Ss. Cyril and Methodius Ukrainian Catholic Church

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks on Dec. 6, 2025, in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Aaron Schwartz/Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 8, 2025 / 18:09 pm (CNA).

President Donald Trump honored the feast of the Immaculate Conception on Dec. 8, which appears to be the first time an American president formally recognized the Catholic holy day.

The presidential statement recognized the role Mary played in the salvation of humanity and the importance she has in American history. The statement does, however, contain one theological error about the Incarnation. It says God became man when Christ was born, although Catholic doctrine recognizes God becoming man at the Incarnation: when Mary conceived him.

“Today, I recognize every American celebrating Dec. 8 as a holy day honoring the faith, humility, and love of Mary, mother of Jesus and one of the greatest figures in the Bible,” the statement said. Trump, who is not Catholic and describes himself as a "non-denominational Christian," has forged strong bonds with a broad range of Christians and referenced religious holidays and symbols in ways that resonate with supporters.

CNA could not find similar proclamations on the Immaculate Conception from other presidents, including none from the only two Catholic presidents: John F. Kennedy and Joe Biden. Other presidents have spoken about Mary and the Immaculate Conception, sometimes in messages relating to Christmas or other topics, but not in a formal recognition of this feast.

“On the feast of the Immaculate Conception, Catholics celebrate what they believe to be Mary’s freedom from original sin as the mother of God,” the statement read.

The feast day celebrates the miracle in which Mary was conceived without the stain of original sin. Every person — with the exception of Mary and Jesus Christ — receives the hereditary stain of original sin, which was brought onto humanity through the first sin of Adam and Eve when they disobeyed God by eating fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Mary’s importance to humanity and the United States

The presidential statement said Mary’s agreement at the Annunciation to conceive and bear the child Christ was “one of the most profound and consequential acts of history,” and Mary “heroically accepted God’s will with trust and humility.” 

It cites Luke 1:38: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” 

“Mary’s decision forever altered the course of humanity,” the statement read, adding that Christ “would go on to offer his life on the Cross for the redemption of sins and the salvation of the world.”

President Trump's statement also describes the annunciation by the archangel Gabriel, who calls the Blessed Mother “favored one” and tells her “you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.”

Later in the document, the presidential message says “we remember the sacred words that have brought aid, comfort, and support to generations of American believers in times of need,” and includes the text of the Hail Mary.

Trump's statement also acknowledges the “distinct role” Mary has played “in our great American story.”

The president's statement also specifically references Bishop John Carroll’s consecration of the United States to the Blessed Mother. Carroll was the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence. In addition, the statement references the annual Mass of Thanksgiving in New Orleans on Jan. 8, in which Catholics celebrate Mary’s perceived assistance to U.S. troops under the command of General Andrew Jackson in winning the Battle of New Orleans.

The message notes that “American legends” including St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, and Venerable Fulton Sheen “held a deep devotion to Mary” and that many American churches, hospitals, universities, and schools bear her name. It adds that many Americans will also celebrate Our Lady of Guadalupe on Dec. 12.

“As we approach 250 years of glorious American independence, we acknowledge and give thanks, with total gratitude, for Mary’s role in advancing peace, hope, and love in America and beyond our shores,” the presidential message reads.

The presidential message also recognizes Pope Benedict XV dedicating a statue of Mary, Queen of Peace, to encourage Christians “to look to her example of peace by praying for a stop to the horrific slaughter” occurring in World War I, which then ended just a few months later.

“Today, we look to Mary once again for inspiration and encouragement as we pray for an end to war and for a new and lasting era of peace, prosperity, and harmony in Europe and throughout the world,” Trump’s statement added.

Catholics react to Trump’s message

Chad Pecknold, a political science professor at The Catholic University of America, said he welcomed the president’s recognition of the feast day.

“The more America publicly honors Christian feast days such as Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter, and the more we remember our greatest saints, as well as our national heroes, the better oriented our nation will be to God,” he said. “This is the spiritual key to raising up the Res Americana for the next 250 years.”

Susan Hanssen, a history professor at the University of Dallas (a Catholic institution), called the presidential message “a jaw-droppingly historic event.” For a president to celebrate Mary as “full of grace” and celebrate “the centrality of the Incarnation,” she said “goes beyond anything that Americans have ever heard in presidential public speeches.”

“This pronouncement, along with the first American pope in world history, marks a watershed moment in American cultural history,” Hanssen said. 

Caleb Henry, a political science professor at Franciscan University, told CNA Trump’s message appears to be an extension of the president’s America Prays campaign, which asks Americans to pray for the country ahead of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence next year.

Henry said the initiative seeks to “reconnect America’s people of faith with ... the signing of the Declaration of Independence.” He said the Immaculate Conception statement appears to be “a message to America’s Catholic faithful,” that the country’s history “while complicated, is rooted in these truths of natural law, laws of nature, and of nature’s God.”

“We have a Marian tradition here in our country as well,” he said. 

The statement comes as the nation's Catholic bishops have welcomed some of Trump’s policies, such as regarding gender ideology. Bishops also have expressed dismay about indiscriminate immigration enforcement and a plan to expand in vitro fertilization (IVF).

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a unified special pastoral message against “indiscriminate mass deportations” on Nov. 12.

Henry said a message like the one issued on the Immaculate Conception is “a typical Trump move” by “ignoring all existing hierarchies and going straight to the people.”

Theological error in the message

The statement contains a theological error. After discussing the Annunciation, the message states “nine months later, God became man when Mary gave birth to a son, Jesus.”

Christ became man at the moment of the Incarnation, when Mary conceived him, not when he was born. 

Father Aquinas Guilbeau, OP, told CNA that although early councils clarified this teaching, the misunderstanding “endures today.” He said: “Even among Christians, sadly. It remains a favorite of poets.” 

He noted that even in “Silent Night,” the verse that says “Jesus, Lord, at thy birth” falls into this error because: “Jesus is Lord before his birth. He is Lord at his conception.”

“Wherever it appears, the error may be pious and well-intentioned but it remains theologically inaccurate,” Guilbeau said.

The Blessed Mother and the Child Jesus. / Credit: Zwiebackesser/Shutterstock

National Catholic Register, Dec 8, 2025 / 16:58 pm (CNA).

One of the Catholic Church’s foremost associations of Mariologists has issued a strongly critical response to Mater Populi Fidelis, a recently published Vatican doctrinal note that has been criticized for its diminution of some long-established devotional Marian titles.

In a 23-page document published Dec. 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the International Marian Association Theological Commission (IMATC) points to various elements of Mater Populi Fidelis (“The Mother of the Faithful People of God”) that it calls erroneous, “unfortunate,” and says are in need of “substantial clarification and modification.” 

They describe a significant element of the document as resembling Protestant rather than Catholic theology and urge, “in a spirit of true synodal dialogue,” for Mater Populi Fidelis to be reevaluated.

Published on Nov. 4 by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Mater Populi Fidelis teaches that Mary’s unique cooperation in salvation must always be understood as entirely dependent on, and subordinate to, Christ’s one mediation and universal redemptive sacrifice, rejecting any formulations that would blur this asymmetry.

The doctrinal note reaffirms approved Marian titles such as Mother of God and Mother of the Church but judges the titles “Co‑Redemptrix” and certain uses of “Mediatrix of All Graces” pastorally and theologically ambiguous, discouraging their use in official teaching or liturgy, while not denying the truths they seek to express. 

In Catholic theology, the title “Co‑Redemptrix” expresses Mary’s unique and entirely subordinate cooperation in Christ’s one redemptive work, above all through her fiat at the Incarnation and her union with his sacrifice, without adding a second redeemer alongside him. The title “Mediatrix of All Graces” signifies that every grace won by Christ the sole mediator is distributed by God through Mary’s maternal intercession, so that she participates as a secondary, dependent channel in the communication of Christ’s grace to humanity. 

The 2010 edition of the New Catholic Encyclopedia states that the title Co-Redemptrix first appeared in Catholic literature toward the end of the 14th century and that “Catholics no longer question its legitimacy” as the title has been used at various times in the intervening centuries, including by the Holy See in the 20th century. The encyclopedia says the genesis of the title Mediatrix of All Graces is “rather obscure” but dates back to eighth-century saints and “was applied to Our Lady with ever-increasing frequency until it became generally accepted in the 17th century.” 

The DDF’s diminution of the titles has drawn considerable criticism from Mariologists concerned that it adopts a minimalist view of the Blessed Virgin Mary and her role in salvation. The concern is that it could lessen popular devotion to her and risks ending new Marian dogmas related to these titles after decades of Mariological work. Still, others have praised it as a clarifying and ecumenically unifying move, re-centering Marian language clearly on Christ and discouraging titles they believe can be easily misunderstood. 

The International Marian Association comprises theologians, bishops, clergy, religious, and lay leaders who seek to promote full Marian truth and devotion throughout the world.

The association’s theological commission comprises cardinals, bishops, and over 40 internationally respected theologians and Mariologists such as U.S. scholars Scott Hahn, Mark Miravalle, and Michael Sirilla.

It begins by praising some of the positive aspects of the DDF document. They like its strong emphasis in affirming Christ as the sole divine redeemer, important scriptural references to Mary’s cooperation in salvation history, and that it “affirms in general the cooperation of the faithful in the saving work of Christ,” and refers to “the singular and distinct cooperation of Mary.”

But the authors, recalling their canonical right to express their concerns to pastors, soon list a plethora of criticisms, noting from the outset that although an expression of the ordinary magisterium, the doctrinal note is on a “lower level” than direct pronouncements from the pope. 

Co-Redemptrix title 

On the title Co-Redemptrix, the theologians push back against the note’s warning that it is “always inappropriate” — or, according to some translations, “always inopportune” — to use the title to define Mary’s cooperation. The DDF note says that the title “risks obscuring Christ’s unique salvific mediation” and can therefore cause confusion. 

The IMATC counters that statement stating that if the title Co-Redemptrix is always inappropriate or inopportune to use, “then the popes who approved or used the title were acting in an inappropriate and imprudent manner.” They add: “If it is always inappropriate to use the title, then the saints and mystics who used this title were irresponsible and inappropriate.” 

The theologians welcome a later clarification from DDF prefect Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández who told the journalist Diane Montagna on Nov. 25 that the title Co-Redemptrix is, “from now on,” “always inappropriate” to use in “official documents of the magisterium,” but it can still be used in discussions, prayer groups, and private devotion.

But the IMATC says the document still has a “substantial omission of the redemptive value of Mary’s unique active cooperation in objective redemption, as well as what we see to be an unnecessary prohibition of the legitimate Co-Redemptrix title from future official documents of the Holy See and from liturgical texts.” The move, they say, represents “an anti-development of doctrine.”

The theologians dismiss various other claims in the DDF note, including its argument that the Marian titles are best not used as they are “unhelpful” as they require “repeated explanations.” Many theological terms require perennial explanation, counters the commission, and cite as examples the title “Mother of God,” the Holy Trinity, transubstantiation, and papal infallibility. 

They note how, despite ruling not to use the term Co-Redemptrix, the DDF acknowledges the title has been used for centuries, and stress that Co-Redemptrix had been preferred instead of Redemptrix precisely to emphasize Mary’s subordination and dependency on Christ, the Redeemer.

The theologians cite how often popes have used the title and state that it is “unfortunate” these examples “are not given greater respect or presence in the actual text.” They also recall previous warnings against the contents of the DDF note, quoting Father Rene Laurentin, regarded as “one of the world’s foremost students” of Mariology, who wrote in 1951 it would be “gravely temerarious to attack the legitimacy” of the title Co-Redemptrix, and another respected Mariologist, Jesuit Father J.A. De Aldama, who wrote in 1950 that it is “not permitted to doubt its appropriateness.” 

Citing prominent theologians of the past, they dispute the DDF’s claim that the Second Vatican Council refrained from using the title, calling the claim “not entirely accurate,” as Lumen Gentium, especially No. 58, “explicitly affirms the doctrine of Mary as Co-Redemptrix without using the term.” 

They also stress that previous popes, such as Pius XI, Pius XII, and John Paul II, have explained the meaning of the title and taught that Mary is the “new Eve.” The DDF document, they conclude, “is not merely discouraging the Co-Redemptrix title; it is also failing to teach in a positive way Mary’s truly redemptive role with and under Jesus in redemption as put forth by the papal magisterium.” 

They further contend that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s negative response in 1996 to a dogmatic definition of Mary as Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of All Graces “concerned the maturity” of the proposed dogma, “not a repudiation of the titles,” and he never forbade use of the term.

Mediatrix of All Graces

Concerning Mary’s title as Mediatrix of All Graces, the IMATC criticized the DDF note for seeking to reduce Mary’s maternal mediation only to intercession and for omitting the teaching of 12 popes, including Pope Francis, over four centuries, that upholds Mary’s universal mediation, each of which it lists. 

The Marian association also notes that the DDF failed to mention three pontifical commissions established by Pius XI that resulted in 2,000 pages of theological support in favor of the papal definition of Mary’s universal mediation of grace. After presenting further arguments in support of the title, the IMATC asks that the “long-standing doctrinal teaching” of Mary as Mediatrix of All Graces be affirmed and celebrated. 

Mater Populi Fidelis states that Marian mediation should not be understood in terms of producing grace, but while the IMATC agrees that true grace only comes from God, it says the note “fails to affirm the active and causal secondary mediation of Mary in the distribution of graces” — something, it says, that previous popes such as Pius X clearly taught. It states that the DDF note “again does not appear reconcilable with papal doctrine.”  

Further criticisms of the DDF note the IMATC makes is that the document misses a “true presentation of Mary’s authentic motherhood” and Mary’s intimate union with Christ in the sanctification of souls — a teaching St. John Paul II espoused in his 1987 encyclical Redemptoris Mater. Furthermore, it says the DDF note minimizes Mary’s merits and, it believes, therefore “undermines all human merit and cooperation in the work of redemption.” 

The IMATC expresses concern that by lessening the magisterial doctrine of Mary as Mediatrix of All Graces, the DDF has thrown many Marian practices, such as those connected with the Miraculous Medal, the rosary, and scapular, “into unnecessary confusion and doubt.” It asks how religious communities who use the Co-Redemptrix title in their name are to proceed, and how the 10 million members strong Legion of Mary will respond given that the organization’s handbook has 10 references to Mary as Mediatrix of All Graces. 

More importantly, the theologians believe the document will undermine the faithful’s confidence in the papal magisterium, and notes “confusion and frustration” in this area “are already being voiced.” 

A week before the publication of the IMATC response, Mariologists launched a filial appeal to Pope Leo XIV, noting the “dismay and consternation” among many of the faithful following the publication of Mater Populi Fidelis and calling on Leo to restore the “honor, truth, and special veneration owed to the Blessed Virgin Mary.” 

Protestant more than Catholic 

The IMATC theologians contend that it is “precisely the teachings” of Mary as Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix that “constitute the perpetual doctrine of the Church” as they have been taught from Scripture to the Patristic model of Mary as the new Eve, up to modern and contemporary popes. 

They believe the risks mentioned by the DDF “appear more theoretical than real” and add that, on the contrary, the titles become “excellent opportunities for authentic Catholic evangelization” along with other key Catholic truths that require appropriate explanations. 

Catholic theology affirms that God willed the Virgin Mary to have a role in the work of redemption, the theologians stress, and God wished to associate the contribution of an immaculate human woman and mother to his saving design. “To propose, instead, a redemption based on ‘Jesus alone’ bereft of any human redemptive value on the part of Mary, seems to resemble more a Protestant theology of redemption than that of the Catholic Church,” the IMATC says.

They close by stating it is their “sincere hope and prayer” that their response will contribute, “in a spirit of true synodal dialogue, to a reevaluation of Mater Populi Fidelis” and that such a reevaluation “will lead to a new expression of the magisterium concerning these critically important Marian doctrines and titles in greater consistency, development, and harmony with the doctrinal teachings of previous popes.” 

“Among such teachings,” it says, “are those that recognize the Blessed Virgin Mary as the Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of All Graces.”

This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, and has been adapted by CNA.

Archbishop Georg Gänswein, former secretary of Pope Benedict XVI. / Credit: Alan Holdren/EWTN News

ACI Prensa Staff, Dec 8, 2025 / 16:28 pm (CNA).

Archbishop Georg Gänswein, former secretary of Pope Benedict XVI, said he hopes the beatification process will begin soon for the German pontiff, who died on Dec. 31, 2022.

“Personally, I have great hopes that this process will be opened,” the archbishop and current apostolic nuncio to Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia said in an interview with the television channel K-TV, which aired Dec. 7.

According to current Church regulations, a potential beatification process for Pope Benedict XVI could only begin five years after his death unless the current pope grants special authorization before then, as Joseph Ratzinger himself did with John Paul II, waiving this waiting period.

In the excerpt from the interview, published by the German Catholic media outlet Katholisch, Gänswein emphasized that one of Pope Benedict’s essential qualities for understanding the faith was joy.

The archbishop noted that, for the German pontiff, if faith does not lead to joy, “something is not right in one’s life of faith. Ratzinger, Benedict XVI, is a theologian of joy.”

Gänswein also said that another important lesson from the late pope is that “we must not compromise on the essentials; rather, we must allow ourselves to be shaped by the Lord, by the faith of the Church.”

In the interview, Gänswein also spoke about the tensions that arose after the publication of the motu proprio Traditionis Custodes — with which Pope Francis restricted the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass — and encouraged efforts to overcome these tensions.

In 2007, Pope Benedict liberalized the opportunities to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass with his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum.

“I believe that Pope Benedict’s wise decision was the right one, and this path should be continued without difficulty or restriction,” Ratzinger’s former secretary said. 

On Oct. 25 of this year, Cardinal Raymond Burke, prefect emeritus of the Apostolic Signatura, celebrated a solemn Traditional Latin Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, an event that seemingly demonstrated Pope Leo XIV’s openness to this rite.

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

Republican Gov. William Lee, pictured in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., in September 2025, should stop all executions and support an end to the death penalty, faith leaders said at a Dec. 8, 2025, press conference hosted by the Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (TADP). / Credit: Saul Loeb/Getty

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 8, 2025 / 15:58 pm (CNA).

Faith leaders called for the halt of state executions and a complete end to the death penalty in Tennessee.

“Together, the Catholics in Tennessee, led by the three bishops, the three dioceses of the Tennessee Catholic Conference, call for a halt to executions and call for an end to the death penalty in Tennessee,” said Rick Musacchio, executive director of the Tennessee Catholic Conference (TCC).

Tennessee faith leaders urged Republican Gov. William Lee to stop all executions and support an end to the death penalty at a Dec. 8 press conference hosted by the Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (TADP). 

Opposition to the death penalty “is based on the Catholic Church’s long-standing Gospel foundation, our Catholic social teaching, which respects the dignity of human life from its beginning of conception until its natural land,” Musacchio said.

“The death penalty is simply an affront to that Gospel value. That has been a refrain of the last four popes of the Catholic Church,” he said. “St. Pope John Paul II … began calling the death penalty ‘simply unnecessary as a means to society reaching its goals.’”

“St. John Paul recognized that … modern American society has the ability to punish those who commit grave acts and yet achieve that goal of protecting society without resorting to executions,” he said.

Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis “also echoed that” message, Musacchio said. “Most recently, Pope Leo XIV, the first American-born pope, spoke very clearly that one cannot call themselves ‘pro-life,’ opposing abortion, but allowing for the death penalty in executions. This is simply an incompatible arrangement, an inaccurate understanding of Gospel teaching.”

Capital punishment is legal in the state of Tennessee. TADP “works to honor life by abolishing the death penalty, preventing violence, and supporting those who experience harm,” organizers said. TADP accomplishes this through education, grassroots organizing, and public witness, organizers said at the ecumenical event.

Rev. Sherard Edington, executive presbyter for the Presbytery of Middle Tennessee, said we must “seek reconciliation through the belief that all can be saved” rather than seek “vengeance.”

“I believe that our God calls us to reject brutality and instead strive to develop communities of compassion and mercy, communities that believe in restoration and salvation, communities that not only love their neighbors, but their enemies as well,” he said.

“A person may be in prison for life, but even there, their life has value. Even in prison, there remains the opportunity for change and salvation. But when we choose to impose the death penalty, that possibility is taken away forever and leaves no possibility for change,” Edington said.

Jasmine Woodson, director of Tennessee Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, detailed a number of risks of the death penalty. 

“The death penalty expands government power, risks irreversible mistakes, and consumes far more taxpayer dollars in alternative sentences, and cuts off the very possibility of repentance and rehabilitation that our faith teaches us to honor,” Woodson said.

Harold Wayne Nichols 

Faith leaders specifically called for halting the execution of Harold Wayne Nichols scheduled for Dec. 11. 

Nichols was convicted of the 1988 rape and murder of 21-year-old Karen Pulley, a student at Chattanooga State University. During the trial, he admitted to the crimes, expressed remorse, and said he would have continued his violent behavior had he not been arrested. 

“For more than 35 years, Harold has demonstrated the very transformation we say our system should encourage,” Woodson said. “He took responsibility for his actions, pled guilty, and expressed genuine remorse. And in an extraordinary act of faith, the mother of Karen Pulley … forgave Mr. Nichols, gave him a Bible, and urged him to change his life, which he has worked to do every day since then.” 

Pastor Davie Tucker, a pastor of the Beach Creek Baptist Church, acknowledged the Pulley family and the “tragic loss over three decades ago of their loved one.”

“But what we know emphatically, clinically, universally, is that killing Mr. Nichols is not going to take away the loss, and the hole, and the pain, and trauma that not only Karen’s family, but the subsequent generations will have to deal with.”

J.R. Davis, Nichols’ spiritual adviser, shared an apology letter written by Nichols. He wrote: “I’m sorry for all the pain and hurt I’ve caused in my life. To each individual who became a victim of my hate, I’m sorry. You did not deserve to be hurt by me.”

“It has troubled me knowing that I caused you to have to live with this hurt that I caused. There was nothing you did or did not do that caused me to hurt you. It was me. I’m the only one responsible,” he wrote.

Call from bishops

In November, Tennessee’s three bishops, Bishop J. Mark Spalding of Nashville, Bishop David P. Talley of Memphis, and Bishop Mark Beckman of Knoxville, issued a joint statement with the Tennessee Catholic Conference calling for Tennessee to end the death penalty. 

“The Catholic Church upholds the sacredness of every human life, even the life of one who is guilty of serious crimes,” the statement said. “To take a life in punishment denies the image of God in which every person is made. The Gospel calls not for vengeance but for mercy.” 

“The death penalty extinguishes the chance for repentance and redemption,” they continued. “It closes the door that mercy would open. True justice protects life, even as it punishes wrongdoing. A culture of life cannot coexist with the machinery of death.”

“The execution of Harold Wayne Nichols, who was convicted of raping and murdering 21-year-old Karen Pulley in 1988, is scheduled for Dec. 1,” they wrote. “We pray for Karen and for her family and friends. With even more executions planned for 2026, we call for a moratorium on the practice and for the abolition of the death penalty under state law.”

null / Credit: chayanuphol/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 8, 2025 / 14:00 pm (CNA).

Bishop Michael Duca has granted a dispensation from Sunday Mass attendance for immigrants fearing deportation in the Diocese of Baton Rouge, the fourth U.S. diocese to do so.

News of the dispensation comes amid heightened presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Louisiana as part of the Trump administration’s “Swamp Sweep,” which has been reported to include the deployment of 250 Border Patrol agents to the region and plans to arrest 5,000 individuals across Louisiana and Misssissipi.

“With the recent publicized arrival of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers into south Louisiana and greater Baton Rouge, and since many of the faithful genuinely fear immigration enforcement actions, thereby making it untenable for them to attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation, I hereby grant a dispensation from the obligation to attend Mass for those Catholics rightfully afraid to participate in Mass because of their fear,” Duca said “with a heavy heart” in a pastoral letter dated Dec. 4.

The Baton Rouge bishop said the dispensation would remain “until the individual Catholic determines it is safe to attend Mass again” or until the dispensation is revoked. 

Duca instructed the faithful who chose to stay at home in accordance with the dispensation to gather as a family for prayer on Sunday. “Reading the daily Mass readings, praying the rosary, or reciting a novena for intercessory protection are all suitable alternative spiritual practices for those accepting this dispensation,” he said. 

Duca joins bishops in the dioceses of San Bernardino, California; Nashville, Tennessee; and Charlotte, North Carolina, in granting such a dispensation in 2025.

“National security and the protection of human dignity are not incompatible,” Duca continued in his letter, calling for “a just solution to this difficult situation in our country.” He noted that deportation efforts have affected not only the Catholic Hispanic community but also refugees and immigrants across denominations. “These are our neighbors, coworkers, and parishioners,” he said.

The bishop concluded: “For now, let us pray for those immediately affected, especially during this Advent season — a time in which we should be anticipating the joy of Christmas, surrounded by our family in celebration instead of the experience of anxiety and fear.”

“Through our prayers and actions, may those who are suffering know that Jesus’ words are addressed personally to each of them,” he said.

Duca’s letter comes after the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) issued a special message condemning “the indiscriminate mass deportation of people” in November.

Sister Lucia of Fátima, left, and Dr. Branca Pereira Acevedo, her doctor for 15 years. / Credit: Sanctuary of Fatima/ HM Television/Home of the Mother

ACI Prensa Staff, Dec 8, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

“I was her doctor for her body, but she was my spiritual doctor,” said Dr. Branca Pereira Acevedo while describing her relationship with Sister Lucia dos Santos, one of the visionaries of Our Lady of Fátima, whom she cared for during the last 15 years of Sister Lucia’s life.

Lucia — the only one of the three shepherd children still alive at the time — moved in 1925 to the Spanish city of Tui in Pontevedra province, where she lived for more than a decade before returning to Portugal and professing her vows as a Carmelite nun in 1949. In this city in northwestern Spain, the visionary received “a new visit from heaven” with apparitions of the Virgin Mary and the child Jesus.

Dec. 10 marks the centenary of these apparitions, an occasion for which the Holy See has granted a jubilee year in the place where they occurred, the “House of the Immaculate Heart of Mary,” in reference to the devotion that the little shepherdess of Fátima promoted until the end of her days.

A witness to that fervent testimony was her physician, Pereira, who shared her experiences Nov. 29 at the presentation of the short film titled “The Heart of Sister Lucia” at the archbishop’s palace in Alcalá de Henares. This film is a project of HM Television.

Pereira accompanied Sister Lucia at the Carmelite convent in Coimbra, Portugal, until her death on Feb. 13, 2005, at the age of 97, a time during which she experienced a profound conversion thanks to the example and witness of her patient. “It was a period of my life that is difficult to explain, due to the intensity of the experiences I had with her,” the Portuguese doctor said.

Sister Lucia’s humility and good humor

Pereira described the visionary’s personality in detail, like someone describing a dear childhood friend: “She was a person just like all of us; those who didn’t know her wouldn’t have distinguished her from anyone else. There was nothing proud or vain about her; she used to say that she was simply an instrument of God.”

The doctor particularly emphasized her humility and obedience, especially to God and to the Carmelite order, “which she loved so much.”

At that time, Pereira said her faith had grown cold: “I didn’t go to Mass, I didn’t receive the sacraments… my career, my work, and my family took up all my time, and I used that as an excuse not to go to church,” she explained.

Serenity and steadfastness in difficulties

“She taught me that through God and through the Church, we can do everything well. I experienced very close moments with her, I think even closer than with the sisters she lived with,” the doctor said.

One of the most significant moments she experienced alongside Sister Lucia was the publication in 2000 by the Vatican’s Secretary of State at the time, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, of the third part of the secret of Fátima, revealed on July 13, 1917, to the three shepherd children in Cova da Iria and transcribed by Sister Lucia in 1944.

The doctor witnessed what she called the seer’s serenity and steadfastness in the face of the insistence of those who claimed that part of the secret still remained to be revealed. “She told us that what mattered most was written in the word of God, in the Bible. She encouraged us to obey God, which was what was truly important, and that everything else was secondary.”

Even at these times, the doctor revealed, Sister Lucia maintained a cheerful disposition. “Her good humor was very constant. She lived in faithfulness and truth. And she remained that way, lucid and faithful until the hour of her death, at which I was present.”

“She received many insulting letters at the Carmelite convent, from various parts of the world. But she said that there was no problem, that we had to pray for those people, that they were children of God, so that they would convert,” she commented.

A beacon of light that illuminates all of humanity

Pereira shared that Sister Lucia prepared for the beatification of her cousins, the shepherd children Jacinta and Francisco Marto, “with an intensity and an indescribable joy.” Since that ceremony in 2000, presided over by Pope John Paul II in Fátima, Sister Lucia seemed “more joyful and more transcendent” than ever. “She was always aware of her physical limitations and fulfilled her duties, but she seemed totally detached from this world,” her doctor related.

In the final stages of Sister Lucia’s life, Pereira recounted, the visionary always remained cheerful, never ceasing to be attentive to those around her, despite her suffering. Up to her last days, she noted, Sister Lucia lived a life of prayer and penance “to spread the message that Our Lady had asked of her: the consecration to her Immaculate Heart on the first five Saturdays of the month.”

“The Virgin asked her to make reparation for offenses and outrages and that her Immaculate Heart be venerated,” the doctor recalled. She also had the mission of praying for the Holy Father: “She shared a very intense friendship and a real intimacy with St. John Paul II,” Pereira noted.

“The Heart of Sister Lucia” will premiere in Spanish on YouTube on Dec.10, the centenary of the apparitions in Pontevedra, at 9:30 p.m. local time in Spain. The film shows how the simple woman led an intense battle in which there was no shortage of adversities, “becoming for the popes and for the entire Church a beacon of light that will illuminate all of humanity.”

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

When Pope Pius IX declared the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary on Dec. 8, 1854, he had a golden crown added to the mosaic of Mary, Virgin Immaculate, in the Chapel of the Choir in St. Peter’s Basilica. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

CNA Staff, Dec 8, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

On Dec. 8 the Catholic Church celebrates the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception — a paramount feast in the Church’s liturgical calendar and one that indirectly touches on a regularly misunderstood but important piece of Church dogma.

The solemnity is the patronal feast of the United States and marks the recognition of the Blessed Mother’s freedom from original sin, which the Church teaches she was granted from the moment of conception.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that Mary was “redeemed from the moment of her conception” (No. 491) in order “to be able to give the free assent of her faith to the announcement of her vocation” (No. 490). 

The dogma was disputed and challenged by Protestants over the centuries, leading Pope Pius IX to affirm it in his 1854 apostolic constitution Ineffabilis Deus, stating unequivocally that Mary “was endowed with the grace of the Holy Spirit and preserved from original sin” upon her conception. 

Ineffabilis Deus is among the papal pronouncements that theologians have long considered to be “infallible.” But what does papal infallibility mean in the context and history of the Church?

Defined by First Vatican Council in 1870

Though Church historians argue that numerous papal statements down through the centuries can potentially be regarded as infallible under this teaching, the concept itself was not fully defined by the Church until the mid-19th century.

In its first dogmatic constitution on the Church of Christ, Pastor Aeternus, the First Vatican Council held that the pope, when speaking “in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority,” and while defining “a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church,” possesses the infallibility that Jesus “willed his Church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals.”

Father Patrick Flanagan, an associate professor of theology at St. John’s University, told CNA that the doctrine of papal infallibility “does not concern the pope’s character.”

“The pope is human,” Flanagan said. “In other words, he is fallible. He can sin and err in what he says about everyday matters.”

Yet in “rare historical, narrowly defined moments” when the pope “exercises his authority as the supreme teacher of the Church of the Petrine office” and speaks “ex cathedra,” he is guided by the Holy Spirit to speak “indisputable truth” about faith and morals, Flanagan said. 

Flanagan underscored the four specific criteria that a papal statement must make to be considered infallible. For one, the pope must speak “in his official capacity as supreme pontiff,” not off-the-cuff or informally. 

The doctrine, meanwhile, must concern a matter of faith or morals. “No pope would speak ex cathedra on scientific, economic, or other nonreligious subjects,” Flanagan said. 

The statement must also be “explicitly straightforward and definitive,” he said, and it “must be intended to bind the whole Church as a matter of divine and Roman Catholic faith.” 

John P. Joy, a professor of theology and the dean of faculty at St. Ambrose Academy in Madison, Wisconsin, told CNA that the doctrine can be identified in part by the reading of Matthew 16:19.

In that passage, Christ tells Peter, the first pope: “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

“Part of what Jesus is promising here is that he will endorse and ratify in heaven all of the judgments that Peter makes on earth,” Joy said. 

“So when Peter (or one of his successors) turns the key, so to speak, that is, when he explicitly declares that all Catholics are bound to believe something on earth, then we have the words of Jesus assuring us that God himself will hold us bound to believe the same thing in heaven,” he said. 

Though the concept of papal infallibility is well known and has become something of a pop culture reference, the number of times a pope has declared something infallibly appears to be relatively small. 

Theologians and historians do not always agree on what papal statements through the centuries can be deemed infallible. Joy pointed to the Immaculate Conception, as well as Pope Pius XII’s declaration on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin in 1950, as two of the most well known.

He pointed to numerous other statements, such as Pope Benedict XII’s Benedictus Deus from 1336 and Pope Leo X’s Exsurge Domine in 1520, as infallible statements. 

Flanagan pointed out that there is “no official list” of papally infallible statements. Such declarations are “rare,” he said. “A pope invokes his extraordinary magisterial powers sparingly.” 

When Catholics trust a papally infallible statement, Joy stressed, they “are not putting [their] faith in the pope as if he were an oracle of truth or a source of divine revelation.” 

“We are rather putting our faith in God, whom we firmly believe will intervene in order to stop any pope who might be tempted to proclaim a false doctrine in a definitive way,” he said. 

Mary the Immaculate Conception. / Credit: Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

CNA Newsroom, Dec 8, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

Mary, under her title of the Immaculate Conception, has been patroness of the United States since the mid-19th century. But her protection of the nation dates back to its earliest history. 

One of the first Catholic churches in what is now the United States was dedicated to the Immaculate Conception in 1584: the now-Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Jacksonville, Florida. 

John Carroll, the first bishop in the United States, had a great devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 1792, he placed the Diocese of Baltimore — which encompassed the 13 colonies of the young republic — under her protection.

Over the next 50 years, seven more dioceses were created, including New Orleans, Boston, Chicago, and Oregon City.

“The colonies were now the U.S.A., and Baltimore was not the only diocese — so, the American hierarchy felt a need for a national protectress for this new republic,” said Geraldine M. Rohling, archivist-curator emerita for the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.

U.S. bishops unanimously named Mary, under her title of the Immaculate Conception, patroness of the nation in 1846 during the Sixth Provincial Council of Baltimore. 

“We take this occasion, brethren, to communicate to you the determination, unanimously adopted by us, to place ourselves, and all entrusted to our charge throughout the United States, under the special patronage of the holy Mother of God, whose immaculate conception is venerated by the piety of the faithful throughout the Catholic Church. ... To her, then, we commend you, in the confidence that ... she will obtain for us grace and salvation,” the bishops wrote in a letter at the time.

Blessed Pius IX approved the declaration in 1847.

The Immaculate Conception refers to Mary being conceived without original sin. Today, it is a dogma of the Catholic Church. But back in 1846, it was not. Pius IX would promulgate the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, and many believe the U.S. bishops’ declaration may have influenced the pope’s decision. 

The largest Marian shrine in the United States is dedicated to the Immaculate Conception — the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. The first public Mass for the National Shrine was celebrated on the feast of the Immaculate Conception in 1917, though the shrine was not yet constructed. 

The Immaculate Conception is also patroness of several other countries, including Spain, South Korea, Brazil, and the Philippines. 

The solemnity of the Immaculate Conception is celebrated Dec. 8, nine months before the feast of the Nativity of Mary. It is a holy day of obligation in some countries, including the United States, Ireland, and the Philippines.

This story was first published on Dec. 8, 2021, and has been updated.

Promo photo for the The Better Part Journal of shadows of Madonna lilies for the Blessed Virgin Mary. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Heidi Bollich-Erne

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 7, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).

While teaching an ethics and culture course, Heidi Bollich-Erne was looking for a journal featuring the work of Catholic women for her students to read. After being told that it simply didn’t exist, she decided to create one herself.

With the help of a team of women, Bollich-Erne has founded what she calls the “first intellectual Catholic women’s journal.” Its purpose is to not only define the feminine genius but also to show how faithful women can embody its beauty in their daily lives. 

“I want women to find a home, a place that values their work. The journal itself is edited, written, and published solely by Catholic women,” Bollich-Erne told CNA. “The way that women write, the way that we express ourselves is very different. That’s just who we are. That’s part of the genius of women.”

The Better Part Journal is intended to give women of the Church “hope” by discussing issues that are relevant to them. The first edition of the journal will be released in April 2026. 

Before starting the journal, Bollich-Erne studied theology at the University of St. Thomas, where she “fell in love with philosophy.” She went to the Center for Thomistic Studies for her master’s degree in Thomistic philosophy but took a break from her doctorate and started teaching. 

She is now based in Texas where she has taught high school, college preparation, college, and adults. While teaching, she tried to find content to help guide discussion on gender complementarity but couldn’t find much written by Catholic women.

“I thought, ‘I want to read more intellectual women,’ but it was a struggle… So I found a friend who works at a university and I said: ‘Can you recommend … an intellectual Catholic women’s magazine? She got back to me a few days later and said, ‘It doesn’t exist.’”

Bollich-Erne started The Better Part Journal by first launching a company called JBG Publishings as “a home” for the journal. She wanted to ensure the publication would not be independently published but be part of a company that would help it to grow.

Bollich-Erne named the company with the initials of her father, who passed away a few years prior. His passing “was a realization that ‘life is too short,’”  Bollich-Erne said. “I need to love what I do; I need to really work to find meaning.’”

The Better Part Journal’s mission

“The purpose of the journal is to bring together the voices of intellectual Catholic women who are faithful to the magisterium,” Bollich-Erne said. “I want voices of all backgrounds. I want women of all areas of discipline. I want academics. I want nonacademics. I want all women contributing to this conversation.”

“We all throw around the ‘feminine genius,’ but when you ask someone to stop and give an actual definition, most people can’t,” Bollich-Erne said. Most people define it with a quote by St. John Paul II who coined the term in his apostolic letter Mulieris Dignitatem to describe the unique gifts and qualities women possess, but, she said, “that’s a quote, not a definition.” 

“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done in this area, and I know there’s room for it to be done on a theological, philosophical level. So the idea was that we would … define the feminine genius and then show it. Live it. It’s not a theology journal and it’s not a philosophy journal. It’s truly interdisciplinary.”

The first issue of the journal is called “Uncharted” and will tackle a number of topics.

“As soon as women realized that I was serious about truly hearing their voices and not editing them out or telling them what they can and can’t write about, they gave us some really amazing work. I’ve just been blown away. I’m only so creative, but I have a great team.”

The journal will feature articles covering neuroscience and theology and apply it to Mary and the Incarnation. It will have columns by doctors and scientists to look at “faith in the formula” and “applying science to religion.”

There will be discussion of issues women face including body image, infertility, and violence. Articles will explore “the psychology of fairy tales and what that does to young girls growing up, whether that be positive or negative,” Bollich-Erne said. It will look into “what we are exposed to …from the media and what it does to us.”

“The beauty behind the journal has been the women that have come forth to lend their voices,” Bollich-Erne said. “It’s been really amazing to see how excited they are about freedom of voice. It’s been something I wasn’t expecting.”

A print journal in a digital era

Despite a shift in media from print to online formats, The Better Part Journal will only be released in print copies because, Bollich-Erne said, “I want it to be lasting.”

“I am a tactile person. I like to hold a book. I wanted it to be something that is kept. So obviously that’s print,” Bollich-Erne said. “But then if you want to keep it has to be high quality.”

The journal will use original photographs and crafted artwork to accompany the written works. 

“It is stunning. It looks like a book,” Bollich-Erne said. “The idea is that you read it, you keep it, and you put it on your bookshelf and you never get rid of it because the topics are lasting.”

For an article to be included, it has to be “something that I think women will find valuable, whether you’re an academic or a high school student,” Bollich-Erne said. “It has to be something that all women find valuable, or we cannot print it.”

“Many women have said they’re excited to hold their work and see it in print as opposed to scrolling past the work. There’s nothing wrong with online formats; it gives voices to a lot of people, but this is just different.”

“I had an author tell me, ‘I don’t write anymore for anyone,’ because, she said, ‘I am so tired of my work just disappearing. It’s online for a week. I spent all this work, all this time, and it was something substantial that I really cared about, and it’s just gone.’” 

“She signed up with us for a column specifically because we are in print. The idea is that this work is kept forever.”

The print journals will be published twice a year only, because “I want it to be something that takes a while to digest,” Bollich-Erne said. “Beautiful things take time.”

Looking to the future

JGB Publishings has “goals to expand substantially over the next five to 10 years,” Bollich-Erne said. The company will “take care of” the journal to ensure its message can “grow and expand.”

“To be able, as women in the Church, to truly have a serious conversation about all of these things … we are going to forge our future,” Bollich-Erne said. “We’re going to step forward in hope and show the world this is what an intelligent Catholic woman looks like.”

“We’re not stifled. We’re not sad. We’re not miserable people. We are happy. We are excited about life, and we are treated with respect. We are loved and we love who we are,” Bollich-Erne said. “I want people, especially women, of all ages to see that and to understand that.”

A still from “Trailblazers of Faith: The Legacy of African American Catholics,” which tells the inspiring story of how African Americans found a home in Catholicism without abandoning their identity or culture. Those pictured are the African Americans currently on the path to sainthood: Venerable Henriette DeLille, Julia Greeley, Father Augustus Tolton, Mother Mary Lange, Pierre Toussaint, and Sister Thea Bowman. / Credit: Black and Indian Mission Office

CNA Staff, Dec 7, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

The Black and Indian Mission Office in Washington, D.C., recently released two documentaries — one highlighting African American Catholics on the path to sainthood and the focusing on Native American Catholic communities in the United States. 

“Trailblazers of Faith: The Legacy of African American Catholics” tells the inspiring story of how African Americans found a home in Catholicism without abandoning their identity or culture. 

From the pioneering Oblate Sisters of Providence and St. Frances Academy to the lives of Venerable Henriette DeLille, Julia Greeley, Father Augustus Tolton, and Sister Thea Bowman, the documentary celebrates a legacy of leadership and faith.

The second film, “Walking the Sacred Path: The Story of the Black and Indian Mission Office,” uncovers the often-hidden story of Native American Catholics in the United States. The film explores the powerful intersection of faith and culture — where the beauty of Native traditions and the universality of Catholicism meet — and highlights more than 140 years of the Black and Indian Mission Office’s mission to walk alongside Native American communities. 

Father Maurice Henry Sands is the executive director of the Black and Indian Mission Office. He told CNA in an interview that these documentaries were created “to educate people about these two groups of people that a lot of people don’t know much about,” as well as “to educate people about the work that our office is doing with these two groups of people.”

The Black and Indian Mission Collection was the first national collection established at the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884 and is still taken up yearly funding the Black and Indian Mission Office.

The United States bishops recognized the need to support missionary work among African American and Native American Catholics and since its creation the collection has allowed for grants to be given to dioceses across the country to operate schools, parishes, and other missionary services that build the body of Christ in Native American, Alaska Native, and Black Catholic communities.

Sands shared that it is important for Catholics to walk alongside these communities because “we are all part of the human race that the Lord directs his work of salvation towards.”

“It’s important that we learn how to live together and walk together because as human beings we do put up walls and barriers and we see differences among ourselves,” he said, adding that racism “has caused a lot of difficulties for the two groups of people.” 

“So, we have a fundamental call as disciples of Christ, as Catholics, as Christians, to help the Lord and his work of salvation to love one another and to have a special concern for those of our brothers and sisters who are disadvantaged and in need,” he said.

Speaking specifically to the documentary on the African American Catholics on their way to sainthood, Sands explained that the six individuals included all serve as great role models for the faithful because “each of them had very challenging beginnings but went on to be great lovers of Our Lord and were a great witness to others and helped people in need as they saw the needs of people around them and were very effective in doing that.”

He added that the early Church missionaries who served Native Americans also serve as role models in how to “help people where they are to come to know Christ, to love him, and to have a relationship with him.”

Sands said he hopes viewers will feel moved to “learn more about how they can support the ministry to these two groups of people and to learn more about how they can support the work that we are doing in our office.”

Both documentaries can be viewed on Formed.