Ss. Cyril and Methodius Ukrainian Catholic Church

Father Robert Bedard – more commonly known as Father Bob – was a priest for the Diocese of Ottawa in Canada and the founder of the Companions of the Cross. / Credit: Companions of the Cross

CNA Staff, Jun 1, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Father Bob Bedard, a priest in the Diocese of Ottawa in Canada, was teaching his Grade 13 religion class on Oct. 27, 1975, when a lone gunman — another Grade 13 student — entered the classroom and opened fire.

Students began to throw themselves onto the floor in order to hide. Bedard immediately jumped in front of the students and began to shield them with his body. After about 10 seconds of shooting, the gunman backed out of the classroom and went back into the hallway where he took his own life. Six students were injured and one student, whom Bedard was unable to shield, was fatally shot. 

Bedard survived the shooting and went on to become the founder of the relgious order Companions of the Cross in 1985. He began hosting a weekly, evangelistic, Catholic television broadcast called “Food for Life” in 1992 alongside Father Roger Vandenakker. In 2009, Bedard’s health began to decline and he was diagnosed with Miller Fisher Syndrome, a rare autoimmune neurological disorder, and dementia. On Oct. 6, 2011, Bedard died peacefully surrounded by members of his community.

The story of this beloved and heroic priest is now being told in a new documentary, scheduled to be released June 8. The film, “Permission: Fr. Bob Bedard’s Vision for the Church,” directed and produced by Kevin Dunn, looks at the life and ministry of Bedard. 

The new film delves into Bedard’s humble beginnings as a child growing up in Ottawa, Canada’s capital city, his calling to the priesthood, his time spent as a high school teacher, and his creation of the Companions of the Cross, which currently has 59 members including priests and seminarians. The film features interviews with Bedard’s past students, fellow priests from his order, close friends, and colleagues. 

CNA spoke with Dunn about what inspired him to make the documentary.

Dunn grew up hearing Bedard’s name due to his mother’s involvement in the charismatic movement. However, it wasn’t until later in life when Dunn was asked to help with a mini documentary for the Companions of the Cross that he was left inspired by Bedard’s story. 

While doing research and interviewing individuals for the mini documentary, “everybody spoke about this passion for this priest who changed their lives,” Dunn told CNA in an interview. “And not just in a small way, but we’re talking about people who went into ministry, people who went into priesthood, people who changed their lives, turned their lives around from addiction. The stories are endless, and it just blew me away.”

“I thought, ‘Here’s a hero of the Church that has not been celebrated,’” he added.  

Dunn said the school shooting Bedard lived through and how he dealt with it further inspired him to make the film. 

“That for me in the story of his life was a pivotal moment that really could have taken him in a very different direction, but instead he called upon the Lord, called upon the Holy Spirit,” Dunn said. “So, when I read about those accounts of that horrific time in his life and how it kind of catapulted and strengthened his faith, I think for me that was a real poignant moment of his life and one that will speak to me especially as a father with six children.”

Dunn said Bedard lived his life by a simple motto: “Give God permission.” It’s these words that Dunn has also chosen to live his life by. 

“He’s taught me in my work and my life as a filmmaker, as a family man, as a speaker on Church issues to continually give God permission,” he shared. “That it is not my will, or my work for that matter, that really matters in the long run. It’s allowing God permission to work in my life wherever he takes me.”

“It’s calling on the Lord daily and saying, ‘Where do you want me to go?’ and he just keeps saying, ‘Just do the next great thing and give me permission, and I’m going to put you in places where you would never have dreamed of.’ That’s what he has done and continues to do and glory be to God for all that.”

As for his hopes for the film, Dunn said: “I hope people walk away feeling that the Church does have hope” and “I really pray that through watching this film, we can encourage prophets of hope to rise all over the world through the remembrance and the memory of Father Bob at his life and through the work of the Companions.”

“All we have to do is give God permission and when we do, all of a sudden despair turns to hope, and hope is active, and we can create this explosively alive Church.”

“Permission: Fr. Bob Bedard’s Vision for the Church” will be available to watch on June 8 for free directly on the film’s website. 

The Ascension of Jesus Christ. Giotto di Bondone, 1305. / Credit: Public domain

National Catholic Register, Jun 1, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

Christ’s ascension is meant to help us to grow to full stature in Christ as we respond to his confidence in making us his missionaries, together with the Holy Spirit, to renew the face of the earth.

The celebration of the solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord is an annual opportunity for us not only to focus on heaven, where the Lord Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us (Jn 14:1-6) and on the joy that “eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor the human heart conceived,” which “God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor 2:9; Is 64:4), but also on the implications Jesus’ return to the Father means for each of his followers. 

Jesus could have stayed on earth until the end of time as the Good Shepherd, crisscrossing the globe after every lost sheep, saving them one by one. As he ascended, however, he placed his own mission in our hands, commanding us to “go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature” (Mk 16:15). 

He took the training wheels off our discipleship and removed any excuses we might have to pass the buck of sharing and spreading the faith. “You will be my witnesses,” he told us, “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). 

His confidence and trust in us, despite all our weaknesses, is astonishing. He wanted to incorporate us into — actually entrust to us — his mission of the redemption of the world. 

But he didn’t leave us orphans (cf. Jn 14:18). 

St. Luke gives us a beautiful image and detail, that Jesus “led them out as far as Bethany, raised his hands, and blessed them. As he was blessing them, he parted from them and was taken up to heaven” (Lk 24:50-51).

Jesus departed in the very act of blessing us. Pope Benedict XVI in his trilogy “Jesus of Nazareth” commented on how the risen Jesus in heaven is perpetually blessing us. 

“Jesus departs in the act of blessing,” he states. “He goes while blessing, and he remains in that gesture of blessing. His hands remain, stretched out over this world … [which] expresses Jesus’ continuing relationship to his disciples, to the world. … That is why the disciples could return home from Bethany rejoicing. In faith we know that Jesus holds his hands stretched out in blessing over us. That is the lasting motive of Christian joy.” 

Jesus is continuously blessing us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens (cf. Eph 1:3). He’s seeking to transform us into his incarnate benediction of the world. 

The great manifestation of that blessing is the descent of the Holy Spirit, for whose renewed coming we pray in the annual decenarium from the 40th to 50th days of Easter. St. Luke recalls Jesus’ words: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8). That’s the power, the blessing, that came down upon the Church on Pentecost.

During the Last Supper, Jesus said something startling: “I tell you the truth: It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (Jn 16:7). He was describing the incredible gift of the Holy Spirit’s presence as a blessing even greater than his own. That’s what the Church, huddling around the Blessed Virgin Mary, incessantly begs for after the Ascension.

The Holy Spirit helps us to fulfill, and not shirk, the awe-inspiring responsibility Christ has given us. This is the duty to give witness that Christ is alive, that he is the Way, the Truth, the Resurrection, and the Life, that he came to give us life to the full, so that his joy may be in us and our joy may be complete; he came to give and leave us the peace of his kingdom in a war-torn world; he came to help us and others to change our lives, to believe wholeheartedly in the good news, and to follow him, so that where he is we also may be and so that we might recognize that God the Father loves us just as much as he loves Jesus (cf. Jn 14:6; 11:25; 10:10; 15:11; 14:27; Mk 1:15; Jn 16:27; 15:9).

That’s a message and a mission that many no longer easily receive. 

Whether they think erroneously that science has disproven faith, or the problem of evil has refuted the possibility of a good God, or the clergy sex-abuse scandals have invalidated the Church’s witness, or the frigidity with which so many secularized Christians live their faith has revealed its incapacity to inspire, or a score of other possible reasons people cite to deaden the appeal of Christian faith and life, it’s clear that proclaiming the Gospel effectively to every creature is challenging work — but so was trying to convince down-to-earth first-century pagans and Jews that a crucified carpenter had not only risen from the dead but also was the Savior of the world. The same blessing of the Holy Spirit that made their joint witness fruitful desires to give tandem testimony with us. 

One of the most effective ways to do so is through charity. 

Back in 1985, the future Pope Benedict XVI gave a radio address in which he focused on the “delightfully naive pictures” of the Ascension in which the disciples are looking upward as Jesus is passing through the clouds and all we see are Jesus’ feet, the same feet the women wanted to grasp onto after the Resurrection. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger commented that we need to recognize his feet and reverence them in disguise in the feet around us as we follow Christ’s example of washing the feet of others just as he cleansed the apostles’ feet in the upper room. 

“The true ascent of mankind,” he stated, “takes place precisely when a man learns to turn in humility to another person, bowing deeply at his feet in the position of one who would wash the feet of the other. It is only in the humility that knows how to bow down that can raise a person up.” 

In order to ascend, we need first to descend humbly in acts of corporal and spiritual works of mercy, including passing on the faith to those who don’t know it or who reject what they mistakenly believe it to be. 

Christ’s ascension is meant to lead us on an exodus not merely in the future, but here and now: an exodus from the self toward God and others, a journey from fear to trust, a passover from the flat earth of a world without God to the multidimensional reality of Christ’s kingdom. 

Christ’s ascension is meant to lift up our hearts as it helps us to drop to our knees. It is meant to help us to grow to full stature in Christ as we respond to his confidence in making us his missionaries, together with the Holy Spirit, to renew the face of the earth. It is meant to fill us, even now, with lasting joy.

This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, and then published by CNA on May 9, 2024. It has been updated.

The faithful march in the Drexel Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, Tulsa, Friday, May 30, 2025 / Credit: 2025 National Eucharistic Pilgrims

CNA Newsroom, May 31, 2025 / 17:15 pm (CNA).

Eucharistic pilgrims in Oklahoma are being urged by leaders to respond to anti-Catholic protests during pilgrimages and processions with peace, humility and prayer. 

The Diocese of Tulsa this week was host to the St. Katharine Drexel Route of the 2025 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, which launched in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis on May 18 and is set to finish in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in late June. 

On Friday, Eucharistic pilgrims marching through Tulsa were met at multiple points by counter-protesters shouting anti-Catholic rhetoric and slogans at the faithful, including through amplifiers. 

At times protesters appeared to follow the crowd while chanting at them. Footage showed the faithful ignoring the demonstrations and continuing to follow the Blessed Sacrament. 

Organizers of the national pilgrimage said the protest began with a few demonstrators following the procession and slowly grew over time to a reported 50 people regularly walking alongside the route.

Jason Shanks, the president of National Eucharistic Congress, said in a statement: “We know that bringing Christ to the streets will be met with resistance, and our prayerful message to them is one of conversion and hope.”

Organizers estimated that between 17,000 to 20,000 participants have traveled the procession so far. Images of the procession shared on social media showed a large turnout in downtown Tulsa on Friday. 

“A beautiful evening in the [Diocese of Tulsa] as we welcomed pilgrims from the National Eucharistic Procession to the cathedral,” diocesan priest Father Brian O’Brien wrote on X. 

The procession will next head to the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City before heading through Texas and then on through the Southwest. 

A shanty town in Freetown, Sierra Leone, in November 2013. / Ilona Budzbon/Aid to the Church in Need.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 31, 2025 / 11:30 am (CNA).

Here is a roundup of Catholic world news from the past week.

Sierra Leone limits physical contact at Mass amid mpox outbreak 

Freetown Archbishop Edward Tamba Charles has issued new directives in line with public health orders to guide public worship following a rapid increase in mpox cases in the West African nation of Sierra Leone.

“As a local Church, we need to do everything possible to protect ourselves from the disease and also contain its spread by carefully observing the guidelines announced by health authorities,” he said in a May 25 statement shared with ACI Africa, CNA's African news partner.

Most of the directives limit physical interactions during public liturgical celebrations, including Mass.

The country has registered a total of 3,011 cases of the virus—formerly known as monkeypox—since the start of the outbreak in January, with 14 deaths reported. 

Caritas Angola launching initiative to combat gender-based violence

Caritas Angola launched a new “Women and Life” initiative on Thursday, aimed to empower and address the challenge of gender-based violence in the southern African nation, ACI Africa reported.

“This project extends Caritas' mission — to promote, defend, and uplift the most vulnerable. It’s not just about immediate assistance; it’s about giving women the tools to be self-sufficient and become agents of transformation in their communities,” the organization’s national secretary, João Nicolau Manuel, told ACI Africa. 

The initiative is now being rolled out across the Angolan Catholic dioceses of Luanda, Viana, and Caxito. 

“We aim to form women not only with technical skills but with human and Christian values – love, hope, and peace. These are essential for building a just and compassionate society,” Manuel added.

Myanmar military junta strikes majority-Catholic refugee camp for third time 

Reports have emerged that the ruling military government in Myanmar has bombed a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs), home to “hundreds of ethnic, mostly Catholic Karenni, who fled the armed conflict,” for the third time in less than a year, according to an AsiaNews report on Thursday. 

Two bombs were allegedly dropped on the Bangkok IDP camp on May 15, striking a school and several houses. 

While no casualties were reported in the latest attack, according to the Myanmar Peace Monitor, the first attack in September of 2024 killed nine civilians, while the second in November killed one and caused “serious damage” to a church and its rectory. 

Church in Qatar concludes catechetical year with special Mass

The parish of Our Lady of the Rosary in Doha, the capital of Qatar, concluded the 2024–2025 catechetical year with a "Harvest Mass" celebrated last Friday, according to ACI MENA, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner. 

The liturgy was presided over by Marian Father Charbel Mhanna, pastor of the Maronite community in Qatar, and attended by catechism students and their volunteer instructors.

The Catholic Church in Qatar provides catechetical instruction to nearly 1,000 Arabic-speaking students from various Catholic rites. The students receive weekly lessons throughout the academic year, taught by dedicated volunteer educators.

Syrian President Al-Shara meets with heads of churches in Aleppo

Syrian President Ahmed Al-Shara met with the heads of Christian communities and their representatives in the first meeting with bishops of the Syrian city since the fall of the Assad regime in December of 2024, ACI MENA reported on Thursday. 

The Syriac Orthodox Archbishop of Aleppo, Boutros Qassis, described the meeting as “frank, open, and far from complimentary,” noting that he made sure to bring the urgent concerns of Christians to the Syrian leader. 

Qassis said Sharaa told them that “establishing security and peace is his main concern in this period.”

 In the morning, the Holy Blood is venerated in Saint Salvator Cathedral during a Eucharistic celebration, with Archbishop of Tehran Cardinal Mathieu concelebrating. Then during the procession, he carries the reliquary for part of the route on May 29, 2025. / Credit: Thomas P. Reiter

Bruges, Belgium, May 31, 2025 / 11:00 am (CNA).

Over 45,000 people, including visitors from the Americas, lined the streets and walked in procession Thursday for the Holy Blood Procession in Bruges, Belgium, which has taken place annually on Ascension Day since May 3, 1304.

The procession depicts how a relic of the Holy Blood of Christ was brought to the West Flemish city following the Crusades.

Organized by the "Edele Confrèrie van het Heilig Bloed" (Noble Brotherhood of the Holy Blood), this year's procession featured approximately 1,800 participants who reenacted 53 biblical and historical sacred scenes. 

The procession moves through the entire medieval city center, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000.  

The most prominent participant this year, alongside Bruges Bishop Lode Aerts, was Cardinal Dominique Mathieu, a Belgian religious cleric whom Pope Francis appointed as Archbishop of Tehran-Isfahan in 2021 and admitted to the College of Cardinals as a Cardinal Priest in December 2024. 

Mathieu speaks six languages, including Arabic, and belongs to the Franciscan Minorite Order. He was born in the Belgian province of Luxembourg but grew up in Damme, near Bruges. 

In 2009, UNESCO added the Holy Blood Procession to its "List of Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity." This World Heritage recognition came 700 years after Pope Clement V officially sanctioned the veneration of the Holy Blood relic in Bruges through the papal bull "Licet is" in 1310. 

According to tradition, Thierry of Alsace, Count of Flanders, brought several drops of Christ's blood from Jerusalem during a crusade in 1150. The relic has since been preserved in the Holy Blood Chapel in Bruges and serves as a daily attraction for tourists and pilgrims from around the world. 

Bruges, the capital city of West Flanders in northwest Belgium known for its port, canals, medieval buildings, and cobblestone streets, is widely known to international audiences through the 2008 film "In Bruges" starring Irish actor Colin Farrell. May 29, 2025

Antonia Salzano Acutis speaks to the faithful in New York City on Thursday, May 29, 2025 / Credit: Sabrina Ferrisi

New York City, N.Y., May 31, 2025 / 10:30 am (CNA).

Antonia Salzano Acutis, the mother of soon-to-be canonized Carlo Acutis, spoke to a capacity crowd of more than 2,500 people at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City on Thursday, touching on several themes including the universal call to holiness, the importance of living the virtues, and the sacraments as a means of receiving grace. 

“We are here to speak about Carlo. As you know, the canonization was delayed. But it was a beautiful surprise because now we have an American Pope!” said Acutis to applause.  

“Carlo loved America,” she continued. “And Italians love Americans because of what happened during the Second World War. We have many cemeteries full of Americans who gave their life for Italians, for the peace. So I am sure in the providence of God, this is not casual.” 

Even though the canonization of Carlo Acutis was suspended by the passing of Pope Francis, Carlo’s mother said she felt that Carlo was giving another message. 

“Okay, so the canonization was suspended. But what about your canonization? You too! You are looking at me surprised. Maybe you forgot that God, for each one of us, has a special project. Jesus says, ‘You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world,’” she said. 

Acutis explained that each person is special in God’s eye. She said Carlo would regularly say that all of us are originals. 

“We will die as photocopies if we do not realize God’s project for us. We all have the seeds of sanctity inside of us,” she said. 

Carlo’s Eucharistic and Marian heart 

Acutis spoke about her son's first Holy Communion and how, from that day, he went to daily Mass. He also took part in Eucharistic adoration every day before or after Mass. 

“When Carlo was six years old, he began to pray the rosary every day. He used to say that to pray the rosary was like doing an exorcism on yourself every day,” she said. 

“At Fatima, the Virgin Mary always asked people to pray the rosary. She said that, through the rosary, we can stop wars. The rosary is very powerful. I know that not everybody can go to Mass every day, but through the rosary, we can help many people every day,” she said. 

Acutis also spoke about the importance of the Eucharist within the spiritual life. 

“When we have a Eucharistic life, it heals you. It will change your life,” she said. “The Eucharist, as Carlo would say, is a highway to heaven. Why? Because it is the most supernatural thing in this life.”  

“The essence of Jesus is love,” she said. “This is why, when we see Eucharistic miracles, they are always Hosts that have become flesh from the myocardium; the heart. It is as if Jesus were sending us heart emojis from heaven. Jesus is sending us his heart.” 

She noted that when people lose their connection to the internet, they frequently become stressed out. But the same reaction does not often happen when losing a connection to God. 

“Carlo used to say that we are all mystics, because we all have the Holy Trinity inside of us that we received at the moment of baptism,” she said. “The problem is the connection. In what sense? If I do not pray or have any moments of silence and reflection during my day, I lose the connection with God.” 

“The sanctity of Carlo was that out of his ordinary life, he took little moments to pray, moments to thank God. How many times do we pray? We need to give a little space to God,” she said. 

Moving Moments 

During a question-and-answer session, when asked about Carlo’s death, his mother told the audience that, after his funeral, two of his friends were very upset and crying for weeks. Carlo appeared in a dream to both of these friends on the same night, she said, telling them to stop crying because he was very happy in heaven. 

In response to questions about a canonization date, Acutis stated that there is no set date yet, but that Vatican officials are again meeting about causes on June 13.  

Many audience members spoke about personal stories of miraculous healings and answered prayers they said came through the intercession of Carlo Acutis. Several audience members made it a point to thank his mother for her continued witness. 

The standing ovation at the end of her presentation lasted several minutes, with throngs of people holding up their smartphone cameras to take pictures before she left.  

“I was struck by the fact that it was her son, at a very young age, who fully brought her into the fold of the Church,” said Valentina Cook, a Bulgarian native who lives in Westchester County, who attended the talk. “It sounded like before she had been a Catholic only nominally, and it was he [Carlo] who initiated her life of faith and her work as a catechist.” 

“I liked how Mrs. Acutis spoke and made it very easy to understand. She has a very lighthearted way of talking that allows you to understand very deep concepts and points that she was trying to make — along with a few smiles and laughter,” said Isabella Arena, a high-school student from New York. 

“I was positively impressed by the multitude gathered in Church to listen to Carlo’s mom’s testimony. It is a confirmation to me of a ‘wake-up’ wave we are seeing these days,” said Maria Baldi, a native Italian who lives in New York.  

“There is a huge need for meaning, structure, discipline and purpose. The need is stronger than ever amongst the younger generation,” she said, adding: “God is really using this young boy to ignite new faith where it is weak and lost.” 

Just a mention of Lough Derg summons tales of sleep deprivation, discomfort, and hunger, but it’s a deeply spiritual place of renewal and hope, from which faithful pilgrims often emerge reborn through the rituals of self-purification. / Credit: Lough Derg

Dublin, Ireland, May 31, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).

This weekend, the Jubilee of Hope pilgrimage season will open in Ireland and the first cohort of 2025 pilgrims will disembark on a small island called St. Patrick’s Purgatory located on Lough Derg, a remote inland lake in County Donegal, after a short 10-minute boat journey. 

Lough Derg is renowned among the faithful for its physically grueling but spiritually uplifting three-day pilgrimage. 

Just the mention of Lough Derg in Ireland summons tales of sleep deprivation, discomfort, and hunger, but it’s a deeply spiritual place of renewal and hope from which faithful pilgrims often emerge reborn through the rituals of self-purification. 

The site dates back at least to the 1100s when Henry of Saltrey, a Benedictine monk, wrote of the exploits of a Knight Owain who visited St. Patrick’s Purgatory. It is said to have influenced the first book of Dante’s “Divine Comedy” and is alluded to by Hamlet.

Once dubbed the “Ironman of Pilgrimages,” Lough Derg is approached with stoicism by those who embark on it: with trepidation, careful selection of suitable clothing, and a necessary dose of black humor. Many who make the three-day pilgrimage feel compelled to repeat it, citing the searing and visceral self-examination and reflection brought about by intense prayer, atonement, fasting, and physical mortification of going barefoot. They say that upon completion there follows a unique spiritual and prayerful renewal. Pilgrims are drawn there for many reasons: to give thanks or do penance, or out of grief, love, curiosity, tradition, or duty. But faith is always at the fore. 

Although the pilgrimage season is during the summer, it is more often characterized by cold, wet Irish weather exacerbated by lack of sleep, fasting, and blisters.

What’s the draw?

So what is it that attracts pilgrims every year, so many of them repeat visitors? 

Dr. Lee Casey from Derry has been a frequent pilgrim, sometimes going twice in the same year. His parents did made the pilgrimage on their honeymoon. Lee hopes to return this year after recovering from a bout of serious illness that literally took him off his feet. He told CNA: “It is the only place on earth that you get the spiritual fix that you get from Lough Derg.”

Pilgrims remain on the island for two nights, arriving around noon on the first day and departing the morning of the third day. Fasting begins at midnight prior to arrival and lasts until midnight on the third day, when the person has returned home. One Lough Derg meal a day is permitted: black tea, coffee, dry toast, oatcakes.

Upon setting foot on the island, pilgrims divest themselves of food and drink as well as phones and other electronic devices. Footwear is removed for the duration of the stay; rugged bare rocks thenceforth are a constant presence under bare feet.

Station prayers

Station prayers repeated on penitential prayer beds of bare stone leave a lasting impact on pilgrims, on their knees and feet. These prayer beds that form the central part of the prayer program are remnants of the old beehive “prayer” cells used by ninth-century monks. 

The station prayers can be described as “body” prayers where the emphasis is on kneeling and walking while reciting basic prayers like the Our Father, Hail Mary, and the Creed. Nine station prayers are completed over the three days, and each takes about an hour to complete. Pilgrims say that after a while it becomes meditative.

The Vigil

The Vigil lasting 24 hours on the first night is the heart of the experience as pilgrims journey together in watchful prayer staying alert despite the intense desire to sleep. 

Liturgies celebrated include the Eucharist, the sacrament of reconciliation, and the Way of the Cross. There is time for reflection.

“Lough Derg is a great place to bring burdens and leave them behind and often it is the unexpected that surprises us — a thought emerges, a new idea, a different way of looking at something,” Monsignor La Flynn, prior of Lough Derg pilgrimage site, told CNA. “Or perhaps, the gift of this time away from everything provides an opportunity to be at peace, to empty the mind, and to listen to the whisper of our God,” he said.

He added: “The ebb and flow of the pilgrimage — the strenuous pilgrimage exercise coupled with times of peaceful reflection — are about opening us to receptivity, about finding a new honesty and humility that we can take with us into our daily lives.

Returning pilgrims

Aidan Gallagher lives in Newry, County Down. A frequent visitor to Lough Derg for years, he told CNA he plans to be there this year. “Yes, I intend going this year, please God. Why? It’s a powerful reset. Each time I go, it reminds me of how much we have in the world, but how little we actually need.”

“It’s also good opportunity to say thanks, for what I’ve been given, and what I have not. It’s a very powerful place, just the atmosphere and spirit there, with the wind, rain, waves, scenery, the fasting and prayer, and especially the people you meet. You can meet God there too and while it’s a tough pilgrimage, it definitely does the soul good.”

Casey agrees the isolation adds to the experience. “It’s just a fantastic place, the stillness, the quietness, and the beauty of it is just unique.”

Gallagher added: “It’s also a powerful place to remember loved ones — alive or passed on. I often think of the millions of people over 1,500 years who came here before me, who smoothed out the rough stones for me. All those people praying with their heart for loved ones, wives and children, brothers and sisters, for peace, justice, and I often think, where are they now? And for me the answer is obvious.”

Tracy Harkin is a busy mother of eight children who plans to make the pilgrimage this year as well. “It’s been a few years since I’ve been there,” she said. “It’s difficult, but a spiritually powerful pilgrimage like no other. Prayers are always answered.”

Seosamh Ó Gallachóir has completed the Lough Derg pilgrimage for as many years as he can remember. During COVID-19, when the island was closed, he replicated the strenuous pilgrimage exercises at his home in County Tyrone. He draws a deep sense of spiritual fulfillment from making the Lough Derg pilgrimage. 

Ó Gallachóir makes the simple pilgrim rations sound like a gourmet feast. “The lure of the Lough Derg soup [is enough] to stave off the hunger pangs. The recipe is well known and simple: hot water with a hint of salt and pepper. The death and resurrection cycle of this three-day pilgrimage lends itself to a feeling of great euphoria when completed.” 

Prepping for the experience

When asked what to bring to the holy island — and what not to bring — the intrepid pilgrims offered advice both temporal and spiritual. 

Drawing on more than 40 visits, Gallachóir’s advice is simple: “Bring a spare set of warm clothes, hat, waterproof coat, and leggings, and don’t forget your rosary beads.”

And what not to bring? “Mobile phones, radios, or any electronic devices. No food allowed or bottled drinks and no personal musical instruments allowed,” he said.

Gallagher agreed with his fellow pilgrims on what to pack, adding that pilgrims should leave “impatience” at home. “When the pilgrimage at Lough Derg is over you leave behind your sins, bad opinions about yourself, any mental burdens. The priest says you can leave all these behind you on the island when you leave.”

Harkin’s pilgrimage survival kit includes insect repellent and leaves behind “all those books you think you will read. You will be too busy praying and too tired to read when the praying is done.”

“Leave behind your vanity bag, you just won’t care enough! Leave behind all your worries and cares. You will be too hungry, cold, and exhausted to think of anything other than finally getting into a warm bed on that second night.”

“Don’t forget your sense of humor, it will get you through those three days,” she said. 

For the 2025 Jubilee Year, visitors to all three of Ireland’s main shrines — Lough Derg, Croagh Patrick, and Knock Shrine — can get a unique pilgrim passport stamped.

The garden created at Mepkin Abbey is a way to honor and recognize the enslaved who lived and died on the property for 100 years. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Mepkin Abbey

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 31, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

On a piece of land in South Carolina where hundreds of Indigenous and African Americans were once enslaved, some Trappist monks, after discovering 20 unmarked graves, have installed a bronze sculpture of Christ and created a quiet prayer garden to encourage healing and reflection.

“We’ve been here 75 years, since 1949,” Father Joseph Tedesco, the superior of Mepkin Abbey, a Trappist monastery in Berkeley County, told CNA. “The monks who were here at the beginning — everyone has been aware all these years that this was an enslaved property.”

The abbey sits on a former plantation that once belonged to slave trader Henry Laurens during the Revolutionary War and later to his son John Laurens, who joined the revolution and advocated for the freedom of the enslaved.

There were “300 enslaved people on the property,” Tedesco said. There were “on and off discussions around the memorial to slavery of [the] very historic piece of property; then a few years ago we were just at a moment of recognition … we had to do something, but we couldn’t figure out what.”

As if on cue, Mepkin Abbey then received a 640-pound bronze sculpture from a donor. The large work of art inspired the plan for the Meditation Garden of Truth and Reconciliation — an area on the property that would be dedicated to the slaves who once lived and worked on the property.

“As soon as I saw [the statue],” Tedesco said, “I realized that was the nucleus of the memorial to slavery.”

The sculpture, titled “Thy Father’s Hand,” features the crucified Christ in the hand of God. The figure is now the central point of the garden and is placed where some of those once enslaved on the property lie in 20 unmarked graves.

“I developed a committee of African Americans from around the state and together we created the garden,” Tedesco said. “We walked through together … what to do and how to do it. We created the garden, but it took us a couple of years to put it in place.”

The monk added: “It was really a wonderful experience because it was a lot of editing, a lot of wonderful discussion, and a wonderful group of people who were really committed to the process and to the commitment of building this garden in honor of slavery, but really in honor of being enslaved,” Tedesco said.

When the garden was complete, the first Catholic Black bishop in South Carolina, Jacques Fabre-Jeune, blessed it and discussed reconciliation at an opening ceremony on April 26. He also blessed each of the unmarked graves.

“We don’t have to be upset. Truth can always hurt,” Fabre-Jeune said during the blessing. “We don’t like when people tell us the truth. We feel uncomfortable. But after that experience, we know that it was good for us.”

The new garden is a way to honor and recognize the enslaved, but Tedesco said the monastery is really the memorial to them because of the “75 years of praying on [the] land to redeem it from the 100 years of the enslaved on [the] property.”

The garden is now open to visitors who can walk through its multiple stations that each reflect points of history. The monks hope the experience will encourage “empathy” and “understanding.”

An attendee prays the rosary during a demonstration called by the association “La Marche pour la vie” against abortion and euthanasia in Versailles, southwest of Paris, on March 4, 2024. / Credit: GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT/AFP via Getty Images

Paris, France, May 31, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

The French National Assembly has approved a controversial bill legalizing “assistance in dying,” a move that the country’s Catholic bishops describe as a grave threat to the dignity of life and the social fabric of the nation.

The amended version of the law was passed on May 27 with 305 votes in favor and 199 against. While the palliative care provisions received broad support, the article establishing a legal right to assisted suicide and euthanasia has drawn significant criticism from Church leaders, bioethicists, and a wide range of civil society voices.

In a statement released shortly after the vote, the French Bishops’ Conference (CEF) expressed its “deep concern” over the adoption of a so-called “right to assistance in dying.” While welcoming the Assembly’s support for improved palliative care, the CEF reaffirmed its opposition to the legal institutionalization of euthanasia.

The bishops reiterated arguments they had made in a May 19 statement issued ahead of the vote: “This text, among the most permissive in the world, would threaten the most fragile and call into question the respect due to all human life.” They vowed to continue engaging in the legislative process, which now enters the Senate phase and will return to the Assembly for a second reading later this year.

The CEF emphasized its commitment to contributing “all useful elements to enlighten discernment” on what it called an “infinitely grave, complex, and even intimidating” issue. As the bill now proceeds to the Senate, where debate is expected to begin in late September or early October, the bishops intend to remain fully engaged in the public and legislative discourse.

Drawing on the daily experience of more than 800 hospital chaplains, 1,500 volunteers, 5,000 home and nursing home visitors, and countless priests, deacons, consecrated persons, and laypeople involved in pastoral care across France, the bishops insisted that the Church has both the authority and the responsibility to speak on behalf of the dying.

Bishop Pierre-Antoine Bozo of Limoges, in an interview with RCF radio following the vote, addressed concerns about the new legal offense of hindering access to assisted dying, which some fear could restrict the Church’s mission of accompanying the sick and dying.  

The bishop expressed a calm stance, urging Catholics to remain “very free” in their commitment to support the suffering: “Their desire must be to accompany, out of love, charity, care, and fraternity, all those who suffer, without having to ask themselves whether they might be repressed by the offense of obstruction.” 

French Catholic leaders have spared no effort to make their voice heard since the bill was first introduced in 2022. In addition to their own institutional initiatives, the Church has taken part in broader public debate through the Conference of Religious Leaders in France (CRCF), co-signing a joint declaration that warned that the “terminology chosen — ‘assistance in dying’ — masks the true nature of the act: the voluntary administration of a lethal substance.”  

Just days after dedicating their annual prayer vigil for life at Notre-Dame Cathedral to the end of life issue on May 21, the bishops of the Île-de-France region sharpened their message further, issuing an open letter on May 26 — the eve of the parliamentary vote — to the deputies and senators of their dioceses.  

They cautioned, in particular, against a dangerous distortion of language, arguing that the proposed law risks redefining care as the act of causing death. The 11 bishops denounced what they see as “contradictions, counter-truths, and false pretenses of humanism” underlying the text.

“How can we call ‘natural’ a death that is deliberately induced?” they wrote. “How can we speak of a ‘right to die’ when death is already inevitable?” The bishops also questioned the long-term implications of the law’s framing, suggesting it opens the door to future extensions to minors or elderly people with cognitive disorders such as dementia.

The Church has continued to build alliances with health care professionals, legal scholars, and ethicists who have spoken out publicly in recent years against what they view as a rupture in the French model of care and more broadly of the Christian civilization. “The death given,” the bishops reiterated, “is not, and cannot be, a form of care.”

While the path toward implementation is still unfolding — the government aims for enactment by 2027 — the bishops emphasized that an alternative already exists in the Claeys-Leonetti law of 2016, which allows for deep and continuous sedation without actively inducing death.

The Church has long argued that this legislation offers a humane balance between pain management and respect for life. The bishops also lamented that more than 20% of French departments still lack access to palliative care services, calling instead for serious national investment in this field.

Robert Royal discusses his new book “The Martyrs of the New Millennium” during the May 29, 2025, edition of “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo.” / Credit: “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo”/Screenshot

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 30, 2025 / 18:53 pm (CNA).

The whole nature of Chrisitian martyrdom has shifted in the 21st century, according to Robert Royal, author of the new book “The Martyrs of the New Millennium.”

Interviewed on “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo” on Thursday, Royal said that since his last work on the subject, “The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century,” 25 years ago, the greatest threat to Christians in the world has shifted from totalitarianism to “radical Islam.” 

“This is a point of view that really seeks to create a worldwide caliphate. That’s the word that they use,” he said. “These radical Islamic figures, they think about it as establishing an Ottoman Empire, but not just restricted to Turkey and a few of the lands in the Middle East, but a total empire of Islam everywhere.”

He continued: “This is something that the West, in particular, needs to wake up to,” he said, because despite the defeat of ISIS, “it didn’t go away. It’s transferred itself to other parts of the world, and it will come back with a vengeance.”

Africa

Royal especially pointed to radical Islamism “all across Central Africa, across sub-Saharan Africa.” 

Discussing the plight of Nigerian Christians, he noted that since finishing the writing of his new book last November, he estimates that since then “something on the order of 2,000 and 3,000 Christians have probably been killed by radical Islam.” 

Just this past weekend, an attack by extremist Muslim herdsmen in Nigeria left dozens dead and resulted in the kidnapping of a Catholic priest and several nuns. Hundreds of Jihadist Fulani herdsmen gunned down nearly 40 people, more than half of them Christians, across several villages on Sunday, according to a report by Truth Nigeria, a humanitarian-aid nonprofit that seeks to document Nigeria’s struggles with corruption and crime.

Latin America

“Surprisingly,” Royal said, “organizations that track the martyrdom of priests in particular say that Mexico is the most dangerous country in the world today to be a Catholic priest.” He said that today, persecution of priests in that country “is the result of cartels, human traffickers, drug traffickers, and anybody who steps in front of what those criminal organizations are trying to do puts themselves at risk.” 

In Nicaragua, he said, systematic persecution against Christians similarly stems from corruption from those seeking power. 

“Now it’s not so much a matter of Marxism as it is a matter of a family wanting to control a country in which the Church is the only effective opposition to their tyranny,” Royal observed, referring to the government of Daniel Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo. “They’re closing down TV stations, radio stations, and have expelled bishops and priests. It’s an old playbook, but now it’s being used for the sake of a particular family rather than an ideology.”

The Ortega dictatorship has kidnapped, imprisoned, murdered, and forcefully expelled bishops, priests, and religious sisters from the country, shut down Catholic schools and organizations, and restricted religious practice nationwide. 

China

“The situation in China is very discouraging because our own Church made a very bad bargain with a totalitarian regime,” he said, pointing out that while overt persecution has declined in the country, the Chinese Communist Party has continued to restrict the Church. Ten bishops have also been reported missing, he noted. 

“We know that there are images of President Xi inside of churches. There are attempts to rewrite parts of the Gospels to point it in the direction of the Communist Party. They’re being more careful about creating martyrs because, of course, that raises the international temperature against China,” he said. “But they do it.”

“Now we have a pope who was head of the committee in the Vatican who appointed bishops,” Royal said, noting that Pope Leo XIV has also been to the country himself. “It’ll be very interesting to see if he is able to do anything.”

The Vatican renewed its agreement with China on the appointment of Catholic bishops for four more years in October 2024. Originally signed in September 2018, the provisional agreement was previously renewed for a two-year period in 2020 and again in October 2022. 

The terms of the agreement have not been made public, though the late Pope Francis had said it includes a joint commission between the Chinese government and the Vatican on the appointment of Catholic bishops, overseen by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

The West

“We should not consider ourselves exempt from persecution,” Royal said of Christians living in Western countries. “We do have, of course, radical Islamic figures in Europe and in the United States, Australia, all the countries we normally think of as the West.” 

Royal cited the findings by the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe, which records hundreds of anti-Christian hate crimes per year.

“France alone loses about two religious buildings a month,” he said. He also mentioned the cases of pro-life protesters jailed in the U.K. for praying outside of abortion clinics. 

Royal also called for vigilance in the U.S., as sectors of American society also seek to pin “hate speech” labels on traditional Christian beliefs.