatory attacks.

Archbishop Georg Gänswein has been the Vatican’s nuncio to the Baltic states since 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA

Rome Newsroom, Jun 16, 2025 / 12:49 pm (CNA).

Archbishop Georg Gänswein, the Vatican’s nuncio to the Baltic states since 2024, said the region has been disappointed with the current U.S. administration’s approach to the conflict in Ukraine.

Speaking about the Russia-Ukraine war, Pope Benedict XVI’s former secretary said: “The major powers play a major role here, and the Baltic states are somewhat disappointed with the attitude of the current U.S. administration. They expected something different.”

Gänswein spoke about his role as a nuncio and the Holy See’s peace efforts in a June 13 interview with Rudolf Gehrig of EWTN News and CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner. The archbishop took up his post in the nunciature in Vilnius, Lithuania, last year after 17 years as the personal secretary of Pope Benedict XVI and 11 years as prefect of the Papal Household.

In the interview, he said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is strongly felt in the capital of Lithuania, which is just over 370 miles from Kyiv, the capital city of Ukraine. He said a nuncio — the pope’s representative to a country — “can’t do anything specifically. … It always goes through the Holy See, rightly so.”

“The Holy See is,” he continued, “a bridge builder — this was one of the new pope’s first words: peace. ‘Peace be with you!’” 

Playing off of Pope Leo XIV’s love of tennis, Gänswein called the pope’s first words after his election “a first serve of his pontificate.”

“A lot is being done,” he noted, but “it’s impossible to say now how successful it is. A constant drip wears away the stone.”

Overall, a “mistrust of the Russians, especially [President Vladimir] Putin,” can be felt among the population, the archbishop said. This goes back to the influence of the communist dictatorship at the time of the Iron Curtain.

“There is an atmospheric presence of war,” said Gänswein, who added: “It is important to see reality, to accept it, but also to take it seriously. We must continue to live life normally. And as Christians, we have the great gift of having clear hope and a clear mission in our faith.”

Ecumenism in times of ‘fratricidal war’

Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has also made ecumenism with the Orthodox churches more difficult, Gänswein explained. The Orthodox Church in the Baltic countries, which was initially under the Patriarchate of Moscow, turned away from the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Cyril I, who even tried to legitimize the war in religious terms.

“How can the patriarch support the war — it is actually a fratricidal war, i.e. Orthodox fighting Orthodox; how can he support it,” Gänswein said. “This is a new bone of contention, so it’s important not to cut the strings — these are no longer bridges — but to hold them.”

While Lithuania is 80% Catholic, the balance of power between Catholics and Orthodox Christians in Latvia is almost evenly distributed at 20% each. In Estonia, on the other hand, as much as a fifth of the population is of Russian origin, a noticeable influence, the nuncio said.

Shortly after the start of the Russian invasion, Cyril I and Pope Francis met for a video call on March 16, 2022, at the patriarch’s request. The Swiss Cardinal Kurt Koch, who was present at the meeting, later reported in an interview with EWTN News that “the pope spoke very clearly when he said to the patriarch: ‘We are not state clerics, we are shepherds of the people. And therefore it must be our task to end this war.’”

Meanwhile, Gänswein emphasized that the Vatican is still needed in its role as mediator. 

Rift with Pope Francis?

In the interview, the archbishop also responded to media claims that there had been a major rift between him and Pope Francis.

“It wasn’t always easy,” he said, but “not everything was as the press reported, that it was a big ‘falling out.’ So that’s not true.”

“There were certain difficulties, certain tensions, but they were resolved in January 2024” when he had an audience with Pope Francis, he explained, calling that the beginning of the easing of tension between them: “The fact that I was subsequently appointed nuncio in the Baltic countries is certainly one of the fruits of this.”

Gänswein was suspended from his post as prefect of the Papal Household at the beginning of 2020. After Pope Benedict XVI’s death on Dec. 31, 2022, Pope Francis sent the archbishop back to his home diocese in Freiburg, Germany. Just under a year later, in June 2024, Pope Francis appointed him apostolic nuncio of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

“It wasn’t the case that we parted on bad terms,” Gänswein affirmed. 

Looking back, he said the meetings with Pope Francis in early January 2024, the appointment as nuncio in June 2024, and another audience as nuncio in November 2024 “gave him inner peace again.”

A recent visit to Francis’ tomb to pray for the deceased pope “completed the reconciliation,” the archbishop said.

In 1965, at the close of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI gave Jacques Maritain a message directed to “men of thought and science.” / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Jun 16, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

The Vatican Museums inaugurated June 12 the exhibition “Paul VI and Jacques Maritain: The Renewal of Sacred Art Between France and Italy (1945–1973),” a tribute to the friendship between the celebrated French philosopher and the pope who succeeded John XXIII and concluded the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965).

The project focuses on Maritain (1882–1973), a neo-Thomist thinker and key figure in the dialogue between faith, culture, and art in the 20th century. 

Appointed ambassador to the Holy See by French President Charles de Gaulle after the Second World War, Maritain lived in Rome from 1945 to 1948. During that time, his friendship with Giovanni Battista Montini (the future Pope Paul VI), whom he had met in Paris in 1924, was strengthened. 

Maritain’s thinking influenced the fundamental concepts underlying the Second Vatican Council, particularly his idea of ​​an “integral humanism” in which Christian faith, human dignity, and artistic expression converge.

Along with his wife, Raïssa Oumansoff, with whom he converted to Catholicism in 1906, Maritain was at the center of an international intellectual elite that included poets, philosophers, artists, and mystics such as Charles Péguy, Léon Bloy, Paul Claudel, Jean Cocteau, and Georges Rouault, the latter considered by Maritain to be one of his closest artistic interpreters.

The exhibition, which is part of the 2025 Jubilee and will be open throughout the summer, commemorates several significant events: the 80th anniversary of Jacques Maritain’s appointment as French ambassador to the Holy See in 1945 and the almost simultaneous founding of the French Institute-St. Louis Center in Rome by Maritain; the 60th anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council in December 1965; and the inauguration of the Modern Religious Art Collection, promoted by Paul VI in June 1973.

For the director of the Vatican Museums, Barbara Jatta, these anniversaries “make clear the wealth of historical inspiration that this project offers to the public from the papal museums.”

The exhibition — through photographs, documents, and paintings that create a dialogue between spirituality, Christian thought, and avant-garde art — traces the spiritual and intellectual bond between the French philosopher and then-Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini.

“The relationship with the pontiff lasted well beyond the diplomatic experience and was quite intense during the Second Vatican Council, to whose development Maritain’s neo-Thomist thought contributed,” Jatta noted.

The museum director also noted that Maritain and his wife, Raïssa, of Russian origin, formed a highly influential international cultural circle throughout the 20th century, bringing together artists, thinkers, and religious figures. In fact, the couple also gathered together a significant collection of works of art, many of which became part of the initial holdings of the Vatican Museums’ Collection of Modern Religious Art.

“They spent significant time together in the early days of the Vatican Collection, because in addition to reaffirming the uninterrupted and mutual esteem between Montini and Maritain, it underscores how the latter immediately understood the scope of Paul VI’s project, of which the philosopher himself was one of the theoretical driving forces,” Jatta explained.

This project took on a public and official form with the famous address to artists delivered by Paul VI in the Sistine Chapel on May 7, 1964, in which he called for healing the “divorce between the Church and contemporary art.”

Indeed, this request culminated with the opening of the collection on June 23, 1973, “in the historic heart of the Vatican Museums, between the Borgia Apartments with its various rooms leading to the Sistine Chapel.”

The exhibition brings together paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, period volumes, and material objects that document an intense network of friendship and collaboration between thinkers and artists committed to the spiritual renewal of art.

Prominent artists include Maurice Denis, Émile Bernard, Gino Severini (with works for Swiss churches promoted by Cardinal Charles Journet), Georges Rouault (perhaps the artist closest to Maritain), and Marc Chagall, a close friend of Raïssa, whose visual narratives reveal a unique sensibility inspired by Jewish folklore. 

The exhibit also includes works by Henri Matisse, with his famous Vence Chapel, and the American William Congdon, an artist of strong mystical inspiration, known to Maritain in the years leading up to the council.

Also featured is the Dominican priest Marie-Alain Couturier, another great innovator of sacred art in France. His perspective, more progressive and different from Maritain’s, is integrated into the exhibition as a sign of Paul VI’s openness to multiple currents within contemporary Catholic thought.

Curated by Micol Forti, head of the Vatican Museums’ modern and contemporary art collection, the display is located at the heart of the exhibition dedicated to present-day art, between the Raphael Rooms and the Sistine Chapel.

The exhibition is the result of a collaboration between the Vatican Museums and various cultural institutions, including the French Embassy to the Holy See, the French Institute-St. Louis Center, and the Strasbourg National and University Library.

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

Pope Leo XIV waves to those gathered for Mass for the Jubilee of Sport on the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity on June 15, 2025, in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Vatican City, Jun 15, 2025 / 11:46 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV presided over the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity in St. Peter’s Basilica on Sunday and invited Catholics to enter the “dynamism of God’s inner life” and be open to encounter with others.

Celebrating the solemnity, which coincided with the June 14–15 Jubilee of Sport, in the Vatican on the morning of June 15, the Holy Father asked pilgrims who belong to sports teams and associations to glorify God through their daily training.

“Dear athletes, the Church entrusts you with a beautiful mission: to reflect in all your activities the love of the Triune God, for your own good and for that of your brothers and sisters,” the Holy Father said in his Sunday homily.  

Though the “juxtaposition” of celebrating the Trinity and sport may seem “somewhat unusual” at first, Leo said the relationship between the two reveals God’s infinite beauty is reflected in “every good and worthwhile human activity.”

“For God is not immobile and closed in on himself, but activity, communion, a dynamic relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, which opens up to humanity and to the world,” he said. 

“Sport can thus help us to encounter the Triune God, because it challenges us to relate to others and with others, not only outwardly but also, and above all, interiorly,” he explained.

Sport as a school of virtue, encounter, and sanctity

According to the Holy Father, in a society marked by solitude, digital communications, and competition, sports are “a precious means for training in human and Christian virtues.”

He said families, communities, schools, and workplaces can be places where genuine encounters among people can take place. 

“Where radical individualism has shifted the emphasis from ‘us’ to ‘me,’ resulting in a deficit of real concern for others, sport — especially team sports — teaches the value of cooperating, working together, and sharing,” Leo said. 

“These, as we said, are at the very heart of God’s own life,” he added. 

Comparing healthy and unhealthy attitudes toward sport, the Holy Father emphasized that sport is more than an “empty competition of inflated egos” and is also a means of sanctification and evangelization. 

“St. John Paul II hit the mark when he said that Jesus is ‘the true athlete of God’ because he defeated the world not by strength but by the fidelity of love,” he said.

“It is no coincidence that sport has played a significant role in the lives of many saints in our day,” he continued. 

Reflecting on the life of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, the patron saint of athletes who will be canonized on Sept. 7 alongside Blessed Carlo Acutis, Leo told the congregation — several of whom belong to sport teams and associations — “just as no one is born a champion, no one is born a saint.” 

“It is daily training in love that brings us closer to final victory and enables us to contribute to the building of a new world,” he said.  

First Angelus address

In spite of 95-degree summer heat, thousands of pilgrims spilled into St. Peter’s Square after Mass to listen to Leo’s first Angelus address delivered in front of the basilica.

Continuing his message of sports as a means to foster a “culture of encounter and fraternity,” the Holy Father emphasized the “great need” for peace and an end to “all forms of violence and aggression” in the world.

The Holy Father asked for the intercession of Our Lady Queen of Peace before praying his first Angelus in the square in Latin and urging his listeners to pray for the end of conflicts in different parts of the world.

Calling for the end of conflicts in countries including Myanmar, Ukraine, and the Middle East, the Holy Father gave particular attention to the persecution of Christians in the African countries.

“Some 200 people were murdered, with extraordinary cruelty,” the pope said, referring to a massacre that took place in the village of Yelwata in Nigeria overnight.

“Most of the victims were internal refugees who were hosted by a local Catholic mission,” he lamented.

The Holy Father also appealed for the end to the civil war in Sudan, which began in 2023 and has since claimed thousands of lives, including the life of parish priest Father Luke Jumu, who died from his wounds after a bomb attack in El Fasher.

“I call on the international community to intensify efforts to provide at least basic assistance to the people affected by the grave humanitarian crisis,” he continued.

The Freedom Group was founded in 2023 and works to help men gain freedom from pornography addiction. / Credit: Courtesy of Joe Masek

CNA Staff, Jun 15, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

At 8 years old, Minnesota native Joe Masek was exposed to pornography for the first time and went on to struggle with an addiction to it for 23 years. Through a series of actions he finally gained freedom and after experiencing a calling to help other men, he founded a ministry called The Freedom Group in 2023.

About 100 men have gone through the ministry’s program each year since then. The group uses  a 12-month training system as well as additional courses and retreats to help men break free from porn addiction.

The Porn Free training system includes weekly coaching calls with a Freedom Coach, group coaching calls, performance and mindset coaching, simple daily habits to build discipline and rhythm, access to an app to connect and track progress, and more. There are also several courses that help individuals understand the neurological aspect of addiction and how to rewire the brain.

Based in the Twin Cities, The Freedom Group also offers individuals the opportunity to attend nature retreats, where they are encouraged to encounter God and themselves in a deeper way. Through guided reflections, group sessions, time alone, and physical adventure, participants learn how to live free from their addiction and become grounded in their true purpose. 

Masek, now 32, said he was first exposed to porn while using Limewire, an audio file downloading program used during the early 2000s. Believing he was downloading a music file, he ended up downloading a video file that contained pornographic images.

Around the same time, Masek was also sexually abused by an older peer. 

“​As a young 7-, 8-year-old kid, I experienced all the symptoms [that] now that I understand and we understand as adults trying to help other people in that same sort of way — a lot of sort of disconnection in my own experience of who am I and feeling dirty and worthless, but also looking for it and starting to have seeking behavior,” he told CNA in an interview.

He shared that the rest of his upbringing was “really good.” He grew up in a middle-class family who attended church every Sunday and he was very involved in youth group. But as he got older, he began to experience an “ever-increasing sort of dichotomy through faith life and this hidden life.”

It wasn’t until college that Masek found himself in a men’s group that was addressing sexual issues and was able to share his story in depth, releasing the “10,000-pound gorilla off my back.”

“So this was my first introduction to shame flowing out the front door of the house of my heart and it was massive for me,” he recalled. 

Soon afterward he went on a retreat and had his first confession in years, which he said was “a powerful experience.”

However, Masek continued to struggle — experiencing periods of sobriety and then turning back to his addiction. After years of trying everything he could, he started to piece together everything he was learning and experiencing into what is now the approach used in The Freedom Group. 

“In a three-month span, I went from basically a two- to three-week cycle where I felt like I hit a wall and couldn’t keep going to the point where I didn’t even have an inclination to use anymore when familiar triggers would come,” he said.

He then began leading a national marriage and family ministry and the more time he spent with young husbands and fathers, the more he saw this as a “core issue” and decided to leave that ministry to start The Freedom Group.

Masek shared that roughly 85% of the men his group works with are believers — either Catholic or evangelical. Therefore, faith does play a role in the program but “is really lived out in the experience.”

He explained that “any addiction is an intimacy disorder.” So The Freedom Group talks about intimacy in four dimensions: me and God, me and myself, me and others, and me and nature, or creation. These connections of intimacy then begin to shift as the brain begins to shift.

Masek gave the example of one man that he worked with who “had lived the model Christian life.” He worked in campus ministry, got married young, and had a family. However, he was suffering from anxiety, was disconnected from himself, and was not experiencing connections in any of the four dimensions of intimacy. Three months into the process, this man shared with Masek that he had gone for a walk and sat down for 30 minutes in total stillness and felt God’s presence.

“To me, that’s like the greatest testimony I could ever get because I know the difference between ‘I’m trying to do the right thing, go to church, or participate in the life of the church, and try to pray,’ and to just be frazzled and out of control, and anxious, and avoidant through all of it. And then I know what it feels like to know how to slow down and to calm myself, to center myself, and connect to the living God. And I know how much that can change the way you show up then to your family, to others, the way that you see yourself then out of that connection.”

A motto of The Freedom Group is “Pain is the path. Discomfort is your teacher.” Masek explained how this highlights that life is hard but we are called to pick up our crosses.

“We only experience the Resurrection on the other end of our embrace of the suffering that’s handed to us uniquely, and that’s the invitation of our life — to be able to,” he said. 

He added that true healing and transformation begins to be made visible when the individual also embraces the suffering he has been given and sees the good in it.

“That’s our desire for this whole process is for men to, at the end of their journey with us, however long that they spend time with us, is to get to that point in their own lives. It goes from attraction or desire for something disordered to the point where they want to choose the good in good times and in bad,” he said.

“I always tell guys, this is the worst possible year — if you’re in our coaching process — to have the best year of your life because you won’t learn very much,” Masek added. “The goal is to have hard things happen to you and to stay in them and to welcome them as purposeful and see what happens because Jesus said, ‘Pick up your cross and follow me.’ And he promised that it would change us and even that it would bring us to freedom.”

From left to right: Karol Wojtyla Sr., Joseph Ratzinger Sr., Mario Jose Bergoglio, Louis Marius Prevost. / Credit: Public domain; courtesy of Ignatius Press; courtesy of The Society of Jesus Argentina; fair use

CNA Staff, Jun 15, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

The last four popes of the Catholic Church — John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Francis, and our new pope, Leo XIV — had hardworking fathers who instilled in each of their sons important traits and values, many of which can be seen in the way they lived out their priesthoods and carried out their papacies.

Here’s a look at the dads behind the last four Holy Fathers:

Pope Leo XIV’s father: Louis Marius Prevost

Louis Marius Prevost was born in Chicago on July 28, 1920, and was of Italian and French descent. Soon after graduating from college, he served in the Navy during World War II and in November 1943 became the executive officer of a tank landing ship. Prevost also participated in the D-Day landings in Normandy on June 6, 1944, as part of Operation Overlord. He spent 15 months overseas and attained the rank of lieutenant junior grade before the war finally ended. 

After coming home, Prevost became the superintendent of Brookwood School District 167, an elementary school district in Glenwood, Illinois. In 1949 he married Mildred Agnes Martinez, another Chicagoan and a school librarian. Prevost died on Nov. 8, 1997, at the age of 77 from colon cancer and atherosclerotic heart disease.  

According to the New York Times, in a 2024 interview on Italian television, the future pope recalled a time where he confided in his father about leaving the junior seminary he was attending to get married and have a family. 

“Maybe it would be better I leave this life and get married; I want to have children, a normal life,” then-Cardinal Prevost recalled saying to his father at the time.

His father responded by telling him that “the intimacy between him and my mom” was important, but so was the intimacy between a priest and the love of God.

“There’s something to listen to here,” the future pope recalled thinking.

Pope Francis’ father: Mario Jose Bergoglio

Mario Jose Bergoglio was born on April 2, 1908, in Turin, Italy. In 1929, he and his family emigrated from Italy to Argentina to flee from the fascist rule of Benito Mussolini. In Argentina, he worked as an accountant and was employed by the Argentine railways, a stable and respected position at the time. He married Regina María Sívori in 1935 and they had five children — the eldest being the future Pope Francis. Mario Jose Bergoglio died at the age of 51 in 1959. 

The Bergoglio family lived in a working-class area of Buenos Aires where the senior Bergoglio’s line of work undoubtedly shaped his own view of fatherhood and family life. Although the late pope did not say much publicly about his relationship with his own father, he often spoke about the importance of fathers and the need for them to be present in their children’s lives, exhorting them to be patient and forgiving and to correct their children without humiliating them. Francis often cited St. Joseph as a role model for all fathers.

Pope Benedict XVI’s father: Joseph Ratzinger Sr. 

Joseph Ratzinger Sr. was born on March 6, 1877, in Winzer, Germany. Beginning in 1902, he worked as a policeman. In 1920, at the age of 43, he married Maria Peintner. Joseph Alois Ratzinger, who grew up to become Pope Benedict XVI, was the third and youngest child in the family.

Ratzinger Sr. was a devout Catholic and strongly opposed the Nazi regime. He often refused to obey their orders to persecute opponents and as a result was harassed by the Nazi hierarchy. In order to avoid sanctions, he frequently had to change posts. On Aug. 25, 1959, he died at the age of 82.

During the World Meeting of Families in 2012, Pope Benedict spoke about memories he had of his father and his family growing up.

“The most important moment for our family was always Sunday, but Sunday really began on Saturday afternoon,” he recalled. “My father would read out the Sunday readings from a book that was very popular in Germany at that time, which also included explanations of the texts. That is how we began our Sunday, entering into the liturgy in an atmosphere of joy.” 

Pope John Paul II’s father: Karol Wojtyla Sr. 

Karol Wojtyla Sr. was born on July 18, 1879, in Bielsko-Biała, Poland. He was a tailor by trade but in 1900 was called up for the Astro-Hungarian Army in which he spent a total of 28 years. After Poland regained its independence, he was admitted to the Polish Army where he served as a lieutenant until he retired in 1928. 

Wojtyla Sr. married Emilia Kaczorowska and together they had three children — Edmund, Olga (who died in infancy), and Karol, who would later become Pope John Paul II. In 1929, Emilia died due to heart and kidney problems and three years later Edmund died from scarlet fever. This left Wojtyla Sr. to care for his son Karol on his own. In 1938, he and Karol moved to Kraków so that the boy could attend Jagiellonian University. Wojtyla Sr. died on Feb. 18, 1941, at the age of 61.

Pope John Paul II frequently spoke about his father’s faith and how it inspired his vocation to the priesthood. 

The Polish pope once said of his father: “Day after day I was able to observe the austere way in which he lived. By profession he was a soldier and, after my mother’s death, his life became one of constant prayer. Sometimes I would wake up during the night and find my father on his knees, just as I would always see him kneeling in the parish church. We never spoke about a vocation to the priesthood, but his example was in a way my first seminary, a kind of domestic seminary.”

Pope Leo XIV addresses Catholic faithful on the scoreboard at Rate Field, home to the Chicago White Sox, during a celebration and Mass on June 14, 2025, in Chicago to honor his selection as pope. / Credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Vatican City, Jun 14, 2025 / 19:35 pm (CNA).

The following is the full text of Pope Leo XIV’s address to Catholics during the “Chicago Celebrates Pope Leo XIV” event at Rate Field, the home of the Chicago White Sox baseball team, on Saturday, June 14.

My dear friends,

It’s a pleasure for me to greet all of you gathered together at White Sox Park on this great celebration as a community of faith in the Archdiocese of Chicago. A special greeting to Cardinal [Blase] Cupich, to the auxiliary bishops, to all my friends who are gathered today on this the feast of the Most Holy Trinity.

And I begin with that because the Trinity is a model of God’s love for us. God: Father, Son, and Spirit. Three Persons in one God live united in the depth of love, in community, sharing that communion with all of us.

So, as you gather today in this great celebration, I want to both express my gratitude to you and also [give] an encouragement to continue to build up community, friendship, as brothers and sisters in your daily lives, in your families, in your parishes, in the archdiocese and throughout our world.

I’d like to send a special word of greeting to all the young people — those of you gathered together today and many of you who are perhaps watching this greeting through technological means on the internet. As you grow up together, you may realize, especially having lived through the time of the pandemic — times of isolation, great difficulty, sometimes even difficulties in your families, or in our world today — sometimes it may be that the context of your life has not given you the opportunity to live the faith, to live as participants in a faith community, and I’d like to take this opportunity to invite each one of you to look into your own hearts, to recognize that God is present and that, perhaps in many different ways, God is reaching out to you, calling you, inviting you to know his Son, Jesus Christ, through the Scriptures, perhaps through a friend or a relative, a grandparent, who might be a person of faith. But to discover how important it is for each one of us to pay attention to the presence of God in our own hearts, to that longing for love in our lives, for searching, a true searching, for finding the ways that we may be able to do something with our own lives to serve others.

And in that service to others we may find that coming together in friendship, building up community, we too can find true meaning in our lives. Moments of anxiety, of loneliness. So many people who suffer from different experiences of depression or sadness — they can discover that the love of God is truly healing, that it brings hope, and that actually, coming together as friends, as brothers and sisters, in community, in a parish, in an experience of living our faith together, we can find that the Lord’s grace, that the love of God can truly heal us, can give us the strength that we need, can be the source of that hope that we all need in our lives.

To share that message of hope with one another — in outreach, in service, in looking for ways to make our world a better place — gives true life to all of us and is a sign of hope for the whole world.

To, once again, the young people who are gathered here, I’d like to say that you are the promise of hope for so many of us. The world looks to you as you look around yourselves and say: We need you, we want you to come together to share with us in this common mission, as Church and in society, of announcing a message of true hope and of promoting peace, promoting harmony, among all peoples.

We have to look beyond our own — if you will — egotistical ways. We have to look for ways of coming together and promoting a message of hope. St. Augustine says to us that if we want the world to be a better place, we have to begin with ourselves, we have to begin with our own lives, our own hearts (cf. Speech 311; “Comment on St. John’s Gospel,” Homily 77).

And so, in this sense, as you gather together as a faith community, as you celebrate in the Archdiocese of Chicago, as you offer your own experience of joy and of hope, you can find out, you can discover that you, too, are indeed beacons of hope. That light, that perhaps on the horizon is not very easy to see, and yet, as we grow in our unity, as we come together in communion, we can discover that that light will grow brighter and brighter. That light which is indeed our faith in Jesus Christ. And we can become that message of hope, to promote peace and unity throughout our world.

We all live with many questions in our hearts. St. Augustine speaks so often of our “restless” hearts and says: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O God” (“Confessions,” 1,1,1). That restlessness is not a bad thing, and we shouldn’t look for ways to put out the fire, to eliminate or even numb ourselves to the tensions that we feel, the difficulties that we experience. We should rather get in touch with our own hearts and recognize that God can work in our lives, through our lives, and through us reach out to other people.

And so I’d like to conclude this brief message to all of you with an invitation to be, indeed, that light of hope. “Hope does not disappoint,” St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans (5,5). When I see each and every one of you, when I see how people gather together to celebrate their faith, I discover myself how much hope there is in the world.

In this Jubilee Year of Hope, Christ, who is our hope, indeed calls all of us to come together, that we might be that true living example: the light of hope in the world today.

So I would like to invite all of you to take a moment, to open up your own hearts to God, to God’s love, to that peace which only the Lord can give us. To feel how deeply beautiful, how strong, how meaningful the love of God is in our lives. And to recognize that while we do nothing to earn God’s love, God in his own generosity continues to pour out his love upon us. And as he gives us his love, he only asks us to be generous and to share what he has given us with others.

May you indeed be blessed as you gather together for this celebration. May the Lord’s love and peace come upon each and every one of you, upon your families, and may God bless all of you, so that you might always be beacons of hope, a sign of hope and peace throughout our world.

And may the blessing of Almighty God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit come upon you and remain with you always. Amen.

Pope Leo XIV addresses Catholic faithful on the scoreboard at Rate Field, home to the Chicago White Sox, on June 14, 2025, in Chicago during a celebration and Mass to honor his selection as pope. / Credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Chicago, Ill., Jun 14, 2025 / 18:30 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV delivered a video message June 14 to thousands of Catholics gathered in his hometown of Chicago, making a special appeal to young people to be “beacons” of Christ’s hope for others.

“You are the promise of hope for so many of us,” the pope told young people attending the “Chicago Celebrates Pope Leo XIV” event at Rate Field, the home of the Chicago White Sox baseball team.

“The world looks to you as you look around yourselves and say: We need you, we need you to come together to share with us in this common mission, as Church and in society, of announcing a message of true hope and of promoting peace, promoting harmony, among all peoples.”

The pope acknowledged some of the difficulties facing youth today, from isolation experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic to dwindling communities of faith. He invited young people gathered to look into their own hearts to see that God is present and “is reaching out to you, calling you, inviting you to know his Son, Jesus Christ.”

In turn, the pope said this discovery of Christ’s love can inspire young people to serve others.

“And in that service to others we find that coming together in friendship, building up community, we too can find true meaning in our lives,” the pope said. “To share that message of hope with one another — in outreach, in service, in looking for ways to make our world a better place — gives true life to all of us and is a sign of hope for the whole world.”

The eight-minute video message from Pope Leo XIV, who was seated and clad in white, was the first time the Chicago native has directly addressed the people of his hometown and home nation as pope.

And although he wasn’t in person to deliver it, the pope’s message made an impact on young people in attendance.

Michael Wyss, an 11-year-old student at Queen of Angels School in Chicago, said he was encouraged by the pope’s message to “stay faithful” and be a witness of Christian love to those going through hard times.

“You’ll be sharing hope with them and that hope could go on and be shared with everyone else,” said Wyss, who was in attendance with his father, Joe.

Matthew Gamboa, a 15-year-old who attends St. Viator High School in Arlington Heights, Illinois, said he was inspired by the pope’s encouragement to be “a beacon of light,” even though he might be only a high schooler.

“I too should be a part of that and continue to spread God’s message throughout our communities,” said Gamboa, who said he felt inspired to engage in more service projects and possibly lector at Mass after hearing the pope’s message.

Pope Leo XIV’s unprecedented address was also the highlight of pre-Mass programming at the afternoon celebration.

Emceed by Chicago Bulls play-by-play announcer Chuck Swirksy, the program also included musical performances by a local parish and Catholic school as well as an original piano ballad in honor of Pope Leo called “One of Us,” written and performed by the pope’s fellow Augustinian Brother David Marshall.

Sister Dianne Bergant, Pope Leo XIV’s former teacher, and Father John Merkelis, a fellow Augustinian and high school classmate of the pope, also shared insights into their friend during a panel discussion.

Outside the stadium, Chicago-area members of the Neocatechumenal Way celebrated the new pope with songs and dances of praise, while others tailgated in the baseball stadium parking lot. White Sox jerseys with “Da Pope” and “Pope Leo” emblazoned on the back were spotted throughout the crowds.

At the start of Mass, Chicago’s Cardinal Blase Cupich said that Pope Leo was aware of and grateful for the celebration taking place at Rate Field.

A fan of the White Sox, the pope attended a World Series game at the stadium in 2005 when he was prior general of the Augustinian order and recently donned the ball club’s trademark black hat for a photo op outside of St. Peter’s Basilica. White Sox Senior Vice President Brooks Boyer, a Catholic and former Notre Dame basketball player, also took the opportunity at the Chicago event to publicly invite the South Side native to come back to Rate Field and throw out a ceremonial first pitch.

The Vatican has not indicated that Pope Leo has any plans to visit the United States. When Lester Holt of NBC News asked Leo at a May 12 Vatican audience if he would come to the U.S. soon, the pope responded: “I don’t think so.”

Nonethless, the pope’s sports fan credentials may help him connect with young people in his homeland and beyond.

During his video message the pope also encouraged the youth of Chicago and the whole world to grapple with the “restlessness” they might experience, just like St. Augustine did.

“That restlessness is not a bad thing, and we shouldn’t look for ways to put out the fire, to eliminate or even numb ourselves to the tensions that we feel, the difficulties that we experience,” he said. “We should rather get in touch with our own hearts and recognize that God can work in our lives, through our lives, and through us reach out to other people.”

Before concluding by imparting his apostolic blessing via video, the pope invited those gathered to “take a moment” and open their own hearts to God’s love, “to that peace which only the Lord can give us.”

“To recognize that while we do nothing to earn God’s love, God in his own generosity continues to pour out his love upon us. And as he gives us his love, he only asks us to be generous and to share what he has given with us to others.”